#if you have that in your inventory he automatically gives it to her. the player does not have a choice in the matter whatsoever

[flhoarder]

Never forget that if Harry throws up on day 1, he gives the working class woman the handkerchief he uses to wipe sick off his mouth for her tears

[lunarreverb]

Just finished the silliest BG3 run that was.... not really a speedrun, but a mess-around solo run to see what happens if you effectively skip Act 1 and 2 (to the extent possible) and recruit nobody. Here's Bunnie the gnome; she's quick like a bunny!

Some of the most interesting things I found under the cut!

If you immediately jog over from the Nautiloid to the mountain pass area, Shadowheart will catch up to you and try to party up.

You can reject her company, of course; if you do, the artefact just appears in your inventory later after this brief cutscene saying ''you got the plot device.' The Emperor never addresses this at all but I have to assume it just looked at the both of you liked your main character energy better.

(For her part, Shadowheart will hang out indefinitely in front of the path to the mountain pass, insisting that you need her to come with you. She never seems to realize that the artefact ditched her, but seems to have the 'shielded' effect on her for as long as you can still go back to that area to check on her, so idk. I assume she dies/ceremorphosizes at some point after you leave the shadow cursed lands.)

If you leave for the mountain pass without encountering Raphael, he just shows up in your camp, and you do NOT have a choice to go to bed without speaking to him, lol.

What happens to Lae'zel is SUPER interesting. If you don't encounter her in the cage outside of the grove, the game gives you a second chance by setting her outside of the monastery, wandering around.

If you don't join her there, either, you will find her at the entrance of the Shadow-Cursed lands, extremely dead. I imagine this is just the game's way of making sure you see she's dead, but I would have assumed for sure that without player intervention she would've died in the zaith'isk? I wonder what sequence of events is implied by this? Maybe she broke out of the zaith'isk on her own, escaped the creche, but had nobody to warn her that she needed a torch in the Shadow-Cursed lands? Maybe the gith sent her on an errand before they let her have a turn in the cleansing machine? Unclear!

Your dream guardian comments that it's impressed by your efficiency by skipping over the grove entirely:

This is different from what it says if you actively durge the grove, where it insinuates that you did what you did to infiltrate the cult and asks whether or not you have regrets about that.

If you don't go to Last Light Inn at all, you can meet Jaheira for the first time at the bridge to Moonrise tower. She does NOT react well if you answer her question by saying "I'm busy, get out of the way"; this will aggro the Harpers (understandably). I ultimately decided to sneak around the back and I didn't canonically meet her for the first time until after defeating Ketheric. She will automatically join your camp for the one night on the way to Baldur's Gate, but she will leave forever (leaving you a letter saying "bye") once you get to the Lower City if you tell her at Moonrise you don't want her in your party.

She does not survive the events of the game if you do not let her join your party, it seems. (I did not pursue the Minsc storyline and I do not know if it's possible to prevent this outcome that way.)

This next bit is REALLY wild; in all of my other playthroughs, I don't think I ever tried defeating Gortash before I disabled the Steel Watch. You can defeat Gortash at his inauguration, and the Absolute will immediately be your bestie about it and will helpfully murder any of the witnesses (including Ulder Ravengard, I think; I took care not to kill him but he vanished anyway.)

The next thing that happens doesn't actually make sense but is interesting nevertheless. Once Gortash is dead, the Steel Foundry is automatically blown up, and the Absolute speaks encouragingly to the player through the Steel Watchers:

I'm actually stumped about how the Absolute can control the Steel Watchers without the corresponding tadpoled brains in the Foundry (which I have to assume got crushed in the rubble?) Oh well. In any case, the Steel Watchers are friendly and will even be allied with you if you get into any scuffles with the Fist, until you kill Orin. After you kill Orin, every Steel Watcher is immediately hostile AND will sic the Fist on you, too.

(Funny story, I actually managed to down one of the Watchers next to the Steel Watch fan group on the north end of Wyrm's Crossing and uh. The Watcher blew up one of the fanboys. Oops. RIP Trinigan Gazotts.)

I kinda want to write a whole post about just this, but Shadowheart's parents are still put up on display in the House of Grief basement in spite of the fact that she is almost certainly (?!) dead and/or a mindflayer by this point:

You can talk to them but you cannot help them in any way. I'm aware that this is just a tease for Shadowheart's plot, but I want to nitpick this so bad. The Sharrans have regular prison cells in the building; what is the point of hanging up these two on the Spencer's Gifts lights indefinitely? Whatever bummer vibes Shar is getting off of them can not be enough to pay for their magical upkeep. Do the Sharrans have to take them down at mealtimes, or are they fed with sandwiches on sticks, or...?

The love test at the circus is NOT interesting; the dryad assumes that you are in love even if you are forever alone and gives her usual sales pitch about bringing the one you love to her.

If you didn't save Wulbren or Barcus, the entrance to the Ironhand Gnomes' cave is just blocked off.

Astarion's unfortunate end if you don't recruit him has been covered in great detail by other posts, but I will remark that it is funny to kill Cazador yourself as a gnome because you have to hop up to stab him. It's also very, very funny to see Cazador explain his whole evil plot to you, random gnome woman who just showed up, if Astarion isn't around. This man is desperate for somebody to think he's cool, so I guess he'll settle for attention from the cattle if he's gotta.

Volo still shows up tied to that trolley cart by the foundry, but there's no angry mob around him.

If you haven't encountered the inquisitor at the creche, or the avatar of Vlaakith in the shadow cursed land, they both show up in the Elfsong's basement

There is no hag plot if you did not encounter Ethel. The captain at the Blushing Mermaid is just as she seems, there's no hag lair, and Vanra and her mother want nothing to do with you. There's no hag support group; that house has a group of random hostile thugs in it instead (with a tenuous tie-in to Ninefinger's Guild).

In Act 3, Raphael will totally say "listen here you little shit" if you hassled him outside of the mausoleum in Act 2 by, oh, I don't know, casting Silence on him? (after which he does NOT give you the Yurgir quest, he just leaves).

Bluurg and Omeluum do not show up at the Society of Brilliance's lodge if you did not meet them in the underdark in Act One, but there is a letter indicating that they will show up later. I checked, and Omeluum is also not in the Iron Throne.

Nothing funny or new happened with Orin. I threw her in a pit. BUT worth mentioning? You can skip the entire Bhaalist powerword kill trial if you just send one invisible party member through the area and just find the warppoint near the temple afterward. You're welcome.

If you get to the epilogue alone, Milil will comment that he expected more guests, but Withers will speak as if multiple people are there no matter what

Also, if you are a lonely little mindflayer, this has no effect on the refreshments offered at the epilogue party. Mindflayers can drink alcohol, apparently, but obviously nobody is here to eat all the food Withers put out. WTF, pee paw.

And I think that's mostly all the was interesting or different in this run. It was a fun challenge!

[striderstable]

Kallisti, Monk of the Old Order

[ID: screenshot from the video game neverwinter nights enhanced edition, original campaign chapter one, featuring a female human monk player character with a shaved head wearing the robes of the old order, which resembles the habit of a european medieval monk, standing in front of a tavern table into the side of which the image's watermark of striders table dot tumblr dot com cleverly appears to have been carved by some miscreant or another. next to her is the henchman halfling rogue tomi undergallows. the semi-transparent character record and inventory GUI's are both open, showing the PC's stats and a number of items she wears or carries, all of which are pretty much standard for a low level monk in this game. /end ID]

I want to talk a little bit about this character but I might go on for quite a bit so I'll put it under the cut.

Not long ago I posted about my previous monk character, also of the Old Order, and how excited I was that after having imported him into the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights, you could actually see the cloak he was wearing (in the original versions of the game, you could only see it as a static icon in the inventory, not how it looked on the character, animated and everything). Well, imagine my surprise when while playing yet another monk character I came across a new and improved version of the Robes of the Old Order that looked more like something Friar Tuck or Brother Cadfael might wear.

This is not the only item that looks different in the EE when you find it in the wild as opposed to buying it in the store (for example, the wizard robes are now actually long flowing robes, but only if you start the game with them, someone gives them to you, or you find them in the course of adventuring, such as in a chest). But I liked these enhanced Robes of the Old Order so much that I was prompted to create a whole new character around them. The portrait I ended up using was perfect for this--alas, I haven't been able to track down the artist via Google reverse image search, it came as part of a portrait pack I downloaded long ago--and thankfully one of the in-game avatars for female human characters had a shaved head, because as I might have mentioned before I'm a stickler for things like my PC's avatar matching their portrait.

Anyway, I had to use a cheat to give her the enhanced version of the Robes of the Old Order at the outset, and if she doesn't acquire the Improved Robes of the Old Order on her own before the end of Chapter One I'll use it again to give her those, because the game isn't always as great about rewarding certain character classes as it is others. This is pretty much the only reason I'd ever want to cheat in this game; that is, for roleplaying purposes (I did a similar thing with my Undead Hunter Ranger/Cleric of the Dawnfather, giving him a Shield of Dawn when the game didn't do so automatically within what I considered a reasonable amount of time). Sometimes you have to be your own DM. ;)

Partly inspired by Beauregard of Critical Role Campaign 2, but also by Campaign 3's overall theme, I decided that despite the required "Lawful" alignment, this monk would be pretty chaotic and also atheistic. I don't mean that in the sense of not believing that the gods exist, just being of the opinion that they aren't necessary. See, somewhere along the way I decided that the Old Order is (despite the Western style of the monastic habit) more akin to Eastern philosophies such as Daoism and Zen Buddhism. I didn't just make that up out of the blue, however, it was based squarely on the very sparse amount of information available to us on the Order, such as this scant paragraph from the Forgotten Realms Wiki:

"The Old Order was dedicated to the philosophy espoused by a certain deity, but they did not worship this deity, nor any other, apparently preferring to leave them alone. Their deity was either deceased or had never existed on Toril's Material Plane; the monks were contradictory about this. Some outsiders doubted they'd ever even had a god. The monks considered even the deity's identity unimportant, instead caring only about their message."

What is remarkable about this is that in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, the soul of any mortal who died without a patron deity got absorbed as a punishment into this enormous wall surrounding the City of Judgment (known as the Wall of the Faithless for this reason) "and wholly became a part of it". Whether you consider this to be an objective fact or only a belief, I have come to the conclusion that the Old Order at least, teaches that it is merely the latter. I don't necessarily see the Order as antagonistic toward any faith, however, except the most destructive and imbalanced ones. Rather I think its mission is to enlighten, and with enlightenment comes the understanding that beliefs are just that--beliefs, and the practitioner would be better off realising the truth.

The vagueness of the description of the Old Order is therefore an asset as far as I'm concerned; it has allowed me the freedom to create my own dogma--or in this case, the absence of such--for the monk character I built around the idea.

[bunnhop]

The Trial of Valkyrie Alvitr in Ragnarok Origin

Published: August 29, 2021 Last Updated on October 9, 2021

(Reposted from bunnhop.com)

We’re back with another episode of Let’s Explore Ragnarok Origin! Tutorial. Our journey today begins at the Novice Training Grounds. When we exit the Academy’s main hall to get to the Training Grounds, we notice one particular feature of Ragnarok Origin that is not present in the original RO, but was introduced to Ragnarok Mobile back in 2019 in Episode 5: Midnight Party. This is the weather system. We see that the current conditions at the Training Grounds are as follows: Daytime, Pleasant, Sunny.

Much later in the video, we’ll explore the mini-map to find out that, similar to ROM, the weather affects the in-game environment. Exactly how? We don’t know just yet. Perhaps we’ll find out when we finally leave the tutorial area and do the story missions.

On our way to meet with our next instructor, we meet many ambient NPCs both Novices and First Job classes. In some of the groups we come across are First Job Instructors. The one standing near the portal back to the main hall with two female Novices is Pamela, the instructor for the Acolyte Job class. Donning a High Priestess attire we all know from other Ragnarok games, she tries to debunk a common misconception among Acolytes’ role in group settings such as parties and guilds. Aside from her, there’s also Emily Wan, a High Wizard who teaches aspiring Mages.

Close to Emily’s group is a Bard called Lorne, who serenades a couple of Novices with a song about the world of Ragnarok. When we speak to him and tell him that we’d like to listen his music, he plays a tune and sings along. The words in his song mention something about us rewriting the fate of the Rune-Midgarts Kingdom, possibly hinting to our character’s leading role in the game. It would be interesting to see exactly how this unfolds in ROO’s main storyline.

Combat Training with Instructor Brade

Next to Instructor Orbis Thea who seems to be teaching a young Swordsman how to cook is a crowd of Novices. To the right are three Novices busy practicing their skills on training dummies. In the middle of it all are Guide Sprakki and a dark-haired man clad in shiny heavy armor. This is Instructor Brade.

Brade teaches us the basics of combat, particularly the difference between Normal and Heavy Attacks, as well as two valuable Skills–Play Dead and First Aid–both of which are very familiar to long-time fans of the franchise. A funny cinematic cutscene featuring a group of Goblins and their leader accidentally summoned by a careless Novice is a good method to teach these two basic skills. Lesson learned: Don’t drop a Dead Branch!

Check Your Settings

Before we head to practical training, which is as simple as defeating five Lunatics, we take the time to check the Settings window. Apart from graphics, volume, and gameplay settings, this is also where we can set our preferences for the Auto-Attack (or Auto Combat) function. We can also check and edit preferences for the game client’s push notifications.

One interesting detail here is the Operating Mode under the Personal tab. For this, we have two options: Classic (recommended for beginners) and Double Wheel (recommended for advanced players). We’ll get back to this in another post and video to explore this in more detail.

To put it simply, Classic is a gameplay setting that allows you to focus on where you want your Skill to target. On the other hand, Double Wheel allows you to move your character around (first wheel) and, at the same time, move your target area (second wheel). This will definitely be useful for AoE classes such as Mages.

A Gift and A Trial

Upon completion of our practical training, Instructor Brade gives us an Auto-Recovery Device. Checking our inventory, we can click on it to set which potions we’d like to use automatically and exactly when to use them. The slider lets us change the required amount of HP and SP (e.g. 50% or below) our character needs to have before the device uses Red and Blue Potions, respectively.

Afterwards, Brade talks about our final trial where we have to meet and be baptized by a Valkyrie. He also explains the reason why the kingdom chose to build the academy on this particular island. This is because a part of it used to be a temple to a Valkyrie. Now a ruin, we have to go there to pay our respects to the war maiden in hopes that she can give us her protection.

What’s an Adventure without A (Mini-)Map?

On the way there, we decide to check the mini-map. To the right of the area name is the symbol for the weather system. Clicking it reveals information about the weather, as well as the current time. I wonder if time also affects the game environment… Is it random or server-/channel-based?

Tapping the mini-map shows some sort of weather forecast for the specific map we’re currently in. It seems that it’s going to be sunny all day! Below this is the local map in detail. As with many games, the red dots are enemies and the blue arrow icon is our character. Under the local map are four options–Map Info, Nearby Players, World Map, and Fly Wing. Map Info lets us check nearby NPCs, which monsters spawn in that map, and if there are any on-going events. The Nearby Players tab is self-explanatory, as well as the other two tabs.

Looking at the World Map, we can see that Ragnarok Origin has the same maps as when the original Ragnarok Online PC game was first launched. It has the six major Towns: Prontera, Izlude, Geffen, Morroc, Payon, and Alberta. The following Dungeons are also available:

Mjolnir Dead Pit

Labyrinth Forest

Prontera Underground Sewers

Byalan’s Undersea Tunnel

Orc Dungeon

Payon Cave

Pyramid

Ant Hell

Sunken Ship

While walking around the area close to the ruins of Valkyrie’s temple, we meet two more First Job Instructors. One is a Sniper named Cecilius, together with her teaching assistant Tana and a male Novice who hails from the same town of Payon. Cecilius mentions that her hometown is also called “Archer Village” because everyone there knows archery. Quis is the other instructor. He is an Assassin Cross and is teaching a new Thief. His student, however, feels awkward about the fact that Quis doesn’t talk much.

Blessed by Valkyrie Alvitr

Finally, we reach Valkyrie’s temple ruins. Here, Brade asks us to pray in front of the Valkyrie’s statue. Almost immediately, we enter another dimension which turned out to be the Hall of Warriors in Valhalla. An unknown voice commands us to pull out the Sword of Trial but warns that only the chosen one can do so. When we successfully pull it out, a bridge made of light is formed allowing us to cross and reach Valhalla.

Here, we meet a Valkyrie named Alvitr. She helps us unleash our full potential by making us face a King Drops. While in combat, she increases our Attack Speed and Physical Attack by releasing the Marks of Agility and Strength bound to our body, making us invincible against our giant foe. When done she congratulates us. And before we are sent back to the academy, Valkyrie Alvitr briefly mentions the importance of distributing status points.

Back at the Training Grounds, our instructor Brade expounds on this. Because of the many different ways we can distribute our status points, “…even those of the same Job can have different combat styles,” he explains. Finally, we graduate…

Dressing Up for Graduation

…but before that, we receive a gift from Guide Sprakki–a headgear of our choice! The vain little Novice next to the Gift Manager introduces us to the Closet feature. This whole encounter is a tutorial on the Costumes aspect of Ragnarok Origin. This game has noticeably better graphics than Ragnarok M, the newly-released Ragnarok X: Next Generation and, of course, Ragnarok Online. With this comes the ability to entice players who love character customization through cute headgear, hairstyles, and costumes. The Closet feature is certainly something to look forward to if you’re into fashion!

At long last, we graduate… and it’s quite a heartwarming scene! Instructor Brade brought along Guide Sprakki, and even good ol’ Professor Anderson is there! All four of us take a commemorative photo. This is then followed by Sprakki giving us two gifts. The first is a gift box for the official release of the Japanese server which has a bunch of cool consumables and equipment, including a GM uniform! The second is a ticket for the Start Dash 10 Consecutive Gacha–our very first!

While this tutorial gacha allows us to reroll until we get all the items we’re after, I didn’t have to. I was already happy with my result! I just really wanted some Red Potions and–you guessed it right–a Bunny Band!

Personally, I’m not fond of games with gacha because I don’t enjoy gambling. I’d rather loot or pay for the item I want. Thankfully, from what we’ve seen so far, Ragnarok Origin‘s gacha are purely cosmetic and don’t really impact character progression and/or gameplay.

But what do you think? Do you see yourself using the Gacha and Closet features often? Or are you more focused on leveling up and getting the best equipment? Or maybe you’re like us who are very much excited about exploring the story and quests in Ragnarok Origin?

[razzle-zazzle]

Are there any Au's you like to imagine the interns plus Dion and Frazie in? Like other games, TV shows, movies ect.

Anon, anon, anon. If I'm interpreting your ask correctly, then yes. I absolutely do find ways to combine the hyperfixation (Psychonauts) with the little hyperfocuses.

And since you have come into my ask box and enabled my brainrot, I am going to ramble about an idea I had a while back concerning yeeting the interns + Dion & Frazie into Terraria.

This infodump got long so I'm slapping it under a cut

Basic Info:

Instead of a flat 2D world, Morris and Dion wake up in the middle of a massive island. The purity makes up the center of the island, with all the other biomes arranged in a sort of circle around it. The ocean biome rings the entire island; and there's a barrier a set distance out into the ocean.

