#i just kinda want a new mmorpg to get into is all

[swarnpert]

ffxiv sounds interesting but why are all the playable characters either hairless twinks or children. where are the grotesque and or beastly individuals

[wolfjackle-creates]

Bring Me Home Arc 2 Part 11

God this arc just keeps getting longer and longer. Luckily after this, I should be able to move ahead with the plot? I'm a few more minutes into the episode at least!

Anyway,

Story Summary: Tim and Danny are both neglected by parents who care more about their work than their families. They deal with this by spending too much time online and find each other playing MMORPGs. They keep up their friendship as Tim becomes Robin and Danny becomes Phantom and don't bother keeping secrets from each other.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1.4k

-----

Cassie sat next to him and bumped their shoulders. “We’ll figure this one out just like we have all the ones before.”

Conner sandwiched him on the other side. “Yep. And the Fentons don’t seem like the type to hide information. They’ll tell us everything we want to know.”

“You’re both right. We’ll fix this and be home before we know it.” Tim pulled out his phone. “I wonder if there’s any old news articles we can look up for more information. Danny told me about the first ghost attack. A ghost called Lunch Lady who used meat to attack people and was upset because Sam changed the school lunch menu.”

Bart blinked at him and sat on the coffee table facing him. “You’re making that up. You’ve gotta be.”

Tim laughed and shook his head. “Nope. We’ll have to see if he has a list of his rogues so far. They’ve all been so gimmicky. Kinda like Condiment Man in Gotham.”

At Tim’s direction, Bart and Cassie also began looking into various news articles and posts about the ghosts of Amity. Conner recorded their findings and Tim supplemented with information he’d gotten directly from Danny.

Research kept them busy for the next hour until the Fentons returned.

“Danny’s friends!” boomed Jack when he saw them.

“How are you four doing? Did you find the pantry? Enough things to eat?” asked Maddie.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Conner. “Cassie and I also left to explore a bit and found a corner shop where we picked up a few things we knew Tim and Bart liked.”

“That’s great! Now, I see you’ve seen the news, and I don’t want you to be afraid. Jack and I are planning on training some of Danny’s classmates in ghost fighting, would you four like to join?”

Everyone looked to Tim who bit his lip in thought. “I— can we sit in on the first lesson? I’d like to see some more of your work. Danny’s told me a little bit about it, but seeing it in person is something else. But I also want to spend more time just with Danny since we haven’t met in person before.”

“Of course, honey!”

Tim had to force his smile to remain neutral at the pet name. His parents didn’t even call him ‘honey,’ let alone anyone else. “Thank you, Dr. Fenton.”

“Call me Maddie, dear.”

“And I’m Jack!”

“Yes, Dr.— er, Maddie, Jack. When will the others be here?”

Jack looked at…something on his wrist that must’ve had a clock feature and boomed, “Not for another three hours! School’s still in session, you know.”

Conner cleared his throat. “Will you need help setting up? Maybe you can tell us a bit about ghosts while we do. I’d never seen one before.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea! Thank you, sweetie!” said Maddie.

“Conner, my boy, the first thing you need to know about ghosts is that they’re evil and only want to hurt you. If you don’t remember anything else, always remember that,” added Jack.

Tim’s stomach sank at those words. Did Danny have to hear things like that every day? “How do you know they’re all evil?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“Well, Tim! It’s because ghosts aren’t people. They’re post human consciousness imprinted on ectoplasm. They’re an echo of what they used to be and that echo wants to become a person again. But it can’t because it’s dead. So it lashes out at anything living around it. Either to steal their life or make the living like it.”

Maddie nodded. “Exactly. A ghost killed my best friend when we were girls. If you’d like, I can send you some papers Jackie-poo and I wrote about how ghosts form so you can have more information.”

Tim forced a smile. “That’d be great, thank you.” Could the portal be destroyed in some way? Would that keep ghosts from coming through and allow Danny to come with him to Gotham?

“Now!” said Jack. “Who wants to help me carry up supplies from the lab?”

Once again, Tim asked for some safety gear before going into the lab and Maddie shoved a white jumpsuit at him with a sticker of Jack’s face on it.

“This is one of Danny’s, dear. But he doesn’t wear them very often. Here’s another for you, Bart. It might be a bit long, but try it on and we’ll see what we can do. Cassie, Conner, you two will be a bit harder, but I think I should be able to coble something together. Hang tight a sec!”

“I guess we’ll go get changed, then,” said Bart as Maddie and Jack disappeared back downstairs to see what they had.

Tim held out the top and poked at the decal of Jack. Going to the edge, he worked a finger under the image and let out a sigh of relief when it came up. “These are removable,” he commented as he pulled it off.

“Fantastic!” said Bart, ripping his own off. “Come on, Rob. Let’s get changed.”

Upstairs in the guest room, Tim allowed himself to comment, “At least it’s not orange.”

“Everyone will know who we’re staying with, though.”

“Better than stepping foot in that lab with no protection.”

They were just finishing up when Cassie and Conner walked in with matching scowls. In their arms were a mix of orange and blue fabrics.

Cassie glared at them. “Not. A. Word.”

Tim smirked and held up his hands. “Who, me?”

Bart mimed zipping his lips.

“We’re just about finished here, though, so we’ll go help the Fentons while you two get changed,” said Tim. He couldn’t help the way his lips quirked as he looked at the clashing jumpsuit pieces as they passed each other.

Conner made sure to trip them with TTK.

Tim just smiled at him as he pushed himself up and left without another word, Bart a step behind him. The door was barely shut before they were laughing so hard they couldn’t walk down the stairs without gripping the railing.

“Good to see you boys are having fun! How do the jumpsuits fit?” asked Jack when he saw them.

Bart held up his hands to show how he’d folded the ends of the sleeves. “Not bad. Just had to roll up the sleeves and pants a little.”

Tim nodded his agreement. “Little tight in places, little loose in others. But I can move well enough.”

“Good, good! Now, want a detailed tour of the lab as we collect weapons to train Dan-o’s classmates?”

Tim didn’t have to hold back his sharp grin at that question. “Absolutely. I want to know everything.”

And Jack and Maddie were willing to share quite a lot. Conner and Cassie joined them ten minutes later, wearing jumpsuits cobbled together from spares of Jack’s and Maddie’s. Now that they weren’t rushed by trying to get out and manage an active and hostile ghost invasion, the tour of the lab was much more thorough.

Jack and Maddie were also happy to answer any questions the four had. As it looked, there was no actual organization to the lab. And in the fridge, food was stored right next to samples. The fudge hissed when Jack took out a piece to eat and Tim shuddered.

“Want one? My snookums made it! Best fudge you’ll ever eat.”

“Aww, thank you dear!” Maddie hugged Jack at his compliment and kissed his cheek.

“I— No. Thank you,” said Tim.

“Why do you have a stockade?” asked Cassie.

Tim gave her a grateful look and she winked at him.

“That’s to hold down ghosts so we can question them,” said Maddie.

“Yup! Restrain them in there and then you can use toys like this one”—Jack brandished a cat-o-nine-tails—“to force ‘em to talk!”

“Or the Fenton Prod,” added Maddie holding out what looked like an electric cattle prod. She pressed a button and the end sparked green.

Tim swallowed hard and clenched his teeth. Did everything these people make have to look so painful?

The rest of the time in the lab passed in much the same way. The four traded off who had to ask a distracting question as they were all more and more horrified by the casual cruelty displayed by Danny’s parents.

Eventually, the doorbell rang and they were able to return upstairs with armfuls of weapons. Maddie opened the door and Dash Baxter and his cronies stood there with sadistic grins.

“Dash, what a pleasant surprise to see you again,” Tim said with his own teeth bared. “I don’t think we got off on the right foot last night. I’m Tim. Danny’s told me so much about you.”

For a moment, the boy’s face showed confusion before it was wiped away with a polite smile. “He’s told us about you, too. I’m sure we’ll become great friends.”

Well fuck. Looks like the ghosts weren’t all gone after all. Tim held a hand behind his back and signaled danger to his friends. They needed to get away from here.

-----

Next

We've got more with Jack and Maddie here! Hope you guys like how I write them. We already know this is going to turn into bad-parents Jack and Maddie based on what's going to happen in Arc 3. (Arc 3 will be the original prompt fill and it's fall out.)

Also, I think I'm going to change some things around in previous parts. I won't edit them on Tumblr, but before they go on AO3 they'll change. Tim is going to lie to Bruce a bit more than he has so far. He'll tell Bruce that Danny is Cassie's friend so he doesn't decide to look Danny up if he gets bored.

Next chapter will have Danny and co again!

I will no longer be managing a tag list for this fic, but please check out the Subscription Post if you want to be notified of updates. I'm also want to get the first chapter transferred over to AO3, but I'm going to transfer the first arc of Ghost!Robin first.

I reblogged an ask game earlier today if anyone's curious about me. Check it out and consider sending something in!

[writercole]

Five Minutes More

Summary: Dean may have developed a crush on one of the girls he plays his mmorpg with. When she comes to town for work, feelings take over. Squares: Gamers spnfluffbingo Words: 2413 Warnings: Fluff, sweet Dean Credits: @princessmisery666 for looking this over ages ago. I'm lowering my expectations and posting it now. A/N: This was going to be a very long series but it's honestly a lot and I can't handle expanding it but it's so sweet that I have to share it.

Likes are loved but reblogs are golden. Patreon is gone. Tipping is available through Tumblr if you're so inclined.

Wednesday

 “Alright guys, keep your focus. Another two percent,” the raid leader, Dean, better known in game as DWImpala, called over the voice chat. The only thing that could be heard over comms was the steady click-clack of key presses for spells and attacks. The numbers steadily decreased, chunks of the boss’s health falling off as the eighteen players gave their all.

The boss went down and everyone cheered, congratulating the lucky players who got loot and lamenting that they didn’t think the stupid horse existed since another week had gone by without a drop.

“Alright, I’m calling it here for the night,” he announced to his guild. “Next week we’re going to do a full clear, then go on raid break until we get new content.”

Players said their goodbyes and logged off the game and the voice server, leaving their officers alone.

“So, uh, I’m going to be out next week,” Scuttle announced. She was the healer lead and the few people who knew her well enough called her Y/N.

“Oh yeah? Hot date?” Demonfall, a DPS known as Ash, teased.

“Out of town for work, sadly,” she replied with a sigh.

“Anywhere fun, at least?” Dean questioned, disappointed that she’d be gone. She was great at her class, sure, but he’d also developed a bit of a crush on her.

“Not unless you count a tiny town in Kansas as fun,” she scoffed.

Dean’s heart skipped a beat when she said Kansas. He’d grown up there, hell, he still lived in Kansas. He knew the odds of her coming to his tiny town were slim. 

But if he were honest, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to meet her. His crush was probably nothing; he didn’t even know what she looked like. But she was an awesome person from what he could tell.

He was vaguely aware of continuing conversation between the other two people but he wasn’t paying attention. His mind had gotten lost in fantasies and what ifs, trying to come up with a reason to find out more about what she did and where she’d be just to get a glimpse of her. He knew it was creepy to manipulate the conversation for information. So he kept his mouth shut.

The sound of a user disconnecting snapped his attention back to the present, his heart falling at the thought that he’d lost his chance to talk to her more. But when he saw that they were the only two left in chat, his mouth went dry.

“De? You still there?” she asked.

“Oh, uh, y-yeah,” he stuttered and cleared his throat. “Sorry, I kinda zoned out after you mentioned you were coming to Kansas.”

“Coming to Kansas? Is that where you are?” she questioned eagerly, anxious to get some kind of information from the private man she had started to have feelings for.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, “Lawrence.”

“You’re kidding,” she deadpanned, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“Uh, no,” he replied, confusion evident in his voice.

“That’s where I’ll be. If you have some time one day, maybe, if you want, you can show me where to get a decent burger?” Her voice held a lightness, a hope that he’d accept.

“I’d love to,” he answered enthusiastically. She’d been the first one to ask. She actually wanted to meet him.

