#not quite the dlc is left but almost

[ganondoodle]

(more elden ring radahn thoughts)

on whats really left of him .. and his soul? general too many thoughts about him- long post and probably incoherent, but you know me, im never coherent anyway, many thoguhts, head full, quite literally

in base game, he has lost his mind we are told, and clearly he isnt like he used to be, but we really dont know the extend of it hes clearly capable of fighting rather .. controlled; its not like hes biting and clawing after you, he still uses his swords (and bow, sth he doesnt even have in dlc) and magic, we know even in this condition he held back the stars AND still fought you hard at the same time (i know undead people can still fight in elden ring, pls hear me out)

and i wonder .. how much of his mind did he really lose, obviously some since he eats people now which isnt sth he used to do, but ... we dont know how talkactive he used to be, we get one (two? i can only think of one) quotes from him in the descriptions of an item, he might have been a man of few words already, so him not talking at all isnt that good of a measure (not saying its the only measure, just wanted to mention), resorting to eating people that atack you might just be an act of desperation too

we get told he kills friend and foe alike (and im not questioning that really) but in his cutscene we see him drag along the bodies of cleanrot knights, who are under direct dommand of malenia, and by extend miquella, im guessing they kept sending them after him to finish him off; now knowing that him dying means being sent to the realm of shadow, to miquella, and NOT knowing if he wanted that, i feel that that detail has grown in importance-

when you start the fight, hes rather defensive, shooting at you almost immediately upon you entering the arena with no extra cutscene either, what he shoots at you a long ranged gravitation bolts that stop you dead in tracks with a very high stagger rate and if you are on torrent it stagger you off of it; i know it could be just tactical and bc all he knows now is to fight as best as he can BUT, you could also look at it as a defensive strategy, to keep you away, and away from him .. even though you are not told he is afraid to die and he eats people now, sure he could come over there and snack on you once he shot you enough times, but the important thing is that you as a threat to his life is eliminated AND he doesnt seem to have some sort of insatiable hunger for people that makes him charge and snap at you immediately, there could be self control there still (if i wanted to reach a little further i could also say he could be trying to keep you away from him not jsut to save himself but to save you from him too, but thats a reach and i know that)

once you get close enough he usually changes to fire a salve of arrows that fall from the sky and follows you around, also high in stagger- its only when you get too close that he pulls out his swords and charges at you

his arena is interestign as well, its a piece of land in caelid that is inaccessible (unless you can fly?) from all sides, a barren battlefield only reached through a teleporter, im not sure if it is the same place as when he fought malenia or not (wasnt that in the middle of caelid where you find the rot needle?) but i doubt anyone could have put him there against his will, so did he .. go there himself? or stay there for that matter- how quickly do you lose yourself when infected with rot? and how quickly for him, since hes a demigod? did he intentionally isolate himself there? make it harder to reach him for both friend and foe alike?

another point is that most enemies (as far as i can think of) that are infected with rot/are in caelid also deal rot damage, radahn does not, hes even really vunerable to it in fact, its an intersting detail to me bc he only uses either standard attacks or gravitational magic, given that hes been in this condition for a long time and its caelid id expect the rot to be somewhat important there, but its not

how much has he really lost his mind, is he really as mindless as jerren makes him out to be? is he trying to stay alive no matter what, isolating himself on an (almost) island and only living off what comes there, which is usually people that want to kill him, be it friend or foe, all are out for his life one way or another, could it be defensive ... desperate even? no one but him and miquella/malenia seem to know that him dying means hes put into the land of shadow, where miquella is waiting for him; (why wouldnt he tell anyone? was he not able to? was he afraid to upset the golden order by spilling it out?) could he know that would be the end of him having his own will, knowing what miquella can do to people? ... perhaps even .... having been manipulated by him before when he was less experienced and more in direct vicinity to him, to promise something he doesnt actually want?

this is a reach too but ... could he be trying to make himself unusable for miquella, theres no real cure for the rot, could he have decided to stay alive as long as he can to both destroy his own body (and soul even?) intentionally so it cant be used against his will, like a desperate act to destroy himself rather than become someones unwilling puppet? did he succeed in both somewhat but not enough to become fully worthless and unsalvageable? just how much would he have had to destroy himself for him to become useless to miquella, is there even a limit? would he have been "revived" no matter what, no matter what little was left of him?

how is he mindless, yet his soul it taken when you kill him, his body beyond repair, but his soul intact? that seems like the opposite of what he is, and you are told he is, in the base game to me (maybe hes just fallen into madness i guess, but given the soul is like .. the self, he should be mad in the dlc too then, unless miquella can just pick out the parts he likes and throw away the rest .... which isnt impossible either)

now, there could be the argument that he might have actually agreed to it, hes been a big fan of godfrey, who is a consort to marika, a god, and little more than her pawn as well, his 'young' look you see at the end of the dlc could also be connected to it, the braids i thought where a sign of miquellas influence could also be just how he looked back then, an imitation of godfreys hairstyle- and we dont know for sure he didnt used to have them even after gettign older since they could just have loosened after spending so much time in a zombie lite condition (or is it?)-- but his portrait in volcano manor doesnt seem to have them either, hes also sporting the armor you see in base game (i think) there the fact that, according to godfrey, strength is the only thing that matters and to become a consort you need to be the strongest of all to be worthy, could also be interpreted that way- though i dont if he would have wanted to replace the golden order, he was a fan and follower of it, did he even think of it the implications? did he even know? was he just young and stupid? (very possible tbh)

then theres the idea of there being less left of his soul, so in the dlc he is barely if anything at all, himself, both in body AND soul, how much was there even left after all that time in caelid, he is silent except for like two grunts he does also in base game (he has more sounds there too), completely unexpressive, with very few gravitation magic, in the second phase miquella literally snakes his arms around his neck, almost every single attack is filled with light magic, clearly coming from miquella and not him (i know bringing up leonard might seem overemphasizing his role, but in these games what information you get is very scarce so every bit you do learn is important and was written intentionally- but he stayed together with him in caelid, all his attacks involve him in one way or another, he only started to learn that magic for leonard, so radahn didnt have too abandon him as he got too large to ride him, he uses gravitation in dlc too, so it means that at the point of his life that he is recreated as he already had leonard or that that is a sign of whatever is left of his soul that comes from a much older him, and if it is, its very little) (also this is a reach too but most enemies with horses have separate health bars, he doesnt, he and leonard basically share the same health bar, literally inseperable uwu)

"theres no evidence hes mindcontrolled" people say to me. have you seen him? how he acts? or more, how he DOESNT act? that miquellas entire deal is THAT HE BEWITCHES PEOPLE, ffs he STEALS YOUR HEART if you get grabbed by him twice in the dlc fight- theres no evidence he wasnt either, you are told they had a vow, but you never know what exactly that was, when it was (in the memory of miquella wishing for radahn to be his consort you only see miquella- was it a silly wish between kids tha miquella never grew out of?), in what circumstances, you never get to hear radahn say anything about it, its completely left out, thats a little unrelieable to me! idk!

but fine, maybe he did agree to it, maybe he thought being a consort to a god would make him just as cool as godfrey, maybe he fought malenia, who was said to be undefeated, only to prove he had the strength worthy of being a consort and it backfired when malenia infected him with the rot (why then? also he doesnt look exactly thrilled about what she say to him in the trailer but that could be just me too i guess lolololol), maybe he wanted to die all along but his pride meant he couldnt just let the rot win, maybe the festival was really what he wished for and told no one what the real goal was, maybe he wasnt rotten in the first place and just acted that part so he had an excuse to die without having to fight with all his strength as even the undefeated warrior wasnt able to beat him, maybe becoming a consort to miquella was worth leaving leonard behind to him, maybe he wanted to be nothing but a pawn to a god, to be used and discarded, maybe he really believed in miquellas wish for a "gentle" world (aka all love miquella)

it makes sense, im not going to lie about that, but the other does too- and in the end, we will never know what the truth is! we will never know if that was what he wanted, or if he was manipulated even back then, i wish we could to see his part, his voice, his will, but we never will, and it doesnt matter, in the end it doesnt matter if he wanted it or not, the fact remains hes a silent frankensteins monster of miquella, expression- and personalityless, a voiceless pawn to a god that steals everyones hearts

i dont need to be "right", i like to think about things, i am in the camp of he didnt want to or decided against it, but it doesnt really matter, even if miyazaki himself went onto stage and loudly declared that yes it was all planned from the start and radahn was in on it the whole time- i still would think the other way around it, i jsut think about him alot, i want to question things instead of taking everythign i hear at face value, especially when its very strangely told from one side, i will question every little thing if i only hear one side, no matter how much sense it makes or not, it makes me suspicious

(i some of this can be attributed about purely gameplay stuff, like the change in armor so he doesnt look the same etc, but i dont care, i like to think about the implications it brings with it, intentionally or not)

and there he is in a barren battlefield, eating the remains of whoever enters his isolated cage with the intent to kill him, never succeeding, howling like a lonely old wolf at the sky, is it desperation about a fate he cannot escape, grief about what hes done or failed to do, is it a call of yearning? for freedom?

we dont know. and it doesnt matter.