Morris & Dion don't actually get to explore all of that right away though. They wake up with no idea where they are. Dion has all the tools that a player normally spawns with & a grappling hook; and Morris has a book of every crafting recipe in the game + basic mechanics of the world they're stuck in, a bow, and a note that sort of explains what's going on.

The basic message of the note is "You're stuck here now lol. Save the world or whatever and you can go home." But like. Just a bit more polite.

Psychic powers are largely disabled; Morris gets to keep his levball because it's a mobility aid. It basically acts as a unique pair of wings & he gets the effects of the Soaring Insignia automatically applied to him at the start of Hardmode.

Each person spawns in with certain accessory effects automatically applied to them, without it taking up an accessory slot. Morris, Dion, and Frazie are immune to fall damage. Adam has the effects of the Yoyo Bag. Dion & Frazie can double jump. Everyone but Dion has the effects of Radar; Norma has the clock, Morris has the Depth Meter, Sam has the Lifeform Analyzer, Gisu has the Metal Detector, Lizzie the Compass, Adam has the Stopwatch, and Frazie has the DPS Meter.

Not having it take up an accessory slot means they don't actually have the accessory, so they have to go get it if they want to use it in a crafting recipe.

Other effects and bonuses are applied as well; Norma is immune to fire-based debuffs, and requires no ammo for the flamethrower; Lizzie has the same effect but for ice. Gisu has increased flight time with wings and Rocket Boots. Not everything has been figured out exactly yet but that's the gist of it.

In addition to the unique strengths and weaknesses everyone gets, they all have an NPC role! They're still Players, and their clothes are still the same; their role just determines how they spawn in the world and what unique items/abilities they have access to.

Adam spawns in when Morris & Dion have at least 50 silver between them, and is the only player who can convert items into money.

Sam is the Demolitionist; she spawns when the party acquires bombs. Sam can convert money into bombs and bunnies into explosive bunnies. She starts with only Grenades, Bombs, and Dynamite, but gets more as the party finds more types of bombs.

Norma's the Dryad; and spawns when the Eye of Cthulu is defeated. She has access to the Dryad's sell tables and can tell how much Corruption & Crimson is in the world.

Gisu's the Mechanic; she's found in the dungeon and spawns with a Wrench and the Grand Design.

Lizzie's the Witch Doctor, and spawns when Queen Bee is defeated. She can craft flasks.

Frazie's the Party Girl. Gives the group access to bubble blocks and everything else in the party girl's sell table. Spawns in when everyone else + 8 more NPCs are in the world. Like Dion, she spawns with a grappling hook already in her inventory. She also has the effects of the Guide to Critter Companionship automatically applied.

Dion and Adam end up as melee players (though Adam occasionally dabbles in range alongside his ever-growing collection of yoyos). Morris and Norma end up as ranged, Gisu and Lizzie as mages, and Sam & Frazie are the summoners. They all dabble in other weapon types though; Sam's favorite weapon is explosive bunnies, Frazie uses boomerangs and the Vampire Knives, Lizzie and Norma briefly use both the Cool Whip and Fire Cracker respectively when Hardmode starts, etc and so on.

Death results in a loss of money and a delayed respawn back at the player's spawn point, just like in the game. It doesn't make death any less pleasant, though, so the group generally tries to avoid it.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Dragon Age 2 Mod Recs

Hey! The follow on from this post, here are my Dragon Age 2 Mod Recs. All are from Nexus Mods. I’ve marked the ones I deem ‘essential’ as **.

Character creation Mods

DAI Imports: all Tattoos and Blood Smears + Freckles - exactly what it says on the tin, imports the various tattoos, blood smears and freckles available for Hawke in the DAI Hawke character creator. Perfect for continuity + allowing your customised Hawke to have the blood swipe too

KS Hairs for Dragon Age 2 - an absolute boat load of hairs to chose from for male and female characters to make your Hawke unique

Anto Hairs - more hair options for your Hawke

LOTC s Hair Tints for DA2 - different hair colours for your Hawke

Pineapples Vibrant Colours - skin, eyebrow and eye colours for your Hawke

LOTC Hair tints for Da2 - adds extra hair colours to the character creation

Couslie's Eyeliner for FemHawke - adds eyeliner options for FemHawke as a ‘tattoo’

SJC's Makeup Edit - makes the make up less Like That, nicer eye shadow margins etc.

Outfits

Ellise Heralds MOTA Replacer - a nicer outfit for Hawke to wear to the party in MOTA

Rugged Leather Cuirass - a similar outfit to Hawke’s starting armour, but blue and nicer (imo)

Evolving Champion Armor - this MUST be installed before a playthrough, you can’t get it halfway through a game. But this adds the appropriate champions armour to your inventory once you reach Kirkwall. Even better; the champions armour will level up as you do, meaning that it won’t interfere with the difficulty of gameplay. 

The Rogues Champion Armor - for some of my rogue hawke’s, the champions armour is too...red. So this allows you to tint it some extra colours

Gameplay Mods

**Dragon Age 2 Ultimate HD edition - I cannot imagine playing without this mod anymore. It just really makes everything pop, and reworks some of the base designs in the game to make them fit in with the universe more (chests, wardrobes etc.). Its a must have in my opinion.

No more Bloody Teeth - this is a small thing, gets rid of bloody teeth after battle, without removing the rest of the gore

Skip the Intro - is this your 10th time playing the game? Do you want to just customise your Hawke and skip that bit where you play as the default Hawke and test out abilities? This does that (NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FIRST TIME PLAYERS, GETS RID OF SOME VARRIC/CASSANDRA CUT SCENES)

Extra Cutscenes

**Repeatable Romance Scenes - despite having some of my favourite romances across the franchise, it’s always upset me that you can’t go smooch your love interest whenever you want to in Da2. This mod fixes that and adds a bunch of repeatable romance scenes for each romance. It’s very cute.

Companion and NPC Appearance Mods

Anders Awakening Earring - this re-adds Anders awakening earring into the game because he deserves it regardless of if he’s more angsty now

Cullen Rutherford; Inquisition Mesh - this replaces Cullens Da2 face with his Dai face. I like this one because it makes the cognitive dissidence between Da2 Cullen and Dai Cullen go away, this is my pretty boy doing these horrible things and suffering at his own hands, and making other people suffer too. Continuity as well!

Unique Face Textures for Companions - I don’t use all of these, but I very much recommend the Cassandra one as it adds in her Dai scars. Again, it’s a small continuity thing, but it makes me happy

Anders Automatic Romance Outfits - it’s not fair that everyone else gets minor (or in Merrill’s case huge) changes to their outfits once their romance is locked in, but Anders doesn’t :( this mod fixes that, and gives Anders armours a revamp if you romance him

HD Anders Armour - just a HD update to his armour

HD Fenris Armour - just a HD update to his armour 

Fenris Blue Wrath - add’s the dots to Fenris’ forehead from the comics, despite the pictures it does not change Fenris’s hair

Fixed Aveline Armour - get’s rid of the grey warden symbol on Aveline’s armour, replaces it with a Kirkwall symbol

Mabari Recolours DA2 - make your Mabari unique! Look at these different coats etc.

NPC Color Fixes - makes some of the NPC’s look slightly better, no intense make up that looks bizarre for example on Orana

Puffy Face Begone (aka an umpteenth Alistair fix) - Gives Alistair a look closer to his dao appearance 

Nightgale Updated - Gives Leliana a look closer to her DAI appearance, changes her outfit in the faith quest 

NPC Gear Immersion Tweaks - gives Nathaniel Warden Armour, gives templars the right armour, gives carta thugs the right armour etc. 

[skipps-writes-for-gojo-satoru]

I'm not sure Gojo has ever even shown an interest to any girls.

He calls Utahime weak and teases her by making fun of her, essentially- which she hates. Mei Mei is incredibly strong and beautiful, and Gojo acknowledges her skill but that's it. I also noticed that in the anime (the manga doesn't have honorifics, so please correct me if I'm wrong) but he calls her Mei-san rather than Mei Mei. Therefore, I don't think he ever tried to get much closer to her than the interactions we've seen. When she asks him if he'd comfort her if she cried, he tells her that's she strong- she wouldn't cry. I thought it was interesting that while Mei Mei's question was slightly flirty, Gojo answered so simply, without any teasing.

He calls Shoko by her first name, which is understandable since they spend more time together being in the same grade. He realizes that her ability is rare and useful, but like with Utahime and Mei Mei he doesn't go any further than that. He mostly speaks to her about work related things and doesn't flirt or tease much at all.

Honestly, I think Gojo actually respects his female colleagues and mostly pokes fun at Utahime because she's so uptight and strict. Shoko and Mei Mei are more relaxed and self-assured, and Gojo recognizes their skills and compliments them for it rather than teasing them. I doubt Gojo really thinks Utahime is truly weak more than he just loves riling her up. Other than that, Gojo's pretty respectful.

Also, in the Hidden Inventory arc, Gojo was bombarded with screaming from all the girls excited to see him. Other than pulling his shades down so they could see his face- after they asked him to, btw- he didn't really do much else. He didn't even react much to the teacher giving him her phone number. His only comment was "what a fun school," and it's interesting to see that while lots of girls do appreciate his looks, he acts only mildly amused.

Other than that one model as his wallpaper, we don't really see Gojo flirt or show interest with anyone. He only really teases Utahime to piss her off- I suspect he hates how much she follows the rules like Nanami does, who he teases often as well. He likely just enjoys annoying people so stern because rules just don't sit well with him (especially because of what those "rules" had done to Geto).

It's just a possibility, but he could be one of those guys who's more interested in work than pleasure- I know, he's handsome, but not all handsome people are players and cheaters. I think that's a horrible stigma and a lot of attractive people irl are judged and criticized solely for their looks. People make too many assumptions on someone just based on their genes, and I think it's pretty shallow to think Gojo's a womanizer just because he's attractive. And he knows he's attractive- but when did being confident in yourself make you a philanderer? Gojo has never used his looks manipulatively at all.

It's definitely a possibility that he would be a womanizer, but I'd say it's unlikely based in what we've seen. To sum it all up, Gojo doesn't show interest in anyone. He teases Utahime often, likely for the same reason be teases Nanami- they're too uptight. Shoko and Mei Mei are both incredibly skilled and beautiful sorcerers, and he does acknowledge and compliment them for it, but he doesn't tease or flirt with them. He's respectful, and he works with them as his colleagues. He didn't get distracted by the teen girls fawning over him either, or suddenly get overtly cocky or show off, only sliding his glasses down so they could see his face, and even then he acted only mildly amused. Also, when Miwa asked him for a picture, he didn't even stay and chat with her or anything (I know she's a minor, but if he truly was a womanizer, he would have at least stayed to hear her compliment him or anything to feed his ego) Maybe ask her "Oh, you want a picture with me? The strongest? How cute~" A flirty comment, a joke, something to fuel his own ego, but he doesn't do that. He doesn't act in a way that conveys he openly pursues attention from women. He just takes the picture with her and walks off casually.

Therefore, other than the fact that he's handsome- and I know many people who would assume things about someone based on their attractiveness, which is a terrible stereotype- Gojo doesn't show much interest in flirting at all. He could be the type of guy who works more than plays- and there's plenty of guys who are handsome but aren't super interested in playing around. Being handsome doesn't automatically mean he's the type to sneak around and have affairs here and there. It's completely realistic for a handsome man to be uninterested in any kind of relationships- not all men are sex crazed, and being a tease to his friends doesn't make Gojo a flirt either. Teasing your friends is perfectly normal.

Therefore, Gojo being a 28 year old virgin is totally possible- not everyone's a sex crazed teen who only thinks about what's between their legs, and basing it on what normal Japanese teens do is unfair. Neither Gojo or his lifestyle is exactly normal, and there's definitely barriers when it comes to experiencing normal youth activities for Gojo's generation- especially Gojo's generation. Yuji's generation definitely has more freedom to do fun things because of what Gojo has done to give the youth more freedom- things he hasn't been able to experience himself in his youth, like playing baseball during the exchange event. That was the first time they ever did something different to tradition, and that was only because of Gojo's consideration.

Gojo's youth was filled with blood, exorcising, and choosing between life and death. The deaths Yuji and co. witnessed were what Gojo experienced as well, if not worse. Gojo's task in his youth was to protect the weak, and he found that burdensome. At least, until Geto betrayed them, and Gojo realized the new burden he had to bear in changing the Jujutsu world because of what it had done to his only best friend.

There are definitely more important things in Gojo's mind than just losing his virginity, like saving people and choosing who to save, whether he should kill or not kill.

Gojo is the strongest, but he also bears the biggest burden- and that burden is something he chose to bear, and being the strongest is something he chose to be. Because before Geto left, it was "We are the Strongest." Now, Gojo worked tirelessly so that he could say "I am the Strongest."

And that's not something you can do while sleeping around. I think a lot of people fail to recognize just how hard Gojo works for himself and others. They just think, oh he's the strongest, so it should be easy for him. But it's really, really not that simple, is it? Especially when you have to do it on your own, and even then Gojo realizes that his strength alone isn't enough to save people. He can't save everyone by himself- It's not enough for just him to be the Strongest, so he works diligently to build and inspire his students to stand with him.

He's actually a very deep and emotional man who cares about his students and especially, even now, his best friend. Everything he does is for their sake- he sacrifices the normal life he could have lived, like Nanami had done, for their sake. And he fights with the higher ups, takes the brunt of their ire, and laughs it off, acting as if he fine, like a dad pretending he's superman for his kid's sake. But Gojo is burdened, and he's tired, and he hardly sleeps, and he has the most missions- he's the Strongest, which means everyone needs him, and he bears it.

Sorry for ranting again tho. I think I went into two different topics lol oops- 🤔

OUR SAVIOR 🤔 EDUCATING PEOPLE pay attention ya'll another thing I've noticed in the latest episode is that in his phone contacts he actually writes Utahime's name properly like formally no emojis or teasing shit he actually sees them as his colleagues people he can rely on his field of work and yes about the whole thing when he bursted into riko's class man was absolutely clueless just silent as a teacher tries to give him his number. I'm pretty sure as a child Gojo wasn't allowed to attend public schools due him being in danger or putting others in danger so he doesn't know much about public schools or normal people in general since he spends all his time with people from the jujutsu society.

That is definitely true just because someone is good looking that doesnt mean he's some cheap womanizer. I see a lot of people shipping him and Utahime together which is understandable ship who you like but I don't think Gojo as any ulterior motives like wooing Utahime by teasing her he just is plainly teasing ya know like friends do but in this case Utahime hates his guts and he doesnt know. I mean it takes some amount of hate to try to throw hot tea at someone 😂

While certainly I agree Gojo's teen like wasn't the best it was like he literally had a full time job at that age but who's to stay he didn't go messing around one time? I'm sure during his teen days he wanted to experience things he didnt get to to but now could because he lives on his own now. But maybe he didnt at all who knows? Which also raises another question, I wonder if he has any romantic experiences? And this was all before what happened in the hidden inventory arc after that I can see him more becoming invested in his duty and with what happened with geto as well would of definitely had a huge impact on him to try harder even though hes the strongest so that the next generation wouldn't have to experience the things he went through.

It's really sad if you really think about it what hes been through and what he has to shoulder all while keeping the facade that he's okay, I bet there were times he cursed his powers and his life....but he bears with it anyways because everyone is counting on him....

And don't be sorry at all! I am actually really learning alot about Gojo from you. Please continue to tell us your thoughts and feelings. I don't mind at all ❤ and thank you for taking the time to write 💕

[potatowitch]

DA:O Mod Recommendations

I made one of these a while back but I’ve since played with mods a LOT more and have found a bunch that I love and wanted to share. Includes tools, bug fixes, weapons and armor, gameplay changes and edits, texture replacers, companion morphs, cosmetics and character creation bits, and some cutscenes (primarily for the Dalish origin and Alistair romance). All from the Nexus. Let me know if any links aren’t working or are mismatched.

Tools

Make Console Commands Visible What it says on the tin. No more having to guess what you’re typing into the console.

Change your hero hair and face anywhere in the game Allows you to change your character’s hair and face anywhere in the game. Seems a bit daunting to use at first, but once you get the hang of it it’s incredibly simple. Works with Awakening. Automatically backs up your saves for you.

Redefine your hero voice Allows you to use the console to change your Warden’s voice set in game.

Bug Fixes

Awakening Silverite Mines Bugfix Fixes the bug in the Silverite Mines that steals all your equipment and never gives it back.

TSM Jowan's Intention Fix Fixes a bug that prevented the quest Jowan's Intention from showing up on the Chanter's Board (which should trigger if you tell Jowan "Run. I never want to see you again" in the Redcliffe dungeon)

Awakening Party Banter Fix Stops certain banter between Anders and Velanna repeating.

Give Robbed Elves Money Patch Fixes a bug that prevented you from giving robbed elves in Lothering money.

Joining Ritual Fix For Awakening Companions In vanilla Awakening, if you pick up either Sigrun or Velanna last out of all the companions, you wouldn't be able to have them undergo the Joining. This mod fixes that.

Weapons and Armor

Grey Wardens of Ferelden Gives your character and all Grey Warden characters armor based on Dragon Age 2’s Grey Warden armors. Works with Awakening. Armor is automatically added to your inventory after the Joining, can be added via the console and upgraded versions can be purchased from Soldier's Peak.

Armor of the Black Fox The weapons I prefer to use for my dual wield rogue and the armor I use for Leliana.

Gameplay Changes/Edits

Extra Dog Slot Lets you take Dog everywhere with you, without taking up a companion slot. Your companions won’t banter with him and you can’t access his inventory or level him up, but he will be included in cutscenes, you can make him pee on things for Mabari dominance, all his tactics work and you can enter conversation with him.

No Helmet Hack Allows you to hide your character’s helmet. Works for Awakening as well.

Skip the Fade Skips the godawful Lost in Dreams section of the Circle Tower missions. Automatically gives you all Codex entries and buffs. Essential if you’ve done more than two playthroughs.

Character Respecialization Adds a raven to various locations that will allow you to respec you and your companions.

ZDF Dialogue Fix Fixes some weird dialogue in game. As a heads up I do still get a couple instances of strange dialogue (for example during the conversation with Leliana at camp after her personal quest) but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to fix them.

Advanced Tactics Tweaks the tactics system to make it more user friendly, giving you more options for giving your party commands. Works for Awakening. This one is an essential for me.

Personal Annoyance Remover Gets rid of the visual effects of some abilities such as bard songs and Rally.

Traps Away Reduces the time it takes to put down traps.

Awakening Lore-Friendly Epilogue Rewrite Rewrites the Awakening epilogue slideshow to be more lore-friendly and in line with Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition events.

A Nug for Leliana Getting Schmooples for Leliana can be fiddly. This makes it much easier. You still have to speak to the dwarf who sells you Schmooples, but you don’t need to speak to Leliana beforehand or have her in your party.

Happy Owen Sells Far Song Allows you to obtain the bow Far Song from Owen so you don't have to kill him if you want it.

Origin High Cunning Flag Reductions Reduces the Cunning needed for the player to access certain dialogue in the Human Noble, Magi and Dalish origins.

Natural Lighting For The Character Creator Makes it easier to see what you're doing in the character creator. No waiting until the middle of your origin story to find out what your eye colour actually is.

Cleaner Screenshots From Conversations Gets rid of the subtitles and dialogue choices in your screenshots.

Texture Replacers

White Teeth Makes everyone's teeth a lot less yellow.

