#in theory. If I really felt like it. I could finish the remake of that one Trebonius-Antony comic I did awhile back

[brother-emperors]

so I’m probably skipping this year for an Ides of March illustration, but I do have an Ides of March tag :)

[ferhog]

Getting into Metroid This Past Month:

I first learned about Metroid (as well as most Nintendo franchises that weren't Pokemon and Mario) through my friend's copy of Smash Bros Brawl at around the age of 9. Samus being a hot lady underneath the cool set of power armor left enough of an impression for me to try and draw her from memory, but I otherwise had no interest in actually playing her games for most of the following decade and a half. In that time I learned a bit of her lore from Smash Trophys, Game Theory videos, and watching the first few minutes of Other M cutscenes to hear the lady from Smash Bros talk, but it wasn't until shortly after the release of Metroid Dread when I watched some late game cutscenes from the game and GameXplain's Metroid movie pitch video that I became interested enough in the story of the games and Samus as a character that I decided to downlo- I mean obtain copies of Zero Mission and Fusion for my Visua- I mean Gameboy Advance, which I held off on starting until I worked through my gaming backlog more, and it was earlier this summer that I decided the time had come.

The Metroid Manga: Before starting Zero Mission as my first game I read the manga so I'd get a good sense of Samus' backstory before starting. Now I knew what to roughly expect thanks to the Gamexplain movie pitch adapting much of the story, but overall I enjoyed it more than I was expecting. I probably don't need to tell you that Ridley was the absolute highlight. His pure evil is matched only by Louie from Pikmin in terms of Nintendo villains and it got me very invested in his rivalry with Samus throughout the games. Aside from that, my favourite part of the manga was Samus' characterization and her relationship with her bird dads. I have a real soft spot for all adoption related tropes so I really like the idea that Samus was taken in by what was once the most important race in the galaxy and inherited their legacy of keeping the peace, which she basically turned into a job via bounty hunting. However a lot of what the manga does is better in concept than in execution, as the art is hard to follow a lot of the time and much of the story is sped through quite quickly, no thanks to how much time is spent with the extensive cast of side characters. When Samus started her zero mission I held off on finishing the story until I played the game, and while I'm glad that they went with adapting the game at the end because we got to see a climactic fight against Ridley it is super bizarre that they didn't commit to the idea and just stopped when Samus reached Mother Brain. The manga is absolutely worth reading but best thought of as a companion to Zero Mission, probably best read afterwards.

Metroid Zero Mission: My experience with Metroidvanias was basically just Hollow Knight, the first Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, and while I was excited to experience the same sense of adventure I also feared getting lost as per this franchise's reputation. However I surprisingly managed to make my way though the whole game with only one thing I had to look up, which embarrassingly was the same mistake David Jaffe infamously made in Dread, as I failed to realize I could shoot a ceiling open even with enemies there to hint that I could. I think the game has the perfect balance between freedom and guidance as someone's first Metroid game through the chozo statues that mark your next destination without telling you how exactly to get there. Combine that with it being a remake of the first game and I think it was just the perfect game for me and anyone else to start with. My biggest issue gameplay-wise was just the fights against Mother Brain and the two black Space Pirates were very frustrating, the latter because the combat just didn't feel designed for a fight that reflex based, at least not for a newcomer. After finishing the game I felt compelled to earn the Zero Suit Samus ending, which I accomplished by constantly scouting out the optimal routes and resetting so I could get through them as fast as possible.

AM2R: I wanted to play these games in story order so I knew I had to play some version of Metroid 2 next. After trying out the original Metroid that you unlock after beating Zero Mission I figured the pre-NES games weren't going to be fun for me so I wanted to play either AM2R or Samus Returns, and I went with the former as it would be easier to find and would be closer to the game I just finished. The game is a very impressive feat for a fan-made project, though I think it was the one I had the least fun with overall. A few hours into the game I listened to the Some Call Me Johnny review which mentioned it being very hard, and that made sense considering it was a fan project by big Metroid fans for big Metroid fans, but it did result in a few of the bosses being quite frustrating with how much skill they demanded, particularly with the space jump which I struggled to understand the timing of. I didn't feel like instantly replaying it as I did with Zero Mission but I really loved how they adapted the ending.

Super Metroid: "This SNES game probably won't hold up that well right?" Thought the guy whose first console was the PS2.

Super Metroid is one of the greatest games of all time.

Metroid Fusion: I was real intrigued going into this game given what I'd heard about its linearity and extra story focus compared to the prior games but it was still a shock going straight from 2 playthroughs of Super Metroid to this. It didn't even really feel like Metroid, especially with how you were essentially playing through levels via Adam sending you through specific locations with specific tasks. Eventually I got used to it and fully accepted it as a Metroid game as I was increasingly required to be more explorative, though I think of all Metroid games I've played it has the most needlessly abstract methods for mandatory progression. The example which I eventually gave up on and looked up was the yellow Space Pirate X which which could only be damaged with a shot to the back apparently? There was seemingly no visual hints for that and the doors didn't even open if you absorbed the X before they formed the Space Pirates. While I figured out the other examples on my own I just felt I had to blow up way more seemingly random walls than normal. The bosses were generally very fun except for everything about Yakuza. A super long lead up to a boss that kept killing me super easily before I figured out how to avoid its grab attack, followed by a struggle to regain health for the ensuing SA-X encounter with how little health you get from enemies that could fly in out of nowhere and do more damage to you than you were regaining. Speaking of the SA-X, it wasn't in the game as much as I was expecting, but each encounter was quite memorable, especially when I was hiding behind power bomb blocks and it dropped a power bomb. Overall I didn't like most of this game's choices, but I like it when franchises try new things so I wouldn't say anything should have been changed except for how much health you get from enemies. This was the 2nd game I didn't feel like instantly replaying.

Metroid Prime: As of writing this I am currently a few hours into the first Metroid Prime, specifically having just gotten the boost ball. The Metroid formula was very well translated into 3D and the visuals have aged amazingly. I may be playing a remaster but most remasters still don't look this modern. But curiously this has been the Metroid game I've spent the most time away from during a playthrough, going several days without picking it up again. It's not that I dislike playing it, I just don't feel as much of a strong desire to keep coming back to it. Maybe I just feel the need to catch up on other stuff after playing so much Metroid. I do think I'll get around to playing the rest soon enough.

One of my biggest impressions overall is that Metroid is actually quite underrated despite how iconic it is. Samus seems mostly remembered as a Smash Bros character and her iconic twist as one of gaming's first female protagonists, but it doesn't seem like that many people actually play the games. It's also funny that while Samus is famous as a sex symbol in the Smash Bros and general gaming fandoms, it seems that the actual Metroid fandom prefers their Samus cooler than sexy. Anyway I'm looking forward to eventually picking up Dread, the game which first hooked my interest into this franchise, and the other 2 Prime games. Maybe I'll even pick up Other M if I see it around.

[imthepunchlord]

Kalos needed a win more than the other gens, let's be real.

It did!

Like, XY over all were fun, but you could feel they were incomplete. This is the Gen where the enhanced version (or sequels) felt incredibly absent and Kalos needed more umph. For the game that led us into the 3D, it got the short end of the stick. So it really does need this.

And I think this works out overall. We were ALL dreading the "faithful" BW remakes. And I wasn't that all excited for Let's Go Jhoto, though I found this was the least likely option. So Legends Z-A was a very pleasant surprise. And it's coming out next year at an unknown time! It's got time to cook! Well, assuming they didn't start development recently. Hopefully it's further along than recently started. Either way, it's really good they took a break this year, I got plenty of Pokemon games to replay, and some fan games to play, and I'm just going to curiously keep an eye out for news. And hope the earliest release will be November as then it'll be kinda close to getting a 2 year development, cause the more time to cook the better. I am good waiting for games, I'd rather a finished product than a rushed one.

And by the teaser, there's so much curiosity over it.

Is it really going to be set in the past and a prequel? Or is it going to be more modern-future and a sequel? Helping with the construction of Lumoise City to me leans more past but we'll see. I also wonder if we'll see a Pokemon version of Napoleon as he was the one who wanted Paris reconstructed.

And learning that, apparently, it's entirely set in Lumiose City is going to be interesting to see how that works. Will there be biomes? Or will the Lumiose Catacombs (that it should have) be used as places to catch wild pokemon? And how are we going to play a role in the city reconstruction? It's a different theme and set up to be sure, one I am curious about.

Also, with Mega Evolution coming back (which was my favorite of the gimmicks), I do wonder if this means we'll get more Megas over regional and convergent forms, which I would be a little bummed about, but its cool to get more Megas.

And we'll finally see the Mega Kalos Starters! And maybe Flygon will get a Mega finally! And I know some wanted to Mega Dragonite and we did see Dragonair in the trailer so that's a possibility.

And then there's the fun of the starter speculation, assuming we'll still get a shuffled up trio. Which so far this is the most popular theory I think:

Which does have some merit, as two are based on French royalty/leaders, and Torchic can be tied to the Gallic Rooster.

The only thing to clash is chances are good we'll get Megas for them over regional evolution, and we already got Mega Blaziken. They may prefer to do a whole new trio. Torchic is also a bit of an odd one out as there are 2 specifically based on French royalty and Torchic isn't, unless there is a French royal it could be tied to. Charlemagne is the only other iconic French royal I can think of, but I don't know enough specific details about him outside he unified the Franks and was the first King of France, but maybe Blaziken could work off him?

Either way, I am very curious, a little excited and hopeful, though more cautious optimistic. I am hoping this game will have enough time to cook. I do love Pokemon and I want to see this franchise thrive and be the best it can be. So I am curiously excited for us to revisit Kalos soon and see how it's going to go.

[mrs-tsunderemeitantei]

Regarding Elena and Atsushi's death, from the scenarios that I expect, Haibara’s parents' death was not an accident nor caused by Vermouth, but rather a suicide after realizing that the drug they created is very dangerous, and the only way to eliminate this drug without causing harm to their daughters (the organization knows their whereabouts and monitors them), is suicide in the lab by burning it, so that the data of their drug would be burned, and at the same time, the organization thinks that what happened was just an accident, so they do not harm their daughters, and this explains many things, such as the organization’s desire to recreate the terrifying drug that was used on Haneda and killed him without leaving a trace. But most of the data was destroyed with fire, so they ordered Sherry to remake APTX using data remains with the hope that she will recreate it... Finally, Haibara will realize in the end that the cause of her parents' death was to spare her and Akemi, which in turn would cause her some kind of grief..

Umm, initially I didn't agree with you but I see where you're coming from. At the same time I find it hard to believe Atsushi and Elena decided to sacrifice themselves like that leaving their children to the mercy of the BO. Feels kind of ruthless if you ask me. Also, I was just convinced that Carasuma Renya ordered their death after Shiho's birth due to:

The lack of the Miyanos' progress over the drug he truly wanted.

He'd recruit Shiho instead and have her groomed and raised by the BO and so, less likely to go against the BO's orders and wishes.

(Killing people who don't provide him with what he needed is a common habit for him as attested by Senma Furuyo in The Gathering of the Great Detectives Case).

Also if this is kind of confusing, my APTX-4869 theory may explain it better. 😅

Anywho, I also found the way the Miyanos were eliminated, was very similar to how Vermouth finished off Jodie's father. And in general, the BO always burned down any of their previous agents' houses. Pisco is an example:

But I see your point. Especially with all the tape recordings thing that feel like a suicide message or parting gift to Shiho. However, Conan mentioned that Elena probably felt her death was near so she recorded these messages for her daughter.

I just interpreted them as follows: because the Miyanos were against the drug to be used for the murderous means, the BO decided to kill them off as Carasuma Renya maybe feared they would do anything drastic. And because the Miyanos may have disputed the BO with continuing a lethal drug, Elena sensed her looming death, so she recorded the tapes for Shiho and entrusted them to Akemi in case anything happened to Elena.

However, I could be wrong, so we'll just have to wait and see how and when Gosho decided to reveal the truth.

Thank you for your theory by the way, I really enjoyed it cause it got me thinking😄

Thank you!

[bakugohoex]

Soft boy Jean trying to bake a cake for his s/o but he stuffs it up and tries to hide it, but in the end his s/o helps him remake the cake together

“make a wish”

paring: jean kirshctein x female reader

cw: kissing, language, fluff

word count: 1700+

a/n: i wrote this at 2am, i need sleep but we move, if i don’t wake up for my lesson then i’m fucked (morning me tell me if i do wake up on time right here - i woke up on time but im lying in bed) hope you liked it i needed to write some attack on titan shit and jean’s is my fave

summary: in which jean finds out it’s your birthday and decides to make a surprise cake, with limited resources, he tries but ultimately it turns into you finding out, in your oblivious state you end up helping him make a cake for yourself

↞ back to attack on titan masterlist 

Your voice was cold as you spoke to your class, you were all nearing the end of the training corps. It had taken a toll on a lot of people, but you had remained strong and resilient to what would occur.

You knew you had worked hard enough to reach the top ten, but you were always going to join the survey corps. You would kill the titans and even to your friend Jean’s reluctance you would give your life defeating them all.

What nobody had really expected was to see Sasha smiling as she walked towards the group that you would call your friends. She had a piece of paper in her hand and you were confused at the girl. She was never normally this happy after training she was always bitey for food so what had made her go all nice.

“I finally found it Y/n.” You tilted your head in confusion as Jean looked between the two of you. “Y/n, your birthday’s in two days, why didn’t you tell us?”

You rolled your eyes, “I just don’t think birthdays mean that much in the grand scheme of things.”

“But cake.” Sasha seemed more upset about the lack of food than anything else. You rolled your eyes walking back to the garrison, you wanted clean clothes due to the sweat that encased your current clothes.

Jean’s obvious crush for you was known, they watched him as he admired you walking away. He didn’t care if you were sweaty you were still the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Even with his obvious flirting you were oblivious still believing the boy had feelings for Mikasa.

“I’m making her a cake.” Marco looked at the boy confused.

“You do realise you don’t know how to bake.” Connie spoke out loud what Marco and everybody else had been thinking.

“I’ll work something out.” Sasha seemed to be the only happy one as Mikasa hadn’t paid attention only irritating Eren to make sure he didn’t get too dirty.

Later on, after everybody had had dinner, Jean snuck out he knew how to bake a cake, he’d watched his mother, how hard could it actually be?

Careful of not waking anybody up, he creeped outside knowing where the kitchens were. He prayed there was everything he needed not wanting to have to try and found it anywhere. He walked towards the building, seeing a battered canteen it was silent and hopefully nobody would catch him.

He rolled his sleeves having still worn the uniform they were made to wear, as he got to work trying to remember what his mother had done many years ago. It wasn’t working as he put it to bake he sat on the counter wondering if he had done it right, he had all the ingredients but having a theory and no practically experience was a recipe for disaster.

Once the cake had finished he looked at the sunken cake already knowing it had failed, he had hope that it might’ve just sunk and tasted better, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, kept going through his head.