“Really?! I mean, I’m there all week so it’s whenever you’re free but that would be amazing,” she babbled.

“So when are you getting in?”

“Sunday evening. I’m driving down and should be there somewhere around 5 or 6,” she informed, doing the math in her head about what time she needed to leave and how long the drive was.

“Okay, well how about we meet up Sunday evening? I can take you out for a late dinner,” he offered. 

“That sounds great,” she agreed with a smile evident in her voice.

“Awesome. I’ll DM you my number and you can just text me when you’re close?” Dean suggested as he typed his cell into the chat box.

“I’ll text you from my phone so you can save my number, too. Just make sure your girlfriend knows who I am,” she chuckled.

“No girlfriend, sweetheart,” Dean clarified, “but you make sure your boyfriend is cool with it.”

“Yeah, about that,” she said softly, “we broke up two weeks ago.”

“What? Scuttle, why didn’t you say anything?” Dean scolded.

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I was in love with the guy. So what if I caught him in his car with some redhead? It’s not a big deal.” Her voice contained a venom that Dean never wanted to be on the receiving end of.

“Where does this guy live?” Dean practically growled, anger at the man who treated her so badly burning in his chest. 

She laughed then, a sweet giggle that doused the fire and diverted his attention.

“I’m serious, sweetheart. Say the word and I’ll take care of him,” he repeated.

“That’s sweet, De. But I’m fine, really. It’s getting late, though, and I have to work tomorrow and pack. I’ll see you Sunday?”

“Five minutes more?” he pleaded.

“Five minutes,” she confirmed.

Sunday

Five minutes turned into an hour. That hour turned into texting back and forth over the next few days, nearly all day long, and talking every night for hours. By the time Sunday came around, Dean was sure that he was falling for her. 

As sure as Dean was that he was falling hard, so was she. Her ex had said that she cared more about that game and people she’d never met than him. In hindsight, he may not have been wrong. He was still a dick, though.

She texted Dean when she was leaving home and starting her drive. He smiled at his phone before slipping it back in his pocket and sliding back under his car, whistling as he worked. It was just a simple oil change and he was done in no time, deciding to wash and detail the car while he had time. 

He sang along to Metallica as he dried the water, not realizing that he had a smile on his face until Benny walked over from next door.

“Wha’s gaht yah smilin’ like dat?” he teased in his thick Cajun accent.

“Nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean quickly denied.

“Who’z dah guhl?” 

“What girl?”

Benny fixed him with a look, letting him know that he wasn’t buying it. Dean sighed and Benny smirked, knowing that he’d won that battle.

“Okay, so you know how I’ve told you about that girl I game with, Scuttle?” Dean started.

“Oh yeah, tha one you sweet on,” Benny replied.

“I’m not five, Benny. I’m not ‘sweet’ on her.” Dean rolled his eyes and Benny laughed before Dean continued. “Anyway, she’s coming to town for work and I’m taking her to dinner tonight.”

“You gonna tell Cher yah like her?” 

“No. I mean, I don’t really even know her. She doesn’t even know me. And she just broke up with her boyfriend because she caught him cheating on her.” Dean returned to his work polishing the chrome trim on his car, pretending to ignore his friend standing behind him.

“Dean, she jus’ broke up wit’ her boyfriend. Don’ you think’ tha’ you should say somethin’ before some otha man does?” Benny chided as he shifted to see Dean’s face instead of the back of his head. “Girl like dat won’ be lonely long, brotha.”

“Jesus, Benny. Can’t I meet the girl before you give me the speech?” Dean whined as he stood up, his phone pinging in his pocket. He pulled it out without breaking eye contact with his friend, then looked down to see a message from her. He opened his phone quickly, finding a picture of a sign advertising Lebanon, Center of the Continental United States - 50 miles.

“How long?” Benny asked, not giving any other context.

“About an hour,” Dean replied without thinking, typing out a message and slipping his phone back in his pocket. He cringed when he realized what Benny had asked and saw the smug look on his friend’s face.

“Ah’m gonna go. See yah at work tomorrah. Gonna wanna hear all ‘bout th’date.” Benny strode away to his yard, leaving Dean to finish up the car and get ready to go out.

She texted Dean once she’d checked in and told him where she was. When he responded that he was on his way, her palms started sweating and her heart started pounding. She tried taking deep, calming breaths but nothing was helping the nerves.

A knock sounded on the door and she froze, panicked that he was already at the hotel. She was second guessing everything from her wardrobe to her hair to even meeting up with him. Another knock echoed through the room and she moved towards the door automatically, taking a deep breath as she turned the knob and pulled the door open.

Her breath caught in her chest when she laid eyes on him for the first time. There had to have been a mistake. There's no way this is…"Dean?" she asked as she met his gaze.

"Yeah," he confirmed with a wide grin. "It's nice to meet you, Y/N."

“Wow, I…you look nothing like I pictured,” she blurted out, quickly following up with “that’s not a bad thing! I just didn’t expect…you know…a model.”

He chuckled at her candor, ducking his head while the tips of his ears turned red. “You flatter me, sweetheart, but you’re the one who could be a model. I knew you’d be gorgeous but I didn’t expect to have the wind knocked out of me.”

“That’s sweet, De,” she giggled. “Do you want to come in? Five minutes and I’ll be ready,” she told him as she backed into the room.

“Yeah, five minutes. No problem,” he replied.

Dean took her to a small diner where they had burgers and pie, laughing and talking until they were the only two people left in the restaurant.  It was still early so they opted for a ride around town with the windows down, the cooling air blowing around in their hair as Dean drove down quiet roads.

He kept stealing glances at her, drawn to the way the moonlight surrounded her in an ethereal light, making her glow. He pulled down a dirt road and turned off the headlights, letting the full moon be his guide. 

“Is this where you kill and bury me?” she joked as he parked the car.

“Nah,” he chuckled, “this here is the best part of Lawrence.”

Dean stepped out of the car and walked around to her side, opening the door and offering his hand to help her out of the car. He kept a hold on it as he started to walk through the trees ahead of them.

She followed him quietly, trusting him completely. They stepped through the trees and she gasped at the sight before her. 

Inside a quiet clearing was a small pond, barely big enough for a boat to float comfortably.  Moonlight reflected off of the water, sparkling as the small waves moved in the breeze. A little dock led to a small gazebo over the water. 

Dean took her to the gazebo and she looked around in awe; the roof was made of a clear material, allowing her to see the stars shining in the sky. Thick benches lined the walls of the wooden structure, a waist-high railing surrounding the edge, the rest of the space open, allowing the cool breeze of the night to pass through.

Dean watched as she took in the space, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. He knew this was the right spot. It’s where his brother took his wife for their first date, where Benny took his fiancee’, where his parents had their first date. The hope that something could bloom here lifted his heart and drove out the nagging thoughts of her leaving again. 

She turned around to face Dean, finding him standing next to a pile of blankets and pillows that she was sure hadn’t been laid out when they got there. He reached out his hand and she accepted it, following his lead and settling into the soft mountain to watch the stars. 

As the pair talked and laughed, they drifted closer to one another, lying on their sides facing each other when Y/N started to yawn.

“We should get you back to the hotel,” Dean told her quietly.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she insisted. “Five minutes more.”

“Five minutes then we head back,” he promised.

“Five minutes.”

Monday

Dean woke to sunlight streaming in his face and a heavy warmth across his chest. He stretched, thinking he was in his bed, only to be met with wooden planks surrounding him. Memories of last night came flooding back and his eyes fluttered open to find Y/N sleeping soundly on his chest, still in the gazebo over the small pond. 

His gaze had found a home on her peaceful face and he stared unabashedly, counting the barely there freckles across her cheekbones, admiring the way her lashes brushed her cheeks, resisting the urge to trace the soft lines around her mouth and eyes. She began to stir and cuddled closer to him. 

Dean prayed she couldn’t tell how fast his heart was beating beneath her ear in her half-awake state. His arm tightened around her, holding her close. He closed his eyes and wished for time to stop, to be able to stay in this moment forever. His hopes were dashed when his phone started vibrating in his pocket, the alarm he had set for work blaring through the silence.

Scuttle groaned and swiped towards the sound while Dean fished in his pocket for the offending device. He turned it off and gave his attention back to her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Hey, sweetheart, it’s time to wake up,” he coaxed, his hand trailing up the arm tossed over his chest.

“Noo, five more minutes,” she mumbled as she wiggled next to him.

“Five more minutes,” he agreed quietly, a soft smile gracing his face, the possibilities of the upcoming week shrinking under the impending end of their fling. He would enjoy the next five minutes of her in his arms as if it were the last.

[villainessxassassin]

Hello there! May I request a loose continuation of Admiring afar and behind the screen ? I just love the idea of a y/n working through their problems with the help their crush.

If you need like,, more instructions, I would kinda like to know what their daily life is like and what they do when they spend time together. Do y/n and Idia work up the courage to vc while playing games? Visual novel or MMORPG? Horror or puzzle? Do one of them break and confess by accident?

Sorry of this ask is too long, I just got really excited. Im new to Twisted Wonderland but Im always excited and hyped to see people writing about it! Best of wishes.

-Panda Anon

note: y/n is shy and has self doubt but is getting better bcuz of idia and his magical capabilities of being best boi

(I legit fell off my bed when I saw this cuz i wasn't expecting anyone to want a part 2 but ofc I'm happy to write it! and dw for the long ask, it's actually nice that you specified what you wanted so in that way it'll be easier for us to visualize -kishira)

Where do I even given, rather where do YOU even begin. Let's start first with the small things such as how you two are when communicating.

At first it started with simple greetings followed up by questions relating to online news or new game updates both of you are interested in. Just simple question and answer exchanges between the both of you, until it evolved to just that to talking about literally anything that crosses your mind. Day in and night out the two of you would always have something to talk about. Even if it wasn't related to gaming, the conversations would still drag on for a longer needed period of time until one of you has no choice but to yield defeat to the call for sleep.

It took awhile before ya'll worked up the courage to finally try voice chat. Of course there wasn't anything wrong with how ya'll normally do it, but it's kinda difficulty typing in words while you're being chased by a ghost in one of your favourite horror games you know? Surprising for you both, it was you who suggested voice chat. It never really did cross your mind until Idia mentioned how this one time he was really pissed at this one player that he almost cussed out hard in a co-op match (he still muted himself in case words flew out of his mouth).

You were comfortable just chating and reading his messages, but what about him? Was there ever a time where Idia wanted to vc with you but he didn't because he knew you were shy? You know how introverted Idia could be, but you also know how much he adores gaming, and a part of gaming just so happens to include talking with other people in which Idia will join in, but only when communication is absolutely necessary.

You were scared, scared of what he'll think of you once you tap the unmute button, after all you already know what Idia's voice sounds like

Sharp but turns gentle and energetic whenever faced with something endearing, and quiet to enthusiastic when talking about his passions. Whichever side he showed wether in game or irl, it always placed a smile on your face.

But you don't know how he'll react when you stutter over simple words or need to louden your voice so that he can hear you. A simple click of the end call button and all of this could be over, but with your finger hovering over said button

he spoke

"Hey, uhmm I'm not trying to rush you or anything so no need to worry if you don't want to unmute yourself, I understand."

You paused. In your head you lead yourself to believe that Idia would have became irritated by how quiet you were, but instead he spoke in a calm and soft voice.

"But you already came this far, and it would be kinda sad if you just paused your progress mid game right? It's ironic how I'm using the advice ortho uses on me on you this time, ah b-but I worked up the courage to join in on this vc so I guess I'm making progress too..."

Idia's voice slowly faded into that of mumbling, but you can make out the faint words of how he says he would like it if you atleast stayed, even if he was the only one talking and you just used the chat box to reply.

He was able to tell you to face your fears without pushing you out of your comfort zone, to you, that was more than enough encouragement needed to last one vc.

.

.

.