Neutral Female Armor (Medium and Heavy Edition) Gets rid of the weird squished-titty effect that medium and heavy armors have on female characters.

Practical Morrigan Robe Lore friendly retexture of Morrigan's robe to cover up her titties while still maintaining the vibe of her original outfit.

Glossy Hair and Beard Improves the texture of the base game hairs and beards.

Some Dalish Textures Improves the quality of halla textures and makes the aravels match the ones in DA2 and Inquisition.

Female Noble Clothing Overhaul Makes female noble clothes much more attractive.

Maric's Blade Blues Edits the colouring of Maric's Blade (obtainable through Return to Ostagar) to match how it's described in the books.

Bow Replacer Makes all vanilla bows less chonky and ugly.

Companion Morphs

Inquisition Inspired Morphs I use the vanilla Morrigan and Leliana morphs. The vanilla Morrigan morph has slightly big ears but I find it really quite cute.

Alistair Morph - Highlights I use the Lighter Brown hair with the Light Brown Eyes. This mod is dependent on Pineappletree’s Vibrant Colors.

Unique Face Textures for Companions I wanted to share this one even though I don’t use it because it really is gorgeous - the problem is that it’s too gorgeous and makes your companions prettier than literally everyone else in the game. Alistair was looking so hot it was distracting. Wynne looked hotter than my PC while still being lore friendly.

Cosmetics and Character Creation

Pineappletree's Vibrant Colors Adds new hair, skin and eye colours to the character creator and replaces the default eye colours with brighter ones. This mod is needed for the Alistair morph I use.

Hairstyle Day Vol.2 Has the braid hairstyle I use for Lyna.

Hairstyle Day More absolutely gorgeous hairs from ShepShy.

Warden Complexions with Eyebrows I use the Tabris complexion for Lyna.

Anna Complexion Another complexion with eyebrows.

Elf Ears Edits all the standard elf presets to have bigger ears, more in line with what we see in DA2 and Inquisition.

Cutscenes and Alistair Romance Indulgence

Clan Sabrae Says Goodbye Adds a cutscene at the end of the Dalish origin where you properly mourn Tamlen and say goodbye to your clan.

DahliaLynn's Sleep Until Dawn Adds a tent to the campsite that allows you to sleep until dawn. Sleep alone, snuggle with the dog or with a romanced companion.

Alistair Romance Eavesdropping Adds a bench to the party camp that allows you to activate multiple cute cutscenes once you've romanced Alistair. 10/10 for screenshots, nice way to hear some banter from companions that you don’t usually take with you.

Let me know if y’all want me to make these for my DA2 and Inquisition mods. I don’t mod the later two games anywhere near as much as Origins (especially since Frosty terrifies me lmao) so the lists would be much smaller.

[thenightau]

Victory

((Dream Team in the Night au! This is just a fun ‘little’ one shot that I wanted to write! This takes place before the newest chapter- chapter 51-Have fun

~Ollie))

Builder was hunched over a map, frantically trying to remember his sister’s battle plans that she always mumbled under her breath. He couldn’t remember anything though, not one ounce of memory. The hermits were all doing their own thing in the area, talking to or helping out the three that had been saved, or offering Builder advice on what they should be doing next. 

Thats when everyone on the server paused. As 7 dings rang out on the server all at once. 

Dream as joined the server

Georgenotfound has joined the server

Snapnap has joined the server

Tommyinnit has joined the server

Wilbur has joined the server

Technoblade has joined the server. 

Tubbo has joined the server

Builder tensed up at a few of the names. He recognized Technoblade. He was one of Protector’s favorite players. He didn’t recognize the others though, and was quick to tell Cleo and Joe to find out who the others were and to bring them to him immediately, before Night could even try and manipulate them. 

“Why are they here?” He turned to look at Grian, and he sighed. 

“I don’t know honestly. But I do know they’re all good fighters. Lets pray they’re not on Night’s side.” Builder’s voice was soft in talking to his son, currently treating him like glass. Cleo and Joe had rocketed off, the span island not too far away. In fact if Builder squinted, he swore he could see bright green. 

Builder let out a deep sigh, keeping his guard up in case of any sort of attack. An ungodly scream rung out from the distance, near the spawn island. It was high pitch and fearful, making the other hermits jump. Grian clung onto Xisuma, eyes widened. 

But Cleo came flying back over with Joe, the group of new arrivals after them. Builder got a good look at the group. 

One was tall, around 6 foot, with blond hair and fair skin, his eyes a deep green. He had on a green hoodie, black jeans, and platform boots with stainless steel buckles. The man next to him was a little smaller, with a weaker looking build. He was wearing bright blue with a white square on it, the text something Builder really couldn’t decipher. Another man was still around the same height, black hair and tanned skin, with a white shirt with a flame on it. 

In the other group of people was someone Builder recognized. Techno. He was a mob hybrid of the pig variety, wearing very royal attire. What Builder then noticed practically broke his heart. Two 16 year olds were talking amongst themselves excitedly, looking around at the builds in the shopping district with swift head movements. Both were wearing revolutionary war like clothes, but one was blond the other brunet. Then there was another man, also wearing a similar getup to the two children, but he had rounded glasses and fluffy brown hair. 

“You must be Builder right?” Techno stepped forward, offering his hand with a gentle smile. “I’m sure you’re aware of me, The one in the green hoodie is Dream, the blue is George, and the white is Sapnap. The two children-” “HEY!” “Are Tommy and Tubbo, while the other is Wilbur. We’re here to help you.” Techno said, his tone remaining calm and flat. Builder nodded, and shook his hand. 

“I’m glad you’re here Techno. I’m sure we could use the help.” He said, watching as Techno looked behind him. The mans eyes practically lit up. 

“Oh! Oh Cub its so nice to see you!” Techno walked over to the bald pharaoh, smiling. Cub glanced up and seemed to relax a bit at the familiar face. 

“Hello Techno, Dream, the others.” He cracked a small smile, but there really wasn’t much emotion in it. Techno started talking to Cub while Dream walked up to Builder. 

“Hello Dream.” Builder said calmly, going back to looking over a map that was scrapped over with ink. Dream was silent as he looked over the map, and Builder seemed wary of the look in his eyes. “Is something the matter?” “Yea you don’t know how to fight for shit.” Dream said with a small laugh, laughing at the god’s shocked face. “Night knew you would crumble if Protector wasn’t by your side. So the bastard killed her off first.” Dream pulled out a sword he had gotten suddenly, Builder was almost afraid to ask who gave it to him, and pointed to the circled area on the map, where Builder had labeled it as ‘Night’s location’. 

“If you really want to be successful in this. Then you have to be smarter than them. Get the king away from his throne so to speak. Where no one else can help him.” Dream said, glancing up at George and Sapnap. Tommy and Tubbo had taken to quickly raiding the elytra shop once given permission too, excited to use the wings they hardly ever got to try. 

“I go get Tommy, Tubbo, and Wilbur to distract Night. It shouldn’t be too hard. Night can’t resist easy targets. And those three are... “ Dream looked over to the two teens and Wilbur frantically trying to make sure the two didn’t get themselves killed automatically, “Special.” 

“How do you know that?” Builder asked, raising an eyebrow and the hooded adult. The blond pulled his bag from his shoulder, opening it and revealing a mask that Builder recognized all too well. 

Sapnap and George had taken to trying to get as much info from the other hermits as they were able to give, even taunting Techno when the mob hybrid noticed Grian and his entire body tensed up. 

“Haha! Just go talk to him you simp!” Sapnap pushed Techno over to where Grian was sitting besides Wels and Xisuma, the three talking quietly to Joe. 

“Oh um. Pardon me, but Grian? May I talk to you?” Techno knelt down so he wasn’t looming over the four of them, knowing his height might be intimidating for the two he really didn’t know too well. Grian smiled a bit. 

“Oh sure, what’s up Techno?” Grian asked, although hardly maintaining eye contact. Wels seemed to move closer to Grian, as if scared Techno would hurt him. 

“I just wanted to know if you were okay. Physically at least I can only imagine what you’ve gone through-” Techno started to ramble nervously, before the realization dawned on him that he was doing such and he just shut up with, “Oh, sorry.” And an awkward smile. Grian just laughed softly. 

“Physically? Yes I’m okay. We’re getting my wings fixed up and then it should be all alright.” Grian confirmed, motioning to the hesitant ‘cast’ on his wings to help keep the bones in place. Techno looked over the contraption, and it was clear no one here knew how to fix wings but. Neither did he. 

“Well. Rest easy you three. I Promise you with every fiber of my being, that we will take that bastard down. I’ll do it myself if I have too.” Techno said, gently taking Grian by the hand and smiling confidently. Grian nodded, grinning that sly little grin that practically brought Techno down to half a heart, and chaos’s flame flickered within the small man. 

“Techno?”

“Yes Grian?”

“Burn that bastard into the ground.” 

___

A few days of planning had led to this, Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo in the forested area around Night’s base. They had set up a campfire like area, seemingly just very casual and possibly even just being world hoppers. They were sitting around the fire and talking loudly, Builder having said Night usually took walks to help them think. 

Tommy had set up a crappy looking hut for some stunt he wanted to pull with Night if he got the chance. Tubbo was just sitting on the grass, looking at his communicator to see if there was anything Builder needed from them. Wilbur, meanwhile, had his guitar with him. And he was just sitting there as live bait, playing his guitar and singing his newest songs. 

They felt Night’s presence before they saw them. 

The pleasant air around them grew ice cold, the campfire in front of them started to flicker, still burning but it seemed to emit no light. Wilbur looked around quickly, making sure he could still at least hear the two others with him. 

“What exactly are you doing?” Night’s voice was something else, Wilbur decided. It sounded like the calm before the storm, as if Night’s voice were a lie itself. Sharp, cold, and with an accent faded with time, Wilbur felt a shiver run down his spine. 

“Camping mate, what does it look like?” Wilbur asked, smiling and trying to seem calm. Night glanced at the three of them. Seemingly trying to look into their very souls behind their mask. 

“It looks like you three shouldn’t be here.” Night said, crossing their arms, “And because I’m feeling gracious. I’ll give you five minutes to pack your shit and go.” 

“Five minutes? Oh boy that’s all I need my plum colored fellow.” Tommy said, stepping into the crap hunt as Tubbo called it. There was a few seconds of rustling around before Tommy came back out in a suit. Tubbo covered his face. 

“We’re so dead.” Wilbur and Tubbo whispered in unison. 

“Hello there, my name is Tommy. And I’d like to give you. Yes you. The deal of a lifetime. How’s that sound?” Tommy grinned, walking right up to the god as if he held no fear. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Night asked, looking down at this actual child. 

“Just like I said! I am here, to offer you some helpful advice and whatnot on how to properly take down a tyrannical god.” Tommy opened his inventory and pulled out an assload of papers, shoving them into Night’s arms, the 16 year old rambling so Night wouldn’t be able to get a word in. 

Night stood there dazed for a few moments before they growled, pulling out a sword and letting the papers drop to the floor. 

“Oh mate it seems you dropped these. Oh look! You even have a file holder on hand!” Tommy grabbing the papers once more, stabbing them through Night’s outstretched sword. Night stared at this child before they just let out a slow breath. Night extended their hand, using shadows to push Tommy away from them. 

“ENOUGH!” Night yelled, using the shadows to keep Tommy down. 

“Well my friend. It seems like there's a slight wall between us.” Tommy muttered, his ability to breathe restricted a tad bit. 

Wilbur jumped up, brandishing a sword as he dramatically extended his hand and told Tubbo to run. Tubbo instead. Ran straight for Tommy, trying to pull him out from under the shadows. 

“You know. AT this point I'm unsure if you three are stupidly brave. Or just plain stupid.” Night said, Wilbur just smiled. 

“I’m not the one who didn’t notice the ender pearl.” Wilbur said, before he vanished and appeared a few feet away from Night’s back. Night turned quickly, letting the two children run and focusing their attention to the adult of the group. Wilbur was at them in seconds, diamond sword brandished. They just had to distract. Not kill. 

Night blocked Wilbur’s sword with their own, slicing to the side and sending a elbow towards the others face, but was blocked by a sudden shield. Night watched as diamond armor seemed to magically strap itself into Wilbur. 

“You didn’t think we came unprepared now did you? Tommy! Tubbo! Now!” Wilbur yelled. 

Night hardly got to turn before the two were at their back, slicing at them. Night growled, throwing all three of them from them using shadows. The three players were each pinned to separate trees.  “I’ve got to hand it to you three. You did manage to fool me there. You all are. Incredibly stupid. What? You think a few mortals can kill a god?” 

“If you're a god you’re a pretty pathetic one.” Tommy said, his voice strained, “Let me guess? God of being a pussy?” He taunted, and Night glared at them. 

“I think I’ll start with you first then.” Night walked over to Tommy, sword in hand. “You’d be an interesting Star now won’t you? Too bad the thought of killing you permanently is much more fun.” Night raised their sword to stab at Tommy, before someone yelled. 

“STOP!” 

___

Dream and Techno spent days planning with Builder, figuring out a battle plan that would cost the least amount of deaths. That would save everyone and leave Night for the killing. This was phase one of their plan. Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo would distract Night in a specific location known to all the others. Dream, George, and Sapnap had been sitting hidden outside of Night’s little hideout. It wasn’t anything to grand outwardly, so Dream assumed it was more of an underground bunker sort of situation. 

The three watched from afar as Night left the hideout, somehow unaware of them. George and Sapnap tensed up as seeing the god, but breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened. They both glanced back towards dream. 

“Drink the invisibility potions, do you have totems on you?” Dream asked softly. The two nodded, holding up said items as they downed the potions. They both gagged as their bodies became invisible, the clothes vanishing as well. Dream walked right up to the front door, the other two rushing around the back and starting to dig down. 

Dream knocked on the door, grinning widely. He was genuinely surprised when the door started to open, and a man he recognized as being Mumbo was looking back at him. 

“What?” He asked. Dream just smiled. 

“Hello there! Would you like to have a discussion of your lord and savior, me?” He asked, stepping into the place before ‘Mumbo’ could object. 

“Oh, uh. Sure?” Observer blinked as he closed the door behind the other, the two walking down a set of stairs into the area the Stars sat around in when they weren’t being useful to Night. Experiment stared at Observer as if he had two heads when the other came walking down, the hooded man behind him. “So, what is it you’d like to say?” Observer asked, amused by the man he had just met. 

“Alright, so…” Dream started to just talk, the grin on his face widening as he distracted the two Stars in that room as he noticed particles falling, making them face the opposite way as he just talked right of his ass. 

Sapnap and George were frantically digging straight down, soon landing on the floor of the bunker-like area and closing up the hole above them. They then started to sneak around, looking for Ren, False, Impulse and Scar. 

The two didn’t dare separate from one another, no weapons in their hands. Invisibility potions didn’t work on metal, after all. George was the one to find Ren, and he gasped audibly. HE and Sapnap ran over to the cell, pickaxe out as they mined the iron bars. 

Ren looked up, his eyes widening when he saw the floating tools. He started pulling at whatever binding’s Night had put on him, unable to say anything due to being muzzled. 

“Hey, Ren, it's us. George and Sapnap.” George said quickly, unhooking the muzzle from Ren’s mouth and helping him up. “Here, drink this.” George handed him an invisibility potion, and Ren gladly drank it. 

“Man, you guys are life savers.” Ren said tiredly, and George just nodded, letting Ren lean his weight on him as the three went to find Scar, False, and Impulse. Ren guided them quickly, being sensitive to scents. So they found Scar and Impulse next, only being a few rooms down. 

Scar looked up as the door opened, both he and Impulse going wide eyed with fear. But… nothing was there. He felt the dull twinge of magic in the air. He gasped softly, not even daring to move with these heavy chains. “Hey, my name is Sapnap. I’m here to get you out. Okay?” He heard a soft voice and felt the warmth of a body as the chains holding him were broken with a pickaxe. Oh he loved how versatile tools are. 

George and Ren had taken to seeing if Impulse was okay, handing the man an invisibility potion before they went to focus their attention on getting Scar out of his hand restraints. Sapnap  was just sort of. Going at it. With a pickaxe. He had dug the diamond tool into the small crease of the metal, twisting the pick and getting the hand restraints to pop open. They shared a silent cheer, Scar soon downing a potion, and the group went on their way to find False. 

It yet again didn’t take them all too long. Night was nowhere near good at base building. They found her chained to a wall, bruised and a little battered. And by little I mean heavily. The process was the same, getting her down from her chains, saying who they were, and handing her an invisibility potion to drink, before they started to mine their way up and out of this place. George went ahead, breaking a path for them as Sapnap closed the opening behind them, the hermits in between them. 

Dream had been talking for the past ten to fifteen minutes, and as soon as he felt a buzz on his wrist, he grinned. “Well boys. It was great talking to you, but it seems that its time for you to buzz off.” Dream said, pulling out a sword and going to attack on a dime. This was nothing new to him, fighting two vs. one. 

He slashed at Doc, or Experiment as Observer referred to him as, turning swiftly with a shield out and blocking Observer’s attack. He kicked the man to the ground, rushing further into the room as he started to slash, hack and stab at the beds in the room, destroying the two’s respawn, as well as anyone else who slept in this army bunker like room. 

Observer and Experiment rushed him, but Dream just grinned. He sent a sword through Observer’s chest, killing him on the spot. Experiment gasped, only having one arm to really do anything with. Dream just laughed, the laugh manic. It sent shivers down his spine. “Come here Exie~” Dream mocked, raising a sword in the air as Experiment tried to book it to grab a weapon from Observer, but screamed as he was stabbed in the back. “See you at spawn~” Dream purred, ripping the sword from his back. 

Ṃ͉̯̐͆̉̚͟u̪̯͚̽̉͠m͕͇̰̺̝̀̀͆̀͝b̥̲̕͝o̝̔ǰ͍̥̂u͖̒m̛̱̮̯͗̉͘ͅb͇͒ȍ͚̻̅ was slain by Dream

D̮̣̰̳̱̻̓̃̓͗͆͘͘ͅơ̦͔̗͉̼̭̪̹̭͍̯͕͍̋́̍̌̓̒͌͋͌͞͡͠c͖̜͗͒m̰̹̺̣͙̪̲̞̝͐́̎͌́̓͑͛̍7̧̩̣͚͎̲̳̣͈̖̓̓̈́̏̒͋̚͠͝͡7͕̰̫̙̭̱̃̊̃̓͑̾ was slain by Dream

Dream grinned widely, blood dripping down his sword as he simply walked through the halls, placing down TNT as he leisurely strolled through the area, checking for any unknown hostages or Stars. Then he found one, a woman. He recognized her as Stress. She was wrapping up wounds in a separate area, more specifically her hands. He noticed they were starting to blacken and the skin shriveled. She hadn’t noticed him yet, or the death of her coworkers. Her communicator wasn’t near her. Dream lifted a bow gifted to him by one of the hermits, shooting a flaming arrow at the women. 

She screamed as he drove right into her gut. Her body lighting aflame as Dream set down a piece of TNT in the room. He used his flame bow to light the fuse, turning and running as the Princess screamed in shock and agony. He ran without looking back. 

Dream burst out of the bunkers, running towards his meet up spot with Sapnap and George. It had been about an hour since Night first left, their bunker exploding behind him as Dream laughed in victory. 

