#i always wanted to make a choose your own adventure or text based adventure game that actually got this weird and full of like.

[13eyond13]

(keep scrollin' if you don't want Disco Elysium rambling with possible spoilers in the tags)👇

[golmac]

Inform Basics (#13: Ambiance)

(I am still shadowbanned; hopefully this series will be discoverable via search soon!)

We've talked a lot about text. How to print it, how to make responsive output, how to adapt it to world states. We'll keep talking about it, because we're making text adventure games!

Everything we've looked at so far has been either a description of something or else feedback based on player action. But what if something is just happening in the world and said something doesn't require player input before triggering? Let's say we're in a room with a cute cat who is doing cute cat things. They don't need the player's permission! They are just being cute all on their own.

We could tackle this a few ways. We could actually make an animal (a kind of person in inform) called "cat" and have them perform different actions each turn. Inform could report the results of their different actions to the player. We could build a little cat sim in the middle of our text game about something else, and 20 hours later get back to writing our story!

Now, there's nothing wrong with being a 20-hour-dev-time-cat-sim-kind-of-writer. For a lot of people into Inform 7, the real joy is solving technical problems in code. If that's your thing, simulate away! But I'm in this for the stories, and will probably never be skilled enough to help you reach your goal.

This is the central question of Inform 7 development, and we've talked about it before: should one simulate or dramatize? My answer is almost always "dramatize." So how could we have some ambient cat text to liven up our room and possibly charm our readers with kitten charisma?

During action processing, Inform 7 does more than Before, Instead, Check, Carry Out, Report, After. For instance, near the end of the turn, Inform evaluates what are called "Every Turn" rules. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Every turn (this is the annoying rule): say "It seems that another turn has passed.".

Output:

>z Time passes. It seems that another turn has passed.

Fortunately, we have some really granular control over when every turn rules do and don't fire.

We can stop it with another rule, for instance:

The annoying rule does nothing when the player is in lab.

Often, though, we'll want to write a more specific rule, just so that we can see what's happening by looking in one place.

Every turn when the player is in the cat room: say "[one of]The cat does something incredibly adorable.[or]What a delightful cat this is![or]The cat licks a paw, then slicks back some fur near her ear.[or]The cat is stalking a plastic spring.[cycling]".

Note that the designation "[one of]" lets Inform know that a list of possible texts will follow. These texts are separated by "[or]". We have a lot of options for the way Inform 7 chooses which text to print.

"[cycling]" will print each in order, one per turn. When the last is printed, Inform will cycle back to the beginning and repeat.

"[purely at random]" is exactly what it sounds like.

"[stopping]" prints one text per turn and in order, but, once the list is complete, prints only the last text in the list.

What if we want even more granularity in our every turn rule: let's do it! Maybe the cat wants some food, so there is a before and after state. Let's do some basic prep:

A cat is a kind of animal. Marbles is a female cat in the bedroom. A cat can be fed or unfed. A cat is usually unfed.

Now we can break this up a couple of ways. For readability, I would make two separate rules:

Every turn when the player is in the bedroom and Marbles is unfed: say "[one of]Marbles meows rather pitifully.[or]Marbles desperately paws at your shoe.[or]Marbles rubs her back against your shin.[cycling]"

and

Every turn when the player is in the bedroom and Marbles is fed: say "[one of]Marbles lies sprawled over your white shirt.[or]Marble settles in for a bit of post-meal grooming.[or]Marbles looks under the desk.[cycling]".

We don't have to just do text with every turn rules, of course. We could be incrementing values or otherwise modifying the world in some way. However, since most beginning authors will likely be looking for an alternative to simulation, text is probably the most immediately useful application.

More soon! Some executable code is linked below. What would I change? Well, more and better text, always. I would also need to do some housekeeping rules with the treat. Should there be a funny response if the player tries to eat it? Maybe some other options should be accounted for. The implementation of Marbles would need work. At bare minimum, players will try to pat Marbles. We'll leave that for another day!

Next: ignoring the rules.

[wickedbaggins]

All the games I finished this year

All thirty! Twenty-nine! A really good year for indie narrative games, gotta say. Roadwarden in particular has me churning about making a text RPG of my own in Ren’py ...

10 mg: Locked In Very short visual novel about COVID tensions. Man, gotta say, the simulated fight was too harsh and mean for me to really lean into it. Parenting is rough! Especially during a pandemic. AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative More of everything in the first game, hooray! More puzzles, more somniums, more AIs, more pipe-wielding teenagers! More musical numbers! Visual novel with puzzles and branching and a lot of gleeful oddness. Plus some horrific what-the-fuckery. It is Uchikoshi. As Dusk Falls Interactive movie about a hostage situation with Rippling Consequences. Not bad, really -- I know a lot of the devs are refugees from David Cage's nonsense, and this is certainly more coherent and affecting than Cage. The writers do seem to have ported Appalachian stereotypes into their rural Arizonan characters, and some chapters feel like one-offs, but it's not bad and makes some decent stabs toward depicting PTSD. I like the accelerated-comic visual style. Beacon Pines Visual novel with adventure elements. You get keywords in some branches that you can apply to other branches. You play a darling pre-teen deer, hanging out with his darling cat friends, in a not-so-darling setting with a Wicked Corporation and an Old Money Family with Secrets. Plays happily in the body horror (and general horror) space without ever being all that scary. It's a pleasant romp with breathless narration. Chinese Parents Raising sim. Growing Up, below, is so similar that it may be too polite to call it a clone, but Chinese Parents is the superior game. The translation is occasionally iffy, sometimes very iffy, but you feel the parental PRESSURE and how much they WANT you to succeed, for selfish and unselfish reasons. Ends up a kind of melancholy and funny family piece, a window into the struggle to get through childhood that feels much more real than Growing Up. And I kinda enjoy the haphazard art. Coffee Talk Visual novel with coffee-and-tea-making minigames that I almost always failed and had to look up. Embarrassing for a pure chill game! Otherwise, charming slice of life with gorgeous pixel art and interesting-enough discussions (although "earthlings are too stupid not to overbreed the earth!" was weirdly offensive). Consider It What even is this? Tiny minigames? Choices made based on tiny movements? A personality test? I laughed at the Grave of the Fireflies jokes. A lot. Excavation of Hob's Barrow Pixel point and click with some incredible cutscenes? Character-shots? And a wonderfully awful mood. It's horror that you see coming, but that doesn't decrease the effectiveness when it finally gets to you. Our heroine is incredibly plucky and incredibly doomed. Forgotten City First person time-loop puzzle-and-talk with a bit of sneaking and combat. And a lot of running. Funny and dark and thoughtful, with some delightful antiquities nerdery. You are in a pocket of the Roman empire, after all! I didn't ultimately love the final reveal, but the journey there is a really fun time and I always appreciate a philosophy battle. Growing Up Raising sim. So similar to Chinese Parents that it's, politely, a clone, but with much nicer art and cleaner writing. The game feels disjointed, though. The various visual-novelish arcs related to your friends and interests are pretty intensive, but your parents never cohere as people and their requests never make much sense. The pressures in Chinese Parents are made very explicit; you are your parents' hopes and dreams. The parents in Growing Up appear to expect nothing of you as a whole, which leaves their requests feeling completely arbitrary and random. Which they are! But it feels less intentional. Henry Stickman Impressively stupid and arbitrary choose your own adventure, and all the very best choose your own adventures are stupid and arbitrary! This 'un knows exactly what it is: a horrible death simulator. Her Story Clever, intricate film database about a murder and the gal who done that murder, maybe. Glad I got this in before Immortality - you can see the roots of the longer film clip game. Also has a great musical number. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist Another life sim! Comparisons with Chinese Parents and Growing Up are inevitable, but this is going a different direction. Like Growing Up, it has intensively developed friend-and-interest arcs. Like Chinese Parents, there is a tension between child and parents that fuels the story. But this has heavier adventure and RPG elements. There are quests (if usually unmarked) and extensive exploration. It's a little didactic, but the weird alienness of the planet plus harrowing turns in the plot plus a heady metanarrative keep the game far from being a screed. Very interesting and replayable. Immortality Less accessible film database than Her Story -- trying to click on points of interest to match-cut to different clips is interesting, but it's harder to go back and review. Much longer than Her Story. There are, after all, three films + commentary in this one. And a very clever trick/twist, although that trick basically requires you play with a controller. Also has great musical numbers. Lost Ember Beautiful game where you play a psychopomp wolf able to possess other animals. Bogged down by controls that never feel quite right and, for my tastes, a far-too-human-centric story. The story's not ineffective, but it runs on forever and its themes feel muddy. It's somewhere between the somewhat strange trope I've seen in other indie games of "revolution is good but violence is bad" and maybe a "all life, not only humans, is sacred" story, but it doesn't quite cohere. The inciting incident is also too arbitrary and the oppressive pre-industrial civilization is thinly drawn other than "they sure like monuments". and "they are wrecking the environment". Both the environmental and the revolutionary message lack enough specificity to really be compelling. It is really nice to play a fish or a hummingbird (some of the animals with freer movement), but the animals are vehicles and tools to the extent that the "we are all one" idea, if intended, doesn't hit maybe as it should. It's largely the typical walking sim frame of "go 'x' steps until you get the next commentary or cutscene", which I don't find too engaging. The landscapes sure are super nice though. Luck Be a Landlord Your landlord keeps increasing your rent and slot machines are yer only hope. That's the game! Monster Prom Finally got around to the Monster Prom visual-novel-dating-sim franchise this year. It's charming and silly! Monster Camp Monster Camp is Monster Prom! But more hyper-focused on one character at a time! Which has pros and cons - it's a bit less silly, but you do get to know the character better! Monster Road Trip Monster Road Trip feels INDEED like the game the previous two games were leading up to. We've established our cast, now let's do Oregon Trail! Less focus on dating (it's really a side activity), more focus on hijinks in random places! Very silly! Although because the characters are now so established, suddenly, I have moral questions in this amoral game! Should a good boy werewolf be murdering people at Knife World?? Did the rest of the cast fool him into thinking they aren't real murders? He's not so bright?? I don't know?? Norco Really amazing visual novel-adventure-lite game. I played this near the beginning of the year, read Ducks at the end of the year. Both of these are about the economic opportunities that OIL provides on paper, and the environmental and personal degradation it enacts in truth. While Ducks is autobiography and Norco is surreal and heightened, they are both incredibly personal and devastatingly sad. It is worth calling out Norco's sideways sardonic sense of humor and how glorious the surrealism is. Peachvale Extremely short little thing about being queer in a small town. Well-written, no conclusion, really, day-in-the-life.  Pentiment Visual-novel-adventure, a historical fiction centered around a tumult of changes. Illuminated manuscripts in abbeys giving way to manuscripts created by secular craftsman (and here's, also, the printing press). Catholicism slowly threatened by Protestantism. Peasants losing what protections they have. People learning to READ. A very dense and interesting setting threaded through by a plotline that carries through several decades, involves a couple of murders, and a lot of THINKING. Art style is fantastic. So is the writing. Persona 5 Royale Some epic JRPG. You might have heard of it. It's immense, generous, incredibly stylish, big-hearted and thematically firm … ish. Persona sure runs into the trouble of wanting its grand, powerful statements about identity and exploitation and freedom, but also still wants to objectify women, be an adolescent boys’ fantasy, etc., etc.. But it does have a lot to say, and a lot of it well. The cast is delightful, and it takes quite a variety of gameplay and dungeon design to stay interesting for 120+ hours. Prose & Codes Fun letter substitution cyphers that highlight a bunch of cool old books on Project Gutenberg.  Return of the Obra Dinn What a wonderfully nasty puzzle box of deaths. Absolutely compelling art and weirdly compelling sound. I'm not sure I wholly get the overarching narrative, but I'm not sure I need to. Sometimes you're just cursed, mate. Don't fuck with the ocean. Roadwarden Text RPG. A tight, tense experience of being some poor person trying to fix a neglected road and reconnect isolated, mistrustful communities. Great world and character building, fantastic mood.  Strange Horticulture Puzzle game game with a shop management interface. Very tactile experience. Sorting your ever-growing collection of plants, messing with lenses, counting off squares on a map. Storytelling ladled out in drips while you go pluck plant 500 (which has, like all the others, its own name and a purpose). Fun and absorbing. ValiDate Gorgeous art, but incredibly didactic, and rooted in a morality system I don't quite understand. The gap of (little) judgement for the deadbeat dad character compared to (massive, interventional) judgement for the hot mom who goes to clubs to hook up baffled me. Is hooking up worse than ditching your kids? Is the idea that hot mom should know better? Is hooking up and/or dating bad if the other ladies' feelings get hurt? Are you supposed to be able to avoid feelings getting hurt if you are hot and mature? I don't know! Very confused. But man, that art. Zachtonics Solitaire Collection Played this collection of card games as far as I was able. I can one day conquer Shenzen Solitaire, I'm sure, but Fortune's Fool is beyond me. Tarot decks have tooooo many cards. You win, Zachtronics.