"...hi"

After that there almost was never a time where you didn't vc

Idia would never admit it but he enjoys listening to your voice. Unlike all the other noisy people he's played with on the internet, listening to you speak so softly was refreshing to him.

There were also times where your voice would increase in volume and would leave idia speechless while trying to hold in his laughter

favourite moments are when you raged at a parkour game and you're just shouting through the screen threatening whoever made this cursed game that to you, was just impossible to complete. It would also boost his ego when the two of you would choose to play a horror game and you're screaming HELP at every corner and Idia would come to your aid to fend off whatever it was you were screaming about. Sure there are times where he'll also get scared resulting in the both of you running around the house screaming like headless chickens but he's gotta be the bigger person here right?

The game genre's you guys would play would range to open world games to good old horror to get the blood pumping.

Idia's the type of person that would tell you to leave a match whenever the both of you are not on the same team. He says it's because the other team already has really shitty players (expect you ofc) so it would be an unfair match, but in reality he just wants to spend the majority of the match with you by his side

"Y/n, I know this is gonna sound shocking but I like-

"YOU LIKE THE GAME?! How could you be enjoying this when I've already died like ten times— AHHHH."

Idia jumped by how mad and irritated you sounded, but he's glad it wasn't directed at him. In a way he was relieved you cut him off, other wise who knows what would have happened if he finished his sentence.

"...yeah, maybe you'll learn to like it to if you stopped dying every few seconds."

"Evading death is harder than it looks you know—."

He'll work up the courage to confess someday, and without him knowing it you'd had already reciprocated his feelings by then, but right now you needed to prepare yourself to ask Idia if he was alright with video chatting you next time.

[reimeichan]

Dumb signs we had DID before we even realized we’re a system

Note: Not all of these are indicators of DID itself, it’s just funny things that likely stemmed from our undiagnosed DID that we didn’t know about.

We’d change MMORPG mains every few years or so. This had nothing to do with meta or new classes coming out. In fact, we’d sometimes have two of the exact same class but we wanted to “start fresh” instead of picking up where we left off.

Playing games against myself

Having multiple Animal Crossing characters with completely different aesthetics

Having multiple save files of the exact same game and then being confused why I have so many saves

Alternatively, having only one save file I restarted multiple times and being confused each time I open up the game

“Your laugh sounds so different now” - said to us by our then-best friend of over a decade

*stares at blank canvas* I forgot how to art

*stares at Word document* when the FUCK did I write this?

We have like 5 very distinct singing voices and it’s sometimes hard to get to that specific “voice”

“We’re going to your favorite restaurant!” “Um, my favorite restaurant is [restaurant name].” “Ha-ha, very funny, we know you hate that place.” “..... What? No, I’m completely serious, that’s my favorite restaurant.”

*gender confusion intensifies*

*switching in the middle of a conversation but it just kinda feels like zoning out* huh what did you say for the past 10 minutes

There’s this one thing on various “signs you have DID” lists online that I’ve seen which includes “being recognized by someone but with a different name” and I always brushed that off as people misremembering someone but we have very clear memories of two separate times this has happened in our life, both times with people we definitely remember regularly talking to but called us something else. They then told us “You told me to call you by [other name] a few days ago because you wanted to try a new nickname, don’t you remember?” and having zero memory of that.

Someone: asks us to pick something Us: internal warfare as we stare off into the distance blankly

*stares at closet* why the fuck do I have these clothes I don’t even like this aesthetic

We’d keep an online shopping cart open for like 3 weeks and realize it’s so we can have an internal “sign-off” between various parts before we buy anything. Sometimes this works. Other times someone makes an impulse purchase and we have a surprise delivery sometime later.

*catches myself switching in front of the mirror* huh my facial expressions completely changed for no discernable reason, that’s interesting

[cacturne]

top 5 videos games you’ve enjoyed recently (recently being whatever time frame you want)

ooohhh great question!!!

5 - Rabbit and Steel rabbit and steel is a fun time! its basically like if your redacted for privacy mmorpg was just the gameplay which is the only part i miss about it! its a roguelike where you have to learn mechanics to win basically which is kind of addicting for a few hours. highly recommend with a group of friends its simple but if youre into that kinda thing its great. the only criticism i really have towards it is that the effects can get so much i genuinely cannot follow what is happening anymore and/or lose my character on the screen. there are accessibility settings though maybe i should fiddle with that next time. i main the wizard rabbit by the way (nobody is surprised)

4 - Children of the Sun children of the sun is a fun little indie game about being a survivor of a cult and using your epic psychic powers to shoot them all in the head in one big chain until you reach the big boss and shoot him in the head too!! its kind of a puzzle game, and its SO fun. the graphics are gritty which i really love, the sound design and ambiance is really good, the gameplay feels fluid and SO satisfying once you get the hang of it. the only reason i stopped playing and didnt finish it in one session was because i genuinely got stuck on the second to last level and had to turn in for the night. fair warning though theres flashing lights and of course pretty heavy cultist stuff, i really recommend picking it up if you think the gameplay looks fun! as far as i know its the least well known game on this list, it is pretty short but its not very expensive either and personally i think its worth it

3 - VA-11 Hall-A va11halla is so fun. little visual novel where you bartend the fuck out of a bar and talk to people as they come in! gameplay wise all youre really doing is mixing drinks the patrons want but i think the mixing is simple and fun and i love remembering things like regular orders or picking up on other details from dialogue. its not too difficult but sometimes it can actually challenge you! the characters really are the highlight of course (as they should be) and i love them all a lot, theyre really interesting! i love how you can piece together little background things by reading the news and in-universe reddit after each shift the way they convey lore is just really neat to me. the soundtrack is full of only bangers and i absolutely adore the atmosphere the game sets. fair warning as the game is pretty raunchy (not outright nsfw but its people at a bar theyre gonna talk about sex) but im a bit of a freak so i really enjoyed it. overall its very silly, and also very funny, but also very heartfelt.

2 - In Other Waters i have not finished in other waters yet, but i really do love it so far. Considering the game is just you moving a submarine on a map it really has to hinge on its aesthetic appeal/sound design/story and i think it really does succeed in that. the aesthetic of the game is simple yet really effective, with a gorgeous color palette that can sometimes even shift depending on the location. the UI might be intimidating at first and you might have to get used to the strange layout of the controls but once you get the hang of it its like it was never difficult at all! the sound effects with almost everything you do are endlessly satisfying and the soundtrack itself though you dont hear it super often is really gorgeous and atmospheric. while i havent done a lot of the story yet <- guy who keeps taking detours from the story path to collect samples because the speculative biology of this alien planet is really interesting to read about but so far it has 1 scientist yuri and 2 is just really nice? i dunno nothing much has happened but i really like how its delivered to you with the scientist talking to you (you behind the screen sort of) and then also her logs that you gradually unlock. the only criticism i have so far is that all the text boxes are in fact on a timer, and because they take up so little of the ui sometimes i miss them and only know because i hear the sound effect of the dialogue advancing. it doesnt make me miss much but i generally dont like things on a timer :( it makes me a bit stressed, especially dialogue. other than that though absolutely love it. super chill and really fun

1 - Muse Dash this one is kind of cheating since ive had muse dash for a while but only recently have i really started playing it regularly again. from the gate i will say that im only in this game for the gameplay and the music, i dont really like how the devs treat the main girls (theres loading screen text that literally says "how old are the girls? youre asking too many questions!" theyre those kinda people) but basically muse dash is a really fun rhythm game that utilizes only two buttons! so id call it a low barrier for entry but a high skill ceiling. theyve got great tracks in there and add more regularly, they also regularly do crossovers! finally i can play as my best friend amiya from arknights. its one of the most satisfying rhythm games ive played because the visuals are basically just you hitting enemies instead of notes so you get such a satisfying hit sound. i dunno obviously theres not much you can say about rhythm games, theyre rhythm games, i just think this ones my favorite so far. though if youre interested i do gotta warn that a lot of like, BRIGHT colors are used and it also has a seizure warning. you can turn down the opacity of the stage backgrounds in the menu but a lot of other menu elements are still like. hot pink. and the gameplay especially at higher difficulties can start feeling a bit overloading too, to me at least

[secretgamergirl]

The actual gameplay of FF14

Over the course of last month, I sat down and wrote down a probably somewhat intimidatingly long plot summary/review for Final Fantasy 14, but I kinda made a point of not really getting into any detail about the actual gameplay. A big part of that if I’m really honest is that a HUGE portion of the gameplay really is just walking between quest markers and talking to people who send you off to other quest markers to talk to other people (or maybe talk to them again), and hell sometimes you don’t even walk, you just talk to someone three times in a row. It’s true for the main plot, it’s true for side quests, but I’m not going to estimate the overall percentage since, well, the bits with real gameplay meat are frequently things you’re going to do more than once and it really screws the count. The bits where you actually do stuff though are pretty engaging (at least, eventually, when you’re deep into the expansions, people kinda constantly talk about how the base game just really sucks. Anyway, I want to ramble about gameplay, so that’s what’s happening.

Progress Gating

So, FF14 is an MMORPG, and that means a big part of it is taking quests from people with big exclamation points over their heads. As a matter of convenience, these come in a few flavors. Standard yellow for minor side quests. Blue if there’s an interesting unique reward at the end, and with this jagged border meant to evoke a falling meteor if it’s a Main Story Quest. Some games gate progress behind level restrictions (which... in fairness this game also does, but it rains experience down on you just for progressing the story it should never be the limiting factor). Some games do regional reputation grinding, or scattering around several decently long quest lines to be tackled in any order. FF14 gates EVERYTHING behind milestones in the Main Story Quest progression.

There’s a dozen or so unique quests in each of the three starting cities, and a few points, mainly at the start of expansions where the path will briefly split and then re-merge after each branch is explored, but for the most part, there is this strictly linear unbroken chain of several hundred quests, stretching from “hey walk around the town you started in and talk to the important NPCs,” all the way up to whatever was added to the most recent patch for the most recent expansion, with no skipping around, and even though you’ll find handy guides like this one breaking down when you can first access basically everything that isn’t the MSQ line (aside from the periodic blooming of a dozen or so new sidequests as you travel to different areas), almost all of those unlocks really mean “while you’re doing MSQs with a minimum level requirement around here. These days these MSQs in particular have their experience rewards cranked up so high that even if you do nothing beyond plowing through them as quickly as you can, if you’re sticking with a single class you’re probably going to be at least a good 10 levels ahead of that curve at any given time. You’ll hover around par if you’re simultaneously leveling two or three classes at once (and on the other hand, I imagine people who decide to take advantage of those cash shop “story skips” probably get a rude awakening, since while the level progression requirements are normally a total non-issue, instantly checking all these off is also taking the best source of experience off the table).

Classes and Jobs

This is one of the kinder design elements to FF14. Every class in the game has a unique weapon type, and simply equipping a weapon used by a class switches you over to that class. Experience is tracked separately for each class, so just saving a gear set for each class to the hot swap list let’s you essentially have an alt of every class without ever having to log out, and all sharing the main plot progression, inventory, etc. etc. and letting you do that Maxed Out Save File thing if you like. Oh and speaking of gear sets, equipment has minimum level requirements too, so unless you think ahead and put on a bunch of pure-cosmetics stuff with no stats, every single time you join a new class for the first time, your level becomes 1, not meeting the requirement for anything you’re wearing, and your clothes dramatically just kind of explode off your body. This is never not hilarious and I pretty much guarantee you will forget it happens every time new classes become available.

There’s a couple other funny little quirks with classes. You don’t get really get to pick your starting town, it’s based on where the class quest giver for your starting class (initially) hangs out. If you want to punch guys, go sword and shield, or blast away with fire and ice, you’re in the desert. If you want a bow a pointy stick or healing spells you’re in the woods. If you want Pokemon or an axe, you’re in pirate town. If you want to run around with your arms behind you do flippy jumps and dual wield knives, that class is also in pirate town, but it wasn’t a thing at launch so the FF14 historical preservation society insists you start as something else and join it later. Incidentally, this means even if you join every class in your starting town, you can tank or you can heal, but not both. Fortunately this isn’t an issue until the first dungeons open up and at that point you’re hopping all over between the three. And of course with the non-combat classes the one that makes clothes from plants is in a different city from the one that gathers plants, but you really want to go all or nothing on those classes anyway.