Sț̫̹̦̰̒̾̽̆̚̚̚͟ͅr̻͖̰̋̃̿ę̨̯͕͖͖͑̑̕͡͝͞s̢͎̻̝͎̤̮͒́̉͐̆̊͠s̜̰̙̞̻̪̯̾̐̔̋̉̚͞͞ͅṁ̘̻̳̿͐̑͜o̢̧̨̼̫̪̪̼̭̘̟̹̮͛̀͌̏̑͂́͂͒͌̔̆́̕͜͡ͅņ̰̇̂s̛̲̣̞̤̓̓͒t̢̳̳̦̙̖̳̦̖̖̅͆͛̉̒̀̒̕͡͞e̡̳͍̖̺͗͊͡͡͞r̲̼̼͒̄͞1̧͕̼̠̻͎͓̼͙̭̩͎̎͐̅̊̔͊̉̓̇̓͌̆͘͜͢͞0̡̉̕͢1̨̹̭̻͓̜̻͖̣̿̿͒͐̈́́̒͘͜͡͡͝ͅ blew up while fighting Dream

Dream gave his friends a thumbs up before he started to book it towards where Tommy and the other two were, sword still brandished with the bow over his shoulder as he ran, following the exact same path Night took. He got there just in time it seemed. 

__

“STOP!” Dream yelled, sword clasped tightly in his hand. Hardened green eyes glared at the god as he slowly spun his sword in his hand threateningly. “I heard you like challenge Night. How about I give you one?” He grinned lowly. 

Night had turned at the loud yell, seeing a mortal they were oh so familiar with. A grin broke out from behind their mask. “Ah, Dream. Im glad to finally see you.” Night said, letting the three of them go. Dream was well… a dream star. Battle hardened, intelligent, and bloodthirsty. All they had to do was kill him, and Dream was theirs. 

“Tommy, Tubbo, behind me. Now.” Dream ordered, and the two 16 year olds quickly did just that. Tubbo was quickly typing on his communicator, looking at Night back to the stupid thing. Night silently cursed. They should’ve pulled that damn thing off him. 

“So. What’s your little challenge hm? Another round of manhunt?” Night openly mocked, “I don’t think even you could win against a god.” 

“No, I have something else in mind.” Dream said, his body taunt and ready to attack at a moments notice. “You. Me. One v. one. You win, you not only get your Stars that we’ve kidnapped back, but, you also get me, with no struggle. You lose? Well. You leave this place forever, and never come back.” He said, “Sound like a deal?” His eyes seemed to glow as he extended a hand to Night. “No holds bar. Everything and anything is legal.” He added, to add a little frosting on top, so to speak. 

Night hummed, well. This was practically a given. But if Dream is so confident, he must have something planned. The player was too intelligent to be throwing his life away out of cockiness. They looked Dream up and down, before shaking his extended hand. “Deal.” They agreed. Dream nodded. “And as a show of good faith, I’ll let those three off the hook.” they waved their hand for the three other players to go. And Dream nodded. The trio ran off quickly, quick to use elytras to fly off. 

And then it was two. 

___

Techno had gotten Experiment, Observer, and Princess overpowered and tied up, although he felt really bad over Experiment. He couldn’t really tie him up like the others so he. Ah. Hog tied him. Techno waved over for the others to come collect them, as Princess was shaking a lot. Techno just smiled, and reassured her that they wouldn’t harm them any further, watching as Cleo came over in a boat, the two loading their hostages into said boats before guiding them away. 

They had set up more medical-esk tents in the shopping district. Temporary homes where the hermits could stay and be together. Techno looked up to where the nether portals were, knowing they were on borrowed time. The communicators in the area all went off with two notifications that made Techo cheer in victory. 

Sapnap has made the advancement [We need to go deeper]

Georgenotfound has made the advancement [We need to go deeper]

“YES! They did it! They had to have!” Techno called out, and Builder nodded with a small smile. 

Builder felt like he should be doing more. He’s a god after all. But now that he knew who sent them, he felt a little more secure in their victory. He was currently doing research and collecting the needed things to resurrect Protector, Rose helping him greatly. 

Techno and Cleo go the Star’s into a secure area. Making sure they stayed tied up for now. Although Techno did take the time to sit with each of them and dress any wounds still there. Princess’s hands were concerning, as they were blackening with use of her power. She tried to pull her hand away. 

“Get the nether away from me.” She spat, glaring at the hybrid who only smiled in return. 

“Alright. Have fun with those hand wounds then.” He said, walking out of the area. Princess took this opportunity to glare at the two other stars with her. 

“Who in the name of the gODS let in that green pest?!” Princess snapped, her voice quiet as she didn’t want anything to happen to her. Experiment glanced over to Observer. “oBSERVER!” She whisper-yelled, and Observer sighed softly. 

“Okay. Okay I know I fucked up but ah… we’re away from Night at least?” He tried to offer. Princess kept up her glare. 

“And why exactly. Is that. A gOOD THING?!” She scolded. “We are with the eNEMY.” 

“The enemy that offered to help you patch up your hands meanwhile Night just hurts you all?” Experiment asked, his voice a low grumble as he was very much still hog tied. It was embarrassing. 

“He does have a point Princess.” Observer said, and Princess glared at the both of them. Her legs were crossed under her dress, and she was trying to make wither roses grow so she could kill the two, and have them respawn at the island. “Why are we siding with Night? All they do is hurt us.” Observer said. 

“You absolute traitors.” Princess growled. 

__

Sapnap, George, False, Ren, Scar, and Impulse were all running over bedrock, running towards the shopping district portal as Sapnap was shoving a few healing potions at Scar for him to drink, same with False. The group of six were running frantically, invisibility potions having long sense worn off. 

Ren was in front of them all. He was one of the faster runners. They had gotten up on top of bedrock via a nearby portal the gang only assume was Nights, that the Stars had moved above bedrock for him. But frankly. They didn’t care. They were in the home stretch. But someone was in front of the shopping district portal. Ren paused, seeing Beef standing there with a diamond sword. 

“Did you really think I’d let you get away that easy?” He asked, before going to lunge at Ren. 

Sapnap jumped between them, shield blocking the sword. He yelled for the others to go, go that Beef was distracted. George helped them all through, shield out just as Beef turned to swig at him, to grab the captives once more. 

Sapnap drove his sword into Beef’s shoulder, hearing a loud pop as the man screamed. Sapnap grinned. “Did you really think you stood a chance?” He taunted back, just grabbing him by his only good arm and disarming him, shoving him through the portal with them. 

George tied up Beef as best he could, the group quickly getting down to ground level and calling for help. Techno rushed over, taking beef from the group and putting him with the others, as Cleo rushed over to help with wounds, and get them all inside with warm food inside of them. 

“You did it you too.” Cub said, smiling gently as he watched the hurt hermits being escorted into buildings, and watched as Jellie rushed towards her owner. 

Explosions rang through the air, and George looked up. There was Tommy, Wilbur, and Tubbo, frantically flying towards them and landing clumsily. “DREAM NEEDS HELP!” Tommy yelled, frantic and a little panicked. George’s blood went cold. 

“What? What’s wrong?!” He asked. 

“Dream challenged Night to a fight, he’s all alone with that thing.” Tommy said, gripping onto his arms. 

“It’s alright Tommy. Dream knows how to handle himself.” Wilbur tried to calm him down, ushering for Builder to come over towards them. 

___

Dream grunted as his sword hit Night’s, sparks flying in the air as this fighting seemed endless. But one thing was constant. Night never dared fall back on his attacks. Dream had been waiting for the right moment, waiting for a chance to strike. He knew Night was weak. He had to be at this point. 

He swifting turned, running into the forest to get some distance between Night and him so he could heal. He downed a health potion as he ran, as well as a strength pot. He let the glass fall to the ground and shatter. He turned suddenly, and charged. His sword once again collided with Night’s. “You better just give up.” Dream laughed, sending a punch towards Night. He felt the mask against his knuckle, the smooth, hard plastic being pushed to the side with the action. Night’s head snapped to the other side. 

Dream’s knee collided with Night’s stomach, making them double over. “What the…?” They groaned, before Dream kicked the side of their head and had them fully on the ground. Their sword had fallen from their grip. “You can’t even kill me if you tried Dream. A mortal cannot kill a god.” Night laughed, “Go ahead, try.” He said, but Dream just smiled, his foot pressing against Night’s chest to keep him down. 

“Well. Lucky for me. I’m no mortal.” He said, pulling out his mask from his inventory and slipping it over his face. 

“No…” Night’s voice was quiet, genuine horror flooding their tone before they could stop it. 

“My name is Dream. I am the son of Amari. Goddess of Death. And as the titled Prince of Death, It’s my job to rid the world of scum like you.” Dream said, going to stab his sword into Night’s neck. But he was grabbed and pushed back by shadows, being pinned against a tree as Night stood. 

“Wow. Bravo Dream. I Didn’t recognize you.” Night mocked, picking their sword back up. “It’s been so long since you left.” They walked over to Dream, adjusting their mask to be back over their face. 

“Night. Do you remember what I said about the rules to this wager?” 

The question caught Night a little off guard. But they laughed hauntingly. “What? You said no holds bar. Why are you trying to change that?” They asked. 

“Oh no. I just don’t want you to be mad.” He said, before wither roses appeared on the ground. They destroyed the tree he was being pinned too. Fire erupted from the sides of the forest, merely light without heat. The light was blinding, eradicating any shadows within the area. Dream walked over the roses like they were nothing, although knowing they wouldn’t hurt Night as they would a normal player.

 Night tried to move, but they couldn’t. They looked down to see the roses creeping up their legs like vines, keeping them in one place. They looked back up, and saw Dream a few mere inches away from their face. He was grinning manically. 

“You know Night. Revolutions? Almost always get crushed.” He said, before his sword drove through Night’s chest. The feeling was like fire, it burned through Night’s very body, and they felt themselves starting to disappear. But they growled, maintaining the last of their strength. 

Their sword drove through Dream, only managing to stab his side before Night couldn’t stand anymore, the vines of the wither roses keeping them down. Their body was starting to crumble, crumble to ashes. And what exactly could they do? They had no help. No family anymore. 

They ostracized themselves. And it was their own downfall. 

TheNight was slain by Dream.

[evajellion]

2020 vidya ranking: #4 Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town

A comeback I was aware of, and slowly I had waited for it to make it to the states. I was not disappointed.

I’ll make this short for the people who don’t know why this game isn’t called “Harvest Moon”. Natsume, the localization team, and Marvelous, the actual company, had a very bad fallout with the former taking the rights of the series name. Games under the title Harvest Moon made by Natsume were… not exactly good.

Marvelous meanwhile, continued with Story of Seasons, the real Harvest Moon series. One of which would be a remake of the HM title that got me into the series and is a huge fan-favorite, Friends of Mineral Town, which in itself was a remake of Back to Nature!

“But Jel, why didn’t you just play Stardew Valley?” I’ll be honest, I’m just not keen on the aesthetic look of Stardew Valley. I wanted my good ol’ Harvest Moon look back dammit, and I was gonna get it. Especially since this remake added gay marriage options, which was perfect because a little before the start of last year I was questioning myself.

There are plenty of quality of life updates to be had here! Time doesn’t move as slowly, the pedometer automatically activates so long as it’s in your inventory, watering your crops is much easier, and quite a bit more. There’s more incentive to breed your animals as opposed to just keeping one forever.

There are two new bachelors thrown into the mix, but they aren’t… particularly interesting. Well, Brandon is okay, he’s an artist and sometimes will come to you for aid. Jennifer though, I didn’t see the appeal of her. Rivals for the bachelor/bachelorette you pursue also cannot get married anymore, only you can, which is kind of sad but I guess they didn’t want players to feel intimidated.

There are new animals this time around! They don’t really had a whole lot, but hey, they’re cute! We now have Angora Rabbits and Alpacas, both who supply wool like sheep. (I actually kind of like them more too) I just wish that the ducks from the DS game or goats were also included, but maybe next time!

The annoying wild dogs are gone and it’s easier to let your barn animals out. No more manually carrying or pushing them to go outside to eat! However, this also means you cannot start off with a cute puppy. Instead, you have to give the Harvest Goddess gifts so Van can show up, and every 15th of the season, he’ll set up a pet shop.

Why am I wording this like a bad thing? Well… if a storm happens, you miss the chance of getting a pet. And you can’t get another one without pampering the pet you had just gotten which could take an entire year in gameplay time. But hey, at least we can get a capybara and a penguin I guess..?

Marrying the Kappa or the Harvest Goddess is just as unrewarding as it was in the original, which is something I’m disappointed to see. Your child will also not grow up like it could in DS, they will remain in toddler stage forever.

This may sound like “I should just play the GBA version instead”, but with the amount of quality of life improvements, one of which includes finally being able to see how much stamina/fatigue you have, I think there’s no reason to go back to the old versions other than aesthetic.

Hopefully for the next SoS game, Marvelous takes the outdated stuff away, and we get ducks back!

Oh, if you’re wondering who I decided to marry, I picked Ran. She’s as much of a foodie as I am at times. Ironically, I married Cliff in my first playthrough of MFoMT.

Only I would wear a reindeer costume at the most inappropriate times.

[desiraypark]

When the Sun Sleeps in Canto Bight [5]

Previous Entire Work CHAPTER PLAYERS

The Knights of Ren: Ushar, Cardo, Trudgen, Ap’lek, Vicrul aka “Vic”, and Kuruk) Kylo Ren, Leader of the Knights of Ren Ruby Girard, The Beautiful Singer CHAPTER CONTENT N*FW -| Sexual content; mention of sex work; alcohol; language; back-story Additional Notes: Galactic Standard Calendar | 1920s Stockings, Tights, Nylons, Socks History by Vintage Dancer (scroll down to see how women of color (particularly Black women) wore their stockings) Word Count: 2,721

“I don’t get it. You fuck ‘em good, you give ‘em money and nice clothes—put ‘em up in a nice place, and they still aren’t satisfied. If I was a broad, I would be a-fuckin’ okay,” Ushar said, leaning back in a chair and smoking a cigarette. “She wants the ring, man. She wants the ring,” Cardo said. He was cleaning his gun. “Well, I’ve got a damn wife! Shit!” Ushar proclaimed. The Knights of Ren—all but Kylo, Vic, and Kuruk—were sitting in office of The Garden Lounge—their flagship establishment for over thirty years. It was a placed that lived up to its name: beautiful plant décor in the lounge; sky blue walls and plush brown carpeting—girls dressed in just enough to not be obscene, but just a little to remind you of “nature”, if you will. Vic was out front entertaining guests and Kuruk was manning the office. Trudgen was leaning against the teak-wood desk, downing a glass of whiskey, while Ap’lek was stretched out across the chaise. Finally, Kylo came in. 

“Evening, fellas,” Kylo said. “Evening,” they responded. “Where’s Vic?” Kylo asked as he sat behind his desk. “Minglin’,” Ap’lek answered. “Do you have your fuckin’ shoes on my couch?” Kylo asked. Ap’lek sat up and planted his feet on the floor. “Sorry, Boss.” “What’s goin’ on with the wife?” Kylo asked Ushar. He shook his head. “Wife’s fine. It’s the other one that’s bein’ a fuckin’ brat,” he responded.    “Why don’t you get rid of her?” Kylo asked, organizing things that didn’t need organizing on his desk. “Pussy’s too good, man.” The Knights chuckled. “Can somebody get—” Kylo started. At that moment, Vic walked through the door and left it open. Kuruk stood outside but stayed close enough to the office to hear what was going on. Vic sat beside Ushar, and Trudgen sat beside Ap’lek on the sofa. Kylo looked up at Kuruk and waved him in. “Come on in, Kuruk. Nobody’s gonna barge in here,” he said. Kuruk nodded, closed the door, and leaned against the wall beside it. “What’s goin’ on, fellas? Ap’lek, anything you wanna discuss?” Kylo asked. “Nope.” “I hear the Kesyk gang’s got a hold of some new toys. Automatic. Fast,” Cardo chimed in. “What makes ‘em special?” Kylo asked. “Faster. More precise. Lightweight,” Cardo answered. “Interesting. Look into it. How’s tricks?” “Steady,” Ushar answered. “The johns are startin’ to get a little bold, though. One of ‘em got a little rough with Hela and she cut him.” “Why can’t these bastards shoot their fuckin’ nut and leave?” Kylo asked. “How’s Hela?” “You know her. She’s cool but she said she’ll do it again,” Ushar answered. “As she fuckin’ should.

“Yeah, but--you think that would drive men away?” Ushar asked. “These fuckin’ johns would step over alligators to get some ass. And they know we’ve got the best fuckin’ girls and guys in Canto Bight. If they act like they have some sense, they ain’t gotta worry about nobody pullin’ no fuckin’ blades on ‘em.”

Ushar shrugged in reluctant agreement, and Vic smiled to himself. 

 The booze?” Kylo asked. 

“Booze is flowin’. Hearin’ more complaints from South Side, though,” Vic answered. “They still waterin’ the shit down?” Kylo asked. “No. This time they’re puttin’ in too much,” Vic answered. 

“People goin’ in for a couple of drinks and walkin’ out eatin’ the fuckin’ concrete,” Trudgen chimed in. He polished off his whiskey. “Fuckin’ idiots. I guess the only thing we can do is give them a fuckin’ recipe book or somethin’,” Kylo said. “Anything else goin’ on?” “Nope/No, boss,” the Knights said in unison. Vic cleared his throat. “There is one thing. Ren’s cousin reached out to me,” he said. “Sheev? That fuckin’ weirdo. What does he want?” “He was very vague. Said he wanted to discuss business and his “retirement”. Said to swing by the Death Star anytime. I was thinking Primeday? Around 2?” Vic suggested. “No can do. Got plans on Primeday. Centaxday. Afternoon.” Vic nodded. **********************

PRIMEDAY 

Kylo had spent the afternoon before dreaming up the perfect Primeday dinner. Everything usually closed or closed early on Primeday, so he had to think fast. Once he got an idea, he made his list and headed out to the markets—the butcher for lamb chops; the produce vendor for potatoes, mushrooms, lemons, and carrots. He’d even snatched a bottle of wine from the Garden Lounge’s inventory, and bought a chocolate cake from the bakery. Ruby agreed to be picked up at three. 

When Kylo pulled up at about 2:55, Ruby stood outside her building wearing another pink dress, blue baby doll heels, white stockings, and holding a white clutch in her hand. Thick curls peeped out of her white cloche hat. As she walked to the car, he climbed out and lifted his hands. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked. Ruby froze. “What?” “You’re supposed to wait for me to come to your fuckin’ door,” he said. Ruby shook her head and kept walking, and he walked toward her. She looked him over—his tall figure dressed from head to toe in black: black trousers, black shirt, black vest, black oxfords. “I just thought it would be more convenient for me to wait outside for you,” she fibbed. Truth was, she didn’t want Crystal sizing him up and asking him questions. Kylo took her hand and led her to the car.  