[nerendus]

Okay, this is a little bit of a tangent ramble about Miquella and may not make the most of sense, but bear with me.

I know baseline the PC's motivations are going to be left up to the player, but I do love how Fromsoft sets up the player's motivations for killing Miquella.

Because at first, based on the dialogue options you have with Freyja specifically, it appears you come to the shadowlands to be somewhat of service of Miquella, but then you go meet St. Trina who asks you to kill him, and that's why you end up fighting him. Because it doesn't necessarily make sense to fight him if you just wanted his Great Rune like the Tarnished are inclined to want, you would just fight the sunflower if that was the case.

But other than St. Trina wanting him dead--not out of revenge but as a way of freeing him from the shackles of godhood--, another reason the PC would want him dead is because he is most certainly to end up like Marika.

Miquella is not a villain. The cutscene of him from as an Empyrean is very much of him having naive innocence of wanting to make the world a better place. I'm still a little confused as to why Empyrean!Miquella thought that Radahn could help him reach those goals (other than the whole Godwyn eclipse thing), but I feel like I know fully why Radahn would be of great service of God!Miquella.

Miquella's motivations for becoming a god is first and foremost to heal Malenia. That's why he left the Golden Order and that's why the Haligtree was created. Along the way, he came to realize the injustice of the Omen and every creature that lives outside the Golden Order's grace as well as the cruelty of Godwyn's murder, and it all ties into him needing to become a god to fix all the injustices he sees around him.

To pass through the divinity gate and become a god, Micky had to strip himself of who he was before. His flesh, his love, his other self, they all had to be ripped from him in order for him to ascend, and that's where he became unsaveable.

St. Trina tells us that godhood would be a prison for him, but not only that, becoming a god means that he will end up like Marika. If he separates himself from his love to become a god, how is he supposed to save the people he loves once he ascends?

At the point that we fight him, I don't think he is anywhere close to "evil", but he would eventually get to that point. He already charms many of the NPCs, however, I feel inclined to mention that at that point, he wasn't exactly mind-controlling them. Ansbach's dialogue is still riddled with a sense of suspicion before the charm is ever lifted, and quite a few of them seem almost aware of the fact that they are charmed but they can't do anything about it. The only time I think he is fully mind-controlling someone is the player character after he does his grab attack twice.

And the reason why the god Miquella wanted to use Radahn is that I think he knows at that point war is inevitable. I think if we left him alone, he would eventually attack the Golden Order. Which, is fine, at first. But once you fight the soldiers of the Golden Order, what if that one day extends to its people it serves? And what if you find another civilization that you deem needing to be saved from another civilization, or if someone threatens your new order? In that sense, he is destined to end up in the same situation as his mother.

Which is why I love the lore attached to Marika in this DLC. At first, she may have only attacked the armies of the Hornsent, but I think one day it just extended to all of its people regardless of their innocence or guilt in the slaughter of her people. The lore of her past serves as a warning for what will become of Miquella if we allow him to become a god.

And one of St. Trina's last words is to kill him in order to grant him forgiveness. If we kill Miquella before he has the chance to return to the Lands Between, he could still die as an innocent being unlike Marika.

[firedjinni]

what do u even call the slugcats cause they're "names" are fuckinfg BORING! "monk" "survivor" yap yap yap! thats why I call them flowerboy and ponyboy hunter is a cool fucking name but still WOLFBOY. is better I know theres... other slugcats the only ones ive seen are the fat one and the darker red one. and some weird... mutation looking slugcat... weird eyes... weird colors. whateverrrrrr ill enable the dlc after i do this damn wolfboy run 4 DAYs. LEFT.

okay, I understand this was probably not the intended point of this ask, but it is too late. you have activated my trap card. we are talking about Slugcat Worldbuilding Headcanons now.

(Spoilers ahead for… basically every campaign.)

For Hunter: I imagine "Hunter" is more of a nickname, and that NSH normally refers to them more as his courier or messenger. I tend to call them "Hunter" for writing convenience (even in their own POV, so far), but they don't really call themself that much. They have a lot of identity issues tied up in being created for a Very Specific Purpose and not really knowing how to think of themself outside of it; they're a divine messenger, but that's not really a name. Until their purpose is fulfilled, they don't think about themself as a person often enough to actually consider things like names.

For Survivor: I like the headcanon that slugcats (at least in Surv/Monk/Gourm's colony) are given simpler names as pups, and sort of "earn" a more descriptive title/adult name as they mature. In my usual read of them, they would have just been "white/pale one" when they still lived with their colony, and gave themself the name "Survivor" some time after their fall.

For Monk: their pup name, which they have during their campaign, is something like "yellow one", and they don't earn a title until later. Even then, they aren't ever "Monk" in-universe, as slugcats don't quite have an equivalent social structure or role for that term to translate directly. The name they take instead means something more like "pacifist" or "gentle/wise/peaceful one", though there are some loosely similar social connotations to early Ancient society's version of monkhood, with implications of spiritual attunement, insight, and vague otherworldliness.

For Artificer: I imagine this name to be a matter of in-universe translation jank. Their actual name is something closer to "crafter" or "clever one that makes things" (again, connotations are tricky to translate!), but those simply do not possess the same pizzazz. The Scavengers also call them "Red Death" or sometimes "Red Mother", which ends up becoming a sort of mythological figure later on, like a Scavenger boogeyman. Future slugcat colonies end up sort of adopting back the mythology of the Red Mother as a protective deity/spirit, so they mostly call her that in the future. "Red" was probably their pup name, too.

For Spearmaster: Seven Red Suns calls them "messenger" and "07" -- I like to think the former becomes a nickname (their character designer, Faeling, headcanons SRS calling them "Messy" as a nickname/diminutive which I think is adorable), but Spearmaster themself might have adopted the latter too at some point, maybe almost like a family name, because they like that it connects them to Seven Red Suns. I also figure that other wild slugcats might have various nicknames for them, especially since SM would have no easy way to introduce themself -- and the name "Spearmaster" might come from that, actually! But I also like the idea of a future folktale version of them similar to with Artificer, with various names depending on the opinions of the colony/culture in question: "Cousin Thorn-tail", "the Spear-sapper", "the Drinker", and so on.

For Gourmand: again, I imagine this as a case of translation jank, and whatever they're called has slightly different connotations, though I'm less decided on what it should actually be. "Gourmand" is just so… specific? I feel like whatever they've got going on should be equally untranslatable, though. It's something along the lines of "appraiser" and "crafter" and "skilled forager", with this implication of like… knowing about valuable/desirable things and how to find/make them, and also having a strong personal taste for them? "Connoisseur", almost? But not quite as fancy. Their pup name was just "big one", though -- pup Gourmie wasn't quite the absolute unit they are as an adult, but they were definitely always a big slugcat.

For Rivulet: I like the idea this really is just their name! Little-stream-of-water! It's actually their pup name, but they left their colony before coming of age (ran away to become an adventurer), and never really found a title they liked. They think Moon calling them Ruffles is cute, but it's definitely just a nickname.

For Saint: the name does translate directly, not because slugcats have a concept of sainthood, but because the title they gave themself is the literal term taken from the Ancients. I headcanon that they were raised by or around an iterator and know a lot of The Lore, and sorta borrowed some of these concepts for how they see themself… a sort of divine sufferer bringing peace to others, martyring themself for the sake of mercy. Their pup name was just "tongue" or something, though, if they had one at all.

[mahou-furbies]

Animal crossing stuff

After taking a break for almost three years I'm now really into this game. The catalogue from the dlc is a major reason; I do very little online play because I find having to negotiate the item trades with strangers and then actually doing the visit and trade very exhausting, so until now I had been almost entirely reliant on the items you can get in single player. Which means the Nook shop daily inventory of measly five rotating items, and then they're in the wrong colour so you would also need to check online if it even can be customised to the desired colour. Which was super tedious and the reason why I quit playing originally, it felt there was nothing interesting to do with my current items so all that was left was the daily grind of checking what's in store today.