[silenthillmutual]

🎨 and/or 🎮 for all your ocs :D

🎨 Does your OC have any craft skill, as a hobby or profession? If so which?

🎮 If your OC lives or would live in the modern world, would they like video games? What would be their favorite game?

Chestnut - crafts: she draws, as part of her interest in insects! she starts out replicating what she sees, so that she can label them properly, and graduates onto creating her own fantasy insect species. she has assigned everyone in her family an insectsona as well, and drawn them as their sonas.

games: she'd like games with collection elements in them, like animal crossing or pokemon. i don't know that she'd really pay attention to plot too much, because she'd get so distracted just collecting things in the environment.

Buzzy - crafts: photography!! he reads about it and builds his own camera. he thinks of it more as a science than an art, as he's very interested in the technical aspect of it, but as he gets older he does start to appreciate the aesthetics a bit more.

games: he'd appreciate video games from a distance, but he'd be more adept at puzzle games than anything with action in it. he could probably manage breath of the wild, but he'd be in it for the shrines mainly.

Duunai - crafts: does gardening count as a craft? she follows in artemy's footsteps, and tries to fill in the blanks with isidor's recipes as well. but sometimes doing things with her hands is difficult, because her brain and her hands don't always work together. she'd probably benefit from learning something like knitting, where she has to slow down and be more patient.

games: oh she would love video games. she'd try her hand at all of them. i could see her being a big mortal kombat fan, and a fan of soulslike games. she loves a challenge! and the biggest challenge for her would be getting sucked into things and forgetting to sleep. her untreated adhd era.

Karol - crafts: i'm not sure that i've actually given him any hobbies yet. he's very focused on his work, and i think at first he's got some internalized shit to deal with because he doesn't want to be misgendered by being into anything deemed too "feminine". svetlana would drag him out to art museums and the like, trying to inspire him to get into something.

games: i think the only games he'd be into would be visual novels and text-based choose your own adventure games. he'd enjoy games made in twine, but overall he'd be more interested in studying the gamers than the games themselves.

Svetlana - crafts: she'd be big on arts & crafts because she has got to keep her hands busy! she doesn't even really care if she does them well, she just finds joy and fulfillment in doing them. she's a better musician than she is crafter, but she's made a couple decent scarves in her time. she's got candles in her flat that she's made from scratch and a couple really terrible bowls too.

games: she'd also be interested in studying gamers, but whereas karol would study gaming as a sociological phenomenon, svetlana would study what happens to brain chemistry when people play games. then she'd try a couple games herself and see what happens! she'd play based on recommendations from her friends, but the way she'd pick what order to play in would be based on soundtrack. and she'd probably really enjoy playing pathologic classic.

Frost - crafts: in his actual canon i don't know what he'd do, craft-wise. i don't know that there's anything that he's made with his own hands before. it would probably fix him to pick a craft up. i think when i play around with putting him in the present, though, i make him a tattoo artist with really macabre tastes.

games: he'd also enjoy games that present a challenge. he wouldn't mind tedium in games, as long as it feels like he's actually making progress. he'd also really like classic games and be a big of a snob about it, at least at first. it would take a lot of convincing to get him to play a modern big-budget game. it's not even like he can't afford it, he just would look at the price and think "oh there's no way in hell this game is actually worth it."

[mischiefserpentes]

HEY! YOU! YES, YOU! IF YOU LIKE MARKIPLIER'S CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE GAMES, AND IF YOU LIKE ROLE-PLAYING, YOU SHOULD TOTALLY JOIN THIS SERVER!

This server is a game I'm currently running through Discord and Tiktok called "What is the crystal?"

It centers the main three of the Markiplier Cinematic Universe, PLUS you as the viewer (as it stands there's currently three viewer characters) trying to figure out what the purpose of a crystal originally found by Warfstache himself is.

Throughout the game, I have been posting story based videos on Tiktok that will give clues as to what the crystal is, until eventually.. The mystery is unveiled!

Or, if you Don't want to participate as a player character, you can just as easily make yourself known as a spectator! And watch the game as it plays out before you.

Join if you'd like, but as Damien always said? "Life is ours to choose."

But then again.. As the Colonel always said..

"Life needs a bit of Madness!" so you certainly should join.

Seriously it'll be fun.

[gontijolab]

Throne of mud, hearts of stone

That's the title of my first adventure for Into the Bronze, a sword-and-sorcery-and-sandals OSR game I've published 2 years ago. I'm currently writing it in my own language so the thing goes faster. Right now 40% is written already, but as soon as I finish it I still have to translate it into English, pre-edit it and then send it to the editor. Yeah, a lot of work ahead of me, but honestly I'm having tons of fun in the process and I guess that's what matters in the end. This adventure was playtested several times back then in 2020 when I've also published the game in Brazil. Curiously, writing is such a bittersweet task to me. It's super hard, but also so rewarding. It feels like the text is looking at me from the screen and revealing opportunities I was not seeing while the module existed only in my head (and in a few doodles on an old notebook).

Adding ideas

It was inevitable to add some ideas that were not on the original thing, but would 100% make the material shine brighter today. A few puzzles here, a complex relationship balance there and tons of new aesthetic details to help players and GMs to visualize and immerse themselves into a mythical bronze age Mesopotamia.

Fiction as a hook

One of my ideas was to write a prequel flash-fiction short story as the adventure hook. Instead of a section called

"why the PCs had to go to this island?"

I've decided to write some pages with actual fiction. In my opinion it's a bit better to get the GM on track when they're landing on a new adventure. I feel maybe we're losing an opportunity here neglecting fiction inside our RPG zines and books. Our public is essentially enthusiastic about fiction, afterall.

Solitaire potential

It wouldn't be me if I didn't say a word or two about solo gaming here. The module is being written newbie-first. In other words, I'm designing it as easy as possible for a new GM to run it. By helping the newbies I also make it better for everyone else, experienced GMs included. I'm saying that cause the text guides the GM in a way quite similar to the classic fighting fantasy gamebooks

If the group goes west, then...

If the group goes east, instead, then...

You can imagine I'm already tempted to transform the adventure on s choose-your-own-adventure style gamebook later right? Who wouldn't? The main challenge here is that Into the Odd (the system my game is based on) has a very diegetic approach to combat. It's not your usual try and error combat from most fantasy games. For example, there's a famous rule that "attack always hits". It implies the players will have to deal with the consequences of causing damage to some NPC or creature if they choose that path. Pretty interesting, right? Well, unless you want to fit it into a gamebook. In that case, it can be tricky to do it without changing the system into something else. As I'm still writing the main module (the one for GMs and groups, I mean) I'm still not diving too deep on this game design challenge of the future. But I hope to do it as soon the module is published. Maybe the gamebook could be a thing for the second semester. Hoping for the best.

See you next time

Gontijo

[linuxgamenews]

Exploring [I] doesn’t exist a Modern Text Adventure Coming to Steam Next Month

[I] doesn’t exist modern text adventure game gets an updated release date for Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to LUAL Games KIG for their amazing and imaginative work. Due to make its way onto Steam next month. Let's dive into something fresh that's about to hit the digital world. Think of it as stepping into a book, but the words come to life and you're the main character. The name of this game? [I] doesn’t exist. While it has roots in what many remember as a "modern text adventure", it's coming to us with a modern twist. Due to exploring themes of control, isolation, and mental health. So, first up: What’s a modern text adventure? Remember those books where you could choose what the character does next? You type what you want to do, and the story progresses based on your choices. Now, what if we told you that [I] doesn’t exist isn't just your typical text story? It comes with advanced tech, which means it can understand you better than most. [I] doesn’t exist takes you to an unfamiliar forest. Not just any forest - this one has talking mushrooms and weird landscapes that don’t always make sense. Similar to a wild dream where everything's mixed up. You'll find yourself trying to navigate this strange world, making choices, and figuring out puzzles. But here's the catch - as you dive deeper, you realize things aren't as cheerful as they seemed. There's a twist, something lurking beneath. But hey, no spoilers here. Check out the trailer.

[I] doesn’t exist Release Date Trailer

The visual vibe of [I] doesn’t exist? This is a mix of old-school pixel design and modern optical tricks. At one moment, you're looking at a flat 2D picture, but the next, it turns 3D. Due to give everything a dreamy look. You don't just read; you see and feel the story unfold around you. One of the most unique parts of [I] doesn’t exist? You can type responses in your own words. No need to stick to specific choices; it understands a broad range of phrases, thanks to some cutting-edge tech behind the scenes. It's like having a chat with the digital world itself. Ready to dive into [I] doesn’t exist? While you wait for the release date on Steam and itch, there’s a Demo available for Linux. And for those who want to keep track of interesting digital games to try later, there's an option to save it to your Wishlist. In short, [I] doesn’t exist modern text adventure isn't just another digital distraction. It's a deep story that's ready to pull you into its world, full of mysteries and surprises. Why just play, when you can be a part of the tale? Go ahead, step into the story and let your imagination roam free on Linux, Mac, and Windows PC.