His mother would know what to do, he cut into it taking a bite before instantly spitting it into the bin. Not only having wasted the ingredients on a shitty cake but he had no idea how to make you something to show his feelings.

He signed lowering his head before he heard a cough. You were standing in front of him, his eyes widened as he removed his hands from his face. “Y/n what are y...you doing here.”

You always thought his stuttering was cute, it happened a lot around you, but you always assumed it was because Mikasa was nearby. The embarrassment Jean felt was heavy and you could sense it from a mile away. He tried hiding the cake, but you had easily spotted it as soon as he covered it with a tea towel.

“I heard Sasha in her sleep talk about you making a cake, I wanted to help.” You cheerily smiled at the boy; you didn’t know who it was for, but you assumed his mother due to visiting the Trost District in a couple days.

Jean had a sense of relief wash over him, at least you didn’t hear the frustration he had. A small brush crept along his face as you came closer leaning against the counter taking the same fork he had used to eat the cake. You cut a bit with the side before eating it, “that’s fucking gross.”

He laughed as you went to go spit it out, “what the fuck did you put in it?”

“I...i just remembered what my mother did.” He spoke out the ingredients and how much he put in it before you heard the last part. “...and about 200grams of sugar.”

You looked at the container that held the ‘sugar’ opening it before dipping your finger in it, you tasted it the salt making your mouth scrunch up. He tilted his head confused, before you bought a different finger into the salt bringing it to his mouth.

“Taste it then.” You mutter, he obeyed opening his mouth as he sucked on your finger, it would’ve been flirty if his face didn’t instantly turn sour.

“I added 200grams of salt.” You nod laughing.

“Come on let’s bake another one.” You washed your hands getting rid of both your saliva’s face your fingers.

Setting out the ingredients you showed him how to make a cake your mother had taught you how to make. She had always wanted you to marry someone from the inner walls but instead you turned and signed up for the training corps.

Making Jean help you along the way to make sure he was a part of it, you showed him how each part did different things. He listened intensively asking questions when needed and doing what he was told.

It finally went into the over as you saw some icing on the side, something somebody probably left by accident. You passed it to Jean, “write a message on top, I’m sure your mother will love it.”

“My mother?” Jean’s face fell in confusion.

“Oh, I assumed it was for her.” He looks down as he doesn’t say anything.

You didn’t know what to say to him, he was silent thinking hard, you noticed how his face would scrunch up or how a blush would erupt. He was probably thinking about Mikasa to even care about you.

You had been licking the spatula and Jean stared imagining so many lewd thoughts he wanted you and needed a way to confess properly.

The timer went off as you yawned, grabbing the cake you both waited for it to cool before he looks at you intensively.

“Turn around.” You knit your eyebrows before doing so.

You heard as he signed before he touched your shoulder, you turned back around seeing Jean holding the cake, the icing writing a message you had never expected.

‘happy birthday y/n

i love you

jean’

It was simple and caring, his name barley fitting on the cake but he had tried. He had been thinking all along about what to put on the cake before realising he should just admit he liked you.

The love part was true as well and not realising he had wrote it his face went into a heavy blush. “Y...you love me.”

You were the one stuttering now, Jean put the cake down, “I do.”

“I thought you liked Mikasa.”

“It was a crush that I got over as soon as i saw you.” He admitted, he looked directly at you as you tried to not meet eye contact.

A silence grew as you didn’t know what to say the words finally falling from your lips, “i love you too.”

That’s all he needed to hear to walk towards you bringing you closer to his body, he cupped your face, your breathing heavy at the excitement you were feeling. Your hands went to cup his nodding to tell him to go for it. His lips attached to yours, the taste of the batter lingered in your mouth.

He pushed you against the countertop, his hands moving from your face as it moved to your legs lifting you onto the counter top. Your heights becoming the same, your hands remained on his face bringing him closer the way you moaned making his tongue travel inside of your mouth. Spit and saliva mixed as you craved more, his hands on your back making you arch forward.

He wanted your body on his own and as the kiss deepened, your breathing became heavier, the consistent kisses between trying to get air before going at it again with the long passionate kisses were repetitive. You didn’t want it to stop, but as your breathing got heavier he finally let go. You were both out of breath having not kissed someone in a while.

The kiss had felt new almost as if it was long awaited, he watched and admired your breathless state, your dishevelled hair and tired eyes. “Let’s have some cake.”

You nodded as you remained sitting on the counter top, you had already put everything away and washed up the only thing left being the forks you would use to eat the cake. He held the cake standing in front of you, he brought a box of matches out. “I haven’t got a candle.”

You laugh as he lit the match putting it up to your face, “make a wish.” You blow softly as he feels your breath on his finger, cutting up some pieces he brings it to you, smiling as he eats the cake you both made.

“Now this is a cake.” You laugh as his salt cake had gone in the bins. You both had been relatively quiet so didn’t expect anybody to come in.

“What’d you wish for?” Jean asks after finishing the cake, it had been a small cake so you both ate it easily without any hesitation. Knowing you’d end up losing it from training anyway.

You both walked outside watching the moon, Jean’s hand creeping into your own as you entangled your fingers together. He smiles as you finally answered, “my wish already happened.”

He understood as you smiled up at the boy, you gave him a small kiss on his lips, filled with happiness of a future. He smiled back walking you back to your room, he’d never admit it, but this was probably the best nights of his life. He had finally gotten you and it was as if everything had fit into place, you were together and not even the Titans could ruin that for you.

i’d really appreciate if you guys could leave a like, reblog or comment, thanks x

if you guys want to be a part of a tag list, just reply to any post and i’ll add you xx

@samusimp @alaina-rose13 @crispychannie @underratedmage​ @jennammaee​ @cathy8taffy

[crapyouknowme]

Highlights of 2020

Tagged by @mfshirtballs - this should definitely be interesting because I'm going to have to wrack my brain...

list your top 10 shows (bl or not) you watched in 2020 (doesn’t necessarily have to be shows that came out in 2020 though!)

tag at least 10 people you appreciated this year

tag 10 more people to continue the tag

Top 10 shows of 2020 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

As I wrote this, I realized that this is in no particular order because I was wracking my brain.

1. Cherry Magic

What to say - this show literally carved itself into my heart and forever be such a warm memory as the year ended. I never felt such a visceral, soulful PURE LOVE at this level in a LONG time. This drama felt... real, relatable and just PERFECT? Kurosawa was such a disaster gay - to be in a one-sided love for 7 years??? WHAT. Adachi.. his clumsiness and his insecurities felt so GODDAMN relatable that I rewatched the show from ep 1-12, 4 times!! 

Thank you Cherry Magic for being such a surprising, yet wonderful gift.

2. Until We Meet Again

I know that the chemistry between Korn/In and Pharm/Dean really struck me as being so painfully beautiful. It got confusing a bit but their pain had a searing affect on me. Watch for the gut-wrenching love and stay for their chemistry.

3. He’s Coming To Me

THIS WAS THE SHOW THAT INTRODUCED OHM TO ME so I’m forever grateful because MY GOD CAN THIS KID ACT??? He just breathes pure talent. The story is bittersweet if you think about it but OH-SO-WELL-DONE by both Ohm and Singto! The story felt like fate and it can get super depressing but then it hugs you like a soft cloud.

4. 2gether The Series

I don’t think I cannot put this show - I was so beyond invested that I would watch even when subs weren’t uploaded on time hoping that I would magically understand Thai. At first, Tine was a complete doofus and in a way grew onto me as an endearing doofus. Then, when Sarawat’s story came to be - I think I literally saw my heart leap out of my throat. A must watch show!

5. 2moons2

I know people were apprehensive about a remake, as was I, but I was willing to give it a chance to see the other two couples’ stories fleshed out. BOY, I was... just invested in Ming/Kit + Forth/Beam more than I thought I would be. It was just nice to see what could have been with the original.

6. Where Your Eyes Linger

AH SHIT THIS GODDAMN SHOW WHAT THE ACTUAL HHOLY HELL WAS THIS SHOW MY GOD. MY HEART. RIPPED RIGHT OUT. DOA. DEAD ON ARRIVAL. 

Tae Joo and Kang Gook.. truly.. TRULY..  were precious and all I ever wanted to do every goddamn episode was to give them the warmest hug. They both needed it. The episodes were shorter than I would have liked but creatively (screenwriting, acting, direction, cinematograph) well-executed. I mean I felt the tangible ANGST between these two IDIOTS whenever they breathed. 

7. Your Name Engraved Herein

Why does this show exist to just hurt me. It’s rhetorical and there’s no if/way about it because even if I were to re-watch it, which I won’t because I maxed out on pain already for 2021, I would bask at the beautiful acting, direction, lighting of this show.. There were many times where I would literally be clutching my pillow with a deathly grip as I watched the pure heartbreaking sadness consume me. So many Oscar worthy scenes SO MANY. I felt like bawling so many times but I would have never finished it if I had let those flood-gates open. What a beautiful, yet macabre movie.

8. Theory of Love

oh man.. this show.. for me, THIRD carried this drama (not that the other actors didn’t do their best). He is one of the best actors I’ve seen and it’s just really refreshing to see someone with NUANCED acting. He conveys his unrequited love with a breath of fresh yet suffocating air. Khai... oh Khai... I don’t think I would ever understand you but thank you for coming around and giving love back to Third.

9. Gaya Sa Pelikula

MY first Filipino BL and it literally blew my goddamn mind?????? LIKE WHAT. The premise of it was literally ‘like a movie’ and so I stayed because I was immediately captivated. If you’re hesitant about watching it because of whatever reason, just know that Vlad and Karl have immense chemistry and truly bring justice to the story.

10. I Told Sunset About You

THIS..fucking show. I MEAN PURE TALENT exists with Billkin and PP because where in the actual fuck did they find these actors? I honestly thought I lost at least 5/7 lives during this show. It is a damn masterpiece and I’ll be damned if I don’t watch it another 11 times. Teh’s internalized insecurities are just so beautifully fleshed out, which is such a contrast to Oh-Aews struggles. To be ripped apart by circumstances at no fault of their own (well Teh had his moments), to find each other once more.. UGH CANNOT WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL.

Honorary Mention: DARK BLUE KISS

I don’t know much people on Tumblr so I’ll just tag @purple-howl @seekingstarlightinthecity @gunsatthaphan 

WHOEVER WANTS TO GO DOWN THIS PATH AND REFLECT ABOUT 2020 SHOWS. go ahead 💜💜💜

[aria-i-adagio]

Fandom: Dragon Age

Ship: Dorian x m!Trevelyan

Rating: T

read on A03 or below

(title from REM, 'Imitation of Life')

Meanwhile, in Haven.

Rhys has a list of sights he does not want to see as he’s dying. At the top (and a recent addition) are hurlocks - those are some ugly motherfuckers, and he suspects that they enjoy making death hurt. Most varieties of demons; although, perhaps a desire demon might not be too bad. Granted, he doesn’t know if the illusions they cast last up to the point of death, or if those are only good while being possessed. That might change the calculus a bit. One of the red lyrium crystal monsters the Templars were turning themselves into. A bear. He definitely does not want to see a bear while he’s dying.

As final sights go, the implosion of the Breach as the thing in his hand stitches the Veil back together isn’t a bad one. The outer edges turn magenta, then blue-violet. The cooler colors rush to the center, swirl together, drawing inward until there’s just a speck of black, more liquid than the darkest night. Then bright, morning sunlight pulses like a heartbeat from that center.

Rhys lets go of the breath he was holding. He thinks it worked, thinks the Breach is closed. It feels powerful enough - a wave of magic like fire and lightning pouring through him, in and out, like breathing in harsh, herbal smoke that messes with his head and makes the world swim, and at least, in his case, despite many promises to the contrary never makes him as sleepy as it just makes him keyed up and in want a good fuck.

The shockwave following the pulse of white light picks him up off his feet and sends him hurtling through the air and slamming him like a ragdoll into rocks and ice around Haven.

Still, the light is damned pretty. Until it fades.

He hears Dorian's voice through the ringing in his ears. “Rhys! Thank the Maker.”

Rhys hopes that he isn’t dead because if he is that implies that Dorian is dead too, and that would rather sad. The world needs Dorian smiling and making catty jokes. There’s been too much melancholy and death over the past few months. Rhys is getting tired of all the omens of doom and gloom.

There’s another little gap in time before his head recovers enough to remember how to open his eyes. When he does, Cassandra’s upside-down face greets him. Dorian's would have been a prettier sight, but there's something comfortingly familiar about seeing Cassie first thing after realizing that - despite there being every reason for him to be - he is not, in fact, dead.

Rhys's vision still spins, and his left arm feels like it’s burning from the inside out. Yes, he’s been here before. Best just to let go, disconnect from it, float a little bit. “Are you going to yell at me again?”

“What?” Cassie’s dark brows pull low over her eyes. “No!”

“Too bad. You’re kinda attractive when you look like you’re about to commit murder.”

“Herald!”

Cassie sounds scandalized. Rhys manages a grin. Not that scandalizing Cassie actually takes that much effort. Makes her easy to tease. Something to distract him from how much he’s hurting at the moment because pretending that the waves of pain radiating from his arm are the ocean doesn’t actually work very well. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t been in the ocean since he was a small child. The memory of floating in warm waves until they send you tumbling into rough sand isn’t fresh enough.

“Keep talking like that, Lucky, and you might yet manage to die tonight.”

“Hey, Varric.” Rhys tries to lift his head and the bastard offspring of fire and electricity shoots from his shoulder to neck and then down his spine. The muscles in his back spasm and his head hits the ground beneath him, blacking out his vision for another moment and sending the ringing in his ears a pitch higher. “Did it work?” he asks groggily.

“You did good, kid.”

“So it -”

“The Breach is sealed, Rhys.” Solas’s calm voice is reassuring to hear. “Try not to move, this will hurt more before it hurts less.”

“That story -” He means to say ‘again,’ but Cassandra grabs his shoulders very firmly and maybe he shouldn't waste breath on quips.

“Dorian, be ready.” Solas does something, and that something rips the fire out of his left arm, which is - as promised - worse than just letting it settle in like some magical, fatal addition to the marrow.

“Motherfucking, son of a bitch, what in the name of Andraste's flaming arse -”

“Language.” Cassie lets go of his shoulders and reprimands him with a light cuff on the side of his head. “Oh let the kid blaspheme a bit, Seeker. He's earned it.”

Rhys sits up and rubs his hand. Above him, the sky is still marked by a line of bright green, but it’s a seam in the darkness, not a whirling, pulsating storm. His arm doesn't hurt now, but there's the same fuzzy numb wrongness in his wrist and palm that he's gotten used to over the past few months. That's on a good day.

Solas arches his eyebrows and looks amused. “You know I do very little in the name of Andraste's arse, flaming or not.”

“Whatever your reason -” Rhys experimentally stretches out his left arm and reaches across his chest to rub his shoulder. It’s still aching, but just the banal ache of falling a bit too hard. “Thank you."