Kylo had called Ruby’s building a dump. His building was nice, but so lifeless and empty. No art on the walls; no flowers. His own apartment was similar. Clean. Very clean and neat. But no art. No colorful accents to catch your eye. He had a gramophone but owned no records. At least he had a radio. After he’d poured her a glass of wine in his tiny kitchen, she’d taken it upon herself to go into the living room and turn it on. Then, she got a better look at the place—no pictures. Just a burgundy couch that appeared to never have been sat on and a dining table with only two chairs in the corner. “You gonna leave me in here by myself, Babydoll?” Kylo called from the kitchen. Ruby smiled and walked back into the kitchen. Kylo had taken off his vest and rolled up his sleeves. He was standing over his stove, putting potatoes into a pot of water. Then, he went into the icebox and pulled out a thick piece of brown paper—stuffed with something. Ruby leaned against the counter and watched him work, trying to bite down a smile. “Tell me about yourself,” he requested. Ruby took a sip of her wine. “You first.” She saw his chest rise and fall, trapping a chuckle. “What do you wanna know?” Ruby thought back to the things Crystal told her. Where to start? Why did he call himself Kylo Ren if he was a Solo? An Organa? She chose to point at the most intriguing target. “Did you try to kill your father?” she asked. Kylo dropped pieces of meat into a bowl he’d filled with water. “I didn’t try to kill him. We got into a fight. He was winning. I pulled a knife on him to scare him off.” Ruby’s jaw dropped. “Oh…” Kylo didn’t continue. “May I ask what the fight was about?” Kylo sighed. He grabbed a bottle of vinegar from his cupboard and poured some into the bowl. 

“I’d been out with some friends. Fuckin’ around. Stayed the night with some br--some girl--and didn’t come home until the next morning. I was 18. Thought I was a man. My dad wouldn’t let me inside. Told me I was falling to the Dark Side...that I needed to repent and start coming to sanctuary with him, yada-yada-yada. I told him to shove his sanctuary up his ass and we just started brawlin’ in front of the neighbors.” “So, you’ve always been a little smart mouth,” Ruby joked. Kylo laughed. “Not always. I was just tired of people telling me what to do.” Ruby put her wine glass on the counter, grabbed the edge, then lifted herself to sit high. Then, she yanked off her hat and fluffed her hair. “What did your mom have to say about all of this?” she asked. “She did what she usually did. Defended me in front of him. Because she hates him just as much as I do. But told me how much of a disappoint I was to her behind closed doors.” Ruby’s watched Kylo move about in silence--moving the meat around in the bowl. Everything was making sense. The typical tale—poor little rich boy, rebellious and angry. He glanced at her, then avoided her sympathetic stare--placing his eyes on the pot of boiling potatoes instead. 

“I’m sorry you went through that,” she said. He shrugged and washed his hands.

"Eh. I’m over it. It was a long time ago,” he said. He dried his hands on a towel, then poured himself a glass of wine. “Your turn,” he said as he poured. 

“What do you want to know?” Ruby asked, echoing him. “Tell me about your parents.” He rested his hip against the counter and took a sip.

“I think…my mom is essentially your dad,” she said with chuckle. “Everything is dark-sided to her. Singing about anything unrelated to the gods. The radio. Picture shows. Lipstick. She didn’t have to put me out. As soon as I turned 18, I was outta there.” Kylo listened to Ruby speak, but found himself getting lost in her--her hands that moved with every word she said; brown legs that lifted by the knee when the edge of the counter started cutting off her circulation. Even when she talked, there seemed to be a melody in her voice. She spoke highly of her father—apparently he was a laid-back and funny man—and she justified her mother’s puritan ways by admission of her being protective and caring. “So, mom wouldn’t think too highly of me, huh?” Kylo asked. “Oh, she’d probably melt into a puddle, she’d be so incensed,” Ruby said with a laugh. She guzzled the remainder of her wine. Ruby’s laugh made him smile. He tapped his fingers against his wine glass. “What does Ruby think about me?” he asked. A stillness fell over her. She stared at Kylo’s face—dark eyes boring into her; long waves draped over the side of his face as the result of a side part. Her eyes fell onto the stitches on his cheek, then back at his irises. “I think you’re impulsive and hot-headed,” she said. Kylo rolled his eyes and smirked. “…and passionate. Maybe even loyal...in search of something…” Potatoes began to knock against each other in the pot. Kylo stared into Ruby’s eyes, then at her painted lips. They parted just a centimeter, as though tired of being pressed together. Tired of not being touched. Kylo leaned in close and stopped. Ruby traveled the rest of the space and pressed her lips to his. He moved to stand directly in front of her and held the nape of her neck, pulling her closer as she rested her hands on his waist. He stopped kissing her but didn’t pull his face away. “You want me to stop?” he asked breathlessly. His heart was pounding and he silently prayed that she said “no”. “No,” she said. Kylo pressed his lips back against hers and ran his hand up her thigh. She held the back of his neck and deepened their kiss—pushing her tongue into his mouth. He let her tongue in, and the hand that was on her neck, moved up to grab a handful of her curls. Ruby moaned into his mouth and opened her knees. The feeling of Ruby’s knees moving against him made Kylo stiffen. His hand moved further up her thigh, and in between them. He slipped two fingers past the seat of her panties and rubbed them against her outer lips. Then, he rubbed his way to her warm core and pushed them inside. Ruby pulled her face away and rested her head against the cupboard. Her eyes were wide. “Your fingers are big,” she said with shock in her voice. Kylo smiled and kept fingering. He pushed her left knee open some more, then watched her face crinkle. She closed her eyes and bit down on her lip—allowing ecstasy to overtake her. Then, he stopped fingering her and bent at his waist. Just as he did so, the water on the stove began to boil harder. He jumped up—annoyed at the stove for doing its job—turned the burner off, yanked Ruby’s panties down, and put them in his pants pocket. Then, he pushed back the skirt of Ruby’s dress. She tilted to the left to lift the right hem, then tilted to the right to lift the left—revealing the hooked garters that pressed into her fleshy thighs and held her nylons up. She let the bottom of her dress bunch at her waist.

Kylo stared at her vulva—everything. The lips; the slit leaking from its top and probably down to her core with arousal; the brown rosebud that was fighting to be seen. Ruby pressed her palms against the counter and opened her legs more. Kylo smirked. “Anxious?” he asked. “Yes. I am,” she answered—breath loud, hot, and sure. Kylo bent at the waist and turned his body to the side. He dipped his head between Ruby’s inner thighs, and without hesitation, rapidly flicked his pointed tongue against her clit. Ruby cried out and grabbed a handful of his hair, moaning as he lapped her up. He didn’t abandon an inch of her—tongue venturing around, over, and inside of her—causing her to grind against his face. With a mouth full of pussy, he stared up at her, ego steadily growing with every squirm, every twitch of her brow and every bite of her lip. When he stuck his fingers back inside, she tightened her grip against his scalp and finally looked down at him. The sight of him looking up at her with darkened eyes made her own eyes close again, but he put space between his lips and her flesh. “Look at me when you come,” he said. A chill went down Ruby’s spine and she looked down into Kylo’s eyes. He inserted a third finger and massaged her walls as he sucked and ravaged her clit. Suddenly, he felt her contracting over his fingers. Her jaw dropped and a strained sound left her throat. Then, she let out an endless high-pitched moan and tried to pull away from his lips—but Kylo didn’t stop until his tongue absorbed the very last drop of her sweet cum. She fell backward and rested her head on the cupboard again—loud breaths filling the quiet of the kitchen. Barely giving her a minute, Kylo peeled her off the counter and tossed her over his shoulder—making her squeal as if she were on an amusement ride. He carried her to his bedroom and dropped her onto his bed. He pulled off her shoes, then pulled at the buttons of his vest. Ruby sat up, pulled her dress over her head, unclasped her bra, and tugged at the hook on her right garter. “Keep those on,” he said. He stared at her thighs and licked his lips.

Ruby moved her hand and fell back. She watched Kylo get completely naked. She barely got a good look at him before he was on top of her, planting kisses against her neck. He grabbed her right leg and pressed it back so that her knee was over her chest. Shortly after, she felt something warm and stiff rubbing against the outside of her core—it pressed into her, and the pressure sent a wave throughout her entire body. “Fuck…” they whimpered at the same time. Then, they chuckled. Kylo kissed her lips and inhaled her moans as he pushed more inches into her. He caught her grabbing the blanket in his peripheral, and slowly penetrated her until he couldn’t go any further. “You okay?” he asked. “Yes,” she strained to answer. 

He grabbed her left hand and placed it over the meatiest part of his waist. Then, he dragged out of her, and drove back in. He held on to her right thigh, the leg still pushed back, and dipped in and out of her—fast enough to please, but slow enough for the both of them to feel their lover’s every twitch and pulse, and grip and stroke.

[peoplelikegames]

Steam Games Festival: I played so many demos. My thoughts...

I spent a few days playing as many of these demos as I could and wrote down some rough impressions.

Black Book (Morteshka): Heavily atmospheric and steeped in Slavic mythology. You play as a Slavic woman named Vasilisa, attempting to bring back her husband, who has committed suicide, back from hell in an effort to save him from the eternal damnation that their religion believes befell those who commit suicide. She becomes a witch after venturing through the gates of hell and back. The gameplay takes several different forms, depending on what you’re doing. It’s got some point-and-click adventure game elements during the more exploration focused scenes. Sometimes you’ll find herbs that can be used as items later during combat. The combat plays out like Slay the Spire and other deck builder games of the ilk, with the key exception of the spell slots. Instead of the standard 3 energy system restricting card usage each turn, here you have 3 slots that can be filled with spells that correspond with the slot type. You have 2 Order slots (big spells) and 1 Key slot (little spells) you can fill each turn. It’s a small twist to the formula that opens up a lot of interesting possibilities and combinations. In between fights and the point-and-click scenes you’ll get to interact with people you meet along the path to your destination and make choices that effect the story and your character. Vasalisa’s journey looks bleak and full of death, and I’m interested to see where it goes.

AK-Xolotl (Daniel Piqueras Constantin): Fast paced, adorable and aggressive top down shooter. Very simple gameplay of shooting down waves of enemies picking up weapons and items that drop when they die. Feels great to play. Good movement, good dash, not much else to ask for. Really quick and snappy shooting and simple gameplay loop me keeps playing again and again just to get a higher score and see what new stuff it has to throw at me. It’s got really cute pixelated graphics and lots of forest critters with guns. The game also features an absolutely filthy death metal track that’s a perfect representation of how aggressive the game really is. Just a really quick and dirty time that definitely makes me want to see the finished product. Also, I love the lil axolotl guy.

Despot’s Game (Konfa Games): Rogue-like dungeon crawler where you control a mob of humans. It’s a pretty cool and complicated battle system my only problem is I can’t help but feel like I don’t have enough control on the outcome of the fights. It’s almost a little like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator in that way. Basically, your run begins with you purchasing a bunch of little humans and different weapons to give to those little humans which will give them a class. Give a little guy a medkit and now he’s a healer, give someone a gun and they’re a shooter now. Humans with classes have special abilities they can activate when there are enough classes of that type on the field. Like an Auto Chess (Auto Battler?) game, if you have, say, 2 or 3 Fencers on the board, your fencers will now have access to their special ability, a dodge roll. Position your people in what you hope is a tactical formation and start heading for the dungeon exit. Most rooms consist of a fight, which plays out automatically. When you press go on a fight, your troops and the enemies will all start fighting until only one side remains. This is where the game loses me a little bit as it’s unclear how much of a difference positioning makes or what more I should be doing to change the outcome. Did I win this time because that unit was farther up than last time, or did the AI just play it out slightly differently that skewed in my favor? I can’t tell if the changes I’m making are actually making a tactical difference, or if the AI routines are just clashing with slightly varying results each time. You’re gonna lose units a lot but they are pretty disposable, with frequent shops for buying reinforcements or new gear. And every unit contributes to your mob’s total hunger meter, which deplete with every new room you enter. You have to buy food to feed your troops to keep them from losing effectiveness. Bigger team=greater food consumption. Gotta find a balance with your money and spending it on new units, new weapons, and food. I really wanted to like this game more because I really dig the hook of building up a mob of little guys with cools powers and I like the unit synergy system as well, but the perceived lack of control over how the fights play out and the game’s edgy humor ultimately pushed me away.

Dead Estate (Milkbar Lads): Fairly generic zombie shooter rogue-like (there’s gonna be a lot of rogue-likes). Your standard twin-stick kind of shooting you’d find in the Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon, except here you can jump, adding some verticality. Explore each room, kill the zombies, find the key and then find the elevator to the next floor. Sometimes you find a new gun or shop along the way. The movement feels pretty slow and the rooms feel small. Too many times would I walk into a room, fight three of the same zombie then walk int next room just to see two more of that same zombie. Too many times did I have to walk back across a whole level at a snail’s pace. Needs more enemy variety and to move a little quicker. The shooting is a little better, I like how the game makes its weapons feel distinct by how much it kick it has. More powerful weapons will push you back with each shot. Unloading the mini gun felt chaotic and rumbly that make you slide back and wiggle in a fun way. You can usually kill most enemies before they’re even able to do anything makes them unique, rendering most enemies the same “zombie that walk towards you for second before you finish them off.” Didn’t really draw me in or entice me to see what I might encounter on higher floors.

Foregone (big blue studio): This one feels a little like a watered down Dead Cells at first, AT FIRST. It’s a little slower and less snappy but it’s still very fun. Plus it’s more of a linear 2d action platformer with lots of loot. I like the loot aspect here quite a bit; watching a bunch of currency fly out of enemies is satisfying in a “headshot kill in Destiny kinda way.” Just a bunch of fun particles and a frequent gear drop that has you constantly popping open your inventory to equip your new gear and make those numbers go up. If that’s your kind of fun, you can definitely find it here. Lots of weapon variety on show here and most, if not all, of them feel unique. Just wish the combat was little tighter, which since this is a demo, I assume will come in due time. The game could also do a better job of informing the player that they’re taking damage, which made it difficult to hone the timing on the dash to avoid taking damage. And I’m hoping the environments of the full game become a little more diverse and sprawling, right now it feels like it’s mostly individual rooms/levels of engagement at a time. Excited to see how the full release pans out.

Tunche (LEAP Game Studios): Immediately drawn in here by the beautiful hand drawn art style. It’s a brawler roguelike and if you know what those two words mean in the context of video games, that’s all you really need to know. The brawler combat is what it is, very combo and juggle heavy, enemies that take dozens of hits to kill, fairly bland and just flat land environments. Walk forward until you’re stopped, fight a bunch of waves of enemies, rinse and repeat. Except this time you occasionally get upgrades after finishing rooms like “chance for attacks to cause burn” and “chance to regain health on hit,” your standard rougelike fare. With the territory comes the roguelike difficulty, and this game is plenty tough with the amount of enemies it throws at you and how limited your health pool can be. All of the art and the animations are what really shine here, and if you’re into that brawler style combat, this seems like a pretty good one of those.

Power of Ten (Pew Times Three): Next up we have a top-down space shooter roguelike. I like the minimalistic pixel art style in this one. It helps with atmosphere and you making you feel like a small ship in a large system. Your goal is to power planetary shields on inhabited planets throughout the system by gathering resources from asteroids. While you’re hunting asteroids, pirate ships will randomly attack a planet, pulling you away from resource gathering into a space dogfight against the pirates. That push and pull of gathering resources to fuel a planets shields while simultaneously protecting the planets whose shields are not yet charged is the core loop here that I really like. Conveying solid, core gameplay loop that’s engaging is exactly what you want to get across in a demo, and they definitely deliver that here.

Jelly is Sticky (Lunarch Studios): A lovely, casual sokoban puzzle game. Sliding around and rearranging cubes of jelly into oblong structures to match highlighted areas within a given space. You’ll encounter jellies of different qualities along the way, all with their own quirks around how they like to stick. I really like the non-linear structure in the over world, letting you navigate around between levels from all of the jelly-archetypes at any time. Solving sets of levels will unlock jelly in the over world you can stick to and rearrange to give you access to further levels gated behind walls and other triggers. It’s an appreciated extra layer of depth you don’t expect from a puzzle game that could have very well presented it’s levels in an ordered, level-select screen.

Potion Craft (niceplay games): In this game you play as a budding alchemist trying to make your mark on the world in your newly acquired (stolen possibly?) alchemy shop. Its an alchemist simulator. It’s presented in an “alchemy text book diagram-style” that’s immediately endearing. Every day, you collect ingredients like herbs and fungi from your garden and then it’s time to open shop. Customers come and share their plight, asking for potions of different types. They’ll offer different prices for potions of different potency which you haggle up further (or lower, if you mess up) through a simple timing mini game. The actually potion making is puzzling and unique, if not occasionally limiting. Ingredients you add to the cauldron determine a path that the potion icon in the center will follow across a fog covered map. Add more ingredients to add length and direction to the path, trying to build the path in a specific way that will lead to a “?” destination marked on the map. Name the potion, choose a bottle and label, and brew it. You’ll learn what it does, and can save the recipe for easy use again later. The only downside is how limited the ingredients are makes it very punishing when experimentation results in failure, all those ingredients are just lost. It seems like the game really wants you to just fill the orders at hand instead of blindly exploring into the fog to see what weird stuff comes up, which is my favorite thing to do so far. This is still easily one of my favorite demos of the bunch and has to be seen for oneself.

Aeon Drive Prologue (2awesome studio): This is definitely one of the ones I wanted to like more than I did. A self proclaimed “speedrun action platformer” and it demands that go fast. Very short 2d platformer levels with an ever ticking clock. If the timer reaches zero before you reach the exit, you fail the level. Consumables lined throughout the level can be used to add more time to your clock. This game is very punishing, one hit from anything, from enemy to stage hazard, will cause you to fail and restart. Very quick movement and a focus on chaining together different moves to find different paths through the level. There seemed to be benefits like special collectibles for taking more inventive, alternative paths, but the ticking clock really kept me tunnel-visioned on the most clear cut route through the level, meaning I only ever small a very tiny portion of each one. I’m not the type of person to butt my head against how to pull some crazy route as opposed to the clearly laid out one in front of me. Unfortunately, that clearly laid path just isn’t very fun to take. There’s also a dagger you can throw and teleport to, which I found difficult to aim and not as fun to use as it sounds. There is definitely something here, it’s just ultimately not for me.

Medievalien (dOOb games srl): Action RPG roguelike in a medieval world that has been invaded by aliens. You play an amnesiac protagonist trying to undo the calamity through repeated attempts from within a magical (or scientific?) time loop. Commence genre mashup. Nothing particularly stands out here. Two weapon slots and two throwables slots, lots of different items to fill them. Your weapons consist of bows, crossbows, and staves, and the throwables are bombs of varying elemental effect. It’s fun to play but fairly middling. The low poly art style doesn’t do anything for me and the soundtrack was forgettable. Still, if you’re like me and enjoy ARPGs and roguelike, it does the thing well enough to scratch the itch.

Minute of Islands (Studio Fizbin): Right out of the gate this 2d narrative platformer hits you with gorgeous hand-drawn art. A poisoned, decaying world that is beautifully drawn and animated. I’m gonna day this is not the best demo. The pace is very slow and the objectives are linear and don’t even register as puzzles. This game calls itself a puzzle platformer yet there were no puzzles to be found in this demo. I’m assuming the demo is trying to preserve story details so it starts at the beginning and only gives you a small slice from there. So maybe the game introduces more puzzle elements later in the game. But what’s left in the demo is not very compelling to play. The impressively detailed environments and atmosphere are only driving forces so far. But extremely strong forces at that.