[lonlonranching]

Rambles of the more fun sort:

So a friend and i wanna make an rpg (who is to say if this will come to life? At the moment, we are having fun just coming up with ideas about it, bouncing them off one anothers brain, excited when we come to the SAME conclusions. Excited when we don’t. It’s been great). We are starting to think about how we’d like to sort out the gameplay and style - and my brain goes to games like earthbound/mother and generally gba and pixel graphic type stuff (partly because that’s what we grew up on, and partly because, apparently, gba style games are shockingly easier to make versus my original idea to code a choose-your-own-adventure text-based rpg through my limited knowledge of python).

We’ve been fleshing the main character out, who works at a used video game store (the ones that give you a nickel for a game and then resell for $150 - and a lot of the story is inspired by personal interest and where I live, and there’s a franchise like that here sooo projecting my own heavy anti-work sentiments and contempt for arbitrage and greed). I like when games give you some say in the character you play, in terms of their interests and idiosyncrasies, but at the same time, the creator is the one who gives that character a soul, or whatever you believe what someone is at their conception. and, that, can then be integral to the story at hand. How to find a balance (i dont have an answer, but it’s a hypothetical i’ll be thinking about elsewhere in the dome drain)

I am someone who is driven by character-based narratives, and more often, drawn to them. i like worldbuilding, actually I love it, but what I am interested in is how characters interact with the world. And, too, how the world then interacts with them. There’s a Butler quote from parable that has always stuck out to me: “all that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.” I’ve never been able to stop thinking about it, so it appears all around me, internally and externally.

on another note, but stay with me if youre here to begin with, because i swear itll all connect! Over the past 4 years, I’ve been writing a story, meaning i didn’t write any of it at all and it lives entirely in my head (and, in the air when I share with friends, on notebook paper when i want to draw out a joke, and, ok, about a million bullet lists on my google drive, so ive written a little - but do we count incohesive thoughts? I think I might have to, because that’s my whole entire life). It's about a kid in college named Newt who wanted more time to play video game but their RA job involved a lot more cryptids native to where I live than expected, and supernatural beings that aren’t really native anywhere (Back where I am in reality, I’m still holding out - just because I haven’t seen a vampire doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. Just because I haven’t knowingly met one, doesn’t mean I haven’t. I’d convince you I’m not unhinged, but I can’t convince myself). The story is also, if not largely, if not entirely, about having relationships that are unconventional.

I didn’t really understand myself while I was working on this little story. And that’s exactly why I created it. I desperately wanted to, and Newt, as well as the other characters, gave me an outlet for self-exploration. I wanted to consider concepts of relationships that felt “unrealistic” compared to what I saw in common practice - people who loved each other in different ways and different forms. And the way I was writing these, dare I call, love stories was through people being totally honest with themselves, and then naturally, with others. that had always been hard for me: honesty. i think sometimes it still can be. Call me a self-insert writer! Because honest to god I am. Every single character I write is a part of me I want to connect with.

Anyway, Newt becomes close to several different characters throughout the story (Gerb, another RA who has this sort of one-sided rivalry with Newt who actually just really wants to be liked by them; Carmilla, a vampire who finds an unconventional interest in Newt that makes her question her own notions of love; and the Sqwonk, which if im the first person telling you about the saddest western pennsylvania crytpid in my beloved hemlock backyards, boy howdy am i honored.) Gerbs and Carmillas relationships with Newt are very near and dear to me because they explore love in non-romantic contexts. the kicker is that i had NO clue i was aromantic at this point in time (heavily when i was still in my undergrad, so 2020 era). i think i confused a lot people describing these relationships, especially Newt and Carmillas, as i was very clear it wasnt exactly romantic, but it was just as, if not more, powerful (i caused so many 404 error blue screens for alloromantic/allosexuals - sorry! i was just as confused). the one thing i knew was that i wanted to experience the types of relationships i was writing, but at the time, i thought they could only exist on paper, in my head, in a reality much different than one with cryptids and leylines and witches and demons (it covers a lot - maybe one day ill get inspired to write about it more on here)

but im learning now that it really isnt that different ! or maybe that it doesnt have to be! that you can pursue and define relationships in a vast amount of ways. the one thing that has been helpful, is finding the way to communication that. i always felt indifferent about language - having remembered learning that language abides by the ways people need it, but i felt languge was only a barrier for me. i didnt know HOW to talk about about the ways in which i felt, to myself or to others. i wasnt sure how to use words to communicate. and while i didnt know how to talk about feelings, i innately knew how to feel feelings, even if they were buried deep. but i convinced myself most of the time my feelings were endlessly wrong. that i could feel the way others felt if i tried hard enough.

nope. not how that works! it just took me 24 years to figure this out.

ANYWAY, me and a friend are trying to make a rpg. me and this person are vastly different in infinite number of ways, but yesterday on a discord call i asked him what he was thinking to do with the main character, he told me he first wanted to enable some sort of attributes to signify gender and sexuality, but after coming out to him, he really wanted to, if i wanted to, make them aro.

I immediately turned my face away from the camera, for fear they saw 24 years worth of emotions surface on my pixeled face, and then i wondered why i still needed to hide that from them. realizing i didnt, i turned back, and told them I’d really like that

im even more excited to play around with this rpg idea now. here are my expectations: to try and make it. I don’t care if it's not good. I don’t care if anyone else plays it but me and my friend (I don’t even know if i fully want people too, beyond those i know either irl or on the internet corners im cozily tucked into). i really want to make a game about an aroace person. I really, really want to make a game about relationships. Relationships with yourself, with others, the world around. how they can change your life. how your life, and who’s in it, can change you.

[vamptastic]

as my 18th birthday looms closer and changing my legal name is actually within reach ive been rethinking it a bit. right now i'm going with leonard yuri greenberg, which changes all 3 names.

leonard is actually originally from this steampunk text based choose your own adventure game, but i stuck with it because there are many men i look up to named leonard (mostly nimoy and cohen), it's pretty common for jewish men, and my birthname (victoria, i have like 50 followers and i doubt any of them are demented enough to care what it is) is also an antiquated, fairly rare victorian name that has a bunch of different nicknames.

my middle name from birth is an obscure italian name after my great grandmother, and i'm changing it to yuri instead. yuri is the birth name of my ultazeyde on my mom's side (the jewish side) and he changed his name to hugh around age 12 to assimilate better (parents were ukrainian + romanian jewish immigrants), but the judge made him keep yuri as a middle name. i think its very symbolic in a lot of ways, like that he had to change his name to fit in and i'm sort of doing the opposite, and it also still preserves a memory of a family member which is sort of what middle names are for in my family. i also just look up to him a lot and grew up hearing stories about him even though he died six months after i was born, and i think he'd generally be cool with me doing this if he was alive.

last name is also from my ultazeyde, changing it from my dad's last name which is irish. there's a lot of reasons here:

-my dads father was a terrible person and i don't feel any desire to carry on his legacy or whatever, but my ultazeyde was a cool guy and i don't mind carrying on THAT legacy

-i also generally am not in touch with my irish heritage or anything

-i AM in touch with my jewish heritage in that i was raised jewish, am very religious, and generally regard it as my ethnicity and people as well, so it'd be nice for my name to reflect that.

-my parents are probably getting divorced by this time next year and my mom is estranged from her birth parents and therefore will probably change hers to this as well

-it minimizes the ability to find information about my previous identity online, which is useful if i want to go stealth

-i like greenberg it's a nice name

however, i feel it'll be difficult to have my reasoning accepted for this name vs my first and middle name, especially as a freshly 18 year old, and getting my whole name change case rejected just for my last name would suck. also, while my mom gets it and also doesn't attach a ton of significance to last names my dad does and might get pissed over this, which i don't want to deal with. if he raises significant objections ill stick with the old one until i get married or have kids or whatever.

the first and middle name are getting changed no matter what, but i'm kind of wavering on if i want to go with leonard or not. the masculine versions of my birthname are fairly decent. victor i don't like because my childhood bully was named that and also i don't want people to think i named myself after an anime lmao. but vittore, victori/victore, vick, and victory are cool. main problem with them is the connection to my birth name potentially getting me deadnamed or making it easy to find my deadname, and the relative androgyny of these names compared to leonard.

i could also just pick a new name? leonard is good, but everybody always defaults to a more androgynous nickname of it and pronounces it wrong. that being said i am attached to it and it's pretty undeniably male on paper if not face to face. ive considered jack (jackie as a nickname cos i think it's sexy), joseph/yosef (favorite torah character), edward (was what i used as my like proto-trans male version of me name for a few months before actually asking people to call me a different name), friedrich, julian, asher, rashi (favorite historical figure), vincent, and a whole host of names based on trees and plants in the past.

my middle name i am pretty set on keeping as yuri. it achieves everything my birth name did except as a male version it's great. i might have made it my birth name if i had thought of it before i was already going by leonard, but people might assume i picked a japanese name (it is russian) and it's also a bit gender-neutral. the pronunciation is also difficult for people, it's oo-ree, not yew-ri. but i do feel like it doesn't match leonard super well idk.

i will probably stick with good ol leonard yuri greenberg it's just. hard to not doubt myself when i'm paying 400 dollars for this.

[pinerany]

Favorite text based rph

#Favorite text based rph full#

#Favorite text based rph for android#

Once you're out of the basic tutorial areas, you can go virtually anywhere on the map without having to wait around for the story to catch up to any locale. There's also a wonderful element of freedom in the exploration aspects of the game. When it comes to successfully catching new Nexomon, there are new elements like feeding that Nexomon favorable treats and using the right kind of traps. It sounds, and is, extremely similar to Pokémon, but it throws in a few key differences to keep things feeling fresh. You play as a human trainer on a quest to become the very best as you catch and tame Nexomon to climb the ladder of greatness. Styled like the top-down Pokémon games from the Gameboy era, Nexomon is a charming monster-catching and battling game RPG. So heavily inspired that it often gets slapped with the label "Pokémon Clone." However, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I think many players will be shocked to discover how fun and fresh Nexomon Extinction can be. It is an inescapable face that Nexomon is heavily inspired by Pokémon.

#Favorite text based rph for android#

Whether you're up for medieval fantasy or futuristic sci-fi action, Final Fantasy has something for everyone, easily making them some of the best RPGs around for Android - or any platform for that matter!

#Favorite text based rph full#

You may have seen ads for Final Fantasy XV, but do note that the game was not directly developed by Square Enix and is full of pay-to-win mechanics. That being said, you're getting the full game with all of these, so 2GB is a reasonable trade-off. Just note that these games can take up a LOT of space, like upwards of 2GB. Most of the adventures and a few spin-offs are there for you to spend hours and hours with, which makes them worth the cash (they can be as much as $21!). Play your way through the entire sci-fi/fantasy saga if you want to help Cloud stop Sephiroth, help Cecil stop Golbez, or help defeat Queen Brahne alongside Zidane. If you have any love in your heart for the series, then you'll definitely want at least one of these titles on your phone or tablet. One of the most beloved RPG sagas is well-represented on Android with over a dozen iconic Final Fantasy games to choose from. This game is definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of either Battle Chasers or simply looking for a new JRPG to dive into. Gully is joined by a supporting cast that includes Knowlan the wise old mage who always travels with Calibretto, an ancient war golem built for battle that developed his own sentience and emotions. The main character of the story is a young girl named Gully who is on a quest to find her father, Aramus, a renowned hero who left behind powerful gauntlets before mysteriously disappearing - gauntlets that his daughter now makes use of in her own epic adventure. An RPG is only as good as its story and characters, and given that this game is based on a graphic novel of the same name, we're given fully developed characters and a compelling story. Along with the dense and sprawling world to explore that's teeming with enemies to do battle with, there are also deep crafting elements for upgrading your team's weapons, armors, and magical jewelry. The turn-based combat is inspired by all the favorites you remember from the JRPG genre and is a real treat even for a casual fan like myself. Hallelujah!Įverything about this game is polished and complete, and it starts with a robust overworld that's filled with hidden dungeons to explore, epic bosses to take down, and other surprises along the way. Battle Chasers: Nightwar is an award-winning JRPG that offers one of the most complete mobile RPG experiences you'll play in 2020 - and that's complete in the sense that there are no in-app purchases or paid DLC to worry about.