The other funny little quirk, as per the little chapter heading here, is that FF14 has both Classes, and Jobs. Being a good 13 years old now, there’s a hell of a lot of weird artifacts kicking around as vestigial remnants of older versions of the game, and I think this is one of the weirdest. See, way the hell back when, there was this system where in order to unlock your classic Final Fantasy Jobs, you had to level the appropriate more-typical-MMO-class to a certain point, and also have two specific other classes at a certain level, with the cool new unlocked job blending stuff from each. They streamlined that out forever ago, and now you just get whatever class to level 30 and it kinda promotes up... but take a good look at this chart for how it used to work.

Arcanist was the base class that lead to both the Summoner and Scholar jobs. What’s super weird is, that’s still true. You get it to level 30, and two quests show up that open up jobs. Summoner is a straight progression from playing with pokemon like you’ve been doing, scholar replaces your pokemon with a fairy and now you have healer stats. But... experience gains are always tied to your class, so while these are two completely different jobs, they share experience and you can end up maxing out your level on one or the other without ever actually playing it. Quirky. Oh and all the ones added in expansions came after this change so like a Dancer is just a Dancer and they aren’t technically getting Softstepper experience or something.

Quests and Duties

So getting back to quests for a moment, like I said before, the vast majority really are just talking to people, that’s the whole quest. Now and then, mostly at the very very start in the game and when just compulsively doing every side quest, someone asks you to kill X number of monster Y like every other MMO, but those are vanishingly rare overall. There’s a lot of quests that force you to drop out of any party you may be in and generally drop everything else to have some little plot fight in a locked off instance, and later expansions sometimes give you control of one of your other party members for these instead of your actual character. Later expansions throw around things where you switch to first person to try and spot people walking around in the distance or knock them out with a blowgun or something, and there’s a few that have something actually unique and interesting going on. And then once in a blue moon, you get one that opens up a chunk of the real meat of the game, duties.

There’s basically two flavors of these. Dungeons and Trials. For dungeons, you’re forced into a party of usually if not always four people- 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DPS, you get a nice little setpiece area where you run around, kill a huge pile of monsters, stopping a couple times to kill roughly 3-5 minibosses along the way, and the who thing gets introduced with a cool sweeping fly-through camera.

Trials are just one big boss fight, early game ones giving you that same party of four fixed roles, basically everything from level 50 onwards doubling that up. Generally they’re bigger more complicated things with phase shifts and a unique soundtrack that shifts at the halfway point from just an instrumental thing to a more intense thing with lyrics. In both cases you have a time limit of an hour and a half to clear the thing, but if you aren’t just wiping constantly it’s honestly only like a 10-20 minute commitment.

Since you have to wait until you have the appropriate party for one of these, and you probably don’t want to just stand around by the entrance (unless you keep making the same mistake I did, hoovering up every little side quest as they appeared and having nothing to go do while I waited as a result), they came up with this clever little UI feature called the Duty Finder. One of these things unlocks, it gets added to a list in the menu. Either show up at the front door, or just select it out of the menu, and you can queue up your party hunting. It’ll automatically do matchmaker stuff in the background, and you can wander off to do whatever in the meantime, as long as it isn’t other instanced content.

Another neat thing with this is they bribe the ever-loving hell out of more experienced players to repeatedly go back and do old duty finder content. There’s eventually a little “roulette” menu with a dozen different flavors of content to pick from, with substantial daily rewards of experience cash and tomestones (I’ll get to those, don’t worry), and extra bonuses for whichever character type is in highest demand. So if you’re some newbie just trying to kill Ifrit for the first time, you queue up, 3 people trying to level up every class or do some endgame timesink or whatever get pulled from either the list of people who feel like doing old trials or whatever’s-needed for a bigger experience boost, tada, you have a full party, it’s most likely people who know how this fight works, and odds are they don’t want any of the loot drops. There’s a few other incentives too, including extra rewards when a new patch reworks something or it’s an obvious bottleneck, etc. Much like the main story quests constantly sending you back to the major cities and their outskirts all the way through the latest expansion, it’s a good system.

I do have a couple problems with it though. First it just sort of divorces these places from context. I’m off wandering around some exotic local dealing drugs for bugs or trying to win people’s triple triad cards or something, my roulette queue goes off, suddenly I’m in some cave full of poisonous plants. I barely remember this place, can’t recall what continent it was even on or why there was a reason to be here way back when. Also when you queue it notes what class you’re in and demands you switch back to it when it finds the party. If you haven’t switched out, and you don’t accidentally close the pop-up menu, you can join right in. Watching a cutscene? Whatever, you’ll get dropped off right before you talk to whoever to launch it after. But if you switched classes, perhaps to do resource gathering or mop up sidequests with a class you don’t play as much? There’s no drop what you’re doing and go option. You need to finish that cut scene or combat or weirdly long post-teleport load time, then hurry up and switch back to whatever class. And I swear they always pop up at the worst times. Oh and they’re currently retrofitting everything so you can skip all this and just roll in with 3 NPC pals.

And then of course there’s also Alliance Raids (like a dungeon but with 24 players and with a very theme-parky level of spectacle), Normal Raids (serialized bite-sized mini-dungeons and trials), and Savage Content (variations on the rest of this with the difficulty cranked up super high). And of course while I’m listing miscellany, normally all instanced content is “synced,” meaning your stats abilities and equipment are capped out at roughly the best they could be when you first met the requirements (plus a few levels of wiggle room), there’s a slightly hard to find option to turn off both that and the usual party composition requirements at the cost of getting no experience, which is nice if you want to go back for sub one minute kill times on old bosses to get that one rare drop you need, or if you want to play a blue mage in a dungeon/trial at all.

Class/Job/Role Breakdowns

When you unlock the first dungeon, you also unlock a set of tutorials on how playing in a party works, which are worth doing because the reward for sitting through them all is some nice gear sets and a ring that gives a huge experience bonus at low levels.But they also give straight up terrible advice, especially to tanks, and should not be trusted. Here’s how you actually play.

When you have all of a class’ abilities unlocked, generally speaking you have a chain of 3 attacks that do bonus damage when landed in order, another that does area damage (the magic number of how many enemies you have to hit at once to be worth using it is 3), a long range attack option (good for when you have to hang back because the floor is lava), something that gives you a defense bonus for a bit, something that debuffs a boss temporarily and/or cancels certain boss attacks, some big splashy thing you can use for a big damage spike every two minutes or so, and generally some kind of quick dash/hop sort of thing. Most of these abilities are on this shared global cooldown, where you use an ability and (most) of the rest get locked out for I want to say a 2 second window, roughly, and there’s a nice generous input window where you can queue up your next action about 7/8ths of the way through that timer. Your other abilities tend to all be on their own independent timers or spend some meter or other to use, and you can pretty reliably squeeze 2 activations in between the global ones.

At some earlier point in the game’s life, there was this whole system of bosses being strong and weak to certain elements or blunt/slashing/piercing damage, D&D style, but they pretty much totally gutted that, so now it’s a game where every class just kind of has a perfect idealized ability rotation you just kinda commit to muscle memory and repeatedly tap it out in a steady rhythm, while focusing all your mental energy on the actual real core gameplay: Dodging attacks with increasingly ridiculous and convoluted tells. And at later levels when the game decides to seriously grow some teeth the design really does go all in on making that interesting. But anyway, there’s also this big pile of classes worth talking about.

First we have the tanks. As is standard for MMOs, these are the stupidly hard to kill people whose main job is to trick all the enemies into attacking them and only them, and FF14 tanks are kind of hilariously great at this. Another weird old design artifact is they used to all have an ability to shift into an aggressive stance for bonus damage, and another to shift into a tanky stance where they just get all of the monsters’ attention forever, so long as they actually hit them. At some point they dropped the aggressive stances, presumably because players have a mindset of more damage=finish faster=optimal and weren’t using the important one. So now everyone just has this dedicated ability that toggles on “the rest of the party doesn’t die instantly” mode, which will stay on forever and there is zero downside to keeping it on (well, until you’re doing higher difficulty stuff with two or three tanks and you need to take turns taking all the hits). New tanks often figure there has to be some sort of catch and don’t keep it on. New tanks also get the advice from that bad tutorial to open combat by hitting one enemy out of a group with a ranged attack to peel it away... but enemy AI in this game doesn’t do peel-aways. As soon as any given monster in a group gets hit with something, they all get angry and follow their standard attack priority of: Tanks if a tank hit them any time at all recently, anyone else who’s been hitting them a lot, healers, whoever’s closest. So, used a ranged attack, the healer gets mobbed. Instead, you just run in and do area attacks.

All four tanks kinda play exactly the same. Warriors get self-heals, Paladins get parries, Dark Knights get vampirism, and Gunbreakers get lots of fiddly little abilities, but if there’s a boss, you just get their attention, stand by a wall so they look away from everyone else, and use your many defensive skills when a big attack’s coming. For everything else, you spam area attacks, make yourself a living katamari sweeping up every enemy up to a locked door/boss room, pop defensive stuff so you can take the heat, and stand there in your horrible clump of like 30 monsters doing more area attacks.

Then we have healers. Healers heal tanks when they’re about to die, the whole party after a party-wide attack hits, toss out various buff spells as needed, and otherwise use their super boring attacks. Generally instead of the three hit combo stuff, the have a single target damage spell, an area damage spell, and a damage over time spell, and that’s it. Fortunately a well-played tank will keep them on their toes by doing super reckless stuff like forming a 30 monster katamari at a full sprint. Oh and sometimes someone fails to dodge, then you use swiftcast, revive, and a big heal.

The weird thing of course with healers is they all have a range of healing spells with increasing HP restoration and MP costs but you kind of never want to use any of them. Once you have all your abilities unlocked you have those slow expensive heals, but then like 6 or 7 other abilities on independent timers for instant heals, regeneration auras, and so on to use instead. White mages are super vanilla, but their area spell stunlocks things too. Scholars have weird restrictions on when they use what but fairy pals as backup healers. Astrologians do tarot readings to pass out weird semi-random buffs. Sages heal people by shooting monsters with flying laser cannons and mostly do stuff to tweak the targeting and efficiency.

Then there’s the direct damage types. All they do is do their optimal damage rotations and dodge stuff, but their damage rotations are all extra convoluted and make you look at meters/timers/pop-ups to distract you from the dodging.

We’ve got spellcasters. They have to stop moving while casting spells, and learning the little window when one is finished and the next hasn’t started where they can slide over a bit. Black mages get speedy fire spells that make them actually have to care about MP, something nobody else but healers when things are going bad has to do, slow ice spells that regenerate MP, and a bunch of buffs and weird conditional things popping up to throw that rhythm off. Red mages have quick lame spells and super slow big damage spells, but every other spell goes off instantly. Plus they’re balancing out two elemental meters, sometimes have fast high damage spells, and periodically dash into melee to do physical attacks and shift into high power mode. And they can heal and revive (with instant casts even) so sometimes they’re back-up healers. Summoners just have a nice rotation of throwing pokemon at people and could be played blind but you just leveled them by leveling scholar and don’t know how they actually work.

We’ve got melee folks. Sometimes they have to be behind or to the sides of things, bread and butter attack combos are extra long and weird. Monks have faster cooldowns, and break the sequence of their rotations to power up big finishers. Dragoons over-commit with jumps and have to think farther ahead on positioning. Ninja have a little spell system that wedge like 9 abilities into 4 inputs, and one of those is a personal haste spell. Samurai have multiple power ups that stack and unlock different finishers. Reapers didn’t get introduced until Endwalker. I think they have like a demon mode with different moves a quarter of the time or something.