Alekon (The Alekon Company): This feels like spiritual follow up to Pokemon Snap in all of the best ways. In its most basic form, the game plays exactly like Pokémon Snap, but builds on the nearly 30 year old classic in several key ways. Creatures in this game are called “Fictions” and whenever you take a picture of a new fiction, the creature also appears back in the game’s hub world. Once back in the hub world, you can talk to the fictions who have moved in and they’ll give you small quests to do that’ll usually reward you with key game features, like a zoom function for the camera. There’s a great feature that involves capturing photos of a fiction in all of its potential poses, which will unlock the ability to “see through the eyes of the fiction.” So when you’re looking through the album of your saved pictures, you can apply a fiction filter to see the image as a particular fiction would see if through their own eyes. Also, once you’ve unlocked all of the different routes in a specific biome, you gain the ability to “wander.” Wandering is free from the rails of the standard routes and allows to explore every inch of the biome and find other fictions that were previously hidden. It’s also a great space to snag that perfect picture of a fiction you couldn’t get while riding the rails. The creatures themselves are kind of hit or miss so far in their design. Sometimes it’s literally just a seal, sometimes it’s a ridiculous alien thing, but it seems like the personalities of the fictions are what makes them unique. Even though I didn’t care for the designs, I found myself endeared toward the creatures once I found them back in the hub and helped them with their troubles. There’s some good writing in these bits that really helps sell me on these creatures. Lots to love here if you’re into games about snapping pics of critters and throwing donuts.

Eat’n Eaten (Gaëtan Benoit): A cartoony tower defense game with bug plants. Bugs that grow from plants. It has a really fun and easy to understand “food chain management” system for building up units. It almost feels like it was designed to translate easily to touchscreens for mobile devices. Your soil has 100% nutrients, plants grow and feed off nutrients, plants grow apples which you can pick who will then become your units. When an apple dies it’s corpse returns nutrients to the soil and it’ll drop a seed that will grow into a new plant. If you don’t pick the apples off the plant long enough for them to consume extra nutrients, the apples will become a caterpillar. Pick the caterpillar off the plant and now you have a more offensive unit, who needs to eat apples to survive. The game only builds on the loop from there; the way bugs will level up into new or stronger forms after eating enough fruit, or how the game will add spiders to your team who will then need to eat caterpillars to survive. Manage this whole food chain to keep a steady supply and distribution of units against waves of enemies. I don’t know if that seems confusing when put into word like that but it’s really quick and simple to pick up they way it is presented. It can definitely get a little frantic at times but that’s when the game is at it’s most fun.

Dorfromantik (Toukana Interactive): Chill, colorful, tile placement puzzle game about building a village landscape. You start with a deck of 85 hexagonal tiles, and it doesn’t end until all the tiles have been placed. You’re placing tiles with the intent to line up as many like edges between adjacent tiles, making longer and longer networks of landscapes of matching type. The way the scoring works and how the game conforms matching sides together does a good job of making the best place to put your tile one that not only scores well but also looks good in the context of the interconnected village landscape you are ultimately trying to craft. I would kill for this game on Switch.

Unsouled (Megusta Game): An isometric pixelates dark souls-style action game. Described as an “ultra-brutal” game with “fast-paced and savagely rewarding combat,” Unsouled comes exactly as advertised. The combat in this game is very difficult and I am simply not the person to conquer it. It’s really fast paced yet proper movement and combat requires consistent timing and punished button mashing. Every thing you do has to be deliberate and calculated as it’s easy to lose control of the battlefield very quickly. Even just a few enemies can be dangerous as they all can dodge and block and roll just like you. The game is unafraid to put the pressure on and throw ten enemies at you all at once engaging from different ranges. The game demands that intimately learn the combat systems if you want to keep your stamina and health high in the heat of combat. I’d bet that if you’re a fan of Dark Souls or souls-like games, this game has all that difficulty but a different pace of combat that doesn’t feel derivative.

Rogue Invader (Squishy Games): Immediately I love the look of this game. It’s got this old school 1-bit black and white look to it. It also opens up with a fully animated and voice acted cutscene. The game is actually pretty difficult. It’s a side scrolling shooter where you’re part of an army in invading an alien planet one soldier at a time. You’re also managing weapon heat and breakage, and carry weight effecting run speed. Each soldier gets body armor and a pistol but you can equip them with a rifle and helmet from your armory. Which you’ll definitely want to do considering you die in one shot if hit in the head. When you’re soldier dies, they lose the gear you equipped them with and the new soldier needs to be equipped with whatever you can craft in the forge. This is where I ran into issues with hardy ever having enough materials to craft a helmet, go into a mission and die early to a single stray bullet to the head, and subsequently not earn enough materials to make a helmet. The evasive controls like jumping, running, rolling and taking cover all felt clunky in my hands, add that to fact that bullets often just miss even if you’re aiming right on an enemy, and it made for a pretty unsatisfying game to play.

Devastator (Radiangames): How is this not just Geometry Wars? Because this shit is just geometry wars. Fortunately, Geometry Wars slaps so this game is still pretty fun. But just go play Geometry Wars. There, I mentioned a different game like five times more than the game this was supposed to be about.

ANVIL (Action Square): Co-op top down shooter roguelike with space marines. It’s like a run-based Starship Troopers game. It’s pretty great. The three characters unlocked in the demo all have different weapons and abilities resulting in very distinct play styles between classes. There’s a fairly simple loop to each floor: search the floor for the boss, along the way areas will be filled with enemies, who’ll drop money, which can be used to buy passive upgrades from chests found throughout the floor. The upgrade system allows you stack multiple of the same upgrade for increased effect. Lots of variety in the enemy type really keeps you on your toes. Unsurprisingly, it just feels good to mow down mobs of space bugs.

Orbital Bullet (SmokeStab): A 360 degree shooter platformer. It’s a really cool gimmick actually, you move in 2d but in ring around a 3D space. It’s makes for some cool looking environments and depth from having inner and outer rings you can switch between. Really fast and arcade-y feeling. Snappy movement and gunplay. There’s seems to be a lot offered here among different weapons, in-run upgrades and meta upgrades that persist between runs. Which makes this a roguelite, as opposed to roguelike, which I tend to prefer. I like having something upgrade outside of my runs to make me feel stronger or different going into the next run. The games has a sort of ancient alien aesthetic, it feels industrial and monolithic. The bursts of neon in the walls, enemies, and weapons really pop among the ruins of the stone temple. Watching your weapons’ shot glide along the curve of the world is an effective visual as well. Just because I clearly like to compare to games so much, this game feels a lot like Resogun meets Downwell, and that’s just fantastic.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Greg Lobanov): A colorful and cartoony adventure game about painting that takes a small but welcomed bullet hell turn. You play as a cute little pup that claims the power of The Brush after it’s wielder (and your master) disappears along with all of the color in the world. Searching for cause and hopefully the solution, you embark on a journey to repaint the world and make your mark as the new wielder. Once you pick up that brush you can start coloring in literally everything in the world. It’s fun and charming the whole way through. You can help the townsfolk bring color back into the lives and color in their houses to their satisfaction. Use the paint to navigate the world by growing and shrinking plants by erasing/coloring them. The demo is a little thin but definitely makes me interested to see what fun stuff the game has in store for these paint mechanics.

Genesis Noir (Feral Cat Den): Okay this game was a trip. I barely have any idea what I just played but I know I really liked what was happening. It’s a heavily stylized point and click adventure game where it feels like you exist within an improvisational Jazz album. Train tracks becoming notes on a cello. Getting into a cosmic jazz-off that plays like a game of Simon and ends with your opponent on the wrong end of a mob hit. I think? Honestly this game is so trippy it was difficult to keep track of what was going on. And occasionally it was a little ambiguous as to how you’re supposed to proceed, which lead some random click and dragging around the screen until something clicks. It actually seems like it could turn out to be a really good example of a story and experience that can really only be through video games. Not quite an animated film, not quite a comic book or visual novel, but instead a fantastical, interactive amalgamation of many things. Whatever this thing may be defined as, it’s something unique and special.

[somethinglacking]

Shooting For Stars: Chapter 1

Summary: 

Hyuna Lee just started college, and while procrastinating decided to give a popular MMO called LOLOL a try. Here she will meet new friends, battle monsters, part takes in epic quests, and potentially find love!

Most of this will take place in LOLOL at the beginning.

This takes place a year/ year and a half after Seven's good end, and the secret endings. Yoosung x OC

**Update's once a week**

Smut in later chapters, of course ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Hyuna groaned as she sat staring at her computer. Her assignment was to draw something that inspires you, some sort of introductory assignment for the Professor to get to know her small class of Art Student Misfits. Nothing seemed to inspire her as of late, and no matter what she did manage to sketch out onto screen seemed to call her out: The Un-Inspired Art Student with no muse or motivation. Her fingers ran the length of her caramel brown locks, and her nails lightly scratched her scalp trying to ease her growing frustrations. Hazel glared at the taunting screen before her, daring it to keep on challenging her. 

After what seemed like an eternity, the artist sighed in defeat. Nothing was coming to her, and the lines she had managed to get down didn’t seem to be coming together as anything. Annoyed with herself and lack of a muse, she set her tablet to the side and opened her social media. Not much was going on, and she didn’t really have any friends anymore. Her sister posted a photo of her and her little class of second graders. They were cute and her sister looked happy. Smiling at the photo she offered it a thumbs up. 

When she was done scrolling her newsfeed she opened boogle. Bored she searched for fun things to do on the internet. The search results varied in interest, but an ad on the web page she was on showed a popular MMO and a free trial. Curious she clicked it and went to the homepage of the game. She read of the spec’s and nodded noting it would work on her pc. She clicked the download icon and downloaded it. 

Hazel eyes read every bit of detail the game had to offer her as it booted up the character creator. Feeling a little nervous, having never played an MMO before and unsure if she’d actually like being in contact with actual people. Logically she knew she could just play solo and ignore the events, or even delete her entire account after the free trial ran out and simply say she tried it. Biting a plump bottom lip she was greeted with page after several final updates. 

First, she selected her gender debating on being a boy, but ultimately settled for female solely because she knew their armor would be cuter the further she got into the game. She clicked through the races and settled on an elf. She smiled customizing the hairstyle and making the hair a lovely hue of blue. The eyes matched her avatar's hair. Hyuna chooses the least appalling beginner to wear praying she would be able to get something that wasn’t such an eyesore to wear easily. Overall the artist was pleased with the look of her new online persona and moved onto the next page.

Here she had to choose a username. Chewing on her lip she knew she go to Sapphire would be already taken in such a massive game, but gave it a go anyway. Slightly disappointed when it was already taken she contemplated what to use. She typed in several weird spelling of the name before Sapfyre worked. Making a surprised and pleased noise, she made haste to click the arrow button that would take her into the game. 

The screen loaded and she took her time going through the tutorial and getting the hang of the world, and command functions. Hyuna watched as her pretty avatar moved about doing little missions and basically busy work with prompt boxes explaining the gameplay.

 Soon enough she had completed her ‘training’ and was warped to a busy square full of other players. Hyuna blushed feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer number of avatars on the screen. She had picked one of the busier servers, but she hadn’t imagined it’d be this popular. Chewing her lip she ran around getting used to the shops and how the currency worked. Hazel eyes scanned the screen and took notice of where the world chat was, besides it was a little icon that lights up red with a little 1 beside it. Curious she clicked it and noticed it was the private messaging system. 

SupermanYoosung★: Hey you look lost ^^ SupermanYoosung★: You must be new! SupermanYoosung★: If you want help doing some quest or anything let me know. Hyuna tapped the pads of her fingers against her lips reading the message over and over again honestly wanting to take them up on their offer. Yet, she also felt rather shy about it too, it was strange. It wasn’t like it was a real interaction with someone, just two gamer bros going on a digital epic quest, so to speak. That being said, the artist wasn’t really a people person. Taking a moment to think about the other player's offer she opened the tab at the top that showed the servers rankings and who was online at the moment. Hazel went wide as she stared at the first couple name’s noticing the friendly strangers rank. They where rank number 2, basically LOLOL royalty. Hyuna let out a girlish giggle in disbelief. She clicked back onto her private messages and re-read the person’s name. It was for sure rank #2 SupermanYoosung. Before her brain could catch up to her fingers the typed with speed across her keyboard. 

Sapfyre: Oh wow! Sapfyre: I just check up on you, and it says your rank #2 ^^; Sapfyre: You must have better things to do than help a little noob like myself!

Before she knew it an impressive tank build avatar ran towards her. Hyuna bumped her forehead lightly with her fist watching as he positioned himself next to her Hobo of an Elf avatar. What a contrast that was to behold. However, if he did have time to waste with her, she almost wanted to beg him to help her get something more suitable for her avatar to wear. Something less beggar and painstakingly noob. 

SupermanYoosung★: Hahaha Yup! That’s me, I’m pretty awesome, huh? 

Hyuna couldn’t help but roll her eyes as a smile played at the edge of her mouth.

SupermanYoosung★: I’m also pretty free at the moment. I have no issue bussing you through some dungeons and helping you get some decent equipment.  SupermanYoosung★: Plus once you get passed level 20 you can join guilds! SupermanYoosung★: If you want, I can invite you to mine, haha!

This person seemed pretty nice and welcoming, Hyuna mused smiling to herself. She didn’t want to get his hopes up, nonetheless. Still unsure if she wanted to pay for the month to month subscription, or would even bother logging in again once she decided she had procrastinated enough for the evening and got back to her assignment. Best to play it coy. 

Sapfyre: Well alright then!  Sapfyre: Lolol can you add me to the party, I have absolutely no idea what I am doing  SupermanYoosung★: Oh! Sure thing!

The notification of a party invitation popped up. Hyuna clicked it and accepted. Soon there was an Icon over the two opposing in style avatars linking them together. 

Sapfyre: Wow they really go out and show you who you're with, huh? Sapfyre: We should get out of the public eye, haha… Someone like you hanging out with a LOLOL hobo can’t be good for the reputation! ^^ SupermanYoosung★: lol naw, it’s fine, I’m buying potions. I’ve got a feeling you’re gonna need them at the start ^^ SupermanYoosung★: I know just the Dungeon that shares exp! It’s pretty high rank, but I can handle the monsters myself. You can just sit back and enjoy the show! Cheer for me too! Sapfyre: I might be a noob, but I do freelance as a cheerleader on the side Sapfyre: It’s not much, but it’s honest work~ Sapfyre: Go! Yoosung! GO!  SupermanYoosung★: Haha! I didn’t expect you to actually cheer for me >_< SupermanYoosung★: Now I definitely have to help you get to at least level 20!

Hyuna’s character automatically followed the party leader’s avatar about the busy town square. There was an option to turn it off, but she didn’t feel like it. It was fun watching the two of them run around side by side as this Yoosung got the supplies she would most likely need to brave the dungeon. The artist clicked on her avatar and gasped in surprise. 

Sapfyre: There are little social action commands! Sapfyre: Ooooh~ 

She made her Elf do a little tribal type dance around Yoosung. She giggled as he made his brolly tank dance with her in the middle of the square. That was cute! 

SupermanYoosung★: Hahaha >_< SupermanYoosung★: They do! And some of the actions are special to race, gender, and class. SupermanYoosung★: Oh! You get to pick a class at level 10 SupermanYoosung★: Any ideas on a build you want to make? Sapfyre: Thank you for the dance Monsieur~ Sapfyre: I dunno what build to make??? Sapfyre: I guess I want something ranged so I can hang back. 

A box popped up on the screen declaring that SupermanYoosung would like to item share with her. Hyuna clicked yes and his inventory opened along with her own. She flushed when she saw all the cool things he was carrying and how she only held a level 2 stick from one of her tutorial missions at the beginning. She watched as Yoosung threw 99 potions, and 99 mana restore potions at her along with a level 2 wooden helm. She giggled equipping it to her Elf. 

Sapfyre: Now my look is finally complete. What a sexy helm! SupermanYoosung★: lololol, sooo sexy~ SupermanYoosung★: Back on the topic of builds SupermanYoosung★: Ever consider being a support healer? SupermanYoosung★: It’s sooo hard to find a decent one D:

Sapfyre: I dunno if I’d make a good support ^^; Sapfyre: If they are hard to find there must be a reason right?

SupermanYoosung★: They just don’t know how to build themselves, and/or try to fight when the tanks have the situation covered and die, SupermanYoosung★: I never built a healer before, but I do know a few things. I could help you if you want?

Sapfyre: Welllllllll Sapfyre: Sure why not~~! Sapfyre: Since you’re helping me out so much already, I don’t mind trying to be a healer for you.

SupermanYoosung★: Thank you! SupermanYoosung★: Rest of the guild will be so jealous when I show off my own personal little healer~ haha~

Sapfyre: >_< lololol I’m shy~

Hyuna bit her lip re-reading the messages. It almost felt like this guy or girl or whatever they are was flirting with her. They couldn’t possibly know she was a girl. She assumed many male players would make a female avatar, let's be honest, the higher rank armor leaves little to the imagination. She wrote off the interaction as this Yoosung being friendly and excited to help her create a healer support he seemed to need desperately. 

SupermanYoosung★: Haha that’s okay! SupermanYoosung★: Do you have a headset, it’s easier to chat that way while in dungeons.

The artist flushed again at the thought of letting a stranger hear her voice. She could see why it would be more convenient. Seeing as she had never played an online game, and preferred solo JRPG’s or Horror survival-

Sapfyre: I never required a headset before

SupermanYoosung★: It’s okay, it just means we are gonna crawl dungeons a bit slower since we’ll have to type to one another. 

Sapfyre: ^^; I’ll look into investing in one in the future. Sapfyre: I’m on a college student allowance, it’ll have to be a cheap one.

SupermanYoosung★: Haha, I’m a student too. I get what you mean. SupermanYoosung★: No shame in having an off-brand HS since you’re just starting SupermanYoosung★: I’m gonna teleport us to a level 30 dungeon. Keep your guard up

Sapfyre: Sure thing ^^

They were off, the screen turned into a load for a moment before both of them spawned in a dungeon. The artist smiled as she watched the other player navigate the surrounding area. She was careful to fall back when zombie looking monstered spawned and swarmed them. All level 30, which made sense, Yoosung had stated it was a high-rank dungeon. Turns out level grind was a bit of a grind, even for beginners. Luckily it was a shared exp dungeon and since there were only two of them in the party it got split in half. Slowly where minimal communication since she lacked a headset they crawled through the Dungeon. Yoosung was kind enough to allow her to loot the corpses and the treasure chests. 

They had even run into some other players who would say hello to Yoosung via the world chat. They had custom speech bubbles, and Hyuna was interested in obtaining some of her own. It was impressive how immersive this game was. You could build sperate skills like smithing, mining, fishing, cooking, act. It was super customizable. Yoosung had rattled off about how there was an event boss just recently and the cool stuff he got for himself. Hyuna smiled, sometimes even giggling to herself as she read Yoosung’s messages. 

Even though she had gotten some pretty decent armor and weapon’s they couldn’t be equipped before she was level 30. It was probably a power scale to disallow players to equip armor so far above themselves early. Yoosung assured her in a few sessions he would have her beefed up and ready to stand on her own in no time. Hyuna despite herself agreed to meet up tomorrow evening and found herself genuinely enjoying the game. Maybe she was just enjoying Yoosung’s company, who knew. 

Once they finished the dungeon, Yoosung warped them back into the town square and sent her a friend request. Hyuna didn’t even think twice as she accepted it. 

SupermanYoosung★: This way we will get notifications when either of us logs on, and it even shows where we are on the map.  SupermanYoosung★: I’m gonna be on a little while longer, you good?