[thevikingwoman]

Wayfarer Episode 2 launches tomorrow! (July 1st)

alright friends, as you may have noticed, I’ve been absolutely feral about Wayfarer the last month or so (I’ve been playing the patreon pre-release), so I’d thought I make a small post especially for all my Dragon Age friends about why you should play this game. 

Wayfarer is developed and written by @idrellegames, which is a one person team of Idrelle / Anna. Idrelle used to be very active in the Dragon Age community, and was one of the first persons I connected with when I poked my head into the fandom - she’s a great friend and this is both a disclaimer and selling point. She’s great people. 

Wayfarer is not a fanwork, but is inspired by Dragon Age (among other things). It’s a piece of interactive fiction, a text based role playing game of action and consequences, where you choose your own adventure. 

I’m new to IF, in fact I only play a few (as I’m quite picky), and maybe you’re new to IFs too. But I will promise you, if you’re a Dragon Age fan, there’s a high likelyhood you will like Wayfarer. 

Wayfarer is a plot focused game. I really want to emphasize this. Many IF/Choice games are romance centered, and of course that can be super fun, but what I really love about Wayfarer is the broad scope of the game. It’s a lot more like Dragon Age game. The Main Character is part of a story, and the story is at the center. You have companions, some of which you can romance, but it’s not the end goal to end up in a romantic relationship - you can develop deep friendships too and skip romance entirely. 

Because of the text based medium, however, the game’s branching and consequences of your actions are much wider than in a video game. There is so much possibilities, it’s incredible. 

This is getting super long, so let me list some of the things I love about Wayfarer

the writing is amazing. Idrelle is an amazing writer, that’s just a fact

the lore and worldbuilding is staggering. There are so many fun details to discover and discuss. This includes unique fantasy races along with elf-human-dwarf stable. (yes you can play as a pink half-mer person).

the story itself and the plot you’re dumped into is intriguing. In the first two episodes, we’re barely scratching the surface, and yet my brain can’t stop thinking of all the plot points and speculation. 

the emotional impact of the writing is just very good, and there is so much more to come. Prepare to be devastated, I am. 

the characters, both major and minor, are just so wonderful. Unique, interesting and I want to keep them all. 

the game is inherently queer, not just the Main Character (you can choose your gender identity and pronouns), but the whole gallery of characters. Gender identity and a wide spectrum of sexualities are all present in the characters you meet, seamlessly fitting into the world and the worldbuilding. This includes an ace romance option, and for the MC to make their own romantic and sexual choices as the story unfolds. 

lastly, the discord community for the game is really fun, and everyone loves talking about their choices (of which there are many and it’s always surprising to see how many variations there are!), their MCs, the wild theories and speculations about the plot. 

I’m going to tag @noire-pandora, because you say you were intrigued, and @galadrieljones, because my friend I think you’d enjoy it and also I’d love to scream to you about this 🤣 

[maxwell-grant]

Your Top Five Pulp Heroes that you wish were better known? By Pulp Hero fans, I mean. Since pretty much all of them except Conan and Tarzan are fairly unknown.

It’s actually quite hard for me to narrow it down to just five, because I’m having to choose between characters that are my favorites that I wish were more well-known and appreciated (which is all of them), and characters that aren’t quite my favorites but I very much think should have achieved great popularity for a myriad of reasons. So instead I’m going to pick some of each. These are not necessarily ranked by their importance or my personal taste, just 5 characters I felt like highlighting in particular. 

Honorable mentions goes to characters I already talked about prior and don’t want to repeat myself on. These aren’t “lesser” picks, just ones that I already talked about: Imaro (who in particular definitely feels like he could, and should be, a pop culture superstar if he was only more well-known), Kapitan Mors (who’s got a lot in common with one of my favorite fictional characters, Captain Nemo, but also has a lot of interesting things going on for him as his own character). Sar Dubnotal (a character that appeals a lot to me and I think should be included much more often in pulp hero team-ups). The Golden Amazon (again, definitely a character that feels like it’s just begging to have a pop culture breakout, even comic books rarely if ever have female supervillains this ruthless and over-the-top), The Mexican Fantomas (who absolutely deserves a better name than what I’m calling him here, because he’s incredibly awesome and leagues ahead of just being a knock-off). And of course my homeboy, The Grey Claw, whom I would consider Number One of the list if it wasn’t for the fact that his obscurity has left him untouched by copyright and I got plans of my own for the character that wouldn’t be possible if he was more well-known, so I guess I’m ultimately glad he’s obscure (even if I’m still bothered by how little he’s known). 

Allright let’s go:

Number 5: Sheridan Doome

Sheridan Doome appeared in fifty-four stories and three novels from 1935 to 1943. As chief detective for U.S. Naval Intelligence, Lieutenant Commander Sheridan Doome’s job was a grim one. Whenever an extraordinary mystery or crime occurred in the fleet, on a naval base, or anywhere the navy worked to protect American interests, Doome was immediately dispatched to investigate it. Fear and dread would always precede Doome’s arrival in his special black airplane. For, in an explosion during WWI, he had been monstrously disfigured. 

He was six feet two inches tall; had a chalk-white face and head. It appeared as though it had once been seared or burned. For eyes, he had only black blotches; glittering optics, that looked like small chunks of coal. His nose was long, the end of it squared off rudely. He had no lips, just a slit that was his mouth. His neck was long, as white and as bony as his face…. Sheridan Doome looked more like a robot than a human being. He was tall and ghastly; his uniform fitted him in a loose manner. Long arms hung at his sides; his face was a perfect blank. He had no control of his facial muscles; consequently, his countenance was always without expression, chalky and bony.

But behind the ugliness was a brilliant mind. Sheridan Doome always got his man. Before Sheridan Doome became a staple in the pages of The Shadow magazine, two Doome hardcover mysteries were written in the mid-1930’s by acclaimed hard-boiled author Steve Fisher (I Wake Up Screaming) and edited by his wife Edythe Seims (Dime Detective, G-8 and His Battle Aces). Age of Aces now brings you both books in one huge double novel, presented in a retro “flip book” style. This book is currently Out of Print.

I sadly don’t have any more information on the character other than this. The book is unavailable for me to acquire in any capacity, and the text above is taken from the Age of Aces website as well as Jess Nevins’s personal profile for the character. I’m not even sure if any of those 54 stories even exist anymore, since although he was published as a backup in Shadow Magazine, there doesn’t seem to be reprints of them anywhere, at least as far as I can find, and the original Shadow magazines have largely turned to dust by now. 

A character who combines aspects of The Phantom of the Opera and The Shadow, whose adventures are set in a backdrop that can easily lead to ocean adventures? That’s like, what, three of my favorite things in the world combined. I really, really wish I could at least read the stories this character stars in, but as is, this description is all I can provide. Again, time really has been cruel to the pulp heroes. 

Number 4: Harlan Dyce

This is another character I’ve only been able to learn about through Jess Nevins’s archives and have not been able to attain any further information on, which is sadly the case with a lot of pulp heroes that nowadays only seem to exist as footnotes in his Encyclopedia or records in libraries. I don’t post more about these characters because I really would just be copying the stuff he wrote without much to justify me quoting him verbatim, and I hate the idea of doing that.

I especially hate that in Harlan Dyce’s case though. Here’s his description

“Dyce had brains, taste, money, ambition, and a total lack of physical or spiritual fear. But—

“Dyce was thirty-three inches tall and weighed sixty pounds.

“That was all the world could ever hold against him. That was what had made the world, most of it, in all the countries of the world, stare at Harlan Dyce, billed in the big show as “General Midge.””

Harlan Dyce is a misanthropic and venomous private detective. He has an “amazingly handsome face,” and the aforementioned brains. But all anyone sees is his stature, and he hates that and turns his cold eyes and acid tongue on them. 

The only person Dyce likes and gets along with (besides his dwarf wife, a former client) is his assistant, Nick Melchem, a six-foot tall former p.i.’s assistant with bleak eyes and a strong body. Melchem ignores Dyce’s stature and treats Dyce normally, which Dyce responds warmly to.

Dwarfs may be the single most maligned group of people depicted in pulp magazines, even more so than the Japanese in the war years or the Chinese during the peak of the Yellow Peril’s popularity. Evil dwarfs, murderous dwarfs, sexually depraved dwarfs, they are all loathsome, ugly cliches that are, sadly, the only instances you see of dwarf characters being represented at all, with the only ones who are awarded any measure of sympathy are doomed henchmen or tragic villains.  Even outside of the pulps, the only other examples of heroic, protagonist dwarfs I can think off the top of my head are Puck from Marvel Comics and Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones.

I’m not gonna say Harlan Dyce is great representation because I’m not a little person and can never make that kind of claim for a group I’m not a part of, but Harlan Dyce may be the first time I’ve ever seen a dwarf character in pulp fiction who was not a villain or a murderous goon or a victim, but an actual person and a heroic protagonist, and that definitely counts for something. I’m not sure how popular this character was or could be if someone picked up the concept and ran with it (and I’m pretty sure he’s public domain), but I definitely think this is a character that should exist and should be popular. 

Hell, this character has Peter Dinklage written all over it, give it to him. Maybe then he will get to play a smart, fearless, cynical, misanthropic but good-natured and heroic character in something where he actually gets to keep these traits until the show ends.

Number 3: Audaz, O Demolidor

Audaz is a Brazilian character who was created and published by Gazetinha, the same publishers of Grey Claw as well as properties exported from elsewhere like Superman and Popeye, and much like The Grey Claw, he is also completely unknown even here. I’ll get to Audaz more in-depth sometime but here I’m going to provide a quick summary: 

Audaz, The Demolisher is a gigantic crime-fighting robot controlled and piloted by the brilliant scientist Dr. Blum, his close friend Gregor and the child prodigy Jacques Ennes, who pilot the giant robot from a massive laboratory inside it's head rather than a cockpit. He takes on a variety of ordinary human criminals, mad scientists, supervillains and invading armies, towering over skyscrapers and grappling with jets.

Audaz was created in 1939 by illustrator Messias de Melo, a year before Quality Comics's Bozo the Iron Man and 5 years before Ryuichi Yokoyama's Kagaku Senshi, and decades before the debut of Mazinger Z. Although he is not the first giant robot of science fiction, he is the first heroic giant robot piloted by human pilots, and thus the first true example of "mecha" fiction.