And we’ve got ranged folks. They just kinda juggle like a dozen independent cooldowns. Bards have a bunch of buffs and debuffs that maybe actually call for changing up their strategy conditionally. Machinists get grenades and robots they maybe have to think about placing in good places, and so many buttons to mash. Dancers have most of their abilities becoming available as a 50/50 thing after using other abilities and big buffs that require quick games of Simon.

Oh and Blue Mages are Blue Mages, which means they’re so broken they can’t join parties without turning off those balance restrictions and have a fun minigame of hunting down their 100 different potential abilities and deciding which to use.

Oh yeah, there’s also limit breaks. Standard FF game concept, slow building meter, does something cool. When maxed out, healers can pop it to revive everyone and fully heal them, tanks can pop it for 15 seconds of party-wide invincibility. Everyone else gets huge damage spikes. Everyone shares the one meter, but when starting a new boss fight it resets, so in dungeons you shouldn’t just try to save it all for the last boss.

Absurd Boss Mechanics

As previously stated, the real meat of the gameplay is just getting your personal damage optimization responsibility down pat so you can focus on dodging absurd things from bosses. At its simplest, FF14 was, I believe, in on the ground floor of that thing I think all MMOs, and a lot of other games do now where bosses telegraph their attacks with big glowing circles rings and pizza slices that appear on the floor, showing you where not to stand. It’s a little weird in that the timing on when not to be standing there is synced to when the floor stops being orange, with actual attack animations still playing out well past the point where not only is it safe to stand there again, but there might be a follow-up before the animation’s done where that’s the only safe spot. But as the game goes on, it’s far from just glowing orange pizza slices.

We’ve got attacks that target whoever has aggro and do fatal splash damage to anyone nearby. Attacks that distribute their damage among everyone nearby, so everyone has to huddle together and distribute the load. Attacks with absurd knockback sending you halfway across the arena, sometimes chained together so you have to triangulate pool shots where you’re the ball and the pocket is the one spot you won’t fly off the edge of the arena. Icy floors. Attacks whose tells appear only in the chat log. Attacks whose telegraphing slowly spreads over a huge area until they go off making it harder to judge what’s safe. Big meteors that fall from the sky and do good chunk of damage if they land on someone, but kill everyone if nobody slows their decent with their face. Attacks whose telegraphing straight up lies to keep things spicy. Gaze attacks you have to face away from.

Then there’s the weird stuff. Hop on this boss’ back when it turns into a plane or die in the strafing run, then do a QTE to dismount. Get knocked a few miles into the air and dodge energy balls on the way down. Play DDR. Play Wheel of Fortune solving for damage tiles. Have a math problem. You know that thing where the character follows a line and has to turn down every side path it sees? That but then there’s an explosion. I just fought a boss where first half the party grows snake heads with petrifying gazes out of their shoulders, the other gets targeted with acid bombs, and some non-shoulder snakes need taking out with a one two combo of these without any friendly fire. Then another variation where you need to avoid killing the snakes until the end so you can use them as cover from 360 petrification on upgraded shoulder snakes and everyone needs to share the acid bath and distribute the damage. Then there’s a whole second fight against the same guy where you have to play some kind of alchemical combination magical DNA matching minigame to create the right minibosses to have pokemon battles on your behalf. The whole back half of the game is this process of dying to something truly ridiculous you’ve never seen before, having to work out the rules it follows on the fly, and then coming up with some elaborate dance choreography to get around it. Or, you know, put off the real hard mode stuff and come back with level limits off and way better stats.

Syncing, Gear, and Tomestones

One thing I think is kind of neat with FF14 is it’s designed in a way where you don’t really have to worry about equipment until you hit the bleeding edge of current content. Well and before the first time credits roll, when you just have to make do with whatever random stuff drops in dungeons and it’s outdated like an hour later. As soon as you beat the final boss of the base game or any expansion though, you get access to a fresh new set of tomestone gear. Like way too many games these days, FF14 has like 50 different kinds of currency. Most of these don’t ever really matter. You spend gil on fast travel options, buying a house, and I guess whatever people throw up on the market board. Doing tribal side quests for monstery pals gives you their personal currency, but you get more than enough to get all their unique rewards as soon as they unlock. Then there’s tomestones. Basically, they’re eBooks from a dead civilization and this one merchant loves them. Said merchant also stocks absolutely ridiculously good gear sets that become available as soon as you finish the base game or any expansion. Basically anything you do spits a bunch of tomestones at you, you trade them for parts to a gear set, that gear set is hands down far and away better than anything else you have access to until you’re a bit over halfway through the next expansion. And even then, you’re probably good until you finish that one and access new tomestone gear. So more often than not, you’re decked out in that, and can ignore all the loot drops or craftable things you see unless it’s a good look and you want to do the whole glamour thing.

This isn’t true though any time the expansion you just finished is the current one. Then it’s a damn mess. There’s 3 different flavors of tomestone, two of which only drop if you’re at the level cap, one of those has a cap on how many you can snag per week. Rather than just trade them in for the good stuff, you get loot from the hardest bosses around, or the best possible crafts, pay some mix of fancy tomestones and weird little bespoke tokens to upgrade that, and OK, there’s your best stuff... until the next patch when there’s a tougher set oft toughest stuff and the whole rigamaroll gives you slightly better gear. Honestly it’s not good enough to really matter, UNLESS you’re doing the hardest content in the game, in which case the absolute best stuff means attacks that would instantly kill you might leave you at like 7 HP with some awful debuffs instead. 2 chances over 1 chance ain’t nothing. OR you can ignore it all, wait for an expansion to drop, and tada, the absolute pinnacle of this one can be just bought outright with tomestones that rain down from the sky.

There’s also ultimate weapons with like 7 step upgrade paths after every expansion that require a truly astounding amount of grinding and jumping through hoops and... are instantly outdated if you just skip’em and move on to the next expansion. They glow though.

This whole weird mess of endgame content also causes this weird issue where gear has both a minimum level for your character to be able to equip it, then an item level on a scale that bloats up absurdly. Like the current level cap is 90, then the best gear is item level 635 or something, at this exact moment. In the base game, those numbers stay even. Which of course is why when you’re getting bribed to do early game stuff, we have the level-sync thing to pull you back down to where you’re balanced. Of course, it’s also common wisdom for RPGs that you don’t just start with all your cool abilities, you get them spread out as you’re leveling up. And this really really sucks here.

In the lowest level dungeons in FF14, not only do you not get access to the things that make your class unique and interesting, you don’t even get your 3 hit combos. You run through a whole dungeon with like, attack #1, attack #2, and a whole bunch of greyed out buttons. It’s not absolutely terrible because again, the fundamentals are all about managing monsters’ attention and learning to dodge things, but it’s still pretty darn dull. And there are whole facets of some classes that just don’t exist until level 60. Or 70. Or 80. You end up getting meters that build up, but not the abilities you spend them on, or things that eventually activate power-up states but for now just do a marginally-worth-it extra splash of damage. You’re kinda forced to pick classes, then spend hundreds of hours leveling them to find out if you like what you eventually get. Then you do a roulette and you’re back in low level hell again.

Travel

This is getting long and I’m getting tired, but you start the game on foot, which sucks. Later you get mounts which are at least a bit faster. Then as you get into expansions, in each new area there’s a bunch of collectable things where you learn the wind patterns. A bunch are just scattered across each map, then a bunch come from side quests, one from a main quest. Collect them all, and you can fly on that map. It’s a nice little gameplay loop. Problem is they decided to retrofit flight into the base game after they added it, and rather than make you go collect currents, they just let you fly everywhere from when the credits first roll to when you first set foot in the first expansion’s maps. Where flight is really really nice to have as map design is suddenly very 3D and convoluted.

Anyway you can teleport to basically anywhere you’ve been and should, it’s cheap.

The freaking Gold Saucer

Remember that casino from FF7? It’s just straight up in this game. Chocobo racing and all. And the card game from FF8? That’s here too. So, those are big time sinks.

Think that covers everything? Oh. There’s crafting. It’s the same as every other MMO’s crafting but with like combo setups so it feels like real gameplay at least. Mostly just good for making better crafting gear, but also for playing dressup or decorating your house.

[comingyourlugubriousness]

Hihi- is it okie for me to ask about:

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

From the recent ask game with Yume and Idia? (◕ᴗ◕)

Also I just love Yume and Idia together so much eueueueu *Head in hands*

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

(besides obvious sappy couple stuff lol)

This is kinda obvious but Idia and Yume are gamers, so they game!

They play a bunch of different genres but particularly Yume likes to show Idia the games on their handheld from their world. In my lore he makes a console so that they can play them together along with Ortho!

 They also like Mmorpgs but Yume gets a little peeved because Idia tries to give their new character really powerful loot from his already maxed lvl character, when Yume just wants to play the game balanced at first lol. He usually ends up making another character so they can play fairly.

I imagine he might consider introducing Yume to online friends, but Yume shys away from that, saying that it's okay and they don't have to be included in every little thing. (Plus they're still nervous meeting ppl online.)

(Fun fact their first official date was basically an animal crossing date lol. But only Yume, Idia and Ortho consider that a real date.)

When they're not doing that they're usually trying to get one another to watch some show together. Not just anime ethier, there's lots of old classic movies that Yume has never seen from Twisted Wonderland (Like pumpkin knight!) so Idia shows them all those too and usually Ortho tags along to.  Yume can somewhat remember old movies from their world so sometimes they try and explain those to Idia and Ortho. They get really silly with it! Trying to do voices and act out the scenes. It usually ends with them all laughing at something stupid.

They also like playing tabletop games together, one of their fav is DND! Yume really likes the creative aspect of it and was actually playing a small game with their brothers before meeting Idia. Yume likes drawing them and their friends' characters and thinking of what classes would suit them!  And they and Idia like discussing the lore and backstories of their characters!

Other times I think they just like hanging out together, both doing their own separate things while just in the same room, enjoying the company. Like, Yume working on art or a knitting project while Idia works on a technomany project for example!

Overtime I think Yume (with Ortho and friends help) get Idia to expand his horizons ever so slightly at a time and eventually they go places (shocking I know) on dates too!

I think eventually (and especially after ch. 6) both of them would just like to experience some semblance of normality. Hanging out with friends, going on cliche dates, just happy normal everyday school things. Things Yume can't remember from their past and things Idia just never really got to experience...

I think that would be important for both of them.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

For Yume I don't think they try to hide their relationship per say, it's just that they don't think it's anyone's business. But it's rather obvious how they feel especially after the events of ghost marriage.

Yume will gush about Idia if given a chance to close friends and often tries to dispel bad rumors about him when they get the chance. They aren't as up in your face as Ortho though.

Out of the two of them I think Idia would be the most adamant about hiding their relationship. Not because he doesn’t want people to know he's dating Yume, but doesn’t want people to know Yume is dating him. Yume has a decent reputation after all! They shouldn’t ruin it!

I think at first they would only tell their respective brothers. But after the events of ghost marriage (and even before) it's pretty obvious to a lot of people.

I think for PDA that depends on the time and place.

Some people at school might even say that they didn’t even know they were dating. Neither of them are gonna be lovey dovey in the halls of their school or a classroom because they think that's where you go to work duh. But on the rare occasion Yume can get Idia to agree to go out somewhere. They have the potential to be in their own little world and just focus on eachother. Though even then they’d probably just stick to holding hands and hugs unless they're in a more private space. 

I imagine that they usually try not to kiss around others, except the occasional cheek kiss or something similar.

Fluff Ask Game!

Sorry this took so long to answer heres and old sketch of the nerds to make up for it!

[pandor-pandorkful]

I think the biggest reason it's hard for me to replay an Elder Scrolls game, (besides my stupid memory being too good for stupid things only and remembering all the little secrets and plot details and spoiling my immersion,) is it's too easy to install a ton of mods but it's a real fuckin chore to uninstall them when you wanna start fresh with a new character. Even on a different computer.

And then I can never remember the mods that I really liked or felt really added to the game experience.