Hyuna looked at the clock and gasped blinking, unbelieving what she was thinking. Had she really wasted three hours? Was it really 1 am?

Sapfyre: OMFG!!!! It’s 1 am!!! I have an assignment due tomorrow morning! SupermanYoosung★: It’s 1 am for me too, we must be pretty close. Lolol SupermanYoosung★: You should go get the project done SupermanYoosung★: Guess I’ll see you tomorrow~ ^^

Sapfyre: Ya tomorrow! I’ll be off! Sapfyre: Enjoy ruling the online virtual world!

With that Hyuna was quick to log off and sighed to herself. It had only meant to be an hour break, and somehow she got so caught up in it she was looking at either failing her first assignment or not sleeping. Looking at the clock she grabbed her a tablet and the pen and looked at whatever these lines she had drawn were suppose to be. Deciding to delete all the progress she had apparently made, she settled herself in for a long night of drawing her assignment for her 8 am class. 

[nadiannamhoh]

A new pitch and new design to “Harbinger, the last stand”   (part 1)

(Long post, be warned)

What is the game?

Harbinger, the last stand is a 2-D puzzle based plat-former, with combat and adventure.

What is the Game-Play like?

what kind of puzzles are there?

puzzles will consist of challenges like matching frequencies in wavelengths.    

Ex.

the waves will need to be the same to complete the challenge.

Another challenge is a pipe puzzle, meaning that the player has to get a current through a maze with pieces of “piping” that guide the current through to where it needs to finish to complete the challenge.

Ex.

What is the platforming like?

The platforming will have an arcade feel with each character having their own special abilities that will help the overcome obstacles.

What are those abilities?

The abilities are special to each of the four playable characters, these abilities are specific to traversal in the platforming portions of the game-play.

Blair Anomi: Has the ability to double jump and get through/to spaces that the other three are unable to.

Ayada Guren: Has the ability to summon and interact with plant life that can be used to lift up an obstacle blocking the way of a doorway that is too heavy to push away and is unable to be climbed over dug under or went around.

Lamar Lynch: only one who Has the ability to interact with electronic based objects/devices that impede progress. Ex. a generator that needs to be powered to open a gate.

Zane Blaze: Has the ability to use his incredible strength and fire powers to smash and burn objects that impede progress. Ex. Slamming down on a locked trap-door

What is the combat like?

Combat will have a mixture of up close melee combat and ranged weapon combat. Players all have 100 health as maximum health and taking damage reduces your health. If you die you use a life, you start out with 3 extra lives. Every time an enemy is damaged (if they are not heavy enemies) they are staggered slightly with normal attacks and heavy attacks stun them for a short time.

Each character has a special melee weapon with it’s special properties.

Lamar’s melee weapon: A staff with medium attack speed dealing a moderate area of damage able to hit multiple enemies at once.

Zane’s melee weapon: Hot heavy chains that are slow to swing for a large area of damage able to hit many enemies at once.

Ayada’s melee weapon: vines that shoot out of her arms that stab/smack etc. enemies in a moderate area of damage able of hitting multiple enemies at once.

Blair’s melee weapon: Dual blades that have a fast attack speed but at the cost of low area damage, able to hit a few enemies at once.

What is the ranged combat like?

The ranged combat consists of two parts, abilities, and gun-play.

Abilities?

The abilities for the four characters use “Ability points” or AP, it is limited in uses but slowly regenerate to be re-used. The abilities for the four characters are are as follows:

Ayada: upon use of her ability she launches a storm of razor sharp blades of grass and thorns that covers a medium area of effect, stunning and damaging enemies for a short period of time.

Blair: Upon use of her ability Blair rains down a storm of ice and snow damaging and slowing down enemies in a large area of effect.

Lamar: Upon using his ability, Lamar summons lightning from his staff to fire a devastating bolt of electricity in a flat direct line having a small area of effect, requiring the player to properly aim before using the ability.

Zane: Upon using his ability Zane will slam the ground with his chains causing the ground within the chain’s range to catch fire and damage any enemies standing either in the way of the strike or the fire afterwards to be damaged and have a burning effect after the flames on the ground dissipate.

What about the gun-play?

Guns are only picked up from enemies that have them and are dropped when defeated, in order to use them the weapon needs to be picked up from a defeated enemy that carried the gun. Guns also have very limited ammo before they must be dropped.

The available guns are:

Pistols: Medium range medium firing low damage weapons with low knock-back.

Revolvers: medium range, slow firing, high damage weapons with medium knock-back.

SMGs: Fully automatic fast firing, low damage, and low knock-back.

Shotguns: short range, slow firing, very high damage weapons with heavy-knock-back.

sniper rifles: Long range, slow firing, high damage, heavy knock-back weapons.

Assault rifles: fully automatic with medium fire rate, medium range, medium damage, with medium knock-back.

LMGs: High rate of fire, with medium range, medium damage and heavy knock-back.

How does the player progress?

The player in Harbringer The Last Stand, progresses by defeating enemies and gaining XP, but not only by defeating enemies but completing levels and areas. Every time the player levels up, they gain a "Skill Point" to spend on their skills as they please, and skill points are plentiful.

What are the skills?

Strength- (Increase in how much damage the player deals to enemies. Increased effectiveness for every skill point invested)

Armor-(Reduction of damage taken from enemies. Increased reduction for every Skill point invested)

Elemental-(reduction in "Elemental Points" EP used per elemental move. Increased effectiveness and Increased total of EP for every skill point invested)

Luck-(Increased chance for better currency to drop from enemies defeated. Increased percentage for every skill point invested)

Skills are not the only way for players to improve the characters. The player has access to vendors, like a  safeguard vendor that provides stat boosting armor they equip in their inventory. (The player does not have to physically wear the armor equipped. option to hide armor sections like Head, Torso, Arms, Legs, and Mark.) The player can purchase a weapon upgrade at the "Blacksmith" giving the player's weapon a damage boost, or for a higher price, receive a special buff to the weapon. The player can also stack up on purchasing health and EP items at the consumables vendor.

Purchasing items?

Currency: Players will gain currency for every enemy defeated within a level. Players only need to walk over the currency to obtain it so whenever the player does obtain it, it goes into the player's wallet. The currency can vary from pennies, dimes and dollars, gold, diamonds etc... The player will have complete freedom to use their money on what they have unlocked so far in the game.

What is the story?

 The story tells of 4 main characters (of witch you play) and their stories of discrimination and racism. The world they live in is closed minded especially to their race. Based in a Modern day setting but with sci-fi fantasy elements mixed into the world. Loosely based on earth in the near future. Within a dystopian city where crime is at a constant high, and a government that have a heavy dis-taste for the minority race called the "Anthros". The Anthros are a race of people like humans in figure and behavior but with animal-is-tic physical qualities. Officially they are anthropomorphic animals or "Anthros" for short. Often said to be the "inferior race" that if a "natural cleansing" of the Anthros would be favorable. The Anthros have always followed the laws that blatantly violated their natural rights. After many years under this oppression they finally will stand up for their rights, they are no longer going to hide away and take this, so they are rightfully pissed off and will not stop until they get their rights and have justice for them and the lives lost due to injustice, inequality and police brutality.

The story has a heavy tone especially as you learn more about the main characters’ backstories and why they are the way that they are.

The four main characters are:

Blair Anomi: Blair was born as a mixed child, her mother being a full Anthro and her father being a full human. She was raised as a good child until as the family was driving home they were pulled over, in witch the mother was driving. The police officer was very discriminatory and Blair's mother knew she was wrongly pulled over but still complied to the officer's orders and reached into her purse for her wallet and that was when the officer promptly screamed for her to drop the weapon, she was confused and looked at the officer with her wallet in hand that the officer "mistook" for a firearm and shot her dead in the car, without regard for Blair whom was sitting in the back seat witnessing her mother's murder. This event caused her father to go into a deep depression, falling into the numbing pain of alcohol. Blair still loves her father dearly, but is the only human in her life she will ever trust in her life until she can make a change, and get justice for her mother. With any means necessary.

Zane Blaze: Zane was born different, this wasn't a good thing unfortunately for zane. He was an anthro and the family he was born into hated anthros, with a rich ancestry of humans only. With this being the case Zane grew up into a very abusive family. Throughout Zane's early years he was small, he was made fun of by his peers because he was often the smallest and weakest one, and that is the biggest reason why he loses his temper so easily. One day when he was older he discovered that he can hide his natural anthro body with an ability that made him almost undeniably human looking, so he used this power to run away and never go back to his abusive home, after some time he went to University where he met Lamar, they both had very opposite personalities but ended up getting to know each-other since they were roommates and all. Lamar and Zane end up being best friends, and Lamar helped teach Zane how to deal with his sensitive temper towards his appearance, although he needs more work, he was able to get better at taking insults and not getting into fights. Zane then grew in size, he grew up to 7'0" tall in a short time and gained a new level of confidence. Lamar still makes sure to keep him in check, especially with Zane's temper. (the best he can anyway)

Lamar Lynch: Lamar grew up with a normal life, studied hard, stood up straight, and had a great family. Lamar loved his younger brother Zack, who always followed him with a wide smile. One day Lamar went hiking with his younger brother Zack. During their hike it started to get very windy and rain hard, so Lamar finds an area where they could sit and wait for the rain to stop, but the rain doesn't look like it would. Lamar tries get inside the opening and turns back to help zack, but zack is too scared to move because of the storm. Lamar urges his brother reaching out so he can pull him along and inside, but zack stumbles on the lose edge and is too scared to move. Lamar steps out to get Zack when suddenly lightning strikes the two of them in witch Zack dies, but through unknown means saves Lamar and this is how he obtained his electricity/lightning powers.

Ayada Guren: Ayada Guren was born with a family that could easily pass off as human, her family weren't based off of animals but plants. Ayada grew up with a love for everybody regardless of race, if Ayada wanted to do anything to help stop this discrimination she would grow flowers everywhere with a message of peace and being able to coexist peacefully. Ayada knows because she grew up with her best friend Blair. They always played together, and Ayada would always give Blair flowers. Ayada always has Blair's back, even more so after the tragedy of Blair's mother's death.

Art?

So far we have character concept art that will be updated:

Blair Anomi:

           Blair (Left)                                             Ayada Guren (Right)

Lamar Lynch:

Zane Blaze: (Concept coming soon)

[bulkload574]

List Of Skyrim Wives

Optional Kill Amaund Motierre

Skyrim Husband's List

List Of Skyrim Husbands

List Of Skyrim Wives

Aela the Huntress. Aela is one of the elite members of the mates in Whiterun. She is the best hunter. And that is our top 10 Skyrim best steward list. Either way, let us know in the comments. And if you want to meet someone in Skyrim that could be more than a good hand around the house, check out our Skyrim Best Wife Top 10.

The Divines have blessed a total of 30 female marriage candidates and 37 male marriage candidates in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and official expansions.

You can marry anyone regardless of your Dragonborn’s race or gender, so long as you’ve fulfilled whatever conditions make them your friend. Housecarls will be wiling to wed you as soon as they enter your service, mercenaries must be hired first, and other candidates have fetch quests or other requirements.

You’ll also need to exhaust the dialog options with Maramal, the priest in the Temple of Mara in Riften, and be wearing an amulet of Mara in order to initiate a marriage proposal. It does not have to be an amulet purchased from Maramal, any amulet of Mara will do. There’s a free one in a tent along the shoreline east of Dawnstar. Others appear at random throughout the game.

Skyrim allows one marriage and only one per Dragonborn, even if your spouse is killed — unless you use mods or console commands. There’s a persistent rumor that players can kill their spouses and remarry, but I suspect that’s a feature added by the Unofficial Skyrim Patch that PC players frequently download, or possibly a very early gameplay bug that was patched in subsequent updates, so don’t assume it will work for you. Choose your spouse wisely.

There’s only one Altmer and one Redguard, both female, who can be married. The Hearthfire DLC adds a second Redguard female. There are no Bosmer (wood elves) or Khajiit (cat people) to marry, at all, male or female, unless using mods or console commands.

After the wedding, all male and female spouses will give you a homecooked meal and 100 septims a day. You can live in your spouse’s home or move them into one of your homes, though some spouses may leave — such as Camilla taking over her brother’s shop if he dies or Ysolda taking over the Bannered Mare if Hulda dies. I’ve also read that only spouses from the Dragonborn DLC can be moved to Severin Manor on Solstheim, but I don’t have confirmation of this.

The main differences between spouses, other than appearance and voice, are where they live, whether or not they can be followers, and how likely they are to be killed. I recommend marrying someone who is a follower, even if you don’t take them with you on adventures, because you can access their inventory and give them weapons, armor, staffs, enchanted items and health potions, to help keep them alive. Towns and Hearthfire homes do get attacked, and death does happen, unless your spouse is one of the few programmed “essential,” or unless you’re using mods and console commands.

For more about marriage in Skyrim, see this Elder Scrolls wiki page or this Unofficial Elder Scrolls wiki page.

Let’s take a look at our choices…

COMPANIONS

The Companions are a warrior guild in Whiterun and for many players the first faction of friends and potential marriage candidates you’ll meet. Some are both teachers and followers, which allows you to buy skill training and then access their inventory and take back the gold, essentially getting training — and level ups — for free.

All live in Jorrvaskr, where you can live anyway if you join the guild, so you won’t gain additional housing through marriage. Several players have also reported glitches in which steward or married Companions return to Jorrvaskr instead of living in the Dragonborn’s home.

Aela is Supreme Werewolf Queen of Side-Boob, which makes her almost as popular a wife choice as cranky Lydia. Aela and Njada are both Nords and trainers, in archery and blocking respectively. Ria is an Imperial. All three are skilled warrior women and possible followers, but Aela’s level cap is 50, while the others max out at 25.

Between Vilkas’ tear-streaked emo eyeliner and Farkas’ dumb-yet-endearing-jockishness, the Brothers Werewolf are popular husbands.

Vilkas is a two-handed trainer, follower, spouse and steward. Farkas is a heavy armor trainer, follower and spouse. Both are level capped at 50. Torvar is a potential follower and spouse who is a surly drunk. He’s capped at 25.

All three are Nords. There’s also a Dark Elf in the Companions who can be married, but I’ve listed him with the Dunmer, below.

HOUSECARLS

All housecarls are Nords, except Rayya who’s a Redguard. All begin with the same armor, weapons and stats, except Valdimar who is a spellsword, while the rest are classified as warriors. They live in houses that belong to you, so you won’t get a bonus house through marriage.

All are possible spouses, stewards and followers who will defend you unto death. They are all level capped at 50, so should be able to stick with you through most of the game, assuming you continue to improve their weapons, armor and other gear. Don’t forget to put health potions in their inventories.

From left to right: Lydia (Breezehome in Whiterun), Iona (Honeyside in Riften), Jordis (Proudspire Manor in Solitude). and Rayya (Lakeview Manor, added by the Hearthfire expansion).

The basic game gives us Argis the Bulwark (Vlindrel Hall in Markarth) and Calder with the groovy mutton chops (Hjerim in Windhelm). Hearthfire evens up the score with two more male housecarls — Valdimar (Windstad Manor) and Gregor (Heljarchen Hall).

DUNMER

There are several gray-skinned Dunmer to marry, perhaps because of the popularity of Morrowind?

Avrusa Sarethi is an alchemist with her own farm.

Brelyna Maryon is an apprentice mage at the College of Winterhold (no bonus house there) and she can also be a follower, level cap 30.

Dravynea the Stoneweaver is an Expert Alteration trainer who works in the Steamscorch Mine and lives in Braidwood Inn in Kynesgrove.

Jenassa is a mercenary follower living in the Drunken Huntsman, level cap 40.

Revyn Sadri is a merchant in Windhelm and a speech skill trainer, but will only marry or train the Dragonborn if you help him with his request to return a stolen ring. If you don’t side with him, it is possible to marry Viola instead (see below).

Romlyn Dreth is a bootlegger with a small home under the city of Riften.

Sondas Drenim is a food vendor at Darkwater Crossing, a mining camp.

Athis is a member of the Companions who can be a follower or spouse, as well as one-handed skill trainer, level capped at 25.

HOTTIES

Anwen (Redguard), Orla (Nord) and Senna (Breton). All of these ladies live in the Temple of Dibella, goddess of love, in Markarth. Note: There’s a reported bug with Orla where she refuses to leave the temple to live in anywhere else.

While not devotees of a love goddess, these three seem to be popular hunky husband choices for their looks, personality and skills.

Marcurio the sassy Imperial mage mercenary can be hired at his residence, the Bee and Barb in Riften, and is level capped at 40.

Onmund is a sweet apprentice at the College of Winterhold who is a potential mage follower (level cap 30) and steward, whose Nord family does not supporting his interest in magic.

Vorstag is a warrior mercenary who can be hired from his residence, the Silverblood Inn in Markarth. He has a sweet disposition while also being a badass fighter, and possesses one of the softer Nord voices in the game.

AND MORE HOTTIES

Camilla is sister to the proprietor of Riverwood Trader and the Imperial creamy center of a love Oreo between Faendal the Bosmer archer and Sven the Nord bard. If you marry her, her “friends” will continue to visit her at your home, wherever you live. She may also return to Riverwood and take over the family business if her brother dies.

Muiri is a Breton alchemy assistant who inherits the Hag’s Cure in Markarth if her employer is killed (and who also has an interesting love life, too, which you will hear about while doing the Dark Brotherhood questline).

Ysolda is an enterprising Nord drug dealer with her own tiny house in Whiterun, who takes over the Bannered Mare if Hulda the innkeeper is killed. She was made “essential” by one of the official updates (which are automatically included in some versions of the game), so cannot die, I assume because of her role in the quest “A Night to Remember.”

Sylgja manages to retain her youthful beauty in spite of being a hard-working Nord miner, and her big bust apparently doesn’t get in the way of swinging a pickaxe all day at Redbelly Mine in Shor’s Stone.

Sorexis an Imperial whose father owns the Winking Skeever in Solitude, involved in a love triangle with Vivienne Onis and Roggvir until the latter was beheaded. After marriage, he may continue flirting with ladies who enter the inn and he hates every home except Proudspire Manor.

Quintusis an Imperial alchemist who takes over the White Phial shop in Windhelm when his employer dies. I don’t know if he qualifies as a hottie (maybe if he lost that hat), but he’s young and seems to be kind.

Wilhelm owns the Vilemyr Inn in Ivarstead. While the Nord cannot be a follower, he possesses pickpocket skill and is marked “essential” so he can never be killed.

Roggi Knot-Beard is a Nord miner in Kynesgrove, drunk and in debt, who can be a potential spouse, steward and follower, though his skills are minimal and his level is capped at 20.

MATURE SPOUSES

If you prefer your spouse to be a little older and wiser, we have…

From left to right: Aeri, Nord owner of Anga’s Mill and her own house. Gilfre, Imperial owner of Mixwater Mill and her own house. Temba, Nord mill owner in Ivarstead. Uthgerd the Unbroken, Nord mercenary, level cap 30, for hire in the Bannered Mare and owner of a decent house in Whiterun.

Optional Kill Amaund Motierre

Ainethach is a prominent Breton who runs the Sanuarach Mine and owns a farmhouse in Karthwasten.

Balimund is a blacksmith and smithing skill trainer with a house and forge in Riften, which he shares with his adopted son Asbjorn Fire-Tamer.