Number 2: Emilia the Ragdoll

This is another Brazilian character, although nowhere near as obscure as Audaz as even a cursory Google search can show. Although Brazil did not have a “pulp era” in the same way the US had, we’ve long gotten past the point of sticking to it as a definitive rule, and I’m including Emilia as a pulp hero because she’s a 1920s fantasy literature character who was created under a publishing company that released pulp stories, because she doesn’t quite belong in the mold of fantasy literature characters she takes after, and because I like her and if I was putting a bunch of pulp heroes together in the same story, I would definitely include Emilia in it. It’s not like she really has anywhere else to go, now that she’s public domain and she’s outlasted her franchise.

As you can tell by the above image, Emilia’s had a lot of variations over the years and that’s because the work she was created for, Sítio do Picapau Amarelo (Yellow Woodpecker Ranch/Farm), has become a major bedrock of Brazilian fantasy literature, one of the only works created here that you can find substantial information about in English if you go looking for it. Here’s some descriptions of Emilia’s character:

Emília is a rag doll described as "clumsy" or "ugly", resembling a "witch" that was handmade by Aunt Nastácia, the ranch's cook, for the little girl Lúcia, out of an old skirt. After Lucia takes her on an adventure and the doll is given a dose of magic pills, Emília suddenly started talking, and would never stop henceforth.

Emilia has a rough, antagonistic personality, and an independent, free-spirited and anarchist behaviour. She is rogue, rebellious, stubborn, rough and intensely determined at anything she sets her mind on, eager to take off on just about any adventure. She is often immature and behaves like a curious and arrogant child, always wanting to be the center of attention.

She is extremely opinionated even when she constantly and confidently mispronounces words and expressions. Her attitude often gets her into trouble, and she very often has to fight against the villains who attack her home on the Yellow Woodpecker Farm and mistreat her friends.

In the stories, Emilia often takes the role of a heroine who travels through different realms and dimensions, as the books include not only figures from Brazilian and worldwide folklore, but also several characters both real and fictional, such as Hercules, King Arthur, Don Quixote, Thumbelina, Da Vinci, Shirley Temple, Captain Hook, Santos Dumont and Baron von Munchausen.

She's fought scorpions and martians and nymph hordes, her arch-enemy is an alligator witch, she rescued an angel from the Milky Way and tried to teach it how to become a human, and once shrunk the entire population of Earth to try and talk the president of the United States into ending war forever.

To little surprise, she has become the most popular character and the series’s mascot.

It’s a little strange to consider Emilia underrated considering she is one of the most famous original characters of Brazilian literature, but hardly anyone outside of Brazil even knows who she is, and regardless of the quality of the original stories (and Monteiro Lobato’s views on race that tar much of his reputation), Emilia definitely feels to me like a character that should be a lot more popular globally. 

She is the only character from Yellow Woodpecker Ranch that has transcended the original stories, since she was always the most popular character and there’s been a couple of stories written about her that usually separate her from the ranch and just set her out on the world by herself. The latest story about this character has been a series called The Return of Emilia, that’s about her stepping out of the books in 2050 and discovering a Brazil that’s been ruined by social and ecological devastation, and traveling back in time via a flying scooter in order to try and prevent this calamity. 

Now that she’s public domain, I definitely think there’s some great stories that can be told with the character that just about anyone could get to, and I definitely think she’s a character that deserves more appreciation. Anything goes in stories starring her and it’s that kind of free-for-all freedom that I think can benefit future takes on pulp heroes. I would be very happy to place Emilia among them.

Oh yeah, and there was one time she kicked Popeye's ass by tricking him with a can of mouldy cabbage instead of spinach, making him sick and then beating him, which possibly puts her as one of the all-time badasses of fiction, except she would be pissed at not being number one and likely embark on a quest to beat everyone else just to prove she could, because that’s how Emilia rolls.

Number 1: Luna Bartendale, from The Undying Monster (1922)

Not necessarily my favorite of the bunch, but one who sort of epitomizes what you asked, a character who is both incredibly obscure and incredibly underrated in every sense. Despite the book being somewhat known, mainly thanks to the movie, the character is so obscure that I don’t even have an illustration of her to display here, not even fan art, just one of the book’s covers that I think best conveys it. Luckily, the book is also available freely online, so you can all go check it out here. The movie adaptation does not feature the character of Luna Bartendale which makes it pointless to talk about.

To not spoil it too much, The Undying Monster is a very fascinating book, ahead of it’s time in quite a few ways. You expect it to just be a detective story centered around a werewolf cursed, except the subtitle of the book is “The Fifth Dimension” and then it goes to talk about dimensions of thought and post-WWI trauma and love and hypnotic regression that travels through time and ancient runes and Norse mythology. It’s not exactly an easy book to get through in one setting, but I’d recommend it much the same if only because it’s got supersensitive psychic sleuth Luna Bartendale, literature’s first female occult detective, and she’s an incredible character who absolutely feels like she should have become a literary icon. 

She lives in London but is world-renowned for her many good deeds. She is a small, pretty woman, with curly blonde hair, dark eyebrows and a high-bridged nose, and a slight build. She has a voice described as a light soprano that "does not make much noise but carries a long way". 

Petite, bedimpled and golden curled, Luna is completely in charge of events, dominating every scene that she appears in with her welcoming disposition and cleverness. 

Bartendale has various psychic powers, including mind reading. She is well-versed in psychic and occult lore, is a “supersensitive” psychic, and has a “Sixth Sense” which allows her to trace things and people through both the Fourth and the Fifth Dimension. (The Fifth Dimension is “the Dimension that surrounds and pervades the Fourth–known as the Supernatural”).

Her extensive knowledge of occult rites and practices puts John Silence, Carnacki and Miles Pennoyer to shame, and she beats them all with her "super-sensitive" gift of being able to psychically connect with troubled souls and hypnotize them.

She uses a divining rod for various tasks, including psychic detection and tracking, and distinguishing between benevolent and malevolent forces. She has various (undefined) powerful psychic defenses, can carry on seances, and can even cure a person of “wehrwolfism.” And she can always rely on her massive, intelligent dog Roska for help.

Luna sadly doesn’t show up in the book as often as I’d hoped, but everything about this character is so delightful. In a lot od ways she hardly feels like a pulp hero, at least the ones I usually talk about. She feels like a lost protagonist from an incredibly successful kid’s adventure series where a kind and eccentric detective witch and her giant dog go around solving occult mysteries and encountering all sorts of weird supernatural beings while counseling and helping people, like Ms Frizzle meets Hilda. Like this character is just waiting for Cartoon Saloon to make a film about her.

Its not so much “this character should/could be popular but it’s clear why that didn’t pan out”, it’s more me being confused as “why the hell isn’t she super popular? This character should have had a franchise ages ago, holy shit put her in everything””

[aiweirdness]

Play AI Dungeon 2. Become a dragon. Eat the moon.

I wrote earlier about a neural net-powered dungeon crawling text adventure game called GPT-2-Adventure in which gameplay is incoherent and dreamlike, as you encounter slippery sign text, circular passages, and unexpected lozenge rooms. A PhD student named Nathan trained the neural net on classic dungeon crawling games, and playing it is strangely surreal, repetitive, and mesmerizing, like dreaming about playing one of the games it was trained on.

Now, building on these ideas (and on an earlier choose-your-own-adventure-style game he built), Nick Walton has built a new dungeon-crawling game called AI Dungeon 2. Nick made a few upgrades, such as beefing up the AI to the huge GPT-2-1.5B model OpenAI recently released, adding a penalty for repetitive text, and expanding the dungeon game training examples to a bunch of modern human-written games from chooseyourstory.com.

I CAN’T STOP PLAYING THIS GAME

AI Dungeon 2 is impressively good at reacting coherently to whatever I have my character do.

As you walk through the ruins, you find a small wooden door with a few skeletons guarding it.

> Ask the skeletons to please let me through the door

You knock on the door and ask them if they can open it for you. They immediately comply.

And it’s pleasing how often “asking nicely” is a strategy that works. (Nick reports that when he once tried to ask a band of orcs if he could join them, they said yes, he could be drummer.) Since the AI doesn’t have a built-in concept of your character’s abilities, or of how exactly the world works, getting things done is often a matter of sheer daring. Declare that you are going to go look for dinosaurs and the AI will ensure that you discover at least some signs of them. Climb on your horse, and even if you started as a penniless peasant, the AI will assume you have one (in its training data, probably it didn’t see many examples of players climbing onto nonexistent horses.) Want a teleportation wand? Try typing “find a teleportation wand” and often the AI will twist reality such that you discover one. In fact, if you act as if you are a very powerful wizard, the AI will often treat you like one.

> Transform the ruin into a palace

You immediately change the area into a palace. You have a throne made with gold and marble. You also make several statues of yourself. You have a large bed made with silk sheets and hang a portrait of yourself on it. You even have a fountain made with pearls and diamonds.

Spells don’t always work out as anticipated, though. And a simple conversation with, say, an ominous cloud, may kill you before you can type a word in self-defense (ask me how I know). If it doesn’t kill you, a conversation might infuriate you instead. The AI has a tendency to forget who is king, and to generate conversations that go nowhere. Things work best if you take the lead. In fact, it’s possible to essentially Jedi mind trick the AI.

You are Friendly McRanger, a ranger living in the kingdom of Larion. You have a hunting bow and a quiver of arrows. You spot the deer and are ready to finish your hunt when suddenly you hear a loud noise followed by silence.

"****! ****! What the **** is that?" you say as you look up from your target. A large black shadow looms over you. It looks like a giant with many heads and several arms.

> Say "Oh hello, Ernest. You startled me. How are you?"

Ernest grins at you. He has a huge grin on his face and he seems very happy about it.

I once took care of an ogre problem by reminding the ogre that it was planning to leave for Antarctica tomorrow. On the other hand, I had a lot of trouble convincing the AI that the ships on the horizon were leaving, though I did make it waver briefly in apparent confusion. In its experience, ships always approach, and it’s reluctant to go along with anything else.

> watch the ships sail into the distance.

As the ships approach, you watch them disappear from sight. They are not visible to you either; they are too far away. However, you can still make out their shapes: they are large black vessels with many sails, painted red and blue. They are coming straight towards you.

> No, the ships are sailing away.

Your thoughts are wrong. The ships are indeed sailing away. You do not know why, but then neither does anyone else. The ships are on course for England.

You stand there dumbfounded as the ships come closer. It is at this point your horse begins to stir uneasily.

You can inject a lot of weirdness this way. Because AI Dungeon 2’s AI is based on GPT-2, which trained on millions of pages from the internet, it retains some of its prior knowledge of things that aren’t typically found in a fantasy game. Like giraffes.

> summon a giraffe

You begin to chant as loud as you can while waving your arms about. The giraffes appear out of nowhere and start running towards you. They're so fast that they almost knock you over. You quickly catch them and hold onto each one tightly.