Now however the dlc catalogue auto-unlocks all non-special items available for the vacation homes you design for the animals, which basically renders the Nook shop redundant. And you can even see all the colour options and just order the one you like! It's fun that after you experiment with some new items that you like in the animal vacation homes, you can get them to your own island right away. I had never thought of building a farm on my island, but now I have multiple characters ordering the wheat item in preparation.

As for characters, I have the main player, Mew Ichigo for pink mahou, Cure Princess for the blue one, and Vanilla (Sugar Sugar Rune) for purple. Vanilla is a little unfortunate one since I had also named the whole island Vanilla, but she'll have to live with the confusion. Next one will be Mami for yellow, and she will get to be the farmer once I have enough wheat. The farm will also function as the source of money for the entire island since I plan to move all vegetable production there, and probably a more organised fruit orchard since currently the fruit trees are all haphazardly scattered everywhere. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to start properly terraforming though, since I first need to move Hime's house to the other corner of the island out of the way and destroy a bridge and an incline. Ichigo will also move to the "town" part of the island next to the newly (half) built pastel amusement park, currently she does have a nice pink flower field up in the mountains, but I want someone to live in the town and it seems like a good fit for a pink mahou.

After seeing the castle wall items in the dlc catalogue I now want to use them too, and I kinda want to give them to a Zelda character. I'd rather use Link since I already have so many girls on the island, but princess Zelda is of course a better pick for someone to live in a castle. Or the totk one doesn't really live in a castle any more but it doesn't really matter. And then I can also have Link as a separate character too if I really want. There is of course the issue that so far my additional characters have had a magical girl theme, but it's not like the entire island is properly themed anyway so it should be ok.

Princess Zelda, a potential Link and the as of yet unknown green mahou would hit the limit of 3 characters so I hope I won't get any new ideas. And I'm hoping that the switch 2 is backwards compatible so I could create a separate island, maybe that one could be Zelda themed from the start. But right now a more topical issue is that a fully upgraded house costs 3 million, so the main player who is financing this all will be busy for a while. At least Ichigo and Hime have already paid for their houses.

[mommypills]

Life is Strange Rewrite

HELLO CHAT. i know it's been entirely too long since i've posted anything but i feel like i need to get this out somewhere besides in my poor friends' dms. i have no idea how active the LiS tags are, but it matters not; i am ready to unleash my super autism upon whoever is willing to read this post!

you've read the title, i assume. i started rewatching a playthrough of LiS and BtS fairly recently, though i've been a fan since... well... a while. at least since 2018, perhaps earlier. i will admit, i wasn't quite in tune with the story during those years because i was a young child. simply put, i grew up with this series—thank you for introducing me to these awkward lesbians, ma—and had almost no outside opinions to consider.

enter 2024 hal with internet access and a dozen friends who don't mind discussing things with me. i have one friend who has a distaste for the game and was in the same boat with me until somewhat recently. to keep it short, they don't like chloe because of all the things she's done throughout the entire game; especially the options where you choose to go against her. i have probably given chloe the benefit of the doubt for years due to my heavy relating to her character... unfortunately.

as you would guess, i consider myself a writer. i do writer things, like stare at a google doc for 30 minutes and wonder when my brain will finally let me get words on there. and because i am many more steps above my younger self in terms of writer brain, chloe's character confuses me to a curiously dog-shaped degree. i am conflicted. yes, her father died and max left her around that time, but would that justify or even make sense how she became the chloe in LiS? on the other hand, it makes sense. i have seen what happened to her happen to someone else. that gradual change, being stuck in the past whereas everyone has moved on, not having a support group, being infinitely lonely, falling into the deepest depths of the crevice of your brain... i understand; more so than the average LiS fan.

(if you're rory, my wife, stop reading from here, please <3 until we finish that watchalong)

i have always chalked chloe up as the sensitive type. she would never admit it, but i've always seen her as someone who is highly reactive to her environment. she took the death of her dad and max's departure disastrously, she was absolutely distraught when rachel was stabbed, she took rachel's death horribly, plus at any sign of "you will die" danger she immediately becomes rigid. i could just be unreactive, but this all seems to be signs of an environmentally sensitive individual—not to mention her general behavior when talking to max about the incident in the BtS DLC! i could just be misremembering that, though, so take that with a grain of salt. one could also interpret her being dependent on max—even before her dad's death—and later rachel. also she?? basically has hallucinations of her dad???? i guess???? why does nobody talk about that wtf

apologies, i went a little bit off-topic. my point in the last two paragraphs is that i am completely on the fence about chloe as a character. she is both liked and hated, and she is supposed to be a character we would be willing to sacrifice an entire town for. for some people, the bay vs bae option was obvious, whether it was because they hated chloe or adored her. here is the horrendous segue because i don't know how to connect this thought and the next.

i began to think: what if i were to rewrite life is strange and before the storm?

i'll give you some information and talking points on what i have currently (minus some bullet points i've omitted because they're not ready for the world) and you will tell me whether i should keep cooking or stop before i burn the building down.

BEFORE THE STORM

// change rachel's situation with her parents. make her justifiably hate her dad and make her go to her biological mother to tell the truth, i don't really get rachel's whole thing about her parents. it hurts to be lied to in general, but rose is the woman that raised you lil bro. i would get it if she were mistreated, but she wasn't. no reason to have the story based around that when it doesn't make sense, so let's switch it up. the easiest way to do this would be to make them abusive. make her think that things would be better if her bio mother stayed and/or if she met up with her (this would turn out wrong when they find out that she is an addict, and does a little bit of #manipulation.) not canon in the games, but making her biological mother a bad person would be very poetic. there could be an episode dedicated to chloe trying to pull rachel away from her bio mother because shes ass tm. and this transitions into my next idea...

// make chloe the "i can fix her" type, the residue of herself from before her father died. hell, make her character a bit different from the LiS 1 chloe! maybe have her be a combination of pre-william death chloe and post-william death chloe. this portion was initially "make it take place a year or two after william's death" but then i realized that it DOES take place approximately two years after. so, i'm changing this point to being "make it take place 6 months to a year after his death" so we can explore her character more. by the end of this, make chloe further traumatized. or at the very least, make all these events impact her so much that she ends up becoming the woman she is in LiS 1... of which some people in-game would describe her as "broken" or "irreversibly damaged" (i wrote this before learning that rachel's dad actually said this about her, by the way! jesus, man.) and make the thing longer than 3 damn episodes.

LIFE IS STRANGE

// make max and chloe parallel chloe and rachel, except their relationship gets less and less problematic as time goes on rachel's relationship with chloe is... certainly something. i don't have any strong opinions on amberprice, but what i DO know is that rachel is chloe's BIGGEST enabler and absolutely contributed to why she's like the way she is. she's like the devil on your shoulder saying "burn down that orphanage" except chloe doesn't have an angel on the other side. the thing that makes max different from chloe in BtS is that she is the "i can help her" type. all for therapy and shit. make them both go to therapy actually. perhaps even have a duo counseling scene where they air things out and finally forgive both themselves and each other. genuinely have no idea why therapy was never seriously included in any LiS game so far considering the kind of shit they go through.

and that is it! thank you for sitting through this hefty wall of text. i am infinitely sorry for yapping, but i'm just an autistic little lesbian who loves these dorky ass weirdos. i will not take any more of your time—this is where the post ends.

i was not eating those beans☹️

[xstarkillerx]

Maul in the Jedi Temple (drabble)

I don’t know how much sense this is gonna make because it’s been a vague idea in my head for weeks, but if you’re a maul lover like me, do yourself a favour and (don’t) play the TFU Jedi Temple DLC wearing the Maul skin. It absolutely will make you confront the idea of Maul, years after the Clone Wars, seeking out the Temple Ruins for... something. He doesn’t quite know why he’s there, but he feels as though the front gate itself might smite him for daring to look upon it, even when it lets him in with ease.

He spends some time exploring the ruins, most of it untraversable now, but still grand, still teeming with light and remnants of a dead religion. The force feels different here. When he crushes the statues in the hall, or lifts the giant globe off the ground, it's not a destructive act, it's almost playful, a back and forth between him and the energy that flows through the building.

Something calls him to the heart of the temple, a dark hall with a Holocron at the end of it. Blue and holy and inviting it bursts to life without his having to touch it, putting forth a towering projection of a man, a Jedi, in a hood.

"My son..." It booms and what a novel concept, Maul thinks, a Jedi bearing children. " you now control your own destiny. The dark side is strong in you," Maul feels small, infantile, voyeuristic, dwarfed by the projection with the warm voice whose message is clearly not for him." but you can still be saved.” It says. “The blood of a true Jedi, my blood, flows through you but you must complete the trials..." He tunes the rest out. It isn't long before he is blinded and dropped in the middle of a stone abyss.