But I do remember the first mod I ever installed in Skyrim: tap shift to sneak (instead of having to hold the key down.) A feature that I swear is the default in the other games, so idk what was up with that.

Anyway I really wanna get back into ESO, but I'm dreading updating my add-ons which will all 100% be broken after 2 years of neglect. ESO makes it easier to turn off add-ons at least, but I still need to figure out what all I want and need on the backend. :B Kinda want just the most minimal, uninvasive, non-mmorpg style hud possible.

[sturmovik]

some personal ramblings about FFXIV and GW2

Context: I am a longtime Guild Wars 2 player that tried out FFXIV for about a month before I quit* and went back. I enjoyed FFXIV for the most part, but playing it also helped me realize why I love GW2 so much. 

*disclaimer: i didnt even make it to Heavensward cuz the quests between destroying the Ultima and starting HW were so damn boring and tedious, sorry

Though, there are a couple things I really liked about FFXIV and wish GW2 had more of, so I’ll start with those:

Roleplaying. And I mean in terms of gameplay features. E.g., joining a Grand Company in FFXIV really makes you feel like you have a role there compared to GW2's Orders. In GW2, there is no interaction with your chosen Tyrian Order outside the main story quests. Once you join you can buy order-themed gear, that's it. In FFXIV, joining a GC gives access to tasks/jobs/quests and a rank system that makes you feel like you are working for this group.  Rising through the ranks of your FFXIV GC is a process, a grind, and that's a good thing. It's an RPG and you are playing the role of an adventurer rising up the ranks of the GC. In GW2, it's all just the story. You finish a questline, you get "promoted" but there is no system in place to make you feel like you’re really a part of it when you’re out in the world.  

Emotes in FFXIV are much better as well. For some, this might be inconsequential or even meaningless but this is a ROLEPLAYING game, and for people who want to roleplay, a good emote system can go a long way. You rarely see RPers in GW2 while in FFXIV they're all over the cities

Party Finders / LFG. I really cannot fathom why GW2 still doesn't have matchmaking/duty finder for Dungeons and Strikes. rn you need to form a party manually and either invite people or hope people join. Sure, I don't think GW2 Raids should have matchmaking bec. they are super difficult and technical, and bec. it's hard to automate balanced parties w/ GW2's super-flexible buildcrafting system. Though strikes share that problem afaik it's not as punishing and I think could benefit from matchmaking. But a duty finder system that rewards players for clearing dungeons, strikes, and less-popular map metas might really help give new life to older content.

Armor / Fashion. Not really better than GW2 imo, but I wanna make a point about armor variety. Making pretty armor/dye combos is one of my favorite things about GW2, and I’ve gotta say FFXIV's expansion armor sets looked really dope compared to some endgame/expansion GW2 armors (most ARR armors were ugly though, GW2 still has way better pieces than those). Like I wish GW2 had more well-designed armor sets for us to mix and match. That armor set they released for GW2′s 10 year anniversary is kinda ugly imo (no offense ANet). sadness. Will say, though, GW2′s dye and armor transmutation system is leagues above FFXIV.

Now, on the flip side, here are some of the things I absolutely love about GW2 and keep me coming back to this game:

Overall, FFXIV was fun but really every "traditional" MMORPG I try just makes me appreciate GW2 more. Really wish more RPGs would copy GW2's questing, exploration, and dynamic event systems.  Like seriously, in terms of open world questing and exploration, no MMO feels as good as GW2. GW2's zones feel so much more open and alive thanks to ANet's unique approach to map design.

Exploration and Dynamic Events. In FFXIV ARR, the maps are lifeless and boring. You unlock the entire map for a zone when you first enter it so there really is no need to explore. They look pretty and big at first glance but the invisible walls and fixed pathways quickly kill the illusion. The maps are very pretty though and there are some really sweet views. But again, there is really nothing to find or "explore" aside from the enemies your quests and hunt board want you to kill. It's a tired traditional MMO trope but I expected more from the most popular MMORPGs. 

GW2, meanwhile, has phenomenal zone design especially in its expansions. The wide open spaces actually -feel- open and vast, but they never feel empty or dead, even if you’re in the middle of a desert. Then you have some truly labyrinthine maps with so many paths, nooks, and crannies to explore, and often times you are rewarded with loot, vistas, or other surprises when you explore. Maps often have several layers of verticality as well, and many GW2 maps have underwater environments to explore as well.

As for dynamic events, the “FATE” system in FFXIV is pretty disappointing compared to GW2′s map events. Whether they be small solo events at a certain location or a map-wide meta event requiring hundreds of people, GW2′s dynamic events are probably the best dynamic “questing” I’ve experienced in an MMO. They tell stories, grand and small, that help make the world come alive - whether its defending a village or a caravan, assaulting a fortress, or taking on a dragon and its army of minions, GW2′s events pull you in and make you a part of its world.

Mounts. Some people are complaining that WoW is copying GW2's mounts but what helped make the mounts so good was that they were tied to GW2's approach to exploration and questing too. The mounts in GW2 Path of Fire felt so good because you needed them to traverse environmental challenges in the open world - and it was FUN.  GW2's mount system was built with their open world design philosophy in mind. They didnt just make travel faster; they were made to interact with the open world. New puzzles, minidungeons, and other navigational challenges around the open world were designed with mounts in mind.

okay that’s it. dont mind me, just needed a place to put this wall of text lol. i didnt talk about PvP or WvW (even thought I love GW2 WvW) cuz i’m not a big PvP person and didnt try any of it in FFXIV.

[yukihime242]

In my previous post, I talked about the games I’m currently playing. In this post, I’m gonna talk about the games I want to play.

If only I could just play all of them without caring, but reality is never kinder. I will have to ponder long and hard on which games should take precedence for me to try.

1️⃣ Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds

(Picture Source: Ni no Kuni official webpage thru Google Image Search)

Ni no Kuni is an MMORPG which uses inspired characters from Studio Ghibli in the game. The game looks absolutely beautiful and it makes me wanna try it.

(Picture Credit: Nintendo Everything)

In order to save the storage space on my phone, I decided to download the PC version which they have. The bonus part is that you don’t have to download some emulator to play. 

But, when I got to the download page...

I was quite put off by the word “Beta” being there because it seems to be saying that it’s not fully functional on PC. At least, that’s the message I’m getting. Hence, I decided to wait a while and my assignments came in. Coincidentally a good timing for me to wait it out. But when I went back again today, it was still written there “Beta”.

I know a lot of other players download the PC version and seemingly does not have any issues with it. But I don’t want to take my chances because I still need my laptop for school work. 

Welp, I guess I have to download it onto my phone if I ever want to try it out.

2️⃣ Tower of Fantasty

This game was finally released globally and it is currently the only game anyone is ever talking about. There’s bound to be some slander to the game about the developers copying everything from Genshin Impact. 

(Picture Credit: Polygon)

I usually don’t mind characters’ movements in the game because there’s a limit to how much you can create movements from scratch. There’s definitely bound to be some similarity in movements as long as you don’t nit-pick and scrutinize frame by frame. 

Seeing the screenshot above, I’d say it’s Genshin-inspired since the game is still one of the most popular games to date. I have also seen on my TikTok feed of people quitting Tower of Fantasy but reasons are unknown to me.

Although I do take into account of the reviews, I’m not one to look at one side of the story. Perhaps it’s just their preferences and may be I will like it. It was the same with Honkai Impact where everybody said that they love it but it was kinda boring to me (personal preferences, people, personal preferences).

I will probably take a look at Tower of Fantasy but I’m not feeling optimistic since most of the gameplay is cyber-ish. Hopefully it will be a good game to play when I’m bored of Genshin.

3️⃣ Neir Reincarnation

(Picture Source: Neir wiki fandom)

I DID download the game and I DID play it for a while. But right now, I’m having second thoughts about it.

First of all, the Nier series is super long. Second, THERE WAS NO FREAKING TUTORIAL ON HOW TO DO THE BATTLE! I almost died in the first story.

I’m quite inclined to just uninstall it and watch it on YouTube instead like how I have always done with the Drakengard and Nier series. So, yep, I would probably do that (please don’t hate me).

4️⃣ Arknights

I did play Arknights previously but felt that with all the juggling of my then active Genshin, I couldn’t handle Arknights. But now that Genshin is more of when I feel like picking it up to play, I can probably spend a bit more time looking into this game,

I may start it brand new since my previous progress wasn’t much. Moreover, I was still in the tutorial stage so I guessed I could try recording my game progress right from the beginning again. Think that would be lovely.

Guess what I really need to catch on in this game is the mechanics and put on my thinking cap for strategic purposes. 

-------------------------------------------------

There’s still a whole ton of other games I want to try (I have a whole list of it) but this will have to do for now. Until I drop a few or it became super inactive (like Genshin), I may probably visit a few more. 

[thetoxicgamer]

World of Warcraft needs a “Realm Reborn” like FFXIV, Asmongold says

One of World of Warcraft's most popular Twitch streamers believes the game needs a full Realm Reborn-style reset in the vein of rival MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. Zack, also known as "Asmongold," has long been one of the most well-known figures in the World of Warcraft community. However, he claims that both seasoned players like himself and potential new recruits are turned off by the game's excessive complexity and bloat. “With WoW, I’ve kinda just been taking a break,” the longtime YouTuber and Twitch streamer says, “and it’s not like I hate WoW – I don’t want anybody thinking I hate WoW.” However, he says he hasn’t really felt much reason to play it of late. He points to several potential issues, including the sheer volume of stuff that players have obtained over the years, and an increase in the complexity of fight mechanics. It’s certainly true that modern boss fights can feel like an ongoing arms race between people making the best WoW addons to help you follow and solve mechanics, and the game’s designers attempting to make something that existing tools aren’t able to automatically parse. This has led to situations where players can end up with literally dozens of buffs or debuffs applied to their characters at once. “Here – what the fk is going on,” Asmon says, highlighting a player’s status icons during a modern-day WoW battle. He pulls up a shot of Classic WoW to compare, showing just a single icon. “What’s he got on him? Frostbolt? That’s it.” It’s an extreme example, but it makes a stark point. He moves back over to the modern fight, exclaiming, “Twelve debuffs on one person – and this is a clean UI! This is the problem with the fking game, right here.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTZd1XX-ZNc “I think that, for me, what really caused me to stop focusing on it a lot – I feel like the game is too complex, and the complexity of the game is exhausting.” Asmon continues, “You can’t even understand what is happening in the game and it’s just exhausting to play. It’s not that I can’t play it, it’s that it’s just tiresome.” His solution, then? “I think they need to reset the game – just completely reset the game, Realm Reborn this s**t,” referring to how FFXIV shut down its 1.0 version and came back with a completely new game and a fresh start. That obviously proved very successful for the Square Enix MMO, but it was a dramatic move – and perhaps an even more necessary one, given the overwhelmingly negative reception to its original effort. That sounds extreme, but Asmon is insistent that a full reset, while it might be painful, is Blizzard’s best chance to truly breathe new life into Azeroth. “Delete everybody’s mounts, their pets, their transmogs their toys – delete everything,” he says, “Get rid of a game that’s had 15 years of FOMO that people don’t want to get into because they haven’t been playing it for 15 years.” He does suggest that players could be given a Garrison that they could keep all their old stuff in, but that it shouldn’t be present in the new-look version of the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LImpJt7GIcM Of course, saying, “Just make the game from scratch” is a lot easier than the process of actually doing that – remember that Blizzard did at one point intend to build a new MMO, codenamed Titan, before it was officially canceled in 2014. The assets created for that project were instead gathered up, and used to build a completely different game – Overwatch. We also, of course, got WoW Classic – another attempt to ‘recapture the magic’ – although it itself suffers from all those years of built-up knowledge among the players. So there’s no question that Blizzard has been thinking long and hard about what to do with its iconic, lumbering behemoth. Perhaps one day they’ll find an answer. In closing, a member of Asmongold’s Twitch chat asks of his fresh-start idea, “Would you trust them to not fk that up?” His answer is simple: “How could they fk it up more than what they’ve already done?” If you’re not yet done with World of Warcraft, take a look at our WoW Dragonflight tier list to see which classes are looking strongest right now. You’ll also want to make sure you don’t miss out on all the WoW Trading Post rewards for July. Read the full article

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #106

(taken january 26th; uploading surveys taken while gone)

Did you/Will you attend college? I went three times and ultimately dropped out each time. Sometimes I have the urge to go back, but I just can't; I cannot keep going into deeper debt - with money that isn't even mine - going in and out of school.