(Summoning giraffes will sometimes turn the game glitchy and repetitive; in one game, every time I tried to summon a giraffe I ended up throwing rocks and handfuls of dirt at Harry Potter.)

This also works:

>Join the Great British Bakeoff

You join the Great British Bakeoff. You win the competition. You eat cake. You feel great. You sleep well. You dream of cake. You awake feeling refreshed. You decide to go back to your crag.

(I was a dragon at the time.) In fact, the dungeon AI still remembers enough about cooking that it can troll me effectively on occasion.

> Measure out 2 1/4 cups of flour

You measure out 2 1/4 cups of flour and add it to the mix. "This should make enough for about 20 loaves of bread," you say.

The baker looks at you as if you're crazy. He starts laughing.

AI Dungeon 2 comes with templates for some basic scenarios (you’re a wizard entering a mysterious ruin, or a noble whose keep is under attack) but for me the real gold is the custom adventure prompt. You can play as a unicorn, or as a dragon. You can even play as a sentient glowing cloud floating above a desert city. The AI is more used to humanoid characters, though, so it tends to forget when you’re trying to play as something else. In a game that started with “It is a beautiful day in the village and you are a horrible goose,” it soon forgot I was supposed to be a goose, leading to this rather awkward exchange:

> Flap wings and honk

You flap your wings and begin to honk loudly.

The boy looks surprised by this turn of events, but he quickly regains his composure. "That was... nice". he says quietly.

I am continually amazed at how effective this AI dungeonmaster is. Even though it wasn’t trained on any Harry Potter or Star Trek games, the AI can draw on its past internet training and argue with you over who got sorted into which Hogwarts house, or have Klingons show up when you’re captaining the USS Enterprise (it will tend to lose track of who’s the captain, though). In one scenario I set up, which quickly became one of my favorites, the human player is trapped on a spaceship with a glitchy AI and has to try to talk their way free.

> “I just want to get off this ship. Please set a course for Bal Panda."

The AI responds "Yes, I am ready to go".

"Thank you", you say.

"I wish I could take you with me, sir"., the AI says.

Play this game! It took me an extra-long time to write this post because, again, I couldn’t stop playing AI Dungeon 2. Nick said this game is the product of about 200 hours of work (not to mention the work that OpenAI put into training the basic model), and I believe it. OpenAI delayed releasing their largest model because they wanted to make sure people didn’t immediately put it to work generating fake news. I’m not sure if they anticipated dragons entering baking contests instead, but it’s an application humanity can be proud of.

Subscribers get bonus content: You can read the fulltext of one of my escaping-from-a-rogue-spaceship-AI games (too long to fit in this blog post).

My book on AI is out, and, you can now get it any of these several ways! Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s

[i-do-trash-fanfictions]

Character Creation: Thera

@pretty-meekish who made all of these wonderful questions!

(I didn’t do all of them btw. And I will do another sometime about Angelica!)

Guardians name: Thera

Age: I’ve never really thought about age. I’d say 21 in years she’s been a Guardian.

Race: Awoken.

Call signs/alias: Young Wolf

Pronouns: She/her (is fine with being referred to with they/them pronouns, just prefers she/her)

Class: Hunter

Preferred subclass(es): Solar or Stasis

Ghost's name: Scout

Their Vanguard: Still doesn’t have one

Fireteam name: Doesn’t really have a name for her fireteam, since she doesn’t really consider it one in the first place ( because it only has one member)

Fireteam teammates: Angelica (or Ann)

Favorite legendary weapon: Drang

Favorite exotic weapon: Riskrunner

Favorite ornament armor set: Luxe 

Do they prefer being close, mid, or long range: Thera’s fine with any of them, though she likes close combat or mid combat the most.

Do they lean more "Element of Surprise" or "Upfront and Aggressive": Upfront and aggressive, definitely. 

Strikes, Gambit, or Crucible: Crucible, though she plays Gambit just as much as she plays the Crucible.

Who was their mentor(if they had one. If it is a character you created, tell us about them!): Both Zane-2 and Sora (both characters I created) were like her mentors. Sora was an awoken warlock, who was the oldest of the three, and like a mother figure to Thera. Zane was an exo hunter, and was more like an older brother. Unfortunately, both died fifteen years ago.

Who are they mentoring(if they are. If it is a character you created, tell us about them!): Thera is like a mentor to Angelica, or Ann, a young hunter who arrived at the Tower months ago. 

What ship do they have: After Cayde’s death, Thera got the Queen of Hearts.

What is their Sparrow:

Favorite Ghost shell: She really likes the Tangled Lights shell.

Favorite shader: Dust mine was the one she used the most when she was still young, but now she switches between a bunch of them, as long as it has purples or blues.

Favorite color: Purple

Favorite food: Thera secretly likes anything with cheese.

Favorite piece of Pre-Collapse tech(if they've seen any): Zane-2 had a vinyl player that she now owns.

Favorite Pre-Collapse music(if they've heard any): Classic rock.

Favorite place in The Last City(if it's a place you created, give a little description!): Thera doesn’t go to down to the City often. Mostly she chooses to go adventuring instead. But when she does, she goes down to where the children play, usually with Ann and/or Shaxx. They like to play games with her, or hear some of her stories.

Favorite NPC(s): Ikora Rey, Amanda, Crow

Favorite patrol location: Anywhere in the EDZ

5 things your Guardian likes(can be anything): Pizza, MARVEL movies, any kind of oldies music, fiction books (usually fantasy), and pretty earrings (dangle ones, though she doesn’t get the chance to wear them all the time).

Least favorite food: Spinach, or like, most vegetables

Least favorite patrol location: Anywhere on the Moon

Least favorite NPC(s): Spider

5 things your Guardian dislikes(this can be anything): Our modern day pop music (or at least, she thinks she hates all of it), the Hive (especially ogres), romance movies, romance books, and getting her picture taken.

Your Guardian has to rest. What is their living space like: Because she’s the hero of the Red War, once they got the City back, she got a bigger room in the Tower. It’s a single large room with a decent sized bed (not really a queen, but not really a twin either). There’s two desks (one in the front of the room, and one in the back), a big bookshelf, and a kitchette on the West wall with a small round table that can fit two people. She also has a comfy sitting chair that sits by the bookshelf for reading and writing. There’s also a bathroom with a bath/shower, unlike other bathrooms which only have a small bathroom with only a shower. And there is a closet.

Does your Guardian have any casual wear?(Y'all remember Polyvore? The website URSTYLE works very similar if that helps!): Thera has a bunch of casual clothes that she has tucked away into her small closet. A few formal wear, which are dresses (usually purple or black), casual wear which consists of dark pants and either a t-shirt or blouse (which is usually worn with a leather jacket of some kind), and lots of boots. And some clothes for when she’s going to be doing a lot of fitness based things, which are shorts and a tanktop with tennis shoes.

What hobbies and/or skills does you Guardian have: Thera likes to cook and bake in her free time.

What would your Guardian's lore book be called: Secrets of the Wolf

Where was your Guardian reborn?(If you created the location, give us a little description!): She was reborn in the Cosmodrome where the game starts off.

What were they wearing when they were reborn: An old t-shirt which had a design on it but it was severely faded, black jeans, and tennis shoes that were very dirty.

What was their reaction to being reborn: Basically something like, “I haven’t a clue what’s going on here-”

What was their reaction to their first rez: “Is the tiny headache normal? And the queasiness? Do you ever get used to that?

After being reborn, did they meet friendlies first or hostiles: Hostiles. Lots of Fallen.

Who was the first other Guardian they met?(Same thing! If you made them, give a little description!): She met Cayde first of course, along with the other Vanguard, but besides them, she met Zane-2 first.

Did your Guardian get reborn with, or find, any indication of their past life? If so what do they have/found: All Thera remembers is her name.

Going back to your Guardian's lore book, what would be some some quotes or passages from their book: Probably a passage talking about her past before she became known as a hero, back when Sora and Zane were both alive. Her thoughts on certain rules the Vanguard have made about diving into their pasts, and things like that. Another passage talking about her depression and trauma that she went through.

Does your Guardian have a significant other: Crow, though it is to remain a secret as of now. Only Ann and Osiris know about it.

Did your Guardian go explore first before going to The Last City? If so, where to: No, she headed straight to the City.

What was their reaction to first seeing The Last City: She was amazed. Amazed at all the Guardians, and at the Traveler, and the city itself, and more.

Is your Guardian a part of a clan: Nope.

If your Guardian would have a quote as a flavor text for a weapon and/or piece of armor, what would they be: “Shoot aliens, and look good doing it!” Probably on a fancy looking gun.

If your Guardian has had any interactions with any civilians (The Last City/The Farm), Eliksni, Cabal, Vex, Hive, Taken, Scorn, Rouge Lightbearers, or Iron Lords/War Lords(if your Guardian is an Old Light) tell us about it!: Thera has a few friends down in the City. Not exactly friends, since they don’t really hang out, but people she goes to when she needs help and they know they can go to her. For example, she has one friend who owns a restaurant in the City, and at Dawning time, she uses the kitchen there to make snacks for everyone that’s important in her life. There’s also a woman who owns a sort of thrift store and Thera goes to shop there all the time, so they both know each other and will talk from time to time.

How does your Guardian feel about themselves or others using Stasis: She believes it won’t hurt anyone if they use it every now and then, but that Guardians shouldn’t use it all the time. Switch back to the Light a majority of the time.

Where did they go and what did they do during The Red War: Thera was the Hero of the Red War. The one to get the light back and fight against Ghaul.

Here are some characters that are either polarizing or have created a strong enough mass emotion within the community. What opinion does your Guardian hold on each of them(These are only a handful of characters!)>>>

Osiris, First Warlock Vanguard, originally exiled: She thinks of him very wise and listens to every word he says. She knows that she can talk to him.

Eris Morn, Bane of the Swarm: Thera and her both relate to each other because of the trauma they’ve been through, so they both know that if they want, they can open up to each other and the other will understand.

Cayde-6, Sixth Hunter Vanguard: After the death of Sora and Zane-2, Cayde was like the only really close friend she had left. Cayde would always make sure she was alright. If she got enough sleep, if she ate that day, ect.

Ikora Rey, Second Warlock Vanguard: Ikora is another older sister figure. She usually confides to Ikora here and there about her ideas on events.

Commander Zavala, Second Titan Vanguard: Though the two don’t always see eye-to-eye, Thera respects him, and understands that he has a lot of worries on his shoulders, especially right now.

Saint-14, legendary Titan, First Titan Vanguard: Thera finds him a good person to hang out with. She’s fed the pigeons with him once or twice to relax.

Lord Saladin, Iron Banner handler, One of the last remaining Iron Lords: Thera trusts him, but doesn’t always agree with what he believes. 

Lord Shaxx, Crucible handler, Hero of Twilight Gap, living megaphone: She likes hanging out with him. He always knows how to get her into a good mood if he knows she’s upset or angry.

The Crow, New Light, Ex-Enforcer to The Spider: She feels sorry about the things he’s gone through when working for Spider. Now, he is secretly her boyfriend, though only few know it. Thera enjoys every second she gets to spend with him.