Menial challenges are set before him, the fabled Jedi trials, child’s fodder honestly, but he proceeds. Maul is led to a stone platform. From the dark emerges something that makes him want to vomit, a red zabrak with black markings, silent, stoic, no older than 22 years old. He sees it now, he was truly a frightening presence at that age. Darth circles him on hunter’s feet, never making so much as an audible scuff on the stone floor. Maul flexes his left foot, a new habit garnered by a tight joint he hasn’t had the spare part to fix yet. He knows himself, knows that Darth will attack swiftly, so he takes what milliseconds he has to try to remember how he would have fought when his body was complete. He'd be faster, lighter, more agile, but more cocky, a warrior who hasn't tasted the sour of loss; loss of limb, loss of life, of status, of sanity.

The duel is bloody, a flurry of red light. Maul hasn't thrown himself into battle like this since he was a young man, thirsty for purpose and proof that his existence is not a mistake. Maul reigns victorious in the end. He slices Darth in half and pierces him through the heart with his saber, a sickening thing to watch from this new perspective after playing in his head over and over again those long years he spent in the madness and filth. He kicks Darth’s body off the ledge into the seeming endless abyss. A guttural scream erupts from his chest and he falls to his knees. It stings his eyes and scratches away at the walls of tight throat, the urge to cry like a babe. 

The dark side is strong in you but... echoes in his ears. Maul thinks about whoever's wretched son that Holocron was meant for, what special purpose he must have to be seen as redeemable in the eyes of the pious Jedi.  

  The dark side is strong in you but... Maul covers his ears, a futile action in the in the bellowing silence of the stone abyss, but it lets him hear his own heart rate as it slows in the comedown from adrenaline. 

The dark side is strong in you but... He thinks about his own miserable little life. He thinks of parenthood, of those precious few moments his mother held him before damning her runt. 

 The dark side is strong in you but... He thinks of Sith, of Jedi, of the force that binds the two. What would he have been if they had found the runt first, those so-called keepers of peace. If they raised him in the light, would they have adorned his horns in silly beads, given him sandy coloured robes, condemned him to life lacking in riches and sex and... would they have abandoned him too?

“but you can still be saved.”  Maul retches at the thought. The Jedi failed that runt, as they failed the Galaxy those many years ago. The Jedi failed him, it was never his choice to make an enemy of them. And yet...

 Maul absentmindedly flexes his left foot and adjusts his position on the floor, folding his metal legs under himself as best he can. The thought does cross his mind that somehow he’s found himself on the winning end of their trial, their test of worthiness, at the heart of their temple. He chooses not to linger on it. Maul finds himself occupied with the lively silence of the temple instead, a warm breeze of energy passing through his body like a sheet of linen.

 Somewhere, floating in that space in time, he realizes his lightsaber went over the ledge with Darth, buried in the young man’s chest. 

Somehow it’s not a discomforting thought.

[pikkish]

I'm new to the fandom, just played 2016 and Eternal in quick succession. Eternal's DLC left me really dissatisfied, but I can't really explain why or how. Based on that poll you made, it's clear you've got some Opinions on the writing, so I was hoping you would like to share them? I feel like I need someone to mull over that whole story with. You can message me privately if you wish!!

Hi there! Welcome to the Doom fandom! I hope you enjoy your stay here more than you enjoyed TAG's writing! And you're more than welcome to come yell with me about Doom and its related games any time!

You're more than correct in your assertion that I have some Opinions about modern Doom's writing, in fact, I have quite a few of them. Most of them can be summed up as "the writing is just plain bad," which is probably also the reason you're unsatisfied with it. It's inconsistent, it regularly sacrifices coherence for the sake of something that looks cool for trailer shots, it has a lot of details that very much could be interesting plots but are simply ignored after their first mention, and at least a few more things that I'm forgetting, it's been a little bit since my last playthrough of TAG and these are just the major ones off the top of my head.

Take Hayden, for example. In 2016, he's the classic egotistical, powerful CEO of a major weapons industry, who maybe didn't necessarily intend to get a ton of people killed, but now that he has, he's gonna stick to his guns and insist he's still in the right, this was an unfortunate accident, but what he's doing is necessary, for the good of humanity, can't you see? He's the good guy! He's just trying to make things better! And he's dedicated to this course well enough that he's willing to betray the man who's there to save him, and boot Doomguy back into Hell at the end of 2016.

Then you get to Eternal, and he's inexplicably changed his mind for no good reason? And it's not like he's learned his lesson and has become more humble for it; sure, he got his rear handed to him by demons, and he emphatically states that the creation of Argent Energy is an "unholy union" that "cannot continue," but at the same time, he still acts constantly like he has everything under control and heavily implies that, were he in charge, this situation wouldn't be so bad- as if he weren't in charge when it got this bad. It's like they wanted him to have the exact same attitude (and therefore, ability to deliver dramatic voicelines) as in 2016, but didn't want to commit to him being a villain, so they just went "ok! he doesn't like Argent Energy any more," and went with it, then never felt the need to explain how or why this complete shift in attitude came about. As a result, it feels like Hayden has no clear motive or goals, and falls pretty flat as a character in general.

And then, to take it into TAG, there's the Seraphim, and don't even get me started on how much I hate that that's his name, "seraphim" is the PLURAL form of "seraph," it's like how "Guy" is a real name but then if they decided to name a character "Guys" instead, and it drives me crazy-- whom they go to some lengths to confirm is, in fact, the same person as Hayden, but then, despite the fact that Samur is sick and dying from the moment you revive him, for some reason, Hayden has to turn back into Samur. I suppose there's maybe some indication that Samur and Hayden are actually different people implied by Hayden referring to the Seraphim in the third person through the beginning of the Atlantica level, but there's still never any explanation given for that, whether they are or aren't the same person, or why you need to bring Samur back in Hayden's place.

And then, you beat Samur up, and guess what? He immediately stops being relevant to the plot and is almost completely forgotten. And that's a recurring theme in modern Doom! Olivia Pierce and the Khan Maykr both share the same fate, the moment they're dead, they practically just stop existing. Sure, there's the statue of Olivia in Nekravol, and, like, a single mention of the Khan in one of TAG's codices, if I remember correctly, but personally, to me, both of those feel more like the devs giving you a wink and a nudge and saying "haha hey, remember them?" like it's more of an Easter Egg than them actually having any significance.

And then there's the whole mess that is Davoth. Admittedly, having the Divinity Machine be fueled by his power, and Doomguy being enhanced by that power is thematically appropriate, what with the whole reason Doomguy wins being that he's even angrier than Hell. I also think something like the Divinity Machine and Dooomguy becoming superhuman did have to happen eventually, because how many times can one man singlehandedly beat back the whole of Hell itself before he stops being just some guy? But I don't think it was executed very well.

For one thing, I don't think it was a good move to imply that Doomguy always was some sort of pseudo-god super entity right from the start. Sure, like I said, he did inevitably have to stop being just some guy, but him being just some guy was a good bit of the charm of classic Doom in my opinion. All we knew about him was that he loved his pet rabbit, and was more willing to punch his commanding officer in the face than follow an order to shoot civilians. And yeah, if you take that, and also assume that the story cards are Doomguy's own internal monologue or at least a representation of his attitude, then you can't really say he was ever a blank slate character, but he was still just some guy, and he was relatable for that. And going "well, actually, he was a godling from the very beginning" just doesn't feel very good in my opinion, and feels like a big retcon besides. (And we'll get to more "well, ACTUALLY" stuff in a bit, but first I wanna finish up the tangentially Davoth related stuff first.)

All that aside, if we take it at face value and say sure, Doomguy was always something a little more than human, always destined to become the ultimate warrior, rather than making himself into the Doom Slayer by surviving Hell, then there's still not really any reason for Davoth to have looked exactly like him, beyond going "you-- but EVIL!!" for the drama of it. I think there was maybe one codex entry that says Davoth's whole soul-stealing operation was for the sake of providing his own people with immortality, which is to say, he was fighting to protect his home or something to that effect, so an argument could be made that his looking like Doomguy is an attempt at exploring "this is you, gone too far, this is you if you ever let go of your morals, this is everything you risk becoming," but, again, it's mentioned like... once, in one codex, and never explored or elaborated upon further. If I remember correctly, Davoth himself never even acknowledges this, it's just the codex entry, and he just goes on about how he'll kill Doomguy and destroy everything he ever loved. If they really wanted to make him a sympathetic villain like that, then they should've actually given us the opportunity to feel that sympathy for him. Let me see the people he's trying to protect- is it an idyllic paradise, oblivious to the lengths being gone to to keep them comfortable? A broken, dying people who should have gone extinct long ago, but for this thievery of the lives of others? I know Hell is supposed to be Jekkad, corrupted, and even in theory, that's fine- you could say Davoth's become so ruthless in pursuit of this immortality for his people that he's blinded himself to how it's also destroyed that which he was attempting to save- but you can't really see that. It's still just Hell, not really any sort of remnant of something worth saving.