Nearby Dorian finishes casting with an elegant - and probably unnecessary - flourish of his elegant hands. One of the trees beside the Chantry behind to glow with the green of a Veil Rift, then warming to a color closer to chartreuse.

“What is that?”

“You absorbed a lot of energy while closing the Breach. I siphoned off what I could at the time. But still, far more than a human body is supposed can contain and remain alive.”

“Right.” Movement of energy had been his theory for some time. Massive amounts of magic were required to open or close a rift in the Veil, and something had to serve as a conduit. Whatever happened at the Conclave had left him as that conduit, but each time he felt the power come closer to burning through the bonds that held him together, made him human. Which was precisely why there was a stack of farewell letters sitting on the desk in Rhys's quarters. He hadn’t expected to live through whatever it took to close the Breach.

“Dorian and I pulled off some of what remained and redirected it. It's a rather beautiful effect, albeit transient.”

The tree turns to a brilliant brilliant gold and then quivers and collapses into a pile of shimmering dust. Rhys swallows hard. Not expecting to live isn’t quite the same as getting a glimpse of how you would have died. Or maybe a human body was messier than a tree. Typically were less graceful than plants. “I see.”

“Right then. Let's get you freshened up and then get some liquor in you.” Dorian grabs his forearms and hauls him to his feet. Face to face with the other mage, Rhys feels transparent. Like a plane of glass that can't hide fears and flaws. It's terrifying. Electrifying. “Everyone else has already started the party.”

Even nearly nose to nose with Dorian, Rhys still can't tame the small voice in the back of his head that says he's reading Dorian all wrong, that the man is just friendly, that there's certainly no way someone so beautiful and refined would be interested in a mudlark.

He hopes that voice is just being stupid.

Dorian slips him a flask of brandy as they walk away. Rhys flips the cap off and sips gratefully from it. His legs feel loose, off-balance, like he’s drunk already, and he suspects he would be staggering but for Dorian’s arm around his waist. The linen undergarments beneath his leather coat and woolen sweater are soaked with sweat and chilly even beneath the layers; he’s content enough to let Dorian drag him to the small cabin he’d been given. Really, actually, it is too much for a single person, much bigger than the room he had at Ostwick. And frankly, far too cold with only a single person’s body heat in the space at night.

He stumbles past the partition to the room in the back, trying to decide if he’d rather fall face-first onto the bed, or dig out a new base layer and go enjoy the party he can hear the rest of the Inquisition beginning outside. Leliana and Josephine will probably show up if he chooses the latter and drag him back out with a lecture on keeping up appearances and rallying the people. They might even be right.

Maker, he hopes his part in all this is over. Let Cassandra and Leliana continue trying to remake all of Thedas. He just wants to go home. If he has a home to go to.

“Oh look at this!” Dorian exclaims from the front. “Antivan red. And a halfway decent vintage. You’ve been holding out on me, Rhys.”

“Talk to Josie.” Rhys undoes the buttons down the front of his coat. Too many buttons, especially with hands that are stiff from the cold and shaking from an overdose of magic. He tosses it over the foot of the bed and takes off his sweater. He’s rather fond of the sweater actually, it’s nice and warm and the good kind of scratchy. The kind that kept you in the present place and time. “She’s not lying about her family connections.”

“Not sure she likes me. Yet. She’ll come around.”

“I’m sure she will.” Rhys smiles a little and cautiously - sometimes he has to recalibrate just how much magic to use after closing a Rift - casts a spell to melt the ice on the pitcher of water. Closing the Breach hadn’t done anything to improve Haven’s climate. Maker, why do people choose to live here? He splashes still chilly water over his face and leans his hands against the table, trying not to yawn so hard that his jaw cracks off.

His linen shirt is soaked to his skin; he has to virtually peel it off. It gets tossed to the floor, something that can be dealt with later and by someone else. He soaks a bit of toweling at rubs it over his chest and shoulders, glancing behind him, at least somewhat hoping that Dorian is surreptitiously peering around the partition.

He isn't. He’s turned away from the opening in the partition - polite, Rhys supposes - holding the stack of letters in his hands and shuffling through them. “Rhys. What are these?”

“Just... I need to burn those. They were just in case, well, you know, this wasn't exactly the guaranteed outcome.” He didn’t even know if half the people he had addressed them to were still alive, much less where to find them, but he assumed that Leliana would be able to figure that out if she needed to.

“How late were you up writing them?”

All night. “A while.”

“You were sitting here last night, by yourself, writing these because you thought you might die - Rhys, why didn't you say anything? You didn't have to sit in here drinking and contemplating death alone.”

“I thought the chance closing the Breach would kill was generally understood.” Just the kind of thing that no one talks about in polite society. Rhys combs his fingers through his hair and tries to put it into something akin to order and not just hanging unattractively lank around his face. Kind. Dorian might have a vicious tongue in his head, but he’s also kind when he wants to be. “Open the bottle if you want. If I was saving it for a special occasion, I think this qualifies.”

Rhys sits on the edge of the bed and undoes the buckles down the sides of his boots, tugging them off and rolling down the first of three pairs of socks. The other two are tucked under his trousers. Clean socks will be nice. He gets his trousers off - tight leather is really annoying. Decent armor. A good look on him too - even he can recognize that. But annoying to get on and off.

He finishes washing up quickly and dresses again, listening as Dorian pops the cork out of the bottle and the sound of wine being poured. Hopefully, it’s a decent vintage. He’d hate to disappoint.

Dorian is sitting in one of the chairs with his feet propped up on the desk. Rhys does it all the time himself; it’s a bizarrely satisfying act of delayed rebellion against the librarians who scolded him for doing the same thing in the Circle. The letters have been set aside in a much tidier stack than the one in which he had left them. He pulls the second chair out from the desk, sits down, and picks up the wine glass that Dorian isn’t twirling in his elegant hands.

Dorian stops him as he raises the glass to his lips. “Don’t drink it yet, silly. A red needs to breathe.”

“Right. Yes. Anyway, thanks. For saving my life back there. What is that, like the fiftieth time.”

Dorian raises his eyebrows, smiling over the cup in his hand. “Bad form to let someone die. Especially someone you rather -”

Bells begin clanging outside, interrupting whatever Dorian was about to say. He swings his feet from the desk to the floor and sets the cup violently down on the table. “Oh, Andraste’s quaking quim, what now?”

Rhys grins. “You’re getting as bad as a Ferelden.” Even if the bells are unlikely to signify anything good, he can enjoy a little humor.

“Worse, I think.” Dorian throws back the cup of wine as he gets up from the table, and Rhys follows suit. Yes. It is a more than decent vintage even without enough time to breathe, and he grabs the bottle as Dorian pushes the door open because whatever is about to happen will probably merit alcohol. Cullen is standing outside, still in full armor and fur and with the grim expression that Haven seems to have frozen on his features.

“We’re under attack. Grab your staves. Meet me at the gate.”

“Void take it.” Dorian takes the bottle from him and drinks. “Come on, Rhys. Looks like fate hasn’t given up fucking with us yet.”

Well, fuck.

[pan0ramy]

re8 thought dump because YE

i feel like this was almost inevitable but idk where else to talk about resident evil village so i’m just going to rant about it here!!! i have,,,, a lot of thoughts on this game after being so excited for it for so long

obviously, massive spoilers if you haven’t finished the game. i feel like i have thoughts on pretty much everything so please please please stay clear of this post if you’re trying to stay blind

otherwise, let me just rant about this game for a bit - mainly the story and characters - because i have Thoughts™

(also i feel like it goes without saying but this will be probably be quite long, so. strap in, ig)

okay SO. the whole intro was pretty interesting - even though we’d seen bits of it in trailers, it was still pretty unnerving and felt like it came out of nowhere. but the first thing that really stood out was the first village section with the hordes of lycans; i didn’t expect this game to start freaking me out so quickly but JESUS my blood pressure went up fast. 

there’s so many of them coming at you at once, and not only have you just lost half your damn hand, you’re not really used to the gunplay at that point AND you don’t have that many weapons at your disposal. so it’s basically just “hey we’re throwing you into this ring of death, good luck surviving!” which... now that i think about it, that really sums up the whole game lol

but for the most part, the early parts of the game are what we saw in the demos, so there’s nothing too new - it was nice getting to see the scene with all four lords and mother miranda, though. i wasn’t sure how the whole chase scene with the lycans would work - i thought heisenberg’s area was going to be some sort of mine, and that the chase would take place there - but it didn’t, and it was interesting regardless of it being so short. 

but the castle. THE CASTLE. 

i would be lying through my teeth if i said i wasn’t excited for dimitrescu like everybody else; i’m firmly in the camp of people who both meme about how attractive she is, and then also the people who legitimately find her attractive, soooo i kinda had high expectations going in? 

and sure, the castle section is only part of the game, but if there’s anything that makes me nervous most, it’s stalker enemies. resi 2 remake was actually pretty tough for me to get through because of how anxiety-inducing mr x was, and even though i don’t feel like she was as present as mr x was, lady d was still great! there were a good few times where you could hear her walking around and you just knew she was searching for you, which was really damn cool.

also, i know capcom had a lot of hype to live up to with lady dimitrescu, but goddamn they did such a great job with her. she’s so imposing but badass and just... really damn cool? like i honestly found myself being excited for her to show up rather than being scared. i just think she’s neat! I MEAN LOOK AT HER.

(also yes i know the whole internet has talked about how attractive she is, but can we just. appreciate that for a second???? she’s gorgeous and yall can’t tell me otherwise. like. bro ik the pronunciation is wrong but the way she says dimitrescu made me GASP i love this powerful vampire woman)

if anything, though, i... actually felt really bad that her story ended up the way it did. i mean, think about it: you break into her house, kill the three people she’s grown to consider her daughters, rob her shit, and then kill her? she technically goes through the same kind of parental grief that ethan does, in a way, which is a really interesting parallel. grief seems to be a theme that capcom really pushed for this game, and it works. 

also, her boss fight design is badass. she’s literally a dragon, how is that not incredible

so the castle was great, where could the game go from here? oh, i don’t know, how about gOOD OLD FASIONED FUCKING TRAUMA.

jesus christ the dollhouse GOT TO ME.

i’m pretty used to horror in general; i love horror games, movies, books, you name it. i’ve gone to horror movies where people have ran out because of fear all while i’ve sat there giggling the whole time. but the dollhouse? that dollhouse is FUCKED. i can’t remember the last time i watched someone play through a horror game and was so... on edge the whole time. the fact that they keep you waiting for so long with nothing happening just... makes the atmosphere incredibly uncomfortable, and then when shit does start going down, it goes down fast. in other words, jesus fucking christ that baby will haunt my nightmares until the end of time

basically capcom managed to make the n*zi baby joke from south park: the stick of truth legitimately terrifying, and i was glad to see donna die. moving on.

moreau’s section is the one i... actually don’t have as many thoughts on. it’s cool, sure, and the whole idea of him turning into a fish when he hits water is neat - it’s definitely a good callback to re4 - but idk, it didn’t really scare me that much. i can see it scaring those with a fear of water or the ocean, for sure, but eh. i thought the designs were cool, but i kinda tuned out a little here.

heisenberg, though, was anything but. the entire time leading up to village’s release, this guy has fascinated me for some reason. i don’t know if it’s because he’s the most normal-looking of the four lords, or the fact that he has telekinesis, or his amazing voice acting (seriously i know some people have shit on his VA but oh my god i adore it) or what, but this guy stood out to me from day one. i even went into the game expecting him not to die tbh. but no, he does, and his fight is pretty damn cool all things considered. only in a resident evil game could you have a mech fight and have it not feel out of place lol

also this line ^^^ legitimately made me laugh so hard i almost choked on my water. THE FACT HE TURNS AROUND AND APOLOGISES SO MEEKLY its fucking hilarious to me

but anyway.

similar to alcina, though, i was left with one big question about heisenberg - what did mother miranda do to him to get him to join her impromptu familly? he said himself to ethan that he didn’t want to join, so what did miranda do that didn’t give him a choice? did he have a family at some point? is he grieving too? what did miranda take from him? i can only hope this gets answered in the dlc, because it’s by far one of my biggest questions surrounding all of this. i may very well have missed it somewhere, and at least we know he has his telekinesis abilities thanks to miranda, but it’s a question that’ll definitely be on my mind going forward.

at this point, though, the story REALLY gets insane. it’s really nice how village decided to just continue on straight from what 7 did, and i’m very glad that everyone’s theories about chris being a werewolf were wrong - it’s a really nice spanner to throw in the works. if anything, the whole revelation of mother miranda disguising herself as mia the whole time since rose’s birth was really cool, and ethan being Mold™ the entire time was pretty neat too - it made a lot of things both in 7 and village make more sense.

what i’m still digesting, though, is the ending.

...man, capcom, you put poor ethan through all of that and then you have the balls to actually kill him? i mean shit, you made us think he was dead for a whole 20 minutes but then nope! he’s alive! but then nope! he’s dead again! i did see someone point out that at least ethan got to go out on his own terms, but dammit i would’ve at least liked for him to get to see mia one last time. i think it would’ve softened the blow a little more. but i guess that ties into the whole grief theming this game has going for it, and like i said, i probably just need some more time to digest it. 

i don’t dislike the ending, it’s just a very big culture shock - it’s definitely a ballsy move, and i really respect capcom for going all out the way they did. they really held back on nothing in terms of this game’s story and i absolutely love it. it was so, so worth the wait in that regard. 

and tbh that’s kinda how i feel about the whole game in general; it was super super good, very much worth the wait, and i absolutely cannot wait to see where resident evil goes from here. i have a gut feeling this’ll end up being one of my absolute favourites in the series, which i know is very high praise, but i really do love it that much. i wasn’t disappointed with much in this game, if anything at all. it’s just a super fucking good video game man idk what else to say at this point

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep8

I’ve been thinking for a while that this arc felt almost weirdly similar to the original Watanagashi arc, to the point that maybe the twist was just gonna be that there isn’t actually any major differences this time, but then this episode came around and took us in a whole new direction and now I really feel like we’re all experiencing the feeling of reading through the question arcs for the first time, lol.

Thoughts under the cut. [Also some spoilers about the background meta stuff in Umineko, but I’m trying to keep it vague]

I’ve kinda had a lot of mixed feelings about this arc since it started, since it felt like maybe it was going to just be Gou doing a 1:1 retread of the VN for the sake of giving new fans the necessary character intros and plot exposition to set up the mystery, but thankfully this episode really proved why this is a totally different arc to Watanagashi and Meakashi, even if it’s superficially similar.

It’s actually kinda funny how many elements of this episode were directly inspired by things that happen in the later parts of Watanagashi, but with more or less totally different contexts behind them. I feel like it’s designed to make the preview images for each episode super misleading, lol.