Filnjar is a Nord blacksmith with a house in Shor’s Stone.

Stenvar is a Nord warrior mercenary with a decent sense of humor who may be hired from his home, Candlehearth Hall in Windhelm. He has the same voice as Farkas and Balimund. I married him in my first playthrough. He makes an excellent follower but is capped at level 40 and I had to retire him to Proudspire Manor with our kids sometime between levels 45-50.

ORCS & ARGONIANS

If you like the kind of spouse who has green skin and tusks, we have the orcs or “Orsimer” of Skyrim.

Female orcs: Borgakh the Steel Heart is the daughter of the Chief Larak of the Orc stronghold of Mor Khazgur and a potential follower, level cap 30. Ghorza is a blacksmith and smithing trainer in Markarth, who lives with her brother in Understone Keep.

Male orcs: Gat Gro-Shargakh is a miner who lives in Kolskeggr Mine, east of Markarth. Moth gro-Bagol is Ghorza’s brother and also a blacksmith, working and living in Understone Keep in Markarth. Ghorbash the Iron Hand is an Orsimer living in Dushnikh Yal and is the brother of Chief Burguk. He is a potential follower (capped at level 30), spouse and steward.

Or if that isn’t exotic enough for you, the Argonian spouses…

One lizard lady, Shahvee, and two lizard gentleman, Derkeethus and Scouts-Many-Marshes.

Scouts-Many-Marshes is a light armor trainer but not a potential follower, so you probably can’t retrieve your gold from his inventory after training. He and Shahvee live in the Argonian Assemblage bunkhouse in Windhelm, if you marry and move in with one of them.

If rescued from Darkwater Pass, Derkeethus can be a follower (ranger class, level cap 30 and the only Argonian follower in the game) and potential marriage candidate. After being rescued, he will move back to the small mining camp of Darkwater Crossing and might get killed by Falmer who spawn there.

DRAGONBORN DLC SPOUSES

One male and two female marriage candidates are added by the Dragonborn DLC. All are Nords. From what I’ve read, these are the only spouses who can live with you in Severin Manor, but I’m not sure if they are limited to Solstheim or can move to Skyrim, too.

Halbarn Iron-FurandHilund are residents of Bujold’s Retreat/Thirsk Mead Hall and Morwen has her own home in the Skaal Village. Halbarn and Hilund are level capped at 60, but I’m not sure if any of them can be followers or not.

SPECIAL SPOUSES

These are the final three eligible females, but there’s much more to discuss on the male side. I’ll follow up with that in a sec.

Mjoll the Lioness is a Nord who lives with Aerin in Riften. She is a skilled fighter who can be a follower, and while capped at 40, what makes her special is that she cannot be killed. Even after her quest is finished, she will not die. Keep in mind that wherever she goes, Aerin will follow.

Skyrim Husband's List

Taarie lives in the Radiant Raiment shop in Solitude, which is pretty special if you decide to move in with her, but what makes her really special is that she is the only Altmer (High Elf) marriage candidate in the game.

Viola is special because she appears to be the only old female marriage candidate, as well as an Imperial living in Windhelm (Ulfric Stormcloak’s city) with a very large home that rivals Hjerim.

THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Omluag is a Breton who lives in the Warrens (basically the homeless shelter) of Markarth.

Odfel is a Nord who shares a small house with an orc and whose claim to fame is a unique pickaxe called Rocksplinter.

Perth is a Breton miner in Soljund’s Sinkhole who looks like he should be following Dorothy and Toto to see the Wizard. He shares a house with Tuthul (who is kind of hot looking and has a cool mohawk, but isn’t a marriage candidate – why?).

Pavo Attius seems to be the best catch of the bunch, since the Imperial owns the Kolskeggr gold mine and a house outside Markarth, but he will remain in miner’s clothes unless you have a PC mod. Forsworn might also invade from time to time and can kill him when you’re not around, unless you move him to another home.

Angrenor Once-Honored is a homeless Nord war veteran who lives on the streets of Windhelm.

Belrand is an old spellsword for hire in the Winking Skeever.

Benor is a Nord thug who lives in Morthal and has been denied a job with the city guards but still lives in the guardhouse anyway. Beat him up to win his heart.

Cosnach is a drunk whose heart can also be won by a brawl. In my experience, he’s a decent follower with some funny dialog about “aiming for the one in the middle” (since he’s drunk, get it?). He lives in the Warrens of Markarth.

Octieve is a retired old Breton veteran who offers some two-handed training. He gambles, drinks, and lives with his grown daughter Evette in Solitude.

I WISH I COULD HAVE MARRIED

Blazing badass Teldryn Sero fills all top ten of my list. My heart is forever broken that the Dunmer spellsword can neither marry nor become a steward so we could have at least lived together. It might have been nice to marry Faendal, the sweet Bosmer archer of Riverwood, or black leather clad bad boy Brynjolf of the Thieves Guild.

Really, just about any of the Thieves Guild members would have been acceptable partners. Partners for what, exactly? Yeah, I guess they’re not really the marrying type.

Alas, they are all unavailable, unless you’re rocking a mod on PC. I’ve been playing on PS3.

~ J.L. Hilton

Connect, support, comment or contact the author here

Welcome to Skyrimmagic Today we are bringing you a list of possible spouses in Skyrim, a list I know several people have been looking and asking us for. This tell you all of the possible spouses both male and female, their race, their job, and where you can find them.

Females:

Aela the Huntress – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr in Whiterun. ​ -Requirement: You must complete The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Aeri – Nord, Lumberjack, Anga’s Mill in The Pale. -Requirement: Work for her chopping firewood.

Anwen – Redguard, Priestess, Temple of Dibella, Markarth. -Requirement: You must complete Temple Quest: The Heart of Dibella

Avrusa Sarethi – Dark Elf, Farmer, Sarethi Farm, The Rift.

Borghak the Steel Heart – Orc, Warrior, Mor Khazgur, The Reach. -Requirement: You must pay her dowry or convince her to leave her home.

Brelyna Maryon – Dark Elf, Student, College of Winterhold, Winterhold. -Requirement: You must complete of Brelyna’s Practice.

Camilla Valerius – Imperial, Merchant, Riverwood Trader, Riverwood. -Requirement: Completion of The Golden Claw.

Dravynea the Stoneweaver – Dark Elf, Mage, Kynesgrove, Eastmarch. -Requirement: Give her one Frost Salt.

Ghorza gra-Bagol – Orc, Blacksmith, Blacksmith Shed, Markarth. -Requirement: Give her The Last Scabbard of Akrash.

Gilfre – Imperial, Miller, Mixwater Mill, Eastmarch. -Requirement: Also chopping firewood.

Grelka – Nord, Merchant, open market, Riften (Can be married only through console command ).

Iona – Nord, Housecarl, Honeyside, Riften. -Requirement: Become Thane of The Rift. (some bugs with this, she may treat you as thane not spouse)

Jenassa – Dark Elf, Hireling, Drunken Huntsman, Whiterun. -Requirement: Hire her.

Jordis the Sword-Maiden – Nord, Housecarl, Proudspire Manor, Solitude. -Requirement: Become Thane of Solitude.

Mjoll the Lioness – Nord, Adventurer, Riften. (My wife, sexy accent not bad looking and boss warrior, cannot die) -Requirement: Retrieve her sword, Grimsever, from the dwemer ruins of Mzinchaleft. Phoenix point: year one edition download for mac.

Muiri – Breton, Alchemist, The Hag’s Cure, Markarth. -Requirement: Completion of Mourning Never Comes. (You have to kill BOTH targets to gain Muiri’s affection.)

Njada Stone-Arm – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Orla – Nord, Priestess, Temple of Dibella, Markarth. -Requirement: Complete Temple Quest: The Heart of Dibella.

Ria – Imperial, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Senna – Imperial, Priestess, Temple of Dibella, Markarth. -Requirement: Completion of The Heart of Dibella.

Shahvee – Argonian, Dockworker, Argonian Assemblage, Windhelm. -She may be married by recovering the Amulet of Zenithar and returning it to her. Please note that she may be killed in the quest Blood on the Ice, so it is suggested that you attempt to marry her before starting this quest, or proceed with caution saving often.

Sylgja – Nord, Miner, Shor’s Stone, The Rift. -Requirement: Deliver her satchel to her father in Darkwater Crossing, then return his satchel to her.

List Of Skyrim Husbands

Taarie – Altmer, Solitude -Requirement: Visit Elisif the Fair while wearing the outfit she gives you then return to her and tell her what happened.

Temba Wide-Arm – Nord, Miller, Ivarstead, The Rift. -Requirement: Bring her 10 bear pelts.

Uthgerd the Unbroken – Nord, found in her house, in Whiterun. -Requirement: Best her in a brawl battle.

Viola Giordano – Imperial, Busybody, Candlehearth Hall, Windhelm. -Requirement: Start Revyn Sadri ‘s favor, but then rat him out to Viola.

Ysolda – Nord, Citizen, open market, Whiterun. -Requirement: Give her a Mammoth Tusk.

Males:

List Of Skyrim Wives

Ainethach – Breton, Mine Owner, Karthwasten, The Reach.

Angrenor Once-Honored – Nord, Beggar, Candelhearth Hall, Windhelm. -Requirement: Take pity and give the beggar a gold piece.

Argis the Bulwark – Nord, Housecarl, Vlindrel Hall, Markarth. -Requirement: Becoming Thane of Markarth.

Athis – Dark Elf, Companion, Jorrvaskr Living Quarters, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Balimund – Nord, Blacksmith, The Scorched Hammer, Riften. -Requirement: Give him 10 Fire Salts.

Belrand – Nord, Hireling, The Winking Skeever, Solitude. -Requirement: Hire him.

Benor – Nord, Warrior, Morthal. -Requirement: Challenge him to a brawl and win.

Calder – Nord, Housecarl, Hjerim, Windhelm. -Requirement: Become Thane of Eastmarch.

Cosnach – Breton, Drunk/Porter, Silver-Blood Inn, Markarth. -Requirement: Challenge him to a brawl and win.

Derkeethus – Argonian, Fisherman, Darkwater Crossing, Eastmarch. -Requirement: Find and rescue him.

Erik the Slayer – Nord, Barbarian, (( Frostfruit Inn), Rorikstead -Requirement: Hire him. Note: Sometimes, the choice for marriage doesn’t appears in the dialogues. It is a bug.

Farkas – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. (Vilkas’ Twin) -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Filnjar – Nord, Blacksmith, Shor’s Stone, The Rift. -Requirement: Complete Quest, Mine or Yours

Gat gro-Shargakh – Orc, Miner, Left Hand Mine / Kolskeggr Mine, The Reach. -Requirement: Complete favor to Pavo Attius to liberate Kolskeggr Mine.

Ghorbash the Iron Hand – Orc, Warrior, Burguk’s Longhouse, Dushnikh Yal, The Reach.

Marcurio – Imperial, Hireling, Bee and Barb, Riften. -Requirement: Hire him.

Moth gro-Bagol – Orc, Blacksmith, Understone Keep, Markarth.

Octieve San – Breton, Citizen, Solitude. Frequently found in and around the Winking Skeever. -Convince the gamblers to let him off his debts

Omluag – Breton, Miner, Markath Smelter, Markarth. -Talk to Mulush about the smelters

Odfel – Nord, Miner, Shor’s Stone.

Onmund – Nord, Student, The Hall of Attainment, College of Winterhold.

Pavo Attius – Imperial, Miner, Left Hand Mine / Kolskeggr Mine, The Reach. -Requirement: Complete his favor to liberate Kolskeggre Mine.

Perth – Breton, Miner, Soljund’s Sinkhole, The Reach. -Requirement: Clear Soljund’s Sinkhole of Draugr.

Quintus Navale – Imperial, Alchemist, The White Phial, Windhelm. -Requirement: Complete Quest, Repairing the Phial

Revyn Sadri – Dark Elf, Merchant, Sadri’s Used Wares, Windhelm. -Requirement: Bring back stolen ring from shop’s stock to Windhelm inhabitant

Roggi Knot-Beard – Nord, Miner, Steamscorch Mine, Kynesgrove, Eastmarch.

Romlyn Dreth – Dark Elf, Meadery Worker, Black-Briar Meadery, Riften.

Scouts-Many-Marshes – Argonian, Dockworker, Argonian Assemblage, in Windhelm. -Requirement: Talk to Torbjorn Shatter-Shield about the Argonian dock workers

Sondas Drenim – Dark Elf, Miner, Goldenrock Mine, Darkwater Crossing, Eastmarch.

Sorex Vinius – Imperial, Assistant Innkeeper, Winking Skeever, Solitude. -Requirement: Deliver kegs of rum to Falk Firebeard at the Blue Palace

Stenvar – Nord, Hireling, Candlehearth Hall, Windhelm. -Requirement: Hire him.

Torvar – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Vilkas – Nord, Companion, Jorrvaskr, Whiterun. (Farkas’ Twin) -Requirement: Completion of The Companion’s story arc with Glory of the Dead.

Vorstag – Nord, Hireling, Silver-Blood Inn, Markarth. -Requirement: You must Hire him

Wilhelm – Nord, Innkeeper, Vilemyr Inn, Ivarstead, The Rift. -Requirement: You must complete Dungeon Quest, Wilhelm’s Scream.

This is the list of any of the wives or husbands you may have in this game. If you see an error or I am missing someone contact us and let us know!

[weekendshowcase]

Third Game’s the Charm

by Antonio Garland

    Like before, this game was nonexistent to me until I was in my teens and played it at a friend’s house. This, too, was played on Super Mario All-Stars on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. I found it similar to the original game, though with a few additions. At the time, I also found it extremely difficult. However, I did have fun with it. I have bought and beaten it several times since, though this is still one of the more difficult games in the series. It’s Super Mario Bros. 3, originally released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988 in  Japan and 1990 in America.

(image source: Moby Games)      The plot is one that should be familiar. Bowser kidnaps Peach again and it’s Mario’s job to rescue her. This time, however, Bowser brought backup in the form of his seven children, the Koopalings. Bowser has also taken over the seven sections of the Mushroom Kingdom, stealing magic wands from the seven Kings and turning them into animals. In addition to rescuing Peach, Mario must also get back the wands and turn the Kings back to normal. The gameplay should be recognizable by now. Hold right until you reach the end of the level, while jumping over obstacles and defeating enemies. Koopas and Goombas are back as the default enemies. Certain variations of Goombas now have wings and drop smaller Goombas on the player for an additional hazard. Buzzy Beetles also return, though they can now climb walls and ceilings. They drop on top of Mario and attempt to spin into him when he’s near. This game also introduces the Boos, ghost-like enemies in castle levels who are still when Mario is facing them but come for him when his back is turned. Another new enemy is the Thwomp, sentient stone spike-covered blocks with faces that attempt to drop on top of Mario when he’s underneath them.

      Returning from the American Super Mario Bros. 2 is the ability to pick up and throw enemies and items. Certain blocks can be picked up and tossed as projectiles. Koopa shells can now be picked up; however, if the shell is held for too long the Koopa will reemerge and harm the player. A new move Mario can perform is the slide maneuver. While going down a slope, pressing down on the control pad will allow Mario to slide down for both faster travel and to attack  enemies along the way. He can also swim and climb vines. There’s also now a speed bar. The longer Mario runs, the faster the bar will fill until it reaches the P at the end indicating Mario’s max speed.

    Speaking of new moves, Mario gains quite a variety of power-ups. The mushroom, fire flower, and starman return with the same mechanics. Some new power-ups include the frog suit, which allows better control in the water and a higher jump. The leaf which gives Mario raccoon ears and a tail. It allows him to spin when pressing B. When the speed bar is full, the leaf allows Mario to fly for a few seconds by rapidly pressing A. The Tanooki suit is the same as the leaf, though pressing down and B turns Mario into an invulnerable statue that can harm spiked enemies and fire.

      A special item only available in one level is the Goomba Shoe (a.k.a. “Kuribo’s Shoe”), a green boot-like item that Mario rides inside of, and allows for attacking spiked enemies. Another usable but rare item is the hammer suit. This item dresses Mario like a Hammer bro. and its function is like the fire flower, only it can defeat normally invincible enemies such as Boos. It also protects Mario against fire attacks when crouched. There’s also a P leaf, which allows Mario to fly infinitely during a single level, afterwards functioning like a normal leaf suit. Extra items can be stored in the inventory on the world map screen. They can be selected before the next level for use.

      This is the first Mario game to feature the world map system. Instead of automatically being taken from one level to the next, the player has the option of going to various levels from an overworld map. Outside of levels are a variety of other places to visit on the world map. There are toad houses which allow for playing matching minigames for bonus items and extra lives. Sometimes Toad will give Mario a choice to choose an item from three different chests. Castle stages are done at the halfway point on a world map. At the end is a mini-boss called Boom Boom, a rather large Koopa who races back and forth attempting to hit Mario. He sometimes jumps and grows spikes on his back when attacked.

      The world map also features enemies, specifically the Hammer Bros. They are fought the same way as before, only they come in pairs. After beating a level, they move around randomly on the world map until they encounter Mario. There’s an item called the music box which puts them to sleep to make bypassing them easier. Defeating a Hammer Bros. duo will yield an item, including the rare hammer which breaks blocks on the world map for alternate routes. Returning from Super Mario Bros. 2 is the world variation. There’s a desert world, an ice world and a pipe world, among others. There’s actually a world that changes in size depending on which pipe you go down. Just as before, there are eight worlds in increasing difficulty. At the end of each world is a castle where Mario meets the resident Toad and transformed King. He then boards an airship which is home to the game’s boss, one of the Koopalings. The airship levels are done similarly as the castle levels of earlier games. The airships move automatically and sway up and down for difficulty variation. At the end are pipes where Mario goes down to fight the boss. Each Koopaling is different visually and in how they attack. They can shoot projectiles at Mario and attempt to hop on top of him. If Mario looses on an airship, he’ll be kicked off the ship, which will go to a different location on the overworld map. After defeating the Koopalings, they each drop a wand and Mario returns it to the world’s King, causing him to change back to normal.

      Just as before, there are warps that can instantly take the player to later parts of the game. They come in the form of Whistles, a rare item hidden in some of the earlier levels. When used, a tornado appears that scoops up Mario and takes him to a world select screen similar to the overworld screen. The Whistles only take Mario a few worlds ahead, so another whistle is needed to reach the final world. Also, they only allow transport to the beginning of a world and can’t skip levels.

      The final world is the Dark World, where Bowser resides. There are a lot of airship-like levels with tanks and water ships, along with occasional mini-boss battles. This world also doubles as the fire world as it does have an underworld feeling. Once Bowser has been dealt with and the Princess is saved, the player is treated to a new game where all their inventory slots are stocked with P leaves. Other than that, there isn’t a variation with the enemies or other bonus features.

      Upon its release, Super Mario Bros. 3 received widespread universal acclaim and is hailed as one of the best Mario games to date. It featured innovative new features that new Mario games today use, such as the world map and varied power-ups. The Koopalings would also go on to become reoccurring enemies. On your first playthrough, there will be so many things to experience as you never know just what will appear. Lots of levels feature secret areas and bonuses that reward you for thinking outside of the box. If there was one Mario game to play, this would definitely be it. The game was so popular that it spawned a cartoon series, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3. The game has been re-released several times. It’s been featured in Super Mario All-Stars for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and for various systems that support Virtual Console.