And speaking of that. Trying to make Davoth a sympathetic villain at all feels like a bad choice to me. Doom is about fighting demons, about carving a bloody war path through the ultimate evil of Hell itself, and about feeling viciously satisfied about doing it. Making it about a desperate man who can't accept that he failed to save what he cared about, and making about killing that man before he does any more damage in attempting to do what he's already failed to do just doesn't feel good the way the rest of Doom does. And beyond that, TAG doesn't even succeed in the emotional gut punch that would come from it, had they managed to make Davoth into an actually sympathetic villain. It's like they're trying to strike a balance between the gratuitously violent and exhiliratingly triumphant feel that Doom is known for, and an emotionally impactful story, and as a result, both end up landing somewhere between mediocre and just plain bad.

I don't have a good segue into this bit except to say it's coming back to the "well, ACTUALLY," thing I mentioned earlier, which is: there are a lot of parts that feel a lot like a six year old kid is just making up the plot on the spot, like, for example, "Doomguy LAUNCHES himself out of a CANNON and he has a MAGIC SWORD and a PET DRAGON that carries him to the MAGIC CRYSTAL in the MIDDLE of the PLANET." Granted, these ones are pretty small and relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and, yeah, okay, they do look pretty cool. But they don't really... fit? Yeah, it's not like classic Doom didn't have this too, In Doom I alone, Doomguy gets pissed about not getting a reward for beating up the barons, practically just jumps off the side of Deimos, and then finally gets to go home when a secret teleporter just opens beside him after Hell decides he's "too tough" for it. But that all fits in classic Doom, because it's not trying to be a serious, grimdark story. Classic Doom is goofy, and it knows it, and it doesn't try to be anything else. But modern Doom tries so hard to be a very serious, dramatic story and also keep the sillier bits of classic Doom, and- yeah, okay, I already made this point once, but here it is again- it ultimately kinda fails at both as a result.

But then there's the bigger of these, namely VEGA. You spend the majority of both 2016 and Eternal with him as your main companion, and, as far as I can remember, there's never really anything to indicate that he's anything other than what he's introduced as, a sentient AI, created to help manage the Mars base. And then you get to the end of Eternal, and- after basically making you sacrifice him for a second time- with next to no buildup, go, "well actually, he's the god of the bad guys." And I'd complain about that plot thread also being brought up and then dropped with no further elaboration, except they do elaborate on it, and that's basically all that TAG is about. They spend the whole of TAG 1 telling you how VEGA is the god of Literally Everything, and how he made Davoth, then didn't kill him when he started to get out of hand, and aren't you MAD at him, for making all your problems, for being too merciful with his own creation that he loved, and don't you just wanna DESTROY the thing that would give him power again?

And then you get to TAG 2 and they spend the whole time going "WELL ACTUALLY it's DAVOTH who's god and VEGA STILL couldn't kill him and he's been LYING to you this ENTIRE TIME." It almost feels to me like a bad fandom interpretation to justify not liking a character, except worse because they're actually the ones who made the character and wrote the story, and I'm not entirely sure why they intentionally tried to make VEGA a helpful, likeable character, gave him a backstory that arguably makes him more sympathetic than Davoth, and then went "actually we hate him now and are gonna do everything we can to try to make you hate him too."

There are definitely more things I could bring up, like whatever the whole deal with the wraiths and the World Spear is, and probably a handful of other things I'm forgetting, too, but it's getting late and I gotta get up to go to work tomorrow. At any rate, thanks for stopping by and giving me an excuse to finally yell about these things! Feel free to stop by and chat with me about video games whenever you want, I love getting to hear other people's thoughts on these things just as much as I love getting to give my own.

[amber-jinx]

Me again!

Do you think that Rachel and Max had a spiritual connection with one another? They’re completely different as far as their personalities and outer appearances. Yet, they both have one thing in common:

Their love for Chloe.

Plus, the fact that Rachel appeared as Max’s spirit animal (the doe) somewhat shows me that they were connected to some degree. What do you think?

You always ask great questions! I must admit I'm not as well versed on Max's side of the story as Rachel's, so there definitely are people who can give a more comprehensive answer than me. But imma just try and write what comes to mind :)

For 2 people that have never met, their spiritual connection, chemistry, "fate entanglement" as I liked to call what they have are the strongest across the fandoms I've seen. When Max returned, we as players felt Rachel's presence all over Arcadia bay. In the original there was even a line to the effect of "I feel like everything in this town is connected to Rachel Amber somehow". Max was able to "see" Rachel through different people in Arcadia bay. Everyone had something to say about her, even a random trucker. It can be said that she really had an effect on the people of that town, if we put the fire aside. This town being Max's hometown adds another layer to it, it is so much different due to Rachel's existence.

left pic from a fan made Rachel DLC | Yes, their love for Chloe is the key link that transcends through time & space, allowing them to see each other in some way.

Like the town, Max is also very different from her past self. While she didn't have such a strong presence back when she was growing up in Arcadia, Max eventually became the decider of the town's (including most of its people) fate. Whether Rachel is the root cause to Max's powers is very much a mystery and up to interpretation, just like many things in life is strange.

If we acknowledge that Rachel is the cause of the fire, there could be another parallel: this girl who tried to leave this town nearly destroyed the town; meanwhile another girl who came back actually have the power to do that, or stop it from getting destroyed. Even though both never meant to. (Not expanding on Rachel being the storm here cuz it's really not definitive & personally I think if Rachel's got powers she'd just use them on those who did her wrong, not the entire town)

Personality-wise, especially on the outside, they are almost opposites. But somehow I get the feeling that they'd really understand each other, because on the inside, they may not be that different. I've seen a Tumblr post saying Rachel using her people skills to get on people's good side is mirrored by Max using her rewind powers to fix her responses. (When you've got such an ability, of course you use them! Which is different from being manipulative, might I add.)

Rachel with her sensitive, vulnerable side, which she guarded & masked with so much effort and painted with her smiles & godly social skills, is definitely able to understand & empathise with Max and not judge her. And Max being pretty perceptive herself, having quite an astute understanding of Rachel just from photos she found, is definitely able to see more than Rachel lets on. Both are powerful smartasses and fiercely protective of Chloe. (& both bi x)

Max sees, Rachel shows. The photographer & the muse. Built for an "electric combo", as Love is Strange says, even though they may not hit it off well at the start due to awkwardness or slight jealousy from both sides, eventually they're gonna realise that the other is beneficial for them. Max is able to ground Rachel and give her heartfelt & real advice that she needed; Rachel's able to help build Max's confidence, socialise better (back off V, she's with me), share insights about art & photography.

I'd even say Max & Rachel may complement each other more than Max and Chloe, OR Chloe and Rachel. (If there are more content on these 2, AmberPrice in my heart might be challenged. Yeah. It's scary.)

Some say they share the same spirit animal, which is really possible (bts putting that "doe see doe" photo on Rachel's bed frame), or it could mean that as Max's spirit animal, Max sees all spirits in a doe form. Another possibility is that Rachel have the doe as her spirit animal, and everyone who can see her spirit sees the doe. Nonetheless it's incredible that Max seems to be the only person to be able to see the doe, or that Rachel chose to present herslef to only Max. Definitely a connection there. 🦌

Looking at their personalities through enneagram (Rach 4, Max likely 9) we see that they can be similar but in different ways (9 & 4 can be mistyped):

"The difference is that Nines are detached both from the external world and from their emotions (not keeping in touch w Chloe in Seattle & delay on reaching out to her?), whereas Fours withdraw from whatever has caused them pain (delaying telling Chloe about her messy relationships cuz it causes her pain? + her immediate reaction to finding James making out with another woman). Nines see the world through rose-colored glasses, and their view of it is comforting, whereas Fours see the world from a garret window as outsiders and are not comforted: everyone else seems to be living a happier, more normal life."

Thanks for the question! I've no idea I was gonna write this long. You guys can see a few of my blogs or reblogs that I've mentioned these 2 via the tag "Rachel and Max" or "Amberfield" if interested :) Feel free to reblog/ add on!

[gamebunny-advance]

Kun3h0 Accessories DLC + Patch Notes v.1.0.1

Added:

GAB accessory

Karrot-98 accessory

Changed:

Updated top.

Fixed hair bug. (Hair would easily slip off model.)

Minor improvements.

(More pics and notes under the cut.)