In terms of the storytelling and thematic stuff going on, one of the surprisingly big changes is how the Watanagashi arc really pushed the idea of supernatural possession and demons and whatnot by having Shion [disguised as Mion] going around torturing and killing people, plus the whole “Takano was officially already dead when Keiichi saw her at the festival” thing, but this time around it’s focusing more on the idea of the curse being an excuse that the villagers set up to justify killing enemies of the village each year. Which is closer to the truth, but still not entirely true.

I feel pretty good about most of my theories of what happened in Onidamashi, aside from Satoko and Rika dying, but with this arc I don’t really feel sure about anything. Which is a pretty fun feeling, after having already been aware of Higurashi’s whole mystery for so long.

One of the big things I’m assuming at the moment is that the Mion we see in this episode was really just Mion the whole time. I don’t really think it’s accurate to call her the ‘culprit’ this time around, but I think that for all intents and purposes this is more of a Mion arc than a Shion arc.

I think that it was someone like Shion who killed the family heads, and it just lead to Mion deciding to go ahead with putting an end to the whole tradition. I’m not entirely sure about this, but it’d make sense if Shion was doing her whole arc in the background, but she got killed by Mion before she could kill anyone else.

The whole idea of Mion ever being a killer or getting the syndrome is kinda controversial, but at least going by what we got told in this episode, I think it actually does a pretty good job at showing how this might happen. For one thing, she’s channeling her paranoia into trying to protect Keiichi, which at least feels more consistent with her personality than just snapping and killing anyone. And after how Rika seemed to be at the point of ominously telling people that everyone’s gonna die because she’s given up hope on this timeline, and Mion apparently being convinced that Rika’s behind everything, I can see how maybe she either overheard Rika’s talk with Keiichi, or some time before or after that scene she talked with Rika herself and heard all about how everyone’s gonna die, and how Tomitake and Takano’s bodies should be found soon. I think it’d be pretty understandable at that point for Mion to get pushed over the edge, lol.

I don’t think she’s actually the one who killed Rika, though. Her whole rant in the ladder scene came across more like she thinks Rika’s still around and needs to be stopped. Maybe Rika was killed by the Yamainu after they apparently talked about something, but I’m not sure. At the very least, I think Rika being found in a septic tank probably makes it way less likely that she killed herself, unless someone found her corpse and dumped it into the tank afterward. So someone probably murdered her, but I’m not sure who.

It might have been Shion, but if it wasn’t her at school that day impersonating Mion then that seems unlikely, and I still think it was just Mion the whole time this episode.

One of my main doubts about Mion and her whole story in this episode is that we know from the VN that she knows how the Sonozakis aren’t responsible for any of the curse killings, and are just making themselves look guilty. So her paranoia about the three families being behind everything seems more like something Shion would think. But it’s possible that she doesn’t actually think they’re directly responsible for everything, just that they’re *complicit* in continuing the whole curse narrative, and allowing the deaths to happen each year while sitting back and accepting blame for it. Which I think would make a lot of sense, and might not even require Mion to succumb to full on Hinamizawa Syndrome levels of paranoia.

Even in the VN, I think we see her being upset about the fact that her family knows what’s going on and have basically just been sitting back and letting it happen. So I think this is just an extension of that, and she’s mostly just angry at how the culture of positive communal protection has warped into a string of revenge killings that the three families are allowing to happen.

This is also why I’m not entirely sure whether or not she killed Kimiyoshi and Oryo. It might have just been Shion doing her whole thing from a place of straight up paranoia, but maybe during the whole family party after the festival she basically got pushed over the edge after seeing how those two talked about the idea of the curse and how the people who broke into the Saiguden should be punished.

I’m not sure exactly what Mion’s motive would be for killing Shion, though, if that’s even what happened in the first place. I think Mion would just see Shion as being a victim of the whole curse narrative in the first place, after what happened with Satoshi previously. Even if Shion was the one who killed Oryo and Kimiyoshi, I doubt Mion would kill her over it. It might have just been Shion accidentally falling into the well, since that kinda thing happens sometimes in the VN, but who knows.

Also on the note of Satoshi, he still hasn’t been directly mentioned at all thus far, which is kinda weird. I think Tataridamashi will probably prove whether it’s just a matter of them condensing all of the major references to him from the original question arcs into only one arc in Gou for the sake of avoiding repetition, or if there’s something weird going on. At the moment I’m just leaning toward it being a matter of narrative efficiency.

And even aside from that, there’s lots of reasons why I’m interested to see how Tataridamashi will play out. I’m becoming increasingly convinced at this point that, like most people are thinking, there’s something weird going on with Satoko, and the next arc should give us more evidence for that one way or another. I also think it might diverge more quickly from the VN than these first two arcs did, since Rika has a pretty good motive for trying to immediately avert the whole Teppei abuse situation.

I don’t really know if I think Satoko’s killed anyone yet, but there’s something weird going on with her. Especially after how she wound up dead at the Sonozaki estate along with Mion. I’m starting to lean toward the idea that maybe she’s looping along with Rika, and that she’s basically trying to figure out the mystery in her own way. Which seems a bit more likely to me than her being a criminal mastermind this time around.

Though honestly the question that I just keep going back to when it comes to this whole idea is just . . . what exactly would the point be of doing something like this with Satoko? There has to be something more logical and meaningful going on than just ‘Satoko’s evil this time for Reasons [tm]’. There’s also the fact that we don’t know why Rika herself is looping again, or why the fundamental rules of the game board seem to be at least slightly different this time around, and those questions might tie into whatever’s going on with Satoko.

I think this is ultimately gonna tie into the hints we’ve gotten that there’s something important going on with teenage Satoko in the whole time period where Rika’s a teenager, which seems to be when she got thrown back into the loop. I’m at least becoming more convinced as time goes on that the mysterious girl in the OP is teenage Satoko, since it’d fit what we can see of her hair-style. And since I think Takano is going to be largely irrelevant this time around, it seems more likely for it to be teenage Satoko than teenage Takano.

I’m maybe kinda biased in how I’m interpreting this since I just finished the Umineko Ep8 manga, and since I’m still viewing Gou from the perspective of really wanting it to be a lead-in to an Umineko remake because I just can’t help but get my hopes up, but I think this might connect to my theory of Gou’s game board being along the lines of a novel series that teenage Rika is making based on her memories of the original time loop, in which case Satoko’s role in the new loop might reflect how she feels about the idea of Rika doing this in the first place.

It’s also making me wonder if maybe Lambda’s decided to sponsor Satoko this time around, if she’s basically ditched Takano by this point. Maybe she gave Satoko the ability to go through these loops with Rika to accomplish some sort of goal of hers, which might be in opposition to Rika’s whole goal with all this.

At the very least, in terms of Umineko connections, we’ve already seen Featherine in the OP, so literally anything could happen at this point, lol. I don’t actually think Featherine is directly responsible for what’s going on at the moment, though. I think if anything she’s taking more of a backseat observer role. Which is basically what she was doing already, I guess.

I’m thinking that maybe the final arc of Gou will be at least somewhat about Rika and Satoko in high school, to explain whatever events lead to this new loop, although if we assume that we get a new OP and ED for the second half, Featherine and teenage Satoko being in this OP might imply that they’ll show up before Tataridamashi ends, which would imply that it’ll REALLY diverge from the VN. Which would be pretty fun.

I still really like the idea that this is effectively the origin story of the Bernkastel we see in Umineko. Mostly just because it’d be a cool way to set up for an Umineko remake, but still. I think if we get a look at what’s going on with Rika and Satoko as teenagers, we’re probably gonna find out that Rika ended up getting into contact with Ikuko after attending St Lucia’s, and decided to work with her to write a series of stories based on her memories of the loop. Then, at least on the real world plane, Rika probably just stopped working with her and went on with her life, but on the meta world plane, Bernkastel stuck around as Featherine’s miko and is more or less represented by Ikuko’s pet cat. The timeline on this would also be pretty interesting, since if the teenage Rika and Satoko time period is around 1986, then that lines up with when Umineko takes place. 

Though at that point I guess my main question is just what Rika’s whole goal is with writing these new stories, and what Satoko’s goal is if she’s decided to enter the loop because of it. Considering how Umineko went, it might be an ideological conflict about whether the truth should be revealed to the public or not about what happened in Hinamizawa. Which reminds me of how it’d be very interesting if Gou doesn’t even end up explaining what’s going on with the behind the scenes politics, and the Great Hinamizawa Disaster. So maybe there’s some conflict going on about if that whole conspiracy should get revealed to everyone, or if it should be kept secret.

At the very least, if we assume that Gou’s just gonna be 24 episodes long with no second season, I don’t really think they have the time to properly explain all of that stuff, especially since Takano’s already had less of a role in the story thus far than in the VN. I think that, in a sense, Satoko has basically replaced Takano as the main turning point and obstacle of the story for Gou, and that whole concept might end up being relevant on multiple different levels.

Even if we completely ignore Takano and the whole political conspiracy stuff surrounding her that takes up a big chunk of the story, I feel like Gou’s already gonna be kinda short on time if it really wants to be a self-contained story with just 24 episodes. Which is the big reason why I think they’ve basically cut out most/all of the stuff to do with her and replaced it with some sort of new plot point that’ll take less time to deal with.

At the moment, my current theory for the final two arcs of Gou is that the fourth arc will basically be a version of Meakashi that focuses pretty much entirely on flashbacks, and basically ties the flashback half of Meakashi together with some of the flashbacks in Matsuribayashi that deal with the different curse incidents over the years, to set up a more cohesive and linear story arc about both Shion and Satoshi, and their experience with the curse over the years. Then I think the final arc will be a mix of whatever Gou’s original plot stuff will be, and a Matsuribayashi-style series of fragments showing a different perspective on Gou’s question arcs and what was happening behind the scenes in them. I think that’s one of the more realistic ways that they could actually compile all of the important plot points into this one season.

This could all get thrown out of whack if we do actually get a second season for Gou, but I doubt it, so at least for the time being I’m just trying to work out how it’ll all work out with just 24 episodes total.

Anyway, Gou continues to be extremely good, and I continue to be irrationally hyped about the prospect that maybe this is setting up for an Umineko remake, lol.

[bluerosesonata]

The Legacy of Aika Village

[This will be the first of a few mini-articles I plan to post here, just about different things I’m passionate about. Please indulge me.]

This article originally was written back in early April- since then, Nintendo announced that the “Dream Suites” would be coming to the latest update of ACNH, as “Dream Islands.” As such, I thought it would be timely to finally post this.

Update: On July 2nd, the original creator of Aika Village made a tweet announcing their plans to remake Aika for Dream Islands in New Horizons! The legend lives on!

Image Credit: thumbnail from chuggaconroy’s playthrough of Aika Village on Youtube.

Animal Crossing And Horror: The Legacy of Aika Village

With a lot of the world in lockdown, Animal Crossing New Horizons has become a creative and social outlet for many, leading to a lot of people who never played Animal Crossing to engage with it for the first time. I’m sure most of you have encountered the various types of people present in the Animal Crossing community by now, but there’s a type of Animal Crossing players that a lot of people didn’t realize exist, and have existed, for a while now: The Horror Town Creators.

These players were the subject of a brief write up on Polygon by Patricia Hernandez [Hernandez, Patricia. “Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now a horror game, thanks to fans.” Polygon, 24 Mar. 2020. https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/24/21190826/animal-crossing-new-horizons-horror-game-decorations-scary-nintendo-switch-blood-spatter-pattern.], who posted an article featuring quotes and pictures of people creating horror themed towns and rooms in New Horizons, but only made a brief mention of the legacy of horror that many of these players are striving to recreate: The Nightmare Suites of Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

(These next few paragraphs are a bit of a self-indulgent aside, so feel feel to skip ahead.)

Horror gets a bad rap. Horror artists get comments like “lmao what SCP is this,”  “that’s fucked up,” or get flippant remarks about it all “looking the same.” Horror writers get made fun of for only writing “three types of stories.” Even the term “creepypasta,” which has evolved into shorthand for “horror stories independently published online,” still carries the stink of derision from the typo-filled, often poorly-written shock stories the term originated from. Despite this derision, horror, as a genre, is MASSIVELY popular (and profitable as well!). There’s an undeniable appeal to it.

More importantly, horror always finds a way to adapt itself to different mediums. As one can easily see by the success of horror podcasts like the NoSleep Podcast and The Magnus Archives, it isn’t even limited to a visual format! Like fear and dread itself, the horror genre crawls on, inexhaustible, undying, and ever-present, always returning to us in ways both novel and familiar.

Horror lovers are a tight knit, but welcoming, community, and that’s one of its biggest strengths and weaknesses.The biggest drawback is that a lot of really cool stuff produced will never be experienced, let alone documented, by people outside the community. And that’s what prompted this post. I was trying to explain the Dream Suite horror movement to my cousin, and despite my best efforts, didn’t find a lot of coverage about them, beyond the fact they existed. Worse, most of those were articles written five years ago. Even so, I’ll link to a few of them at the end of this post, as they’re definitely worth reading.

For me, I wanted to share my experience of the horror town phenomena with people outside the community. The Nightmare Suites movement was really something magical, and I know that I, personally, am still trying to recreate that magic in New Horizons. And hey, maybe once you’re finished reading this, you will too.

The Dream Suite

Before we can talk about Aika Village, we need to explain the feature that made this whole movement possible. In the 2012/2013 3DS game, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, there were two areas in every town: The village, and Main Street, which laid beyond the train tracks that ran across to the north of every town. Main Street was home several important structures, including the town shop, the Happy Home Academy, and the Post Office. Later on, more structures could be unlocked and built as public works projects, one of which was the Dream Suite.[“Dream Suite.” Nookipedia, 25 Apr. 2013, nookipedia.com/wiki/Dream_Suite.] 

As for how it worked, Nookipedia explains it best:

To begin a dream, the player must lie down on the bed and pay Luna 500 Bells. They may then choose to visit a random town, input the Dream Address of a specific town to visit, or search for a town. They may then choose to visit a previously visited town or a random town, or to input the dream address of a new town to visit. While dreaming, the player may walk around the town and perform actions just as they would in the real world, but their actions will have no effect on the town.

While dreaming, the bed will be on the dream town's plaza. Luna and Lloid stand near it until the player decides to wake up. Players can borrow tools like a shovel and axe from Lloid to use within the dream. If the player lies on the bed a second time, they will leave the dream and anything they have in their pockets will be lost.

The player cannot go to Main Street or enter any buildings with doors besides homes. Additionally, messages left on the bulletin board cannot be read; instead, the board displays the town's name and Dream Address…custom designs on display in the town, such as on the ground and in houses, will be visible. The player who uploaded the town can also be found walking about. When spoken to, they will say their recorded greeting.

In essence, the Dream Suite takes a snapshot of your town at the moment you ask Luna, the NPC running the Dream Suite, to share a dream- this includes your outfit, the way  you decorated your home, the items laying around town, etc.