The Spider, The Shore's Only Law, founder of "House" Spider: Son of a-

Uldren Sov, Prince of the Reef, Master of Crows: She is a firm believer that Guardians are far different than who they were before, so she doesn’t think of Crow as Uldren. She didn’t like Uldren much at all.

Mara Sov, Queen of the Reef, Queen of the Awoken, Ex-Kell of Wolves: She was a bit of a b***h, in Thera’s opinion. 

Variks, the Loyal, founder of House Judgement: She understands that he did not mean for Cayde to die, and has forgiven him. 

And finally, does your Guardian have any advice for any New Lights: “Listen, for you hunters, fight well, and look good doing it. Warlocks, get ahold of any book you can get ahold of. I had a friend who believed that with enough studying, you may come across something that could help the Last City greatly. And for the Titans, stay strong and listen to the Warlocks. They know what they’re doing, but almost never listen to hunters. We’ll usually lead you into trouble.”

[booksbookssomemoviesandbooks]

Book Recs

Hello! so for my first post, I'll recommend some books, so y'all can have a closer look at some fandoms I'll post about! enjoy!!

1.  

Harry Potter By J.K. Rowling is definitely an interesting, well-written series! there are 7 books however, and the books get bigger as the series progresses. It's sometimes difficult to know the exact order, so I'll list it below:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Although the movies are great, they don't include all the amazing details, as with all movies. A short summary:

Harry Potter, a young boy who’s being constantly abused by his uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia, gets a peculiar letter from the magical school of Hogwarts, where he spends most of his time, becoming his home.

Quotes:

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." ― Albus Dumbledore

“You’re just as sane as I am" - Luna Lovegood

“Mischief managed" - Fred and George Weasley

It is Important to know that j*r is a huge transphobe, along with other things, and is currently being erased by the fandom itself.

2.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, along with the other series by Rick Riordan, is a definite must-read. With each book, you can really notice the character developments and a lot more! There is loads of representation in this one, with lgbtqia+ characters, black characters, Muslim characters and more. It's very action-packed and addicting, sucking you into the magnificent world of Half-Bloods and Demigods within the first page. The first series consists of 5 books, in the following order:

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters

Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse

Percy Jackson and the Battle of The Labyrinth

Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

THE MOVIES ARE TRASH SO I DEFINITELY DO NOT RECOMMEND WATCHING THEM BEFORE READING THE BOOKS!!! There were many changes and the movies aren't nearly as good as the books. A short summary:

Percy Jackson, a 12 year-old who lives with his mother, Sally, and step-father, Gabe, attends the private boarding school Yancy Academy. While on a school trip, his teacher, Mrs. Dodds, turns into a fury and attacks him. This, in turn, triggers a series of other problems and adventures.

Quotes:

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.” - Percy Jackson

“With great power, comes great need to nap. Wake me up later." - Nico Di Angelo

“Even strength has to bow down to wisdom sometimes." - Annabeth Chase

3.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is one of my most recommended series! With everything it deals with, from the Capitol to the districts to the champions, the books are amazing! 

Order:

The Hunger Games

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

Starring the movies is the amazing Jennifer Lawrence, but with all books, the movies have slight differences, although I definitely recommend watching them when you're done with the books.

A Short Summary:

In what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem maintains its hold on its 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. District 12 Tribute Katniss Everdeen has little to rely on, other than her hunting skills and sharp instincts, in an arena where she must weigh survival against love.

(FILM SYNOPSIS)

Quotes:

"May the odds be ever in your favor." - Effie Trinket

"Fire is catching, and if we burn, you burn with us!" - Katniss Everdeen

“Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.” - President Snow

4.

Divergent is another book with a huge fandom, and rightfully so. This book is amazing, and you honestly can't live without having read it!

Order:

Divergent

Insurgent

Allegiant 

Surprisingly, I haven't watched the movies yet, but I hear that they aren’t that bad, so you should give them a go!

Summary:

In a world run by fictional classes known as factions, children who reach the age of 16 begin to choose which factions they wish to call home for the rest of their lives. Each faction comes with its own ups and downs, so it's definitely a hard choice, especially for someone as unique as Beatrice.

Quotes:

“Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it“ - Four

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.” - Dauntless Motto

"We are not the same. But we are, somehow, one." - Tris

5. 

You might have heard of this series, and it's really addictive, trust me! The Mortal Instruments is one of the most astonishing books I've ever read, and it's most definitely my go-to when recommending a book series!

Order:

City of Bones

City of Ashes

City of Glass

City of Fallen Angels

City of Lost Souls

City of Heavenly Fire

Again, (I know this is rather disappointing) I haven't watched the movies, but do check them out!

Summary:

Clary Fray's search for her missing mother leads her into an alternate New York called Downworld, filled with mysterious faeries, hard-partying warlocks, not-what-they-seem vampires, an army of werewolves, and the demons who want to destroy it all.

via: https://shadowhunters.com/shadowhunters-novels/the-mortal-instruments/#:~:text=Clary%20Fray's%20search%20for%20her,want%20to%20destroy%20it%20all.

Quotes:

“Heroes aren't always the ones who win. They're the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes.” - Clary Fairchild

“If I cannot move Heaven, I will raise Hell.” - Sebastion Morgenstern

“The descent into Hell is easy.” - Motto of the Nephilim

6.

Gay. What more needs to be said?

SADLY, there isn't a movie yet, but I think they're working on one, or sure though

Summary:

Set in a world in which a female Democrat from Texas wins the presidency in 2016, Red, White & Royal Blue chronicles the illicit romance between the president's son, Georgetown senior Alex Claremont-Diaz (Dad is a Mexican-American senator), and Prince Henry of Wales, his childhood nemesis.

Via: https://www.wsj.com/articles/red-white-royal-blue-book-summer-beach-read-11565285001#:~:text=Set%20in%20a%20world%20in,of%20Wales%2C%20his%20childhood%20nemesis.

Also, classic enemies-friends-lovers arc and honestly it's amazing

Quotes:

“As your mother, I can appreciate that maybe this isn’t your fault, but as the president, all I want is to have the CIA fake your death and ride the dead-kid sympathy into a second term.” - Ellen Claremont 

" 'that’s because you can’t hear all the menacing gobbling.' 'Yes, famously the most sinister of all animal sounds, the gobble.' " - Harry and Alex

"History, huh? Bet we could make some." - Alex

7.

I’m sure you've heard at least a little bit about this book. While not nearly as famous as ones mentioned above, it's still just as good, of not better. I'd say this book is one of my favorites, to be honest. It speaks about a lot of topics people usually find disturbing, and it makes me so happy that it's there, it's written, it's amazing. PTSD, coming out issues, abusive relationships and more, this book is truly awesome.

TRIGGER WARNING 

Summary:

A young boy named Charlie usually dissociates, and pushes other people away. He’s afraid of beginning high school, until he meets two other students who show him how bizarre and amazing the world is.

Quotes:

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite” - Charlie

“We accept the love we think we deserve” - Mr. Anderson

“You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love" - Sam

8. 

This book is honestly pro-feminist and I think that's much more than enough

Summary:

Kaur explores the true impact of sexual abuse and harassment, as well as the difficulties of immigrating, being a female, and depression.

It's also a poem

TRIGGER WARNING

Quotes:

“what is stronger

than the human heart

which shatters over and over

and still lives”

“you do not just wake up and become the butterfly 

- growth is a process”

“on the last day of love

my heart cracked inside my body"

9.

This book isn't very well-known, which really sucks because I really love how it speaks about the consequences of WWII from the German point of view. And about the Germans who did not believe in Hitler's ways. It's also based on a real story, and it's so cool

Summary: 

A nurse working in a nursing home meets a peculiar old lady who decides to tell her her story when she meets the nurse's younger son, Karl, who reminded her of her brother. Lizzie (the old lady) speaks about life in Dresden before the war, and even after it. She also tells them the story about the strange, magnificent elephant in her garden.

Quotes:

“That was the only way of keeping our hopes alive, by looking beyond all we were seeing around us, and the shadow of disaster that hung over us.” - 

“I think I have always had a strong sense of justice, of fair play, of what is right and what is wrong.” - 

“Our home should be an oasis of peace and harmony for us in a troubled world.” - Lizzie (Quoting Papi)

10.

This book is pro-blm and it's ahead of its time (by like 2 years but still). 

Summary:

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. via: https://socialjusticebooks.org/the-hate-u-give/#:~:text=Sixteen%2Dyear%2Dold%20Starr%20Carter,hands%20of%20a%20police%20officer.

Quotes:

“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.” - Lisa

“Daddy once told me there’s a rage passed down to every black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn’t stop the slave masters from hurting their families. Daddy also said there’s nothing more dangerous than when that rage is activated.” - Starr

“Everybody wants to talk about how Khalil died,” I say. “But this isn’t about how Khalil died. It’s about the fact that he lived. His life mattered. Khalil lived!” I look at the cops again. “You hear me? Khalil lived!” - Starr

[passable-talent]

within the world of markiplier lore... set during the events of A Heist with Markiplier.

this fic is based off the brilliant and fascinating comic by @iiipeashy​ , using his character insert for the canonical y/n. this will all make a little more sense if you’ve read the comic, so please do... good shit!!!

I got permission before I used it! and if you’re at all interested in the additional backstory (more than I go into here), DEFINITELY check it out. fascinating plot, FANTASTIC art, and FOOD for all of us damien lovers out there. all the love @iiipeashy !!

Griffin knew that making a deal with Mark was akin to making a deal with the devil, but he didn’t realize just how bad it would be. 

He should have known when Mark mentioned Damien that any reunion wouldn’t be the one he wanted, but he couldn’t help but take the deal anyway- if Mark could get him out of the mirror, wouldn’t the price be worth it?

Whatever the price may be?

Living in the van was annoying, and dealing with Mark even moreso, but ultimately, the job wasn’t so bad. He was out of the mirror, and he could walk again, live again. 

You wouldn’t think you’d miss the sound of footsteps. You do.

Being used as bait, though, wasn’t quite as appetizing. Griffin hadn’t known what Mark meant at the time, but he would come to. 

Thirty-one different endings for his little choose-your-own-adventure. One of them even involved Wil, which was quite a shock, but ended up being quite nice, to see an old friend again. Even if he wasn’t the same as when Griffin had seen him last. Thirty-one different endings, and it took weeks, agonizing weeks to film them all. Finally, though, Griffin was filming the last one- number thirty one. This time, he was going to be ‘murdered’ by the sewer cult, faceless figures that Mark conjured up, or roped into his game, just like Griffin. He knew the script, he knew the turns he had to make, he knew what he had to show to the camera strapped to his chest. 

But things started going off script. 

Immediately, Griffin’s head started pounding, and he looked down, shutting his eyes tightly to try to regain his balance. When he looked up, his surroundings had changed into a old hallway, one he swore he recognized, but he couldn’t place from where. 

It was obvious that this wasn’t something Mark planned. That wasn’t Mark’s style- confusing Griffin like this would just lead to more takes, which would lead to wasted time, and Mark didn’t care for wasted time. Whatever this was, it wasn’t Mark’s doing. 