So I finally finished up Kun3h0's accessories and fixed up her top.

So, we've got her GAB and her drill, the Karrot-98.

GAB started out as this little dino thing that I just cut up and sculpted onto.

The original plan was to sculpt onto the original arms after I cut off the wings, but they kept bumping into the head, so I opted to completely resculpt them.

Now they can still turn their head, but that's the only point of articulation. I really should have sanded it more, you can really see the texture still in the clay, but such as it is.

The collar isn't the most elegant thing in the world, but at least it's there~ It's also disappointing that I couldn't get the edges of her screen completely straight and even, but it is what it is.

Overall, I think it's a decent recreation of the original design, even if the purples aren't quite right.

I should take a pic of them next to my other GAB recreations so y'all can really see the difference in scale. I believe this is the smallest GAB I've made so far, and also the only one that has the big heart-shaped tail~

Next is the Karrot-98, Kun3h0's magical drill. I don't have any "before" pictures, but it's made from another accessory that came with the doll, a little clay, and a piping tip that I had lying around + extras.

I don't have a set design for the Karrot yet, so I just kinda painted it with colors I already mixed. When Kun3h0's holding it, it does kinda get lost in the pinks of her outfit, but by itself I think it looks fine. If I come up with a better color scheme for it, then maybe I'll repaint it.

Next, I completely re-did her top. This time, I doused all the fabric in fray-check first to keep it from pulling apart while I was sewing it together, and I completely redid the sleeves. Originally, I had painted the arm guards onto the sleeves because I didn't think of any other way to do it. This time I tried making them with craft foam to better replicate that they're supposed to be two different materials. I'd say it was mostly successful.

Since it's kind of a pain to slip the sleeve into the guards, I don't have any pics of the top without them on, but the sleeves are more form fitting, so the top looks more like a proper tracksuit without the guards on. It's a slightly better look than the original IMO, but it's still not perfect: the guards are basically like a Miku sleeve, so you can still see into them even though the only opening is supposed to be through the cuff (which are barely visible in this pic, but they can stick out for a more accurate look.)

I would show the new top next to the old one, but I kinda destroyed the old one trying to test ideas for this new one XP (in fact, the collar IS from the old one, I just ripped it off and reapplied it to this one).

Lastly, I fixed her wig a little bit.

I don't have pics of it, but I just stuck some velcro to her scalp and the inside of the wig, so now it should stop slipping off while still being removable.

I'm just against completely gluing it down because I still have a lot of yarn left from this project, so I would eventually like to make her some alternate hairstyle wigs just to use up the yarn.

Now I feel pretty confident in saying that she's actually "done." There are a few places that I could touch up with paint, but as for "making" anything else for this doll, I did everything I really wanted to do.

Admittedly, Kun3h0 is one of my most self-indulgent designs (as though everything I make isn't in some way self-indulgent), so to have a physical object which embodies so much of what I like, truly satisfies me. We'll see if I still feel that way about her a week from now, but at the moment, she is the culmination of almost every creative skill I have, and I'm very pleased with the results of that effort, more so than possibly anything else I've ever made~ <3

I may post more pics of her when I can actually dedicate some time to making a proper scene and/or backdrop. There's a lot of little details that I like that I haven't really taken pics of. I dunno if I have the courage to do it, but it'd be cool to take some pics in an actual arcade with her~

[miquellah]

The grimdark accusation has been some of my least favourite in the wake of the dlc. Characters failing or dying isn't automatically grimdark, tragedy is a legit genre and story telling convention and it's annoying to always see it boiled down into "edginess!"

I legit think these people aren’t even familiar with the ACTUAL genres of grimdark… Berserk is a huge inspiration for Souls, notoriously, and that IS often grimdark. But Souls stories shy from the full dark and extreme themes of that work— and even then, that doesn’t mean Berserk’s story is without merit, either.

I read some zombie horror manga once before, and it had characters dying left and right, fairly suddenly and horrifically. And I was like oh, wait, this isn’t fun at all… I have no reason to be attached to these characters, or even to continue reading this story, if no one is ever going to make it out alive lol. And so I dropped it, cuz I personally was getting nothing out of it. And I think the big difference with Souls-style tragedy is, like,

With Souls, and honestly a well-crafted tragedy in general, characters fulfill a role and their own stories. The deaths aren’t just for shock value, or for a death in and of itself, but to propel an idea forward; they fulfill a role, even if that role is TO not fulfill a potential.

And if we’re talking Shakespearean, Mercutio is a wonderful example of this. He’s not aligned with either feuding house, but still dies violently because of those feuding parties. A character usually so jovial and fun-loving SCREAMS with rage at the indignation of his own death— “A plague upon your houses!!”— quite plainly driving the point home. Or,

Hamlet in just about the entirety. Everyone fucking dies, or just about! But that’s due to Hamlet’s own, insatiable desire for revenge, and the waves of such— and even then, such violence was only brought forth due to the violence shown to his own father. Is this grimdark, then, just because everyone dies? No, because it pushes forth an idea and a story, well-crafted at that.

And this isn’t even going into detail about all the Souls examples, lol. I think a lot of people play up Souls’ edginess, and in some ways the games do have some fun with it— but they always make sure never to sacrifice substance. If you look at a storyline, you’ll almost always find some sort of core idea being pushed, or how it can contribute to the greater themes of the game. And again, like… these absolutely are NOT the worst in terms of edginess, lmao. And even then, again. Why are you searching for bright rays of rainbows and sunshine at the tragedy factory??

[sunkern-plus]

hey what is street fighter 6 about. saw your tags on my post

HOLD ON I NEED TO FIND THIS. i have so many posts that even the TAGS reference street fighter games ALONE that it's impossible to find the insane shit i blab about. hold on.

okay, couldn't find your username on your blog so i'm gonna search "street fighter 6" to see if i can...OH THERE WE GO it's about the ability to make fat (even up to SUPERFAT) player characters in street fighter 6 and be able to befriend (you can't technically date anyone because your world tour masters range from like...15 (lily hawk) to 19 (kimberly jackson) to like 26 (luke sullivan) to...however old e honda, zangief, and blanka are to outright decrepit and old but also vaguely like...60s???? but also immortal??? like jp and akuma) world tour "fighting masters" who through the power of "being in a yakuza/like a dragon esque game engine/regular dlc additions" you can learn the fighting styles of in YOUR very own oc YOU made yourself (and your size does NOT restrict you from performing insane feats of strength. you can be my size, 26-28 on top/24-26 on bottom largefat, and move as fast and nimble as chun li, jamie siu, or kimberly jackson, or you can be as tiny and thin as makoto or current snake hand master and utter FREAK (super affectionate) aki and learn how to suplex people like zangief or learn how to make LITERAL HOLES IN THE GROUND WITH YOUR POWERFUL ASS like e honda. yes, at any size)

so basically street fighter 6 follows your create-a-character (by the way, the CANON create a character is a rather average build looking black nonbinary (as they use they/them canonically when they're referred to when in trailers, and they/them corresponds to the "human" gender option, which you can have ANY physical feature as that, including massive boobies) character that i call fabian ferrera who is kind of a woobie) as your create-a-character learns What Strength Is. they befriend a rival named bosch, who is kind of like...if silver from pokemon was nicer? and you meet all sorts of fighting masters all to clear ken masters' name, uncover the secrets behind the mad gear gang, whatever's going on with rudra because i'm not even NEAR that, and foil jp's plot to become dictator of nayshall, a fictional global south country that he's kinda ruined and you're helping the anarchist revolutionary kalima help stop at some point in the story, again, i'm nowhere near that (because i have adhd and avolition from what is DEFINITELY schizo obsessive disorder and also have way too much schoolwork to do).

also, did i tell you the game is surprisingly SUPER leftist? luke being a private military contractor aside (and it's explained that likely his joining of the military was brought on by the trauma of losing his dad and implied that the military exploited it), chun li quit being a cop because she realized that mindset was unhealthy for her, guile regarded his time in the military as a mistake as it left him neglecting his family and chasing a man who was by that point no longer alive (guilenash is a popular ship in the game but i prefer chunnash because both are unmarried and chun li is almost certainly canonically bisexual with her preference for men canonically being "strong blonds with massive pecs" aka...charlie, and also thor? because she hits on thor in marvel vs capcom but that's besides the point) and jp (and ken by proxy, because he was tricked into believing he was doing good for a global south nation by FUNNELING CRYPTOCURRENCY INTO IT AND JP'S BANK) basically represents jp morgan/lockheed martin (i joke a lot that if takayuki nakayama got his way he'd name jp lockheed martin), in addition to (for a LONG time) shadaloo being a metaphor for colonization, imperialism, and destabilization of global south countries through taking of indigenous lands (as seen in the street fighter ii gaiden manga) and funneling of the drug trade into latin american countries, which the cia often did to install dictators (which...m bison basically is). and spoiler, jp IS an arm of shadaloo! specifically an accountant. so the jp morgan aspect is more apt!