The most important aspect of this feature, and the one that I feel had the most impact on the Nightmare Suite creation movement, was the method of discovery. If you didn’t know someone’s code, you would be sent to a random dream of a random town, from anywhere in the world- and this is where I feel my personal experience of being in the community departs from the articles that have already been written about the Nightmare Suites.

The Urban Legend of Aika

In the years leading to 2013, I was going through some rough shit. I won’t go into details here, but video games had become my entire life. Coming into the summer of 2013, I didn’t have any friends I kept in touch with, and I was “starting over” in a city where I knew nobody- things were looking up, but outside of tumblr, I didn’t have anything even resembling a social life. Animal Crossing: New Leaf was a stabilizing force of my life during this time, and really helped me. I had the Shampoodle haircut guide saved to the camera roll on my phone, for pete’s sake.

It was in the beginnings of my friendship with a group of girls (whom I sadly no longer even have contact with), where a lot of our initial bonding happened because of anime and RPGmaker horror games. We were sitting together in the campus dining area, me playing on my 3DS, when I first learned about the Nightmare Suites.

“Have you heard about Aika Village?”

I hadn’t.

“It’s this really creepy town in dream suites, I heard about it from a friend online.” Later that day, she linked me to a tumblr post compiling a series of codes leading to different “creepy dream towns,” the first one being simply labeled as “Aika Village.”

That dream village became a phenomenon: people would write up their interpretations and theories about it, and even lead to a few articles and videos on gaming sites like IGN and Killscreen, which is why I’m not gonna even bother going into the content of the village itself.

And So, The Dream Begins…

This, in my opinion, was the draw of the Nightmare Suites. Without a way to directly share codes from your 3DS to your social media, the discovery and sharing of Dream Towns was like that of urban legends- like virtually passing notes in class, or sharing scary stories that “totally happened to a friend of my cousin’s sister” at a campfire. It felt like a cool discovery- something exclusive and scary and weirdly intimate. They had a mystique to them, a mystery of who their creators were and what they “really meant.” But above all that? They were cool as hell.

The Nightmare Suites used the limitations of the game to try and create an unnerving atmosphere in ways that were reminiscent to me of the RPGmaker horror game subgenre, and for me, created a lot of memories of excitedly typing in my once a day dream suite visit late at night in my dorm. I never lacked variety- there were so many people either influenced or inspired by Aika to make a horror town that there are entire lists and tumblrs dedicated to collecting those codes. (I even played around with the idea of making my own horror town, but never found the right inspiration, instead dedicating my time to making themed homes and custom outfits based on different anime characters.)

The sad fact that so many of these towns have been altered or overwritten, if they’re available or accessible at all, is in itself, a part of their urban legend-like appeal. While many of us may never get to experience these towns, the stories about them endure, in lists on long-abandoned blogs and youtube videos from people’s playthroughs.

And that mystique is the real legacy of Aika; While the Nightmare Suites may be gone, the wonder and dreamlike memories many of us hold from our chance encounter with it will never fade. You could even say we’re a bit…haunted by it.

[breezy-cheezy]

I finished Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Long story short, I loved it!! So much!! And there’s alot I wanna rant about so here we are. A review of sorts?? Major spoilers ahead! 

And if y’all think you’re immune to spoilers because you played the original FF7, YOU ARE NOT. Lots of new stuff here....just warning y’all.

Although! I did find this great looking walkthrough playlist if anyone’s interested and can’t play the thing themselves? Idk how complete it is with the details, but from a glance it looks nice! 

- FIRST OF ALL the music in it all is amazing!!! From the menu song all throughout, I got Emotional. All the rehashings of Aerith’s theme?? Tifa’s theme?? The FF7 main theme here are there?? AMAZING!!!! I need to find a tracklist or something there are so many versions of the songs specific to the scenes they played in and I die??? Man it is Good. 

- On the music front, I really enjoyed the Jukebox feature! So they could add in old classic songs that story-wise couldn’t appear yet...good nostalgia there. 

- Lil disclaimer, I played the original FF7 fairly recently, on Steam. HOWEVER. I played Crisis Core years ago, and watched Advent Children, etc. And Final Fantasy music has been a staple homework playlist for me for ages now.... So yes I’m new to the whole FF7 original story. But not new in how most people are...it’s a weird situation lol. Like I knew the general FF7 story for awhile but just recently filled the details....

- The gameplay is awesome!! I wasn’t great at it, but...tbh it felt like mechanics combo of the original FF7, FF15, annnnd Kingdom Hearts :D Also appreciated it PAUSED when you picked out commands lol. Loved upgrading weapons. Loved working with materia. I wish there were like...ways to save a materia set so you could easily switch over when your characters were switched out though X’’’’D 

- Biggs is Aro/Ace

- Cloud is VERY Aro/Ace

- Tifa might be Ace

- I decided long ago (in my Crisis Core phase) that Sephiroth is Aro/Ace. There’s nothing to “prove it” in this game but I’m holding to it. I have claimed these characters askjdhuiwdhguerhgr

- Side note, slightly related, but I love how the relationships shone in this remake?? Lots of casual, comfortable touch with Tifa and Cloud (in which Cloud seems in general pretty touch averse due likely to Trauma) in a “we’ve known each other our whole lives” way and gosh I love them. Aerith with Cloud is adorable. Barret!!! Was characterized SO WELL here, and I love him way more than I ever did!! Barret and Tifa interactions as well were so heartfelt and wonderful aaaaaa how good

- Like...Barret haaaates Cloud in the beginning. But somewhere along the way he adopts Cloud instead and ain’t that fantastic?? He just can’t contain how much he cares about others and especially his daughter and goSH I love him. 

- Aerith!! I love her!! She gave such a vibe that she knows more than she says, but is still so cute and sweet and sassy I LOVE!!!! Also that scene in the train graveyard with baby Aerith ;;~;; 

- Also

Cloud: You need any help??

Aerith, climbing a ladder: I’m fine. You don’t need to treat me like a princess or anything~~~

*ladder breaks*

Aerith, completely serious: s h * t.

I LAUGH

- Cloud was actually really cute with kids!!!!! 

- I think I saw a post where they talked about how much more consistent characterizations were here?? I have to agree. I feel some stuff was lost in translation while playing FF7 original, and it felt alot more put together, character-wise, here. I feel like some of that was learned from FF15 and its success with character relationships?? It was Good. 

_ I rambled about this before, but Wall Market was every bit as embarrassing as you would think. *covers face*

- Also I thought it was interesting how they handled who was in your party when! A little annoying sometimes though, switching materia around!!! DX I also really wanted to actually PLAY Red XIII/Nanaki....but sure make him an NPC, whatever. (I am grateful he healed me often.)

- *me when Nanaki shows up* AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! THERE HE IS!!!!!!! (sidenote, in the original, I didn’t wanna call him by his experiment name. He’s the only character I changed the name of. The name I picked? Ignis. :”D )

- The motorcycle segments were ANNOYING AS HECK, especially that last one in escaping the Shinra building DX The game forced your camera to focus on the boss and that made the controls VERY ANNOYING. Cool to watch tho.

- I actually almost completed the game boss fight chain early last night!! But RIGHT when I got to Sephiroth, the family demanded I get off the TV for their use D: all that progress....I had to redo ALOT. DX 

- STILL the fights were VERY cool! Reminded me of KHII end alot actually, jumping around on broken floating buildings and whatnot?? Also the creature looked like a HUGE DARKSIDE heartless lol

- There’s actually alot in this remake that gives alot of a KH feel to me?? Nomura I see you....

- *screeching the One Winged Angel theme still not knowing the words* 

- I LOVED how they showed scenes of the future in the end?? Probably ripped from Advent Children, but?? The characters actually seeing that?? Going “this CAN’T be our future!!” Yo. Also it’s implied it might not HAPPEN now going against destiny and all. I know alot of people are pissed but I am EXCITED. I’m all for a fix-it fic game thank YOU. 

- Speaking of fix-it: ZACK. ZAAAAAACK!!!!!! It’s implied he’s alive in one reality so WHERE IS HE??????? I’m so curious about this new story. I’m gonna eat up theories. I want!! To see!! My baby boy!!!!!! to be Fair (haha) I spoiled myself knowing he was in the game but I didn’t know WHEN!!!

- This is terrible, but I love how much they expressed how NOT OK Cloud is. His mental state is awful, but boi won’t talk about it. 

- Like I know it’s in the original, but it comes up ALOT more in the remake, and the flashbacks/brain short out moments are more obvious in HD for sure. Plus Cloud’s eyes seem more green there, which is a great touch!! Also the incredible FORESHADOWING it brought. Love it. Please someone help this idiot with his headaches....

- I did get annoyed with the whole scene in Hojo’s lab. Cloud’s walking like a zombie toward where Jenova is, saying CONCERNING things, and NO ONE reaches out until he outright collapses? We all just gonna stand back and watch?? Sure ok. 

- Hojo is absolutely disgusting and horrifying and exactly how I imagined him, creators did great job.

- Also why does no one use curaga in these character death scenes???? Potion? Anything????Hello??????

- I was so relieved Wedge (and one of his 3 cats) got to live, and then devastated when they chucked him out a window last minute ;;A;; still. I didn’t see a body. Maybe he’s ok.....*sobs*

- I WAS NOT EXPECTING BIGGS TO BE SEEN IN RECOVERY THO YEEEEESSSSS (I love ANY sign that they DID manage to change the future a little...I thought he was dead!!) Fun fact! The one part I legitimately started crying was when Biggs “died”! Hhhhhhhhhh

- Those dang dementors huh? X’’’D Whispers of fate...there to make sure the story goes according to the original game basically. Does that make the whispers the purist fans of FF7? ...please don’t kill me for that comment sidfiushguigerha

- I just wanna say making a game ABOUT making a remake (that is different from the original) and the struggles in that is VERY meta and so clever and delightful and I LOVE IT. I really wanna see what happens next....

All in all I spent 52 hours on this game. WAY more than I expected for only covering Midgar. And I ENJOYED it!! Some parts felt like the story was being dragged/padded, but most of the time I didn’t care. Also there’s even more to do?? Apparently I missed some scenes....I don’t have time for now, but maybe someday. Or maybe I’ll just look them up ;;7;; 

It’s a good game y’all!!

[fallintosanity]

What are your thoughts on 7 Remake’s ~controversial~ ending? It’s been a few weeks now since I finished and I legit feel like I’ve journeyed through all 5 stages of grief and finally landed on Acceptance 😅

haha that’s fair! I have a lot of thoughts about the remake, but they’re coming from three different angles. 

(Spoilers under the cut obvs; also this got fucklong even after I cut a bunch of non-ending-related thoughts, and I apologize to those of you on mobile)

From the POV of someone who played and loved the original

Overall, I really enjoyed the remake, ending and all. I replayed the OG prior to the remake’s release, finishing literally four hours before the remake became available in North America, but it had still been months since I did the Midgar parts so it wasn’t too immediately fresh in my mind. Still, I was impressed by how faithful the remake is to the OG for the vast majority of the game. They noticeably cleaned up a few things, like Tseng slapping Aerith, which didn’t age well or stopped making sense with regards to the greater Compilation, which was nice to see. But they also doubled down on some of the ridiculousness of the original. I can’t tell you how much I cackled when the Hell House showed up, or how many times I said to my fiance in joy/disbelief, “They really managed to fit that in!” 

I also love all the little nods to the greater Compilation. I saw one interview excerpt from like... 2015 or 2014 or something that said the Remake is considered canon to the Compilation, and the content of the Remake itself suggests this. While some of the cameos could be considered nothing more than cameos (as much as I love Kunsel, I don’t think his name being dropped means anything other than that they needed a name and wanted to give a nod to him), there are other clear hints that Crisis Core and The Kids Are Alright, at minimum, are canon to the Remake. Hojo mentions “S and G type” SOLDIERs, i.e., Sephiroth-type and Genesis/Gillian-type. (Roche is a G type I am not taking arguments on this point) The description of the Buster Sword says it carries the hopes and dreams of those who came before, implying more than just Zack (i.e., Angeal). Zack’s scene right before he charges the ShinRa army is shot-for-shot the one from Crisis Core, which could have just been a nod, but the fact that he also says the same lines as the original is telling. There’s a lot of lore loaded into those lines. Leslie and Kyrie are both from The Kids Are Alright (which makes me wonder if the third ShinRa half-brother is floating around somewhere). You could make an argument for Before Crisis being partially or completely canon to the remake as well, since someone mentions a previous assassination attempt on the President, which happened in BC. 

But now we get into the issue of whether Advent Children is canon to the remake, i.e., the ending and the thing you actually asked about. ^^; This is where I’m more torn. My initial reaction to the ending was “Oh crap, we went from FFVII-Remake to Kingdom Hearts - oh shit now we’re in Advent Children - oh fuck now we’re in fanfiction-land.” Which... is definitely not what I was expecting from the ending of Part 1. 

On first playthrough it feels a bit like they overplayed their hand with Sephiroth in the ending: “everyone wants a Sephiroth fight in a FFVII game, so we’ll give them a Sephiroth fight”. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the fact that Sephiroth appears in person in the Midgar sequence, when in the OG all we see of him before Kalm is the aftermath of President Shinra’s murder. I do think Sephiroth’s appearances prior to the ending were done well - the writers clearly intended to emphasize Cloud’s mental issues, and Sephiroth is too big a part of them to ignore. His appearances prior to the top of Shinra Tower both serve as a bone tossed to those who wanted to see him in the remake, and set up the Cloud-Sephiroth relationship a lot earlier and in more depth. You can see how utterly terrified Cloud is every time Sephiroth is around - even sometimes frozen into immobility. Depending on how things go with the Kalm flashback, this may also help cue new players in to just how wrong things are with Cloud. (After all, a SOLDIER First shouldn’t be afraid of another SOLDIER First, should he?) But the final fight against Sephiroth, or at least, a clone wearing Sephiroth’s face, felt premature, out of place, something that’s only there to appease people who wanted to fight Sephiroth now. 

Aside from the Sephiroth thing, I’m reserving judgment a bit on the ending as a whole. On the one hand, I’m deeply curious to see where the story goes from here, and how the writers use their newfound freedom (more on that in a minute). On the other hand, I don’t want this to turn into Kingdom Hearts 4, and I don’t trust Nomura in that regard, especially after all the bullshit that went on with KH3, Verum Rex, and FFXV/versus 13. I love Nomura, but like George Lucas, he desperately needs someone to rein in, edit, and shape his ideas.

I’m also not sure how I feel about all the theories being thrown out there - such as that at least one of the Sephiroths we see is the one from after AC, somehow flung back in time to fuck things up; or that the OG was, 999-style, Aerith seeing into the future and now in the remake she’s taking control to put everything on the path she wants. They’re interesting, for sure, and I think that with careful handling, it’s possible Squenix might be able to pull one of them off - but given what I know of Squenix (again, more on that later), I don’t trust them to do it well. I am, to be blunt, very concerned that later installments of the remake are going to turn into an incoherent tug-of-war between those who want to be faithful to the original, and Nomura’s desire to inject weird Kingdom Hearts nonsense everywhere. 