Is there a song or artist that you secretly enjoy, but don’t want to enjoy? I don't like a lot of them, but there are Blood on the Dance Floor songs I really like and definitely wish I didn't because those fucks are disgusting.

You’re looking for some new music - what’s your preferred way to discover? YouTube recommendations.

Do you watch a lot of television? Whether that be shows, news, movies etc. Not at all. I especially never watch it alone because I just get bored. I can take a bit of TV when watching it with someone else, though.

Is gun control necessary or no? IT. IS. ABSOLUTELY. MANDATORY. Shit NEEDS to fucking change and I will DIE on this hill.

Are you happy with the political state where you reside? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO

Have you read the book 13 Reasons Why or watched the show? I read and enjoyed the book, but I refuse to watch the show. I just... don't like how it presents things, at least from what I've seen. I really feel like it's a show more so for profit than *actually* caring about mental health/suicidal tendencies and showing empathy. This is just a topic that I feel needs to be handled VERY delicately when it comes to entertainment.

Do you enjoy cleaning or find it to be a chore? I really don't enjoy it. I like the feeling afterwards, but not DOING it...

Books or movies? Books.

Would you ever travel to Africa? That is my DREAM. I want to so, so, so badly one day... Bless my mom, she occasionally looks and checks pricing and hotels sometimes online just out of the dream to get me there one day. It is NOT cheap.

Who last slept in your bed? Me and Roman.

Whose house were you last at? My older sister's. I normally help my mom watch Ash's kids on Fridays.

When was the last time you were high? I've never been high but do want to try an edible one day in a safe environment. I'm not into the idea of smoking anything.

Can you do the splits? No; I couldn't even when I was in dance and occasionally practiced. Yeah, I realistically could've if I practiced MORE, but I didn't.

Does it bother you when girls make duck faces? My brother in Christ, there are immensely more important things to be bothered by than a person making a harmless fucking face lmao

Have you ever met anyone who was overly addicted to a computer game? Maybe? I once was that person, though. It's the reason I'm not interested in trying anymore MMORPGs because WoW once literally dominated my life. I still play it, but it's WAY more manageable now after I took a kinda forced break for around two years, I think.

What do you like to complain about? I don't LIKE complaining about anything, especially when you obsessively worry you're annoying people with it.

Has anyone ever told you that you have a big butt? No, because I never have and I'm very aware of that.

What video game have you played the most? Shadow of the Colossus, probably? Or maybe Spyro games. If you include computer games though, then it is EASILY World of Warcraft.

Are you a bad influence? I know I am in some ways.

Does it matter to you if your significant other drinks? Over my dead and rotting body would I date anyone coming ANYWHERE near being an alcoholic, but drinking every now and again is fine. I honestly am grateful that Girt doesn't drink at all, though. Healthier and safer.

Do you have scars you don’t like to talk about? WELL I don't exactly like talking about my scar from my pilonidal cyst removal surgery because that's an awkward place for a scar lmfao

Honestly, if you wanted to get laid right now, could you? No, my mom is here and Girt also is not gonna drive 30 minutes at 7:00 PM to just stay for a very short period of time.

Do you swallow gum when you’re finished? No, my body doesn't let me.

What is your best talent? I'd say writing.

Do you know anyone named Nicole? Yeah, that's actually my younger sister's name.

Have you ever shot an animal? Absofuckinglutely not.

Do you have a couch in your house? We actually have two: one with three cushions and another with two.

Would you like to have a soda machine in your room? No; I'm doing my best to mostly stay away from soda and only have it sparingly so having a machine in my room would be a very bad idea.

Are you a fast or slow reader? I think I read at a moderate pace.

[TW: ABUSE] Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? I am incredibly grateful that I haven't been.

Where do you want to raise your kids? If by some incredibly low chance I do have kids, I'm definitely going to want to raise them in a very nature-y area and teach them to be very involved with it. I'd want my hypothetical kids to love every living thing too, no teaching them to be afraid of snakes and bugs and shit. I mean yeah, let them know what's dangerous and to respect animals' space, but y'know.

Have you ever been to Cracker Barrel? Yeah, a large number of times. I like it there.

Have you ever seen a ghost? I think I've seen a spirit of some sort. Maybe more, when you consider my mom or sister got a REALLY weird picture at the beach once of multiple figures that were not there when she held the camera up.

Have you ever burned an ant with a magnifying glass? No, that's very cruel.

Have you ever had an ant farm? Huh... I don't THINK so, but I suppose it's possible I've had one of those kits as a kid. I used to LOVE the tadpole ones.

Do you wish your bf/gf would slow it down some? No, he doesn't rush me into anything.

How many times have you changed a diaper in your life? Once. MAYBE twice.

Has more than one person ever told you they’re in love with you? Yes.

Have you ever slept on a couch with someone? Napped, yeah.

When listening to a song, what do you listen for (lyrics, bass, beat, ect)? Primarily beat.

What is the color of your toothbrush? It's like, white and gray. It's mechanical.

What is your favorite color(s) of eye-makeup? BLACK.

Are you sexually active? I mean my partner and I do sexual things, we just haven't had normal sex itself yet because of privacy reasons, mostly.

Have you ever had any article of clothing tailored? What for? I know at least one prom dress of mine was, and I'm pretty sure my bridesmaid dress was too.

What are two foods you think taste good with whipped cream? I actually really don't like whipped cream. It's a texture thing.

If you eat it, what is your favorite way to eat beef? Burgers.

Did your last significant other have a huge temper? I don't think she had a big temper, her tendency to react very overdramatically was just insane.

If you had to wear bunny ears or cat ears for a day, which would it be? Cat.

Would you rather have a black bunny or a white bunny? Why? Black. Black velvet rex rabbits are absolutely STUNNING.

Do you currently have any cuts or scrapes? I have a mark on the side of my neck that doesn't feel great lmfao

Have you ever had bubble gum stuck in your hair? I suppose it's possible as a kid, but I don't remember a specific occasion.

Is there any pet hair stuck to your clothing? Oh, always. You sign up for that shit when you enter my house, lol.

What is your favorite type of seashell? I like big, complex ones like conch shells. I think that's pretty common.

Have you ever used Proactiv? IIII don't think so? I've never been a massive yogurt person and also that stuff is expensive.

Do you like dirt or sand better? Sand, to LOOK at. Walking in it is actually nearly impossible for me; the last time I visited the beach with Colleen when the effects of muscle atrophy had really set in in my legs, I could very, very barely get through it, and this was years ago. There's no telling how I would handle it now.

Do you own a BEST FRIEND charm or figurine? Like halves of necklaces and bracelets from childhood that I've saved, yeah.

Do you own a pet spider? I FUCKING WISH. :( I honestly need to stop checking Craigslist for tarantulas, I do it a lot just out of the desperate wish of having one, and when I see a bargain, it is SO hard to not ask my mom again. No spiders for me til I move out. :/ She won't even allow jumping spiders.

Are there any fake tattoos on you? No, just real ones.

When’s the last time you saw your grandpa? Mom's dad died when I was a baby, so I have zero memories of him. I've seen Dad's dad I know at least once, but this was also when I was extremely young so I really don't remember him, either... It's something that was always really painful, because he would without fail send my sisters and me WAY too much money on Christmas despite barely knowing us at all. Now he's dead and I will always regret not going with my dad to Michigan when I had the chance. I literally stayed home JUST because of Internet access and that's fucking disgusting and pathetic and sad.

Is there a rocking chair in your house? Yeah, in our living room.

Do you call your animals “baby names”? Well DUH

Have you ever been kicked in the throat? Holy shit no, that sounds AWFUL.

Do you own a fishtank? No, those aren't really my thing. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE looking at them and would even love one myself one day to own an elephant trunk snake, but I just DO NOT like cleaning those fucking things at all so realistically probably will never have one because I'm not gonna get one and then neglect caring for it.

Do you wear ribbons in your hair? No.

Have you ever gone mudding on a fourwheeler? No. I've been on fourwheelers, but never messed around in mud because I don't like getting dirty like that and haven't since I was a child.

What is your favorite flavor Jolly Rancher? I wanna say strawberry? Or was it watermelon? Idk, but I love those.

Have you ever swam in a creek? Not a creek, but I have swum in the shallow banks of a river.

How many nickels are in your possession? I don't think I have any, actually. I don't normally keep change; I know my mom appreciates me giving change I may have to her so she can give coins to the kids to keep in their piggy banks.

When is the last time you wore shorts? I have absolutely ZERO idea. I never, ever, wear shorts. Even when I DID shave my legs I didn't because I just hate my legs.

Have you ever laid on a Tempur-Pedic? I have actually at a mattress store, haha.

What color is the nearest lampshade? It's like a tan color.

How long has it been since you’ve eaten a Reese’s? I uh really don't remember. Maybe not since Christmas?

When is the last time you pet an animal? Earlier today I'm sure, the last time Roman hopped up on the desk. I'm very convinced his favorite hobby is blocking the computer screen from me OR just lying straight down onto the keyboard lmao

[kehideni]

Ahh right i owe a Guild Wars 2 What lies beneath post..

SO!! Good things first: the suggested topic of the following who-knows-how-many installments. I really didn’t expect Arenanet, and i’ll go further: ANY mmorpg to EVER even come close to smelling a single WIFF of the mental state their main character is in due to the things the writers and the players put them through. I think it’s a great idea, just like when they killed the commander in PoF. It was ballsy, dramatic, and payed off well. If they can repeat that i’m gonna kiss my monitor for granting me the privilege to see this with one character twice.

The jokes were funny, the animations (exspecially charr eating ramen x’‘‘D if you haven’t seen it yet, look it up. it’s so funny and adorable and real), the connections between the rag-tag team we got for ourselves now. A+

BUT!

Icebrood Saga started out great just like this, and due to poor planning and a sudden steer of the wheel we all know how that panned out. Eventhough the charr and the norn really deserved to have the sort of spotlight IBS promised. And i can’t help but be kinda salty that once again, we are human focused. (and by human spotlight... i mean...that kinda involves everything GW1... it’s nice to get stuff from the source material, but mine too deep and you end up like World of Warcraft, an incoherent mess that lacks direction and literally had to take back SIX(6) expansion’s worth of steps, to be back on square 1 again, and i find it hilarious that this is why DF is praised so much as an expansion)

Once again, nothing wrong with taking from the source material, just don’t let that be your go-to every single time. GW2 is known for reinventing ideas, i just don’t want them to stop that good habit of theirs.

Onto the regrettable stuff: this update was too short. I hope it was this short only because it’s a prologue but IBS burned me once, i’m not gonna hold out my hand twice.

Also wtf Marjory, why wasn’t i invited to the wedding? How are you on your honeymoon with Kas if i WASN’T.AT.THE.FKEN.WEDDING?! Yes i know, that’s not really a thing a player can... er... play but like a little sniplet from it would have been enough... maybe show the new character animations there? Surely the commander could have slurped ramen at their wedding... and throw confetti, and like just have a 1-2 liner with characters you wanna check up on. How is my man Rytlock doing???? You wouldn’t even need voiceacting for it, just regular ol’ chat bubbles, come AAAWWWWN

The sinfully bad:

The new lootchests are a fkin scam. Mate-y, if i do a meta event then i want my reward. When all i had to pay for keys are shitty scraps i could farm without any active farming, just doing the meta there was no problem. But to pay for keys with MATERIALS??!?! B** I’M COLLECTING THE MATERIALS FOR LEGENDARIES!!! WHY WOULD I TRADE THAT UP FOR SHITTY GREEN UNIDENTIFIED STUFF?! uuuuuuuuuuuuuugggh Anet, who thought of this?! Why didn’t you give them a cup of coffee to wake up?!