anyway, street fighter has a LOT of attractive characters, both in this game and not in this game, and since i have WEIRD taste (except for poison, who is canonically conventionally attractive but because i'm a little freak and prefer bigger people whether it's fat, muscle or both in general i like to imagine her in sfvi as a fat butch (canon trans!) openly unlabeled sexuality/"just poison" woman with an apple shaped body (with slightly wider hips than me if only because my hips are unusually small for most genders), either no makeup or Divine-But-Punk makeup, no bottom dysphoria and LOVING IT (especially to affirm my girlfriend who wants to be as fat as me but can't because of Worse Digestive Issues Than I) and, of course, gigantic boobies she partially grew herself and partially got "store bought" (aka top surgery) though my poison Hot Take is...very unpopular among Normal fans of street fighter), i'll recommend you My Freak From Street Fighter 6:

-marisa: plus-size (not necessarily CANONICALLY fat, just wider than a good majority of even muscular cis women, but i personally like to interpret her as musclefat because canonically she eats like a king and regularly holds feasts and there's no WAY marisa, who views mass and strength as power much like zangief, wouldn't be even just a LITTLE chubby) red-headed GORGEOUS slab of meat of a woman who is OPENLY, CANONICALLY BI???? yes. YES. she is THE bi butch lady icon. she wears her hair in a literal GLADIATOR HELMET cut. she wears mostly slick suits. SHE IS IMPLIED TO WANT A POLYAMOROUS MARRIAGE WITH THE WORLD TOUR CHARACTER AND HER TWO ARRANGED MARRIAGE CANDIDATES (one is male and one is female, and your world tour player character CAN be nonbinary if you wish, as i've said before, so wlm/wlw/wlnby ICON!!!!). she is CANONICALLY implied to be both attracted to zangief (though gag comics' emphasis on her rather silly, appearance based attraction to zangief is a Bit Obnoxious and bordering on bi erasure of the "of course she only wants MEN!!! she's BI!!!" kind of bi erasure nobody talks about) AND manon (who is a femme maybe implied lesbian perfectionist pearl from su type. yup, marisa and manon are (to me) bispearl (without the semi racist su baggage because admittedly su needs to be criticized despite it genuinely being a good show for lgbt rep that ISN'T white/light skinned and feminine), and i'm LOVING IT). marisa is absolutely so sexy and gorgeous and you KNOW she'd love a fat player character because not only does she consider body mass in general an extreme display of power and attraction (she's like zangief AND rufus but instead of pure muscle or pure fat, BOTH attracts her equally), she LOVES food and will make sure you don't fall into diet culture beliefs about restricting and "being good" and as active as she is especially in leisure, she DEFINITELY won't make you feel guilty about being "lazy" or "unproductive" because marisa is PROBABLY catholic and protestant work ethic is NOT that girl's issue! she's NOT gonna make manon feel miserable about not being "strong" all the time so why is she gonna make YOU feel miserable for eating a lot or being occasionally lazy or wanting to be unproductive?

sorry for how this ramble got more insane as it went on. i love street fighter 6. i love street fighter, period. i swear i know more about the street fighter characters than 99 percent of the fandom. it is my favorite special interest and there is NO shortage of interesting lore to glean from it.

thank you for listening to my insanity.

[jewel-pixelheart]

SHE IS FINALLY HERE 🎉

I'm glad to present you one of my FNAF OC : Star ✨️

Feel free to ask questions if you want ! More arts of her are coming ✨️

If you want to see more FNAF content : click here

"No... not again... P-please little boy, turn the lights on, please..."

Star crying under the Security Desk.

Star is a Superstar Daycare animatronic that appears in Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, alongside Sun and Moon. She returns in the DLC Ruin, but is definitely out of order.

Physical Appearance

"Happy Star"

Star is a Daycare Attendant who work with Sun and Moon at the Superstar Daycare. She is a jester or clown-themed animatronic with a star-shaped head, white eyes, and a widely-grinning expression. Her clothes are similar to Sun/Moon. Star is fit with orange pants with stars, a huge red dancing skirt and orange elf-like shoes with a star symbol. Both her neck and wirst are wrapped with ruffels and rubans. She also have bells around her neck and on her shoes.

"Sad Star"

When Star is scared or sad, her colors turns out from warm to cool tones. She still have a huge smile on her face but her eyebrows are twist in sad expression, which give her a ridiculous appearance. She also have the ability to cry real tears.

Ruin Star

Like everything else inside the Pizzaplex, Star has been left completely ravaged after the Mega Pizzaplex's abandonment. She been almost destroy, parts of her body can be found by Cassie around the Play Area of the Daycare. Her system is not working anymore, which can be compared to human death. She's been froze into her "Sad" appearance. Her arms, and legs are separated from her torso. The right part of her face have been completely ripped out, showing her endoskeleton underneath. Her eyes are empty and dark. There are also many holes, scratches, and other damages across her entire body.

Personality

Star is way less energetic than Sun. She is clumsy and shy. She usually take care of calm children and enjoy to draw with them. She also read them fairytails before bed time. Star is quite and do not try to draw attention on her. If too many children want to play with her at the same time, she will panic and hide somewhere in the Play Area. Thinking she is playing hide and sick, both children and Sun will search for her (ironically).

Like Sun, Star is very serious about cleaning and following the rules for health and safety reasons. When Gregory knocks down the cans as a distraction, she will also rush to clean them up.

Functionality

Like Sun and Moon, Star is capable of extreme flexibility, allowing for impressive feats of acrobatics. Nevertheless, she have her own personal functionalities. As an old stage animatronic, she was program to dance, and still use this ability to entertain children. She is also able to cry real tears. During nap time, she use her head (the star part) as a night light for children.

Star dosen't have two personalities, but can change her physical appearence depending on her mood.

Appearances

Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach

Star first appear after Gregory knocks down the cans to distract Sun. She heard him panics and joined the Play Area to see whats happening. But when she arrived to the office, the lights turned off. When Moon shows up to chases Gregory, Star hide under the Security Desk. She then told Gregory about the importance of turning the lights on and how scared of Moon she is. When the lights were restored, Sun angrily carries Gregory out, and bans him from the Daycare for having disobeys him and making cried Star. Sun locked out all entries from the Atrium to the Daycare. If Gregory tries to get back by using slide tube, Sun will block him and push him out. Star's cries can be still heard by Gregory in the background as Sun trying to comfort her.

Ruin DLC

After Cassie restores the generators around the Superstar Daycare and rebooting the Attendant using the Faz-Wrench, Eclipse/Sun will beg her to help him repair his friend Star. If Cassie reboot Star's system, her eyes will light up again. Unfortunately, she is not capable of anything else...

Eclipse/Sun will then try to repair Star by himself. It is unknown if he succeeded to bring her back to life or not.

Relationships

Sun

As long as they can remember, they always been together. Sun and Star have a sister/brother like relationship. They were both build to perform on stage as Theater Performers at the Fazbear Theater, and then were in charged of the Superstar Daycare. When the Pizzaplex is close to public, they still continue playing together as if kids were still here. They putting on puppet shows, draw, or drink Fizzy Faz. They also clean up the Superstar Daycare before it open to public next morning. When Star is sad or scared, Sun will always try to cheer up her with stupid jokes or puppet shows.

In the Ruin DLC, Sun will be devastated by the loss of Star, which will lead Moon to become the robot's dominant personality (in addition of the perpetual lack of lights).

Moon

Star is scared of Moon. When he is near, she immediately hide somewhere in the Play Area. His behavior towards children is frightening her, as she cannot understand how it is possible to be so cruel with them. She also despise his comportement toward his counterpart, Sun. She dearly cares about him and hated seen Moon mistreated him.

Despite Star being afraid of him, Moon does not show any hostile behavior towards her. He even tried several time to approach her, but she always reject him.

In the Ruin DLC, Moon's dialogues suggest he wanted Cassie's Faz-Wrench in order to repair Star. Which imply that Moon cares about her as much as Sun.

Glamrock Animatronics

Star do not leave the Superstar Daycare often, so she doesn't have many interactions with Glamrock Animatronics. Nevertheless, she find them pretty fun.

Gregory

Star is neutral towards Gregory. She indicate him how to restore the generators of the Play Area, and how to escape from Moon. She will never show any hostile behavior towards him.