I say this with all the love to Kingdom Hearts, but it’s a very specific kind of story and it’s not what I want to see in my FFVII.

On a writing meta level

On the meta level, I’m fascinated by the choice to go with the whole Whispers/Arbiters of Fate thing. I don’t know how much of that is pure Nomura-injected BS vs how much was a deliberate choice by the writing team, but for right now I’m going to assume it was mostly a deliberate and unanimous choice. 

I’ve seen a lot of other Remake opinions along the lines of a reluctant, “I guess they had to put the Whispers in there because a perfect remake wouldn’t have been satisfying to everyone. There’s always someone who would have complained.” I... don’t think that’s entirely true. Like, yeah, sure, someone’s always going to complain if it’s not a pixel-perfect remake, but based on the overall satisfaction I’ve seen from OG fans (including myself) regarding the parts that are true to the original, I think Squenix would have done just fine if that was the path they chose. And given how much attention they paid to making most of the game into a nearly-perfect recreation, I think the writers knew it. 

So why’d they go the whole Whispers route? 

My guess would be that the writers were giving themselves freedom, on a meta level, with the Whispers. It’s a way of both poking fun at, and solving, their own dilemma: do we make a perfect, hi-res copy of the original? Or do we change things to make it our own? 

The “change something to make it your own” is a longstanding trope when someone new is put in charge of something old. You see it in everything from Disney live-action remakes to new managers who change their employees’ routines just to “make an impact”. Most of the time, these changes are neutral / un-impactful at best, or outright frustrating / terrible at worst. I wonder if the Remake writing team wasn’t fully aware of this, and possibly tangled up in knots internally about how to handle it. Would it be seen as a bad, “make it their own” change to have Tseng not slap Aerith? What about adding Chocobo Sam, Madam M, and Andrea Rhodea to the Wall Market sequence? What about the changes to how the Avalanche gang reacts to Cloud, now that we have full animation and voice acting and it’s clear Avalanche has no reason to want to keep him around except for Jessie being horny on main? Where’s the line? 

I could see the Whispers being the writing team’s way of making sure they stay in line where it’s important, while also giving themselves the freedom to make the updates needed to allow the remake to work. They’re kind of a meta nod to the audience, a “don’t worry! If we get too far out of line, the Whispers will bring us back.” In that sense, the entire ending where you (the player) kill the Whispers and free yourself (the player) from destiny is you giving the writers permission to continue making those small changes. 

In FFXV, almost the entire ending sequence is a cutscene: Noctis on the throne, being murdered by his ancestors and descending into the spirit realm. But there’s one single quick-time event in there, one point where the player has to take action and push a button. It’s not even difficult, and on the surface it seems pointless. Except, if you don’t, Noctis lives. (Trapped in purgatory maybe, but he’s still there.) If you never push that button, Noctis doesn’t sacrifice his spirit and those of the Lucii to destroy Ardyn and wipe the Scourge from Eos. By asking - requiring - the player to push that button to commit that final act, the game makes the player complicit in Noct’s sacrifice. It’s a powerful moment, and similar to what (I suspect) the Remake writers intended with the Whispers. 

Because they could have left the Whispers in forever. They could have had them be a continuous presence throughout all episodes of the Remake, a little reminder that no matter what tweaks the writers might make to update the story, to “make it their own”, the Arbiters of Fate will ensure things are on track. That things will play out exactly as in the original. But by asking the player to destroy the Arbiters, the writers are asking for the player’s permission to make changes. And by killing the Arbiters, you’re granting it. Because, just like you can keep Noctis alive by not pushing the button when prompted, you can keep the original game more-or-less on track by never stepping through that portal, never killing the Arbiters. But if you do step through that portal and go through with it, you’re agreeing to accept that things might change, thus freeing the writers from the constant double jeopardy of changing things vs keeping them exactly the same. 

On a business meta level

As cool as (I think) that all sounds, the bigger question is, can Square Enix actually pull it off? And here’s where I start to have my most significant doubts. After the FFvs13/FFXV debacle and the hopeless mess that was KH3, I do not trust Nomura to tell a coherent story, even if it’s supposedly a retelling of an existing, well-known story. I don’t know anything about the inner workings or politics at Square Enix, other than that there are politics at play, so in fairness to him I can’t really say it’s because he himself is bad at telling a story, or just doesn’t have the support he needs to convey his vision well. But that gets into other issues with Squenix. We know their last several major games have had long and troubled developments. Someone way more attuned than me to the Japanese video games industry can talk in depth about why; all I know is that it happened (is happening?) and that it’s something of a miracle the remake came out as well as it did. 

On top of that, I’m a bit concerned that even if Squenix can get (and keep) its shit together, it might be up against external forces that constrain how it can tell the story of FFVII in the present. For example, from what I’ve heard, the reason Crisis Core never got ported the way so many other games did, and the reason Genesis Rhapsodos has never been seen outside it and a Dirge of Cerberus cameo, is due to image licensing fights with Gackt, Genesis’s face model. CC established Genesis as a key player in the events leading up to the original game’s story, and enough hints have been dropped about CC in the remake that, like I said earlier, it appears to be canon. But if Squenix can’t reach an agreement to use the character again, they might be trapped in a corner where they either have to completely rewrite the parts of the story involving Genesis, or dance around his existence. 

And on top of all that, it’s just expensive and time-consuming as hell to make games on the remake’s scale. Everyone expects the PS4 to be retired by the time Remake Part 2 comes out, which is going to pose huge logistical issues for releasing it. Squenix has been having a rough time of it lately, from what I’ve heard - are they, as a company, capable of handling all those logistical issues? I don’t know, and that makes me nervous. 

Still, they did do a remarkable job with the remake overall, even grappling with the pandemic around the launch date. So maybe they’re getting their shit together again, and things will be smooth sailing from here. We’ll have to wait and see. 

[xenobladehistorian]

One Lenten Season Later…

(Sorry for the hiatus, I took a break from Tumblr for a while.)

I CHECK NEWS ON NINTENDO ALMOST EVERY DAY AND THEY HAVE TO DROP THIS MINI DIRECT WHEN I DON’T CHECK?! 

And suddenly I get an email saying, “This is what you missed from the 3-26-20 Nintendo Direct Mini!” and I freaking lost my—

The shockingly not-spoiling trailer analysis time!

Alvis

Let’s not beat around the bush—Alvis has a core crystal necklace. He is Ontos. This is officially confirmed. You can’t hide that from me, Nintendo!

I’m expecting this to be one of many subtle changes to the game to match Xenoblade 2, and since they have Adam Howden for the epilogue (more on that further down), I wouldn’t be shocked if they re-recorded the Klaus experiment scene or reused VA lines from Xenoblade 2.

Gameplay

Nintendo talks about the game having smoother combat and UI. They also mentioned making quests easier to keep track of. This could mean a lot or a little, specifically, one thing—the little blue line leading to the exclamation point on the map.

“Fashion Gear” is something brought in from Xenoblade Chronicles X. That is where you can choose one set of armor to wear for appearances and another set for the actual stats. I had to look that up, since I didn’t get too into X to realize that was a thing. I think it’s a nice addition, and this forum user nicely sums up my feelings on it: “Finally I don’t have to make Sharla look like a stripper to optimize her!”

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/272738-xenoblade-chronicles-definitive-edition/78508768 

And since this falls not really under any category in this analysis, I’ll note it here. XCDE won’t have amiibo compatibility or the Collection Mode from the New 3DS port. 

Major Things (VA, Music, Art)

Voice acting is the same. I synced up a couple of lines from the scene in the trailer where Shulk grabs the Monado from Dunban. I didn’t need to do much comparison to draw that conclusion, so we’re good, they’re not doing a redubbing. :)

A thing I noticed though was that we didn’t hear Melia’s voice in the epilogue sneak peek (again, more on that later down). I’m guessing they’re still trying to get her VA on board, or her lines aren’t finished being recorded yet. Or they were forced to get a new VA. If they did, don’t hate on this VA, please. She’s got huge shoes to fill.

If they haven’t gotten the lines recorded/finished being recorded yet, this may be why the funky captions were added into the epilogue to give bigger teases to the story without revealing the fact that they miiiight not have gotten all the voice acting down yet. I really hope this is the case, and it’ll match the rest of the game’s cutscenes. The funky text is strange. I’ll find the font name for anyone wanting it for some reason.

What’s not the same is the music, and before they even directly stated that 90 songs are being remixed/rerecorded, I knew they remastered the music. I have listened to the soundtrack every night for years, I know when it’s different.

And when they say 90, they mean literally every song in the game. The official soundtrack has 91 songs, and “Hope” was cut from the game, so that makes 90 songs redone.

Based on how it sounds, I’m actually thinking these might be live orchestra like Xenoblade 2’s. In Iwata Asks’ interview with ACE+ and the other composers, they talked about needing to pick one program to use as a group instead of multiple composition programs. And after listening to the special live orchestrations of some of the music, I think Xenoblade’s soundtrack was synthesized digitally. I’m not saying that’s bad at all, it’s just one way to make music. But I am thinking they used a real orchestra for DE.

You guys remember my post on how Xenoblade’s official character art were all retouched 3D models? Well, here are some preview pages from the art book that I found off Nintendo of Japan’s website for XCDE. Absolutely gorgeous art in a 250-page art book. We now have weapon designs, concept art of locations, new outfit/armor turnarounds, Scuba Shulk(TM), and new official character art—3D models! Lol.

As a note, the Mechonis art on the front of the special edition art book is exactly the high-definition art of the Mechonis in the Monado Archives, and the Mechonis’ texture in the game looks pretty darn close to this art. I think they modeled the remaster/remake Mechonis model off of this art piece, and the same goes for the Bionis’ Monado Archives high-definition art.

Yes, the epilogue, Future Connected. I saved it for last because I genuinely stopped the Direct after the main trailer not realizing there was more.

So I realized the promotional images had more that I didn’t see, so THEN I watched more of the Direct and saw this.

I’m torturing you all.

You get to wait until Part 2.

I’ll be posting next some high-definition images of some in-game locations I pulled from Nintendo of Japan’s website for the game. I felt like a hacker, using Inspecting the Elements in Google to get these. They make great desktop screensavers. I love my grandiose shot of the twin statues of Soltnar and Khatorl.

Honestly, I’m so grateful and thankful Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition is being made.

Part 2: Future Connected (facts and theories) and images of in-game areas from the Japanese site for XCDE.

[aion-rsa]

How Dead by Daylight Gave Slasher Horror Icons The Game They Deserved

https://ift.tt/35lPcEi

If you grew up a gamer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, buying a bad licensed game was a rite of passage. Sure, even young gamers could detect a bomb like Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit! for the SNES from a mile away, but at a time before game reviews were easy to find online, it was natural to hope that the new X-Men game might just be good enough to take a chance on.

The situation was especially rough for horror movie fans. I owned the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th adaptations for the NES and at least tried to finish them. It’s not that I thought they were good, but at a time when licensed horror games (not to mention major console horror games) were few and far between, the opportunity to face off against my favorite movie slasher was too enticing to ignore. 

The industry eventually learned to embrace horror in a meaningful way that resulted in some all-time great gaming experiences, but the slasher movie icons of the day remained tragically underutilized. While original horror series like Silent Hill and Resident Evil expanded the storytelling potential of the medium, Chucky was reduced to starring in a Temple Run knock-off. 

In the minds of many horror fans, the hope for a great game starring Micheal Myers, Freddy Krueger, or Leatherface lingered even as passable adaptations of those characters eluded us for decades. Where was the disconnect?

“I think it probably extends from the fact that they are two very, very different mediums and two very, very different ways of telling stories,” says Mathieu Coté, director of Behaviour Interactive’s hit slasher multiplayer game Dead by Daylight. “The reasons why slasher movies are so successful, and why they make you feel the way that they do, are extremely difficult to translate into gameplay mechanics. I think that probably that’s the root of it.”

The earliest examples of slasher movie games certainly support that theory. In 1983, adaptations of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween were released for the Atari 2600. They offered wildly different experiences (Texas Chainsaw Massacre saw you mow down victims for points while Halloween was all about evading Michael Myers), but each was so bad that you’d sooner be caught smoking weed while having sex at Camp Crystal Lake than playing either for more than a few minutes. 

Even as technology and game design advanced past what was possible on the Atari and NES, slasher icons were still being butchered in ways that would make these killers proud.

“It often felt as if [licenses] were either tacked onto an existing product that didn’t fit or it was just shovelware where the attitude is ‘make a thing and put the name on it,’” Coté says. “Oftentimes the people holding the licenses, and again it’s a matter of those two mediums being so different, but the people holding the licenses to the movies, they know about movies. They don’t know about games. That can make things difficult.”

With Dead by Daylight, Coté’s team sought to capture the essence of the slasher movie and translate that into fun gameplay that actually made sense for the genre. The asymmetrical multiplayer title sees one player assume the role of a killer tasked with eliminating four player-controlled survivors trying to escape the terrifying scenario. Since its release in 2016, Dead by Daylight has been embraced as the definitive horror multiplayer experience. 

Given how difficult it has historically been to make a slasher title, much less one featuring licensed characters, perhaps it should come as no surprise that Dead by Daylight’s origins can be traced to a much simpler concept that didn’t even start out as horror.

“There was a designer working in basically a silo somewhere making little prototypes, and one prototype that he made at some point was literally hide and seek,” Coté remembers. “It was one character that’s trying to accomplish a goal and there was another character that was very powerful. If he touched you, you’re dead.”

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An equally simple tweak would reveal the prototype’s incredible horror potential.

“We put cardboard in between [split screens] and went ‘Oh, my God. This is super fun,” Coté recalls. “The idea of creating a game in which you could play the fantasy of being the villain in a horror movie, that’s a longstanding one…if we put that with the fantasy of a villain in a horror movie, we have a winner.”

The idea of pairing the basic structure of hide and seek with a horror movie villain shows team’s vital understanding of what makes the slasher genre so entertaining in the first place. 

“A lot of effort is put into these [villains], so of course they’re more appealing,” says Dead by Daylight creative director Dave Richard. “I think that’s why we started rooting for them, and we have this enjoyment and guilty pleasure of rooting for the villain. I think that we all have this inside of us at different levels. We’re embracing this macabre thing.”

The team’s fascination with the macabre would slowly turn their experiment into a fully-fledged horror game. 

“The original prototypes showed survivors as literally beheaded silhouettes wearing different colored t-shirts with phrases like virgin, stoner, and jock,” Coté explains. “That’s something that Cabin in the Woods did very, very well, and the early prototype was based on those tropes.”

While Coté and Richard reference meta-horror movies like Cabin in the Woods and mockumentary Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon as early inspirations that helped them contextualize the genre’s key elements, they ultimately turned to foundational films such as Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when crafting the game’s environments, characters, and other design elements. In those early days, though, few believed that Dead by Daylight would eventually host some of the stars of those films. 