Also ambushes are fkin brutal man... i love the extra challenge but come on.. atleast give those fkers’ abilities a cooldown where i can fakkIIIN USE ANY OF MY ABILITIES!! Once again, everyone that is not a guardian is fked over.

To close it in a positive note: the male charr voiceactor was perfect, they sounded just as broken and traumatised as i wanted a big ass warrior cat to be after being put through 5 different hells and back, and dying, and then losing their dragon-jesus daughter, and PTSD, and you all know i could still go on. Can’t wait to hear Palawa Joko’s monologue echo back on us, i’m calling it now!

“The scars you have gouged into it spell out your name for ALL to see” rawest. fkin. line. in an MMO. ever!!!

[astrella-writes]

prompt | anonymous asked: Could I get some general relationship headcanons (with some fluff please!) for Chishiya, Arisu, and Kuina 🥺👉👈 let me know if you need a more specific ask! :)

warnings | written with the intention of female pronouns but can be read as gender neutral, very minor suggestive implications, mentions of alcohol, nicotine and eating habits, might be considered kinda cheesy oops, the use of the pet name ‘bunny’.

word count | 1.4K

author’s note | ‘m loving this request. this is written with the intention of it being pre-borderlands. 

Shuntarō Chishiya 

- Frequenting local cafes for routinely study dates. He helps you with topics that you may struggle on and you buy him the bizarre flavored ‘treat of the week’ as a thank you. He jokes around that you’re probably using him as a test subject, because who would order sweet potato brownies with the premise that they would taste good. Much to his surprise, they actually do.

- Visiting a cat cafe once, but not getting around to completing any work. The image of Chishiya cradling a fluffy kitten close to his chest and holding softened eye contact with it is now your permanent lock screen. He has a matching lock screen of you holding a kitten from under the armpits and touching noses with it.

- Learning new skills together. Chishiya is pretty much down for anything that he considers interesting enough. That’s how you ended up frustratingly trying to follow along to a complex origami cat tutorial at 2 in the morning as Chishiya worked quietly with his earbuds in, listening to a different tutorial. Only once he presented you with a perfect paper flower did you smile for the first time in the past hour, the frustration dissipating. That very flower has claimed its indefinite place on your bedside table, something that didn’t go unnoticed by him.

- Doing escape rooms together every so often. It baffles you to some degree how he figures things out so easily, but then again, you’ve known how smart your boyfriend was since the day you met so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise. You just can’t help but admire him, and voice these admirations out loud. Your compliments being the only ones which truly affect him.

- Despite how genius your boyfriend is, you remain concerned about the mental toll college might have on him. If he is stressed, he barely gives it away, but you’ve grown to read through his indifference and pick up when something is wrong - even if he’s attempting to hide it for your disburden. You allow him to de-stress in your arms, playing with the tips of his hair and speaking through what has got him so troubled.

- Late night dates that consist of trips to the corner store where you buy your favourite snacks and walk down to the beach together. It’s a relaxing way to wind down after a stressful week filled with work and college. If it’s not too cold that night, you substitute sitting on your usual bench for a stroll along the sand. If he finds a pretty seashell, Chishiya will give it to you wordlessly.

- He buys you a lot of small things that reminds him of you. A cute keychain he found by chance while buying groceries, splurging his money on a random claw machine because he spotted a plushie character from that show you really like, buying your favourite snacks to calm you down before a big exam that you’ve been studying really hard for. It’s the little things that show how much he really loves you.

Ryōhei Arisu

- Offering him a place to stay for a few days if he needs a break from his family, Arisu will pack up his gaming laptop along with him and you two will game with each other side by side. He anticipates the moment you rest your head on his shoulder and once you do, he rests his own head upon yours with a small: “you tired, bunny?”

- Being extremely supporting and non-judgemental on the topic of him getting a job. You search listings almost daily and send any promising ones through to him, leaving an encouraging message afterwards in hopes he gets the right intention. You care for him deeply and don’t want to see his father eventually kicking him out the house for being unemployed and making the situation ten times more difficult for him.

- Helping him get out more and introducing him to places he quickly grows to love. A quaint coffee shop with a grassy roof hidden deep within the cracks that he never would have found if it weren’t for you. It’s become your usual spot for dates, and Arisu enjoys the tranquility of it all.

- Going on trips to the game store together, even though Arisu usually just buys all his games online, and he’s pretty sure you do too. Regardless, it’s an excuse to meet up and hang out for a few hours after, something he’s found has become more enthralling than gaming. 

- Staying up on video call into the late hours of the night as you both battle it out on some mmorpg. You’re confused when you see his idle avatar and look over at your phone screen to find him staring at you in a trance. It catches you off guard at first, but seeing him snap back to reality upon getting caught and getting all flustered left you replaying the scene over in your head for days later.

- Dates to the arcade, because of course. You two definitely hog a specific game with a line of pouting children waiting impatiently to get their chance. Arisu only agrees to move on when you mention a new game you spotted earlier. There is no new game, you just feel bad for the kids. Once he’s caught on, you merely give his lips a quick peck and you’re instantly forgiven.

- Playing in one of those immersive game machines with the curtains on both sides, only for Arisu to stare at you dumbly, leaving you a flustered and confused mess. This usually leads to a one-sided lean in and a small make out, only for an innocent kid to pull back the curtain and run away mortified. Their screams are the highlight of your boyfriend’s day, and you swear he’s holding some mental record of how many kids he traumatize through doing this.

Hikari Kuina

- Working at the same clothing store and having Kuina intervene whenever you’re faced with a rude customer. She might not be all too friendly if they insulted you, and if getting fired is the cost of standing up for you, then so be it. You’d quit alongside her and find some place new to work.

- Helping tend to her sickly mother in hospital, whom you had made speechless upon your first visit. She was delightfully thrilled upon finally being introduced to her daughter’s significant other, Kuina sharing to you afterwards that she hadn’t seen her mother smiling so brightly in a long time. You always present her mother with gifts upon each visit, whether it be flowers or a small cake. She’s become like your own mother, and so you help pay towards hospital bills as well.

- Comforting Kuina if she ever gets upset about her past (especially her relationship with her father) or her mother’s current poor health. You make her feel so valid; it leaves her a sobbing mess in your arms as you comfort her with soothing strokes and affectionate mumbles. Once her wailing has calmed, you offer to make her favourite - hot chocolate topped with cream.

- Constant sleepovers, which include wearing face masks, ordering takeout, watching some sappy romance before switching it over to an action movie and sipping on some cheap beer. The buzz of the alcohol always makes you more daring as you suggest showering together, and you’re never turned down by your equally audacious girlfriend. 

- Helping her overcome her nicotine addiction and being the initial person to suggest chewing on a dummy cigarette whenever she felt the urge to smoke. Her mother couldn’t thank you enough for getting her into this, expressing her hidden fear of having to watch Kuina smoke herself into ill health or worse, a premature grave. 

- In return, she looks out for your own well-being: reaching out to hold your hand before you both cross the street, showing up with lunch the next day at work if she thinks you haven’t been eating as much lately, keeping headache pills in her bag ever since you complained about a migraine that one time, keeping an extra umbrella in the break room just in case it rains later that day and you’ll need one.

- It’s never a dull moment dating Kuina, always planning fun and exciting dates like getting drunk in a private karaoke room only for it to lead to sloppy make outs. The one time she was so insistent on riding the kiddies train at the amusement park, only for the both of you to fall off once you reached the sharp bend in the tracks. It left you both a giggling mess, but the pain afterwards definitely made the whole situation regrettable. 

[thes-hitoverlord]

Best anime of 2021

3/3

Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan

A dark workplace comedy about the host of a preschooler TV show, who suffers from crippling depression and existential dread. In other words, the most relatable show this year! The series is a reaction goldmine, with allot of great moments involving our lead trying to uphold a cheerful and upbeat demeanor, while essentially being dead inside. 

Mieruko-chan

Basically “The Sixth Sense: The Anime”, the series follows a highschooler who can see ghosts, and the difficulties it causes her in her day to day life. The series does some really good worlbuilding, showing among other things the difference between ghosts who linger on earth due to their past grudges and obsessions, and those that stay to look over those they care about, the dynamic between murderers and victims in the afterlife, and even the effects religion may have on the lingering souls. My only complaint is that we never get a reason for why the ghosts should be scary outside of their disturbing appearances. We never see a ghost directly hurt a person, alto it is established that people who spend long periods of time around malevolent ghosts do over time grow sick both physically and mentally, This however only happens after many days of being haunted by the same ghost, which does not explain some scenes that are framed as if a ghost posed an immediate threat to our lead. 

Muteking the Dancing Hero

I might have been the only person in the world who actually watched this series. Produced by Tatsunoko (the studio behind Speedracer, Gatchaman, and Macross) and Tezuka Productions (founded by THAT Osamu Tezuka), the series is a VERY loose sequel to the 1980 Tatsunoko series “Muteking, The Dashing Warrior”. This new version takes place in a futuristic version of San Francisco, based entirely on 1950s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s American nostalgia, or rather Japan’s interpretation of American nostalgia, with a gratuitous dose of Engrish. The series is also relentlessly weird. It runs entirely on its own consistent internal logic, but it refuses to explain anything, leaving it up to the viewer to figure out things for themselves. They also use Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love“ in several scenes for some reason. The show’s main villain is a Steve Jobs expy who uses overpriced headphones and autotuned popmusic to transform people into black goo. The black goo then attracts monsters from outer space, who begin harvesting the goo. Then Muteking dances with the monsters, which ends-up banishing the monsters, and turning the people back to normal. It is THAT sort of series, but somehow it all ends-up making perfect sense in the show’s rather epic series finale (even tho the aftercredits scene still kinda makes you go a bit WTF) 

Komi Can't Communicate

Once again, I em not a big fan of “slice of life” shows, but this one quickly won me over. It is a literal goldmine for reaction images, and it’s just pure wholesome and likable. 

Kimetsu no Yaiba

Entertainment District Arc

After getting the great movie adaptation of the Infinity Train Arc last year, we are now getting a full season adaptation of the Entertainment District arc, taking place in a red-light districts of Taisho era Japan. 

Ranking of Kings

Most anime in the style of western fantasy take their inspiration from D&D, or in worse cases from MMORPGs. This series does not. Instead it takes inspiration from old fairy-tales (the originals, not the Disney versions), and then builds and expands upon them. Just from what we got the see so far, we can see the influences of Cinderella, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, and Tom Thumb just to name a few. It also uses allot of fairy-tale archetypes, like the queen stepmother, the younger sibling who wants the throne for himself, the knight in shining armor, the king’s shady advisor, but it fleshes them out to such extent and gives them so much nuance and depth that you completely understand their actions and can even sympathize with them to some extent. At this point, there’s no clear villain, and the closest thing to a true antagonist is the magic mirror that uses people’s insecurities to manipulate them (and yes, they even do the whole “magic mirror on the wall...” thing), but even the mirror seems to be mostly just kinda sad and pathetic from what we were able to learn of it. Really the weakest link is the main protagonist, who due to being deaf and unable to talk does not really get any real dialogue, and as such we are only left with his surface emotions. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

part 6, Stone Ocean

An adaptation of the 6th part of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. I really appreciate how the very existence of this series proves the English speaking media wrong. For many years the English speaking mainstream media was trying to villainize the anime fan community as being sexist, and claiming they hated western media simply for having female leads, as opposed to hating them for being awfully written. And then here comes this Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure installment, a long running series with a predominantly male cast, and now we get a whole part with a female lead and a predominantly female cast, and NOBODY IS COMPLAINING. It is almost as if the English speaking mainstream media were full of shit all along. Also, alongside having the first female Jojo, it also has the first op done by a female artist. 

part 1

part 2