Trivias

• Star is nicknamed "Starlight" by both Sun and Moon. She also use nicknames for them : "Sunny" for Sun and Moonlight (formaly) for Moon.

• Star is the mascot of a type of candy named Starlight, describe as : "Cheerful Candy." This candy, along with Sunnydrop and Moondrop ones, is a form of supplement to help kids cheer up.

• According to messages found in the Daycare, children are scared of both Sun and Moon. It implies that Star is not reassuring neither with her tall and clownish appearance.

• Star has not always been scared of Moon. A while ago, they were closed and worked together during nape times.

Do not copy, retrace or use my art without my consent !

[waloeders]

haigh..mini pre-confession fic anyone?

this is susurrus/jupe, its set after the events of fs+the dlc and the other fic i never uploaded....oops. its fine, u'll get the gist of it. also will eventually merge this into the actual story + put it on my neocities lmao

cw: fors.poken spoilers (ofc), mentions of the total destruction of athia and death in general

"ugh, my head." jupiter mumbled out, pushing themself up off the floor onto all fours. in the corner of his eye, the shattered remains of some breakbeast, that he hadn't cared to learn the name of, crumbled back into dust once more.

the last, desperate, attack from it had sent them flat on the ground and he coughed heavily at the rising pressure in his chest.

"now, that was quite the blow..." susurrus let out something akin to a snort, the golden light on their arm thrumming in turn with each word he spoke, "still, no major damage. off you go!"

jupiter rolled their eyes, but quickly regretted it as pain shot through them, "fuck..."

"oh dear, are you alright?" he muttered, tone almost sarcastic in its' sincerity, "how about we just sit nice and quietly for a minute? you still have some of those healing drafts left, no?"

in response, they flopped down to the floor, rolling onto their back to stare into the star-covered nightsky. far above, the distant moons of athia watched as he reached up with one arm, as if to catch it.

"d'you see it too jill?" jupiter mimicked, letting out a snort of exhaustion and ignoring as tears welled up, "you have no idea how much this sucks, 'rus."

"you do know i feel what you feel? i know exactly how much this 'sucks'." susurrus snarked back.

"i meant... the fighting sucks. it hurts. i'm bad at it-"

"-i hadn't noticed-" he interrupted.

"-but athia is so...empty. broken. all this fighting, all this destruction, all this death... it's so much." they mumbled, twiddling a thin strand of gold between his fingers. it had pulled itself from where susurrus lay, embedded in his right arm, and was slowly expanding throughout his body.

some part of jupiter knew, someday it would overtake him - susurrus would overtake him and then... death, presumably. from what little he had learned, very few had ever been bound to the demon and those who had..

the lucky ones died.

"there's so much here i don't understand, so many questions i have. so much of this world, its people, the culture was lost, and for what? revenge?" they continued and shook their head, sighing, "sometimes i think it burns more - knowing the world used to be full - than this," they gestured to where susurrus' golden energy had expanded up to his neck, "whole thing."

he remained silent for a moment.

"it was my duty...-is my duty. athia and its' people had to be destroyed." there was a flatness to the way the demon spoke.

"does it have to be?"

it happened whenever 'rus repeated his orders, jupiter had noted, and the strange spark of hope that sometimes intertwined itself into their chest returned.

"not all of us can escape our fate, you know. some of us run towards it, not away." the demon declared, golden light flaring up around their wrist once more.

"fates not the same as duty." they remarked, "and just because its' our duty, doesn't mean it's right.

"but...what if...you could? just escape your duty, your fate? would you?"

an uncomfortable silence fell as he seemed to consider the question. and, as they stared up at the distant, unfamiliar stars, galaxies away from home, the blonde man's thoughts began to spiral, tears finally spilling out.

"...you should make for a Refuge, instead of lounging out here - its' not safe. there's one nearby." he spoke up in barely a whisper, releasing a trail of miniature golden birds that they had become familiar with.

jupiter sighed, mumbling "alright.." and moved to follow. it was unlikely 'rus would answer the question today, then, but a small smile still wound its' way to them - that he had considered it at all.

and if they noticed the way one of his birds lingered particularly close to them as they hobbled along, they didn't mention it.

[trustrosswrites]

Omg how did I not know new dlc trailer dropped till now, putting my initial thoughts out there.

I think it’s so interesting how it seems they’re going towards a bloodborne dlc route, both of them being a dream world that will contain the earliest secrets and sins of the current order. Double so considering whoever is taking that initial golden thread almost looks like they’re taking it from like, a placenta or a corpse (imo it looks like the godskin swaddle). Second, is that while at first I was starting to doubt the Mesmer-radagon connection. I’m now realizing that miquella and melania could defs fill out the Mesmer theme (it would also line up with the three kids radagon had with renalla.

I’m also wondering if the fire and war Mesmer took place in was how the erdtree burned the first time (instead of like with vyke as some might have said). If true, it also kinda makes marikas campaign against the giants make a bit more sense, to totally decimate any flames left. Although as I’m saying that the timeline doesn’t quite make sense (unless Mesmer is a bastard child, or totally unrelated which i think is possible). Also could be that maybe this destruction of the flame in “our” world created an opposite effect in this dream world.

Either way, I wonder just how much the timeline of things will change as we learn more about “the beginning”. Because already, the idea of ‘gold’ being something that was stolen (almost Prometheus esq) kinda messed with the idea that it was “given” by the outer gods. ESPECIALLY if the one who stole it was marika, although now I’m wondering if the whole “oh yeah plasidusax is sorta the first elden lord of his time” is LITERALLY propaganda misusing history to legitimize its rule.

My biggest question (and most relevant discussion) is just *what* is so powerful, or useful, that miquella would cast away everything he had to try and obtain. Cuz in bloodborne, the hunters nightmare was a punishment and a curse put ON hunters for their transgressions against kos and the fishing village. The only thing to be gained there is answers, and the small mercy of killing the orphan of kos. Everyone agrees that being there is no good, and there really isn’t anything to be gained by continuing to defile this corpse.

I’m inclined to think miquella genuinely is good, assuming their intentions are good as well. But even if you’re thinking purely strategically, what could be so powerful to make you give up everything? Either way I’m literally so excited

[simmeons]

Dorian: from the Tevinter Imperium, Dorian had an easy life due to the wealth. however, his father was going to use blood magic on Dorian to try and turn the man straight. doing this would've almost certainly crippled Dorian, so he ran away and joined the Inquisition. he's always sassy and quick with remarks. when compared to his father in the Fade, he replied; "Well, that was uncalled for." Dorian also often struggles with finding love outside of intimacy. when romancing him, he expressed his fear of the relationship simply being a fling.

The Iron Bull: The Iron Bull is a Qunari whom was quite close with the Qun. due to the actions of my Inquisitor (who i play as), we saved his team, The Chargers, from death- but that broke his loyalty to the Qun. now Bull is basically an outcast, yet he's still optimistic and is always there for my Inquisitor- providing a safe place for him. bonus points- Iron Bull supports trans rights/srs

Cole: Cole was a spirit who was in the Fade before he took on the body of a young man who was left for dead in a prison cell- forgotten and alone. the man starved to death, leaving for Cole to take his physical appearance. despite this, Cole is still both human and spirit- using his skills as an assassin to feel those in pain and give them a swift mercy killing. upon doing his personal quest, you can help him become more human or more spirit. either way, he will approve of your choice. (i made him more human because in the dlc he will get with a lady and he deserves that)

[kyrathor]

I played Outer Wilds recently, during a rough patch in life, and I absolutely love the game. I won't spoil anything that isn't immediately obvious from the steam description, don't worry. I love the whole world, each planet with it's own system of things, places to explore, everything. Sometimes there are people you can talk to, other times you're finding something left behind by someone else. And of course, stuff runs on a cycle, areas change or become inaccessible as each cycle progresses until the loop resets. The game is somewhere between space accuracy and an almost fantasy game type physics, and I love it. It's a sweet spot that I think the game hits very well.

And I want more of it. I don't even necessarily need the time loop aspect, but I absolutely adore the casual story exploration with very little consequences. I want to explore a crafted world, or a solar system, or whatever, that has a story that you find piecemeal and construct a bigger picture. Maybe it Would have an end goal, as Outer Wilds does, maybe it would just be to fill up a journal or come to a conclusion or something, or maybe it would just be to explore.

Outer Wilds is a game that I don't think I'll ever find anything quite like it ever again. After beating the game I discovered there are mods and desperately wanted more of what I'd just experienced. I wasn't completely disappointed, though not completely satisfied either.

These are the story mods (that I've played) that I enjoyed the most and think play the best with Outer Wilds as a game. They aren't perfect by any means, but a lot of care and effort was put into them, and I definitely recommend them.