“There were dreams and ambitions, but I don’t think there were thoughts,” Coté says. “We barely expected it to break even after a couple of months. When it started to really explode in the first month or so, we started looking for opportunities.”

The earliest of those opportunities happened to involve arguably the most important slasher of all-time: Michael Myers.

“We were lucky enough to get in contact with some very nice people who are the owners of the original version of Michael Meyers,” Coté explains. “Being able to get the rights to bring in that character and the original Laurie Strode into Dead by Daylight was kind of a big deal. It set the stage because it legitimized us in a certain way.”

For anyone who has followed the history of licensing rights and copyright law (not to mention the aforementioned history of slashers in games), the fact that the team was able to add Michael Myers as a playable killer must conjure an image of a developer clawing their way out of licensing hell with one hand while holding on to Myers with the other. Yet, it sounds like the process wasn’t all that complicated.

“I wouldn’t call it [licensing] hell,” Coté says. “Most of it is actually super interesting, and most of the licenses that we have…we’re dealing with people who get what we’re trying to do. The people who are, as I was saying earlier, more into movies than into video games, tend to trust us to do the right thing.”

Securing Michael Myers was one thing, but now that they had him, the team was faced with the same dilemma that had ruined even noble attempts at building games around these characters in the past.

“We first had to ask ‘What is the fantasy around that character and what is so interesting and unique about these characters?’” Richard recalls. “Of course, most of them have a weapon and they kill, but what’s their special sauce?”

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As Richard explains, Freddy Krueger has a “dream world” and a “fantasy that’s easier to get.” By comparison, Michael Myers is often portrayed as a guy with a mask and a knife. How do you translate that into a game in a way that makes him feel unique?

The answer to that question came in what Coté rightfully describes as a “stroke of genius.” 

“I remember that meeting where we were talking about Halloween and how to make [Michael Myers] unique,” Coté explains. “They pitched us the idea of a killer that would just watch you. We’re like, ‘What?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s just going to stand there and watch you,’ because that’s what Myers does in the movies. That’s what he does, but it’s an action game. People want to chase each other…We all thought, ‘Oh, you’re an idiot.’”

Yet, when Coté got the chance to actually play an early build of Dead By Daylight with Myers as the killer, he immediately understood what the team was aspiring to achieve.

“The very, very first version of the prototype I remember playing and repairing a generator and looking over my shoulder, and I see him standing on a hill and just watching me, and I go, ‘This is the creepiest thing I’ve ever experienced in this game,’” Coté says. “It’s super creepy, especially knowing it’s an actual other player right there. He could attack me right now, but he chooses to just watch me…that kind of thing made me realize the liberties we could take with the gameplay mechanics to really create something that would be unique and special.”

For the next few years, that’s exactly what the team did. They bent the rules of the game to incorporate other famous slashers. Freddy Krueger dragged Dead by Daylight players to dream world while Saw’s Amanda Young turned the game’s traps into a gambling proposition. Leatherface’s devastating attacks impacted a survivor’s ability to carry on and Ghost Face’s playfulness and humor distinguishes him from one of his major inspirations, Michael Myers himself. Through it all, the team’s goal was to stay true to the legacy of these characters and give them a proper home. 

“I love Mortal Kombat, but whenever a character gets imported to Mortal Kombat, they all turn into martial artists,” Coté says. “When you put Jason in Mortal Kombat, he becomes a martial artist and he hacks people, and then he does a finishing move and it’s awesome, but that’s it. When you take Michael Myers and put him in Dead by Daylight, he’s Michael Myers.”

Of course, Dead by Daylight’s roster of killers doesn’t just include an array of adaptations. At launch, the game boasted three original killers: The Trapper, The Wraith, and The Hillbilly. The Trapper was, by the team’s admission, based on Jason Vorhees and The Hillbilly certainly resembled Leatherface. It was in The Wraith, a desperate figure whose pursuit of a job saw him become an unwilling executioner, that the team found their first truly great original creation.

“For us, it was important that one of the killers was inspired by more of a cultural idea, and that was The Wraith,” Richard notes. “You don’t see The Wraith archetype in movies. It really comes from horror culture and cultural monsters more than movies.”

That desire to explore every corner of horror rather than just retread film successes is a big part of the reason why Dead by Daylight’s original killers are among its most popular. In fact, the team draws inspiration from such a wide array of sources that it’s possible some players may feel the impact of these original creations more intensely than others. 

“The Huntress is heavily inspired by Eastern European folklore and mythology,” Coté says. “For some of our players, especially Russian and Ukrainian players, they were immediately, completely freaked out because she’s humming a song that their mothers sang to them when they were a kid. It was really like it hit way too close for some of them, and it was great. It made them feel things, but for Japanese players or Brazilian players who had no cultural link to that, it was still an impressive and terrifying character because what scares people is visceral and universal”

While Dead by Daylight’s original killers stand tall against horror’s heavyweights, the game’s most impressive contribution to the slasher genre may just be its emphasis on the personalities and attributes of its survivors. Early builds of the premise portrayed survivors as Merrily We Roll Along rejects wearing self-identifying sweaters, but the game eventually began treating survivors with the same reverence as killers. 

“Survivors have been the learning experience, to say the least,” Richard confesses. “When we created the original characters, we wanted them to have real stories and personalities, but also to be relatable. I’m going to say a word I don’t like so much, but it’s almost like they’re shells that the players can identify with and easily become.”

Dead by Daylight’s emphasis on the unique qualities of its survivors helped it outlive (pun proudly intended) other asymmetrical multiplayer games, but even Behaviour Interactive found itself having to reckon with some of the stereotypes that plague even the best slasher movies. 

“The fact is that a lot of those [early character designs] are stereotypes that convey, let’s say, cultural tropes that don’t need to continue to exist in today’s society,” Coté admits. “For us, it was more interesting to create characters that feel like someone you could stand behind in a coffee shop and not blink because they’re regular people. They’re people you can relate to.”

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While Dead by Daylight’s roster of survivors features a few imports (such as Halloween’s Laurie Strode and Evil Dead’s Ash), the team reveals that “licensed survivors are much harder to find than killers,” largely because they still want the game’s survivor’s to feel overwhelmed by the stalkers. Coté specifically notes that it wouldn’t make sense for someone like John Wick or Arnold Schwarzenegger to be hanging helplessly from a hook. Yet, they also don’t feel like the legacy and value of a horror hero should be defined by their ability to play offense. 

“All of them are serial survivors,” Coté says of the game’s characters. “They continue to win, which is impressive, given the challenges they face.”

Besides, as millions of fans who have shouted at the screen at a horror film can attest to, the fates of Dead by Daylight’s survivors really come down to the players themselves.

“We always wanted to make it so that if you die in Dead by Daylight, it’s because you did something dumb or you panicked and didn’t stick to the plan,” Coté says. “Obviously the killers are extremely powerful, but most of the time [survivors lose] because someone panicked or was careless and got cocky and didn’t make good decisions.”

The ability to test your mettle against a slasher legend is one of Dead by Daylight’s more interesting examples of meta brilliance, but its most notable meta mechanic is the presence of The Entity, the invisible hand that pulls characters from different horror universes into the game. It’s a subtle, yet vital, story component inspired by another horror legend. 

“The main inspiration for The Entity was actually The Dark Tower,” Richard recalls. “Many of us on the team are fans of the work of Stephen King, and when we deep dove into The Dark Tower, it was a favorite. The way every book in the Stephen King universe links together and is tied up with The Dark Tower was the inception of the idea of The Entity.”

The Entity is the core component of the game’s surprisingly strong lore, which not only offers compelling backstories for nearly every survivor, setting, and killer but even adds a few new chapters for licensed universes like the Scream series. 

In many other multiplayer games, that lore would be little more than an easter egg debated over on Wiki pages and fan forums. But in Dead by Daylight, the commitment to meaningful storytelling is a core component of the ambition which defines Behaviour Interactive’s mission. 

“Every time we create more of our lore, we solidify what Dead by Daylight is and the universe around it,” Coté explains. “It’s not just to be able to bring in anything, but to be able to create a universe into which all of these things can exist and make sense.”

While the team’s commitment to lore may help bolster their pitches to rights holders, their commitment to ensuring that Dead by Daylight’s growth adheres to an internal logic also speaks to the team’s confidence that they can give nearly any slasher a home. 

“I’d say that a few [killers] still elude our grasp, and it’s mostly due to the fact that someone thinks they can make a standalone game for them, or they are working on one,” Coté says. “Anybody who’s got a little bit of experience in video games can tell you that recreating the magic of Dead by Daylight and that sort of balanced chaos is a terrifying prospect. It’s certainly not a simple thing to recreate.”

There’s a sincerity to that statement which encapsulates so many of the reasons why Dead by Daylight was not only able to secure slashers and survivors who could easily star in their own games but do justice to them within the framework of an experience that wasn’t designed to accommodate those legends in the first place.

After all, if the bad old days of slasher games and adaptations were defined by limitations and indifference, then Dead by Daylight succeeds because it takes nothing for granted. Its team carefully crafted a scenario that invoked the pure pleasure of the slasher genre and then spent years studying the ins and outs of these characters and worlds in order to better understand what makes them work beyond the superficial pleasure of their mere presence. It’s an involved process that doesn’t work for everyone.

“We’ve had a couple of cases of people on the development team that, maybe after a year or something, they go, ‘You know what? I think I’ve had enough.’” Coté admits. “Especially 3D artists who keep looking at references of grizzly things all the time, and most of them, they’re just having a blast…but I’m thinking of one or two examples of people who were like ‘You know what? I need to go and work on something with unicorns and kittens.’ That’s fair. That’s absolutely fair.”

The amount of work that goes into a game like Dead by Daylight may ultimately scare off other developers who would dare give legendary slashers their own games, but as long as we have Dead by Daylight, at least a few horror icons will always have a home. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“It used to be that we were hoping that people who hold the licenses to these legends would allow us to bring them into our world,” Coté says. “Nowadays, the conversations oftentimes revolve around asking them if they’re big enough to make it into the hall of fame that is Dead by Daylight…It’s the place for horror to come by and live.”

The post How Dead by Daylight Gave Slasher Horror Icons The Game They Deserved appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[missingmywing]

Let Us Embrace Whatever It May Bring

@boomchickfanfiction this was inspired largely because I randomly remembered your 30-day challenge, went back to reread them, and rediscover your D&D au. And then got seriously inspired by the remake because I’ve got this colossal D&D universe that I’ve never written or posted anything for. Which is a shame.

So, thanks for reinspiring me!

(Potential spoilers for FFVIIR)

(Link to headcanon post on this; here!)

. . . . .

“They’re going to be so confused.”

“Of course they are, that’s what makes it fun!”

“Cloud is going to hate us.”

“Oh, he is not. Admit it, he’s going to be so excited to bring back the goofy try-hard jackass from the original story. He’s been irritated at what Strife’s slowly turned into across the multiverse, all because he actually payed attention in Intro to Psychology and accidentally took the “play to reality” character type a bit too literally. A hard reset is exactly what he needs, bonus points when he realizes where we’re going with this.”

“Which, hopefully, won’t be until the end of the first part of the campaign.” Sephiroth sent Aerith a pointed look. “We’ll have to be careful not to give them too much to work with too soon.”

“Tell that to the DMs,” she shot back, nudging her cousin with a grin. “Who’s heading it this time? Angeal was the main one last time, even with your parents helping him out, but are we going back to that?”

“Time travel isn’t Angeal’s usual forte,” Sephiroth conceded, “but that adventure was very much his. I’m not willing to take that from him unless he’s an actual player this time. Which, considering where we’re starting the timeline, he can’t be. Not with his own character, at least.”

“That is true,” she sighed, leaning back in her chair to stretch. “I definitely agree; it was his and he really owned it. I know Auntie was super impressed.”

“Yes, yes, mother is very supportive of dragging people into nerdom. It’s why she and Gen get along so well.”

“And that they share a nickname?” she grinned.

He rolled his eyes with a sigh. “That too. So, how are we going to pitch this without arousing suspicion?”

“‘Hey, why don’t we see if we can keep Aerith alive this time?’”

He sent her a deeply unimpressed look.

“I know it may come as a shock, but the world doesn’t actually revolve around you, y’know.”

“This one does!” she shot back with a brilliant grin. “Now help me figure out how to set this up so no one realises that we’re literally resetting the timeline.”

. . .

“Hot damn we actually got everyone here,” Barret looked around, impressed, at the barely-contained chaos of people reuniting, getting food and drinks, and discussing storylines.

“I didn’t actually expect everyone to show up when I sent out that message,” Aerith admitted. “I mean, I did send out the call for Avalanche specifically, even if everyone was invited.”

“What, ya’ thought we wouldn’t show up to a new campaign for this story?” Reno asked with a grin, slinging an arm over her shoulders. “Everyone shows up for the first and final sessions, even if they don’t participate. C’mon Aer, this is our baby. We all wanna know what new adventure awaits us on the distant land of Gaia.”

“Yeah, who’s getting possessed this time?!” Zack called across the room with a grin. “Do I finally get to come back to life for good? Does Cloud finally die for good? Do he and Seph finally bone in-game?!”

“No, that was Dissidia,” Cloud corrected with a grin, and laughter rang through the rooms.

“Oh boy, that campaign,” Genesis grinned, elbowing Sephiroth.

“You weren’t even there,” Sephiroth protested, elbowing him back with a smile.

Angeal shook his head from where he and Jenova were setting up the table. “That’s what you get for live-streaming it.”

“It was a fantastic campaign,” Jenova assured them. “Full kudos to your DMs, they did a fantastic job juggling everything and showing how young their gods were last time, especially in comparison to Cosmos and Chaos from the first two campaigns. And all from behind the anonymity of a computer and avatar.”

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes at her, and she winked at him. She preferred to stay anonymous in the wider campaigns like that; it preserved her character’s image.

“It was fun,” Cloud admitted, “even if it was chaotic. And speaking of fun and chaotic, is everyone here?”

“Role call!” Jenova shouted through the house. “DM’s to the floor prompto! Avalanche and evil people, to the table! Everyone else, spread out and stay out from underfoot!”

There were chuckles and laughter as people called out jibes and protests toward their treatment, but everyone gathered just the same. With some subtle prompting from the DMs and two schemers, the people from the Midgar section of the Meteor campaign were settled closest to the DMs, Shinra (Rufus, the Turks, and Reeve) on one side and Avalanche on the other, and Aerith managed to snag Zack into sitting next to her. At his raised eyebrow she winked.

Angeal cleared his throat, and it fell quiet.

“You all have your intro Meteor sheets, right?” He glanced around, and everyone nodded. “Right, get those out and let's get some stat comparing for this campaign.”

That raised a few brows and murmurs, but the rustling of bags and binders and papers soon filled the room.

Sephiroth was careful to hide his endgame Advent Children campaign sheet behind his intro Meteor one. No reason to give anyone ideas at this stage. The anticipation and confusion would be so much more fun if they were all kept in the dark.