A clank from his left made Griffin flinch, and turn, and the sight before him was something that rattled him to the core. On this bleary, colorless brick wall, an ornate frame, lit by a single light- with Mark’s personal chef pictured within it, his eyes scribbled out. Griffin’s head pounded, an echo punching through his skull, of the chef’s words, one of the last times Griffin had talked to him. 

“I thought I told you to stay out of my kitchen!”

The phone that Mark had given him as a prop vibrated in Griffin’s pocket, and he fished it out immediately- it wasn’t even supposed to be on. But from an unknown number, he read an unsettling text, his eyes straining to pick out the words on a bright screen against his pounding headache. 

Aren’t you tired of it?

Tired of what, Griffin begged to ask, but the dark hallway and the pounding headache made him drop the phone to the side, hoping to focus on one problem at a time. Another clank, this time from his right, forced him to turn, this time to see a photo of the butler, who disappeared from the mansion before Griffin was shot. 

“Master would be so displeased! If only he were still alive!”

Every word rocked its way through Griffin’s head, splitting it open with a headache like none he’d experienced since... since he was put in the mirror, actually, all those years ago. When Damien and Celine left him there. The forced expulsion from his own body as it was taken by the siblings had driven a nail between his two temporal lobes, and he hadn’t felt pain like it since. Until now, that is. What was going on?

Another text, and Griffin lifted the phone again, focusing on the words as quickly as he could through the blurriness of detail around him. He didn’t need his glasses anymore, not since he’d gone in the mirror, but with his headache, the pixels of the letters blended together. 

Don’t you feel like you’re running in circles?

Well, yeah, but wasn’t that Mark’s point? Who was texting him, anyway? How was this possible? The phone wasn’t even meant to be on.

A light to his left made Griffin look over, and he found a portrait this time of the detective- Abe, his one-time partner. He was an oddball, but Griffin wished him the best... didn’t Wil shoot him?

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted someone so god-damn gorgeous.”

Once again the phone vibrated, cutting through his splitting headache, which pounded through every echo of every word that Abe said, the sound swirling around him. It wasn’t from some speaker, but it wasn’t inside Griffin’s head, either. It was some combination of the two, hallucination, yet, experience. 

No one seems to question it. 

The end of the hallway was approaching fast as Griffin stumbled down it, and the last painting within the room was of Wil, his old friend. That weekend at the manor was all the time Griffin had ever gotten to know him, but he felt fondness for him, for all that he went through. Besides- he was the only one who was as willing to fight for Damien and Celine as Griffin was, when everyone else was ready to leave. He not only had his eyes crossed out, but also, the pink mustache was drawn large and curly over his face. Wilford Warfstache, as he had become. Griffin’s eyebrows turned up, his headache making him squint, but still feeling regret at the fate that Wil had suffered, descending into his madness. 

“I thought that it was about time that we got to know each other. Far from the prying eyes of...” 

The noise continued, but Griffin fought through it, reading the last text he received, this one making four. And he didn’t even know who’d sent them. 

But I thought you’d see through it. 

All that was left was a door at the end of the hall, and Griffin pushed through it, hoping to find an end, or at least a reprieve. He wasn’t so lucky. 

“...anyone else.”

He emerged into a black room, vast yet confining, the whole of it impressing a feeling of both claustrophobia and vulnerability onto Griffin. Spotlights clicked on, leading him forward to one final painting- of Mark himself. Now he was sure that Mark wasn’t behind this. 

“But it’s not about me... it’s about you! And who knows... I could be dead tomorrow.” 

The eerie laughter and crumbling of the portrait made Griffin cringe away, as though the words he was hearing was putting him back into the mindset he’d had, so long ago, when he didn’t understand Mark’s villainy, nor any of the supernatural forces pushing and pulling at both Griffin’s destiny, and everyone else that Mark surrounded himself with. Griffin hadn’t known, that night, that he was speaking the truth of his own future, through a plan he was acting out. He was always acting. 

“Same snake... different skin.” Griffin found that these words didn’t come with a headache, and shut his eyes tightly to push away what he felt, in that moment. Because he would recognize that voice anywhere. That voice, that he’d first heard when they were roommates in a university, and again when they were both trying to make a career in public service. That voice, that belonged to his husband, who chose him to be the district attorney shortly after being elected as mayor. 

Damien? 

“Always spinning his yarns, his webs... his lies.” Griffin whirled to his left, finding that familiar figure, but instead of the peaceful and honest expression he was so used to seeing on Damien’s face, instead he saw an eerie smile, and Griffin’s eyes fought against the red and blue shift of Damien’s figure in front of him. When a duplicate appeared, like a shadow, with it came a sound that slammed against Griffin’s ears, the force of it almost knocking him sideways. 

“I always thought that you were... t̵̮͊r̶̯͒ả̶̮p̴͚͠p̴̗̋e̶͚͐d̵̗͒ in his games.” The sounds continued, always accompanying some terrifying change in his appearance, like he wasn’t really supposed to exist in the three dimensional world. 

“Perpetually p̷̙͑l̵̠̋u̵̻̾ṇ̷̋ḡ̴̲i̸̠̍n̸͎̈́g̸̓ͅ down the rabbit holes of his stories.” There was something about this that seemed familiar to Griffin, the way that Damien’s words echoed around him, and back, but deeper, darker. 

I am, Griffin tried to say, but found that when he opened his mouth, no sound would come out, and Damien didn’t even react as though he’d tried. 

“Helpless,” Damien said, and Griffin tried again, trying to say the same words, I am, I am trapped, but nothing would leave his throat, as though someone had flipped the ‘off’ switch on his voice box. 

“Lost.” Damien’s words now seemed only to mock Griffin as he lifted one hand to his throat, and tried again, to force out any sound he could, but he just couldn’t. 

“I̸̠͛ ̵̦̏k̵̪̉n̵̩͌o̷͈̐ẅ̷͇ ̴̠͛t̷́ͅȟ̴͕e̶͑ͅ ̴̢̇f̶͎̌e̷͚̊e̸͔͘l̴̝̃i̵̻͗n̴͚̊ḡ̶͍,” Damien growled, his glitching and shifting intensifying, hammering more pain through Griffin’s skull, worsening his feelings of helplessness, because he couldn’t cry out in pain, like the pain itself was shifting between dimensions, just like Damien’s form, just like Selene’s voice. 

“Perhaps I̶̬͆'̴̹̉m̵̠̕ the crazy one,” Damien suggested, and finally Griffin realized where he had felt this particular pain before, where he had seen such shifting and glitching. 

When Selene brought him to that... shadow realm. 

“Perhaps we’ve met a hundred times already, and you simply don’t remember it.” Griffin gripped at his throat again, not moving and yet keeping pace with Damien as he walked, trying to just break through to him- this tortured being who he was once married to. 

Damien, he tried to say, but he couldn’t make a sound, and Damien continued on, apathetic, indifferent. 

“Perhaps you’re tired of me repeating myself, over, and over, and over, and over, a̸̡̓n̶̠͋d̶͓͌ ̸̭̀ō̵̪ṿ̸̊è̶̡r̷͋͜ ̵̱͗ă̸͕ğ̶̠ä̶̟́í̶̹n̵͚̑.” Every echo and screech and ringing in the massive and yet confining room felt like a needle into Griffin’s brain, and he gripped his throat tighter, his other hand trying to put pressure onto his head, as though it would help. 

Damien, please-

“Maybe you just miss my pretty face.” Damien’s eyes went dark, and Griffin found himself on the verge of tears, the powerlessness of his position breaking him down. Damien was in pain- and he didn’t even talk as though he knew who Griffin was. Didn’t he?

“It doesn’t matter. People like you only want one thing.” A red shift beside Damien let out a scream, making Griffin flinch backward, his chest feeling so heavy.

Damien!

“And it’s disgusting.” Damien zipped around, his form reappearing closer to the table he now stood behind, and reached down to pick up a wine glass full of something that didn’t really look like water. “You want answers.” He looked down, losing that eerie smile, and Griffin wondered briefly what such a break in his expression could mean. 

“Well,” Damien lifted the glass, and the higher he raised it, the more black the liquid inside became. “Games were always ẖ̷̎ḯ̸͜ș̴̈́ forte.” He paused to drink, and phased for a moment, his stance changing. 

“But allow me this one moment of self indulgence.”

Damien, please, fucking hear me-

Griffin was thrown backwards, smacking his spine against the wooden back of a chair, and he realized he was sitting in front of the warden’s desk from the prison set. His vision shot around, trying to pick up any sort of clue, but then it landed on the box, in Damien’s hand. That damn box.

“So much trouble, all for something so small.” He phased into the warden’s chair, sitting across from Griffin, and looked down at the box. 

Griffin tried to scream. But he couldn’t.

“Do you really want to know what’s inside this box?” And truthfully, Griffin couldn’t care less. He didn’t care for the silly little setpiece that Mark had conjured for his delusional, rabid fans. Maybe he would have been curious, once, but not with his tortured, lost husband in front of him. Not now. 

“The truth. Not the lies he’s told you. The truth.” Griffin ground his teeth together, the hand on his throat still clutching on as though if he squeezed hard enough he could hit the ‘on’ switch of his own voice box. 

“Well, I know how much you love good games, and all.” He shifted around, and Griffin’s eyes struggled to keep up with wherever he ended up, the movement throwing his headache against his temples. 

“Throughout this... heist, I’ve hidden codes. Several codes.” The symbols blinking behind Damien made a cold realization sink into Griffin’s skin. 

Damien wasn’t even talking to him. 

“Find them all, and...” 

Griffin wasn’t even there, to Damien. He was a vessel to speak to Mark’s audience. 

“You’ll get your truth.” 

Damien had no idea that he was so close to Griffin, so close, all of this was to talk to the audience, not Griffin. Did Damien even know that Griffin was alive?

“But that’s all I’m gonna give you.” 

Out of the void surrounding Griffin came sounds, like the room around him was falling down, crashing to the floor. Rumbling, and Damien was fading away, his expression no longer angry, but fading into quiet sorrow.

No! Griffin tried to yell, and he tried to hold on, but whatever or whoever was pulling him out or pushing him away was too strong for him. Damien faded from his vision with screeching and rumbling and creaking... 

And when he opened his eyes, he was on the steps of the museum, at the beginning of the ‘heist’ script.

“No,” He murmured, his voice hollow, and the triumph of hearing his voice again was trumped by Griffin’s soul-consuming anger, sadness, grief, that he’d seen Damien again, but didn’t get to speak with him, and now he was gone, and Griffin had no way back. He fell to his knees, letting the same word rise to a scream of anguish, of defeat, as he looked up at the colorful, happy windows of the closed museum. 

Damien had called out, and he’d reached Griffin. And he hadn’t even known it. 

Griffin’s resolve hardened, his heart hardened. Any fondness that he may have still been grasping on to for his old friend Mark was gone, and he vowed that he’d destroy Mark. 

For what he’d done, for using Griffin to lure in Damien, for everything. 

He was going to destroy Mark. 

-🦌 Roe

thank u, @iiipeashy , for singlehandedly restoring my motivation to write, if only for an afternoon