His eyes met Aerith’s, and she looked just as excited as he felt.

They took a few minutes to minorly rework the sheets to better suit their play style now, but the changes wouldn’t be major enough to impede the story. Good.

Jenova clapped twice, Lucrecia and Vincent finished tidying up the papers, Hojo spread out the stat sheets, and Angeal once again cleared his throat.

“Imagine, if you will, a sky. Filled with clouds, oversetting a dusty plain with rocky hills. A bird flies overhead, feathers dark and scraggly. It soars through the sky, over the plains, toward a large mass of metal plunging into the sky.”

Angeal had the perfect voice for narration, everyone was hooked from the first sentence, and there were shifts of excitement at the mention of the ruins of Midgar.

“Carried up by the wind, if flies into a cloudbank, navigating through large metal beams and poles. With a burst of sunlight, it emerges on the other side- overtop of a thriving metropolis.”

There was a burst of noise at that. Gasps and shouts of surprise at the realization that these weren’t ruins, and it probably wasn’t Edge.

Jenova called for quiet, and all the DMs looked amused.

“So what, we doin’ a time-skip?” Cid raised a brow.

“No, that doesn’t make sense.” Elena dug through her notes. “In the AC campaign it opened with a five hundred year time-skip and Midgar was a jungle, remember?”

“Yep, Nanaki and his cubs were overlooking it,” Kunsel confirmed, pulling out the concept sheet he’d sketched out at the time, as well as the character sheet he hadn’t yet gotten to use. Apparently he wouldn’t get to use it this campaign either. Darn. He had tons of cool stuff Nanaki had learned over those five hundred years.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that we didn’t time skip,” Rufus pointed out. “It just means that we’re before it was reclaimed by the Planet. It could be a two or three hundred year time skip, and we’re descendents. A city could easily be totally reclaimed in a hundred years or less.

“Or,” Cloud cut in, “we could just wait and see what nefarious plot our DMs have in store.”

“I just got done with the Number 3 campaign with the KH crew, so I know what my theory is,” Reno drawled, drawing snickers from everyone who followed that particular convolution.

Aerith giggled, and tried not to do it too hard. Reno would be the first to figure it out, solely due to the central part he played as Axel in that particular campaign with that group. He’d keep quiet though, just to see how long it took everyone else.

Angeal smiled at them, but continued. “It flies over the train tracks, the cars on freeways, and down between buildings in what appears to be an entertainment district. Children on bikes ride down the street, past construction crews and people loading fuel cells into cars, shoppers entering and exiting shops along the street, and cars making their way along the road. The children ride down a hill, across a road, and reach a playground with a few toys… and a strangely shaped slide.”

Cloud stilled, suspicion arising in his eyes, and Aerith and Sephiroth bit back smiles.

“Day fades to evening, to night, and as the young girl slides down, something catches her eye in the distance. She turns to looks, and watches as a large burst of green erupts from a distant building along the giant outer wall.”

More and more people were beginning to realize, and Reeve looked breathless at the description of something he’d labored at for weeks alongside Jenova, Lucrecia, Hojo, and Vincent to make somewhat realistically believable for his first campaign with them. He was blindly groping in his bag for the sketches and blueprints he’d rendered out on his own.

“Imagine, the sparks of green float up and up, into the cloudy sky, until they resemble stars- and now imagine drifting through them, through the emptiness of space-”

Oh, Cloud knew this. He remembered this from their first Meteor session. Their introduction to the fully realized Midgar, at the introduction of Reeve to their group. And, judging by other people’s reactions, he wasn’t the only one.

“Holy shit,” Barret breathed from beside him, and an incredulous grin was slowly spreading across Zack’s face, while Tifa looked torn between excitement and horror.

“Imagine floating down, down, until buildings take shape. An alleyway, and in the alleyway is a girl. Long, flowing brown hair, with a pink dress, red jacket, and pink ribbon in her braid. Her green eyes are focused on an opening from which the sparks are floating out of; as though she is receiving answers to questions only she would know to ask.”

There was silence for a moment, and Aerith counted down the moments in her head. Three, two, one-

The room exploded into chaos. People were shouting, throwing out questions and theories, laughter and horror in equal bounds on people’s faces.

“Yes!!! Oh yeah, Wedge is back baby!” Zack’s gleeful shout was the most obvious, drawing laughter and groans of protest in equal measure at the reminder of Barret’s Avalanche cell.

“Are we reworking Meteor?!” Elena looked ecstatic. “Because there is so much I want to rework with my fighting style! I have some nifty new spells that I want to try against a bigger level gap!”

“Oh noooo,” Reno groaned, dropping his head back. “I’m gonna go back to bein’ the guy who dropped the plate. Not cool, yo! I finally made everyone forget about that by bein’ a quirky idiot in AC!”

“Ha!” Yuffie grinned. “We’re never gonna let it die!”

Sephiroth focused on Cloud. “You seem conflicted.”

Cloud started, then grinned ruefully at him. “I am, a bit. I’m ecstatic to come back of course, to get Strife back before I put too much realism into his reactions, to completely rework him from the ground up. I mean, this was my first campaign as a major player the whole way through. I’m thrilled. I just also happen to remember all the horrible things that happened to turn Strife into sir angst-fest that he was.”

“Perhaps,” Sephiroth acknowledged, “but if we’re reworking it… then doesn’t that mean that you can change things this time around?”

Cloud sent him a flat look, though his eyes were warm. “I’m not naive enough to think it’s that simple. Between you and the DMs, this won’t go smoothly at all.”

Sephiroth smirked at him, that damn smirk that got to him every time. “Perhaps,” he repeated in a purr, “but isn’t that the fun of it all?”

“Alright children, settle down!” Jenova shouted, but her wild grin showed her true feelings on the matter. “Yes, to answer the question… we are, in fact, reworking Meteor. For a couple of reasons, but mostly… yeah, character development was a large part of it. A couple of people backed themselves into a corner with their characterizations, and needed a sort of… reset.”

Cloud winced, his own feelings being the most well known on the matter. “Oops,” he said weakly.

“It’s not just you,” Lucrecia assured him. “Vincent and I need to rework ours too, because Dirge wasn’t… hmm.”

“I need a character alteration,” Vincent said flatly. “I didn’t like how I played some of that, and would like to have come to some of those conclusions earlier, because some of my lack of action felt a bit too forced and I would like to see if I can smooth it out.”

Yuffie frowned. “What was wrong with it?”

“Essentially the same problem as Cloud, I took the after effects too seriously and made my character more depressed and stagnant than necessary. I’ll see if I can tone it down a bit, or at least form it into a slightly more active shape earlier.”

“And my entire character needs to just be completely reworked,” Lucrecia sighed. “Granted I use character very loosely, because she’s basically just an NPC, and since we based this whole thing on one of our high school campaigns, I am very annoyed with what I turned her into.”

“You turned her into that because she annoyed you and you didn’t like her anymore,” Hojo pointed out dryly.

“I know, but I’m hoping I might be able to fix it.”

“Hashtag-doubt,” Jenova murmured. “I, for one, am perfectly happy with my character.”

“You would be,” Sephiroth said dryly.

“And you aren’t, darling?”

“No, I am,” he assured her. “Just reminding you of your own nature.”

Murmured conversations broke out as people reevaluated their character sheets, considering possible changes. Cloud noticed Rufus, digging out a familiar pet-sheet and quickly scratching out the name up top, and snorted. A glance around revealed Zack gleefully revising Wedge’s sheet, While Jenova and Angeal already had Jessie and Bigg’s revised sheets out in front of them.

Reeve was considering his own three sheets, clearly calculating stats, as was Kunsel. He caught sight of Reno’s sheet just as Angeal called- “This isn’t Kingdom Hearts, Reno, you cannot pull Axel’s stats over to your Turk, he isn’t Lea.”

“Lameee,” Reno groaned, but put the sheet up well naturedly.

“They don’t even use the same element,” Tifa pointed out with amusement, her own sheet done with few revisions.

“Meh,” he shrugged, glancing over. “Not gonna revise stats, Tseng, Rude?”

“A few a bit later, perhaps,” Tseng responded distractedly as he flipped through his later sheets. “As of right now, however, no. I’m content until I can unlock a few higher-tier spell combinations.”

Rude nodded. “Same here. I know what I want to change, but I need higher levels first.”

Barret was grumbling along with Cid about potential mechanics later on, and Cloud turned his attention back to Genesis and Angeal bickering lightly about Scarlet’s potential and materia abilities. He shook his head with a smile, and waited for everyone to finish up.

Angeal cleared his throat once again, calling for silence, and continued.

“Long, flowing brown hair, with a pink dress, red jacket, and pink ribbon in her braid. Her green eyes are focused on an opening from which the sparks are floating out of; as though she is receiving answers to questions only she would know to ask. She starts, suddenly, as though breaking out of a daze, and straightens with a nervous glance around, as though looking for something. Nothing appears, but she quickly stands and hurries out of the alley, glancing over her shoulder as she does. She stumbles into someone, and drops some of her flowers, in her distraction. Quickly kneeling to pick them up, she collects all but one before a man carrying a box and thus can’t see it, steps on it. She slowly picks it up, cradling it in her hands, before her gaze is inexplicably drawn to the sky.”

Angeal to a breath, and continued.

“Pulling away from her, up and into the very sky she’s observing, see the building, lit brightly against the dark, theaters and shops and restaurants; further up and see the city take shape, enormous metal plates with large gaps between them, and at the center… at the center is a tower. Looming over the entire city with an ominous presence, it oversees all that goes on in the city.

Now we go down, down past the other side of the tower, down to Sector 1. A train flies along the rail, a delivery for Mako Reactor Zero. And atop that train is a young man. Blond flyaway hair and a modified SOLDIER uniform, a large sword attached to his back. As the train slows, he looks up, glowing blue-green eyes steely with determination. The train pulls to a stop in the station, and two guards separate to do an inspection.”

Angeal smiled.

“Roll for initiative.”

. . . . .

[fandemymy]

So I finished FF7 remake today (yesterday as I finish writing this post) so here’s some thoughts about it and theories as to what this new story is trying to say. Under the cut of course because spoilers. Also it got long. Really long.

Also I will have some screencaps and videos to posts tomorrow maybe.  And I will reblog posts about it but in case of spoilers they will be tagged #spoilers #ff7 HD (my default tag for the remake) but if you have a specific tag blocked, tell me and I will add it.

So in no particular order:

I loved the additions: zones expanded, new storylines, new zones. The world felt more realistic, more fleshed out. The new storylines were mostly fun and interesting and didn’t felt like they were put there just to be there, except some exceptions that were clearly added to take care of plotholes and to add contents to make the game longer (the Triad from Wall market and Leslie for exemple).

I still wish we got to see others sectors because, as I have said a lot, Midgar is my fave location ever. But the size of the map was still something.  Each slums city sections felt like a real town. It felt lived in and honestly I felt a physical longing to wander their streets. All 3 slums were a delight to visit. Special mention to the train graveyard. It was spooky and eerie. Like a proper haunted place.

Hojo and Corneo were even more despicable. They’re so creepy it was almost unbearable sometimes.  Rufus got all the belts Nomura couldn’t put on other characters. The Turks seems like they have some morals even if their work is more important. Also, were they talking about Elena when they talked about the mission on the pillar? Like they were talking about if Reno and Rude didn’t do it, Shinra would have send someone else and it feel like they’re protective of this “someone”. They also seems like they’re more Rufus’s men than his father’s. Tseng was quick to call him “president” when Heidegger still said “vice-president”. Do we smell some drama at Shinra? Will Heidegger try to undermine Rufus? 

While I can guess why they changed it, I’m sad we didn’t follow a trail of blood across Shinra tower (to find Shinra Sr impaled).  The scene between Barret and Shinra Sr was good tho. 

I can’t really judge the bigger changes in scenario as the story is not finished, but as Biggs, allegedly Wedge and apparently Zack are alive, Aerith could stay alive too.  ALSO YEAH WHAT WAS UP WITH ZACK? Like I’m happy he didn’t die (”happy” being an understatement) but I was really confused.  Because if he was with Cloud, it means that scene was 5 years ago. So where is he now? What happened? I’m smelling Nomura pulling some Kingdom hearts shit or we get some time fuckery. Like you know alternate reality, alternate timeline.  Honestly, this remake feel like an alternate timeline of the OG. With all the visions from the OG and those talks about not obeying fate. But like I said, we will have to see where they take us (more on that at the end).

Knowing the OG is def a plus. Except for a very few moments, it never felt like stepping into the unknown.  Except for the end. But well, I think everyone who finished the game has been there. 

Speaking of the OG, the amount of stuff they kept was incredible. I mean, of course they would but, chasing the details was a delight.  And all the references to the compilation! For exemple Banora (CC), Avalanche trying to kill Shinra Sr ( and Avalanche’s story in general, BC), the underground lab (DC), Kyrie (”the kids are alright” novel), and many more! Considering what they’re doing I think the compilation is more or less obsolete (for this timeline).

The OST is <3<3<3<3 I’m so buying it as soon as we’re out of self isolation!  The re-orchestrations are so incredible (except for one or two track but whatev).

The visit of the museum in Shinra tower was surrealist. The propaganda was through the roof. The video in the theater, for some reasons, looked like some fantasy mmorpg.

Going back to the scenario, I’m not sure I’m fully on board with that “Whispers of fate” storyline. It seems a bit too much. Like, they didn’t really need it. Except for some moments they would have to change a bit, they were not necessary. Shinra and Sephiroth were enough of villains. But maybe they need them to justify the changes in the scenario? Like I said, I’m pretty sure this is an alternate timeline I guess if they’re here to make sure the story goes as intended, the visions of the OG we get are those Whispers telling us this is how it should be. How the story should play. How and when they act are often when the story diverges from what was in the OG after all.   Except, Sephiroth seems to knows this, so he knows he’s suppose to fail. Must be why he’s trying so hard to recruit Cloud. Maybe not for the Reunion, but for trying to avoid his fate. And he’s giving Cloud visions of the original timeline to convince him that the Whispers are not to be trusted, that the story they want would not be a good ending. But thanks to those visions, Cloud and Co can change their fate, change the story. Not sure Shinra will end up better, as I don’t think they get those visions (they have no reasons to for now). Hojo will be disappointed to see his theory not come true. Serves you right fucker.  The changes in the story with Wutai means the story with Yuffie will certainly be different. And the changes in Avalanche’s story might influence what happens at Cosmo Canyon as it is its birthplace. And that not counting everything else.  Tl, dr: the “remake” in the title is to be taken literally. Next part will certainly be completely different than what happened in the OG. I don’t think Sephiroth is going to play tourist across the world while Cloud and Co chase after him if he knows it doesn’t work. 

So anyway, this is all I can think of for now.  I’m curious as to where this is going, and what they did with Midgar makes me excited to see how they will handle the rest of the world.