#reddit is like when the game released at the moment

[zincbotted]

some people be saying the most batshit insane shit abt travis mcelroy

[commanderyes]

The Commander Says Goodbye

I’m not going to lie, I’m extremely anxious as i’m writing this, out of what these news could mean to a lot of people, and my heart feels heavy enough it could drop down my ribcage any minute from now and squish all my other organs. But I’ve been dancing around this topic for a long time now, and I think i’ve finally reached a point where i can’t ignore it anymore, for my own sake.

I hereby announce Commander Yes has come to an end.

As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, here and to many other people, when I began this comic all the way back in 2018 I was in a really bad, really low place in my life in every sense of the word, and it was a spur-of-the moment decision to cheer myself up, because Path of Fire had just released and my enjoyment of the game had reached fever pitch and I had been playing Guild Wars 2 alone since as far as launch, and none of my other friends had ever really gotten into it. I guess I just, dunno, cried out into the big maelstrom of the community, one voice amidst millions, because i wanted SOMEBODY to look at what i did and revel in the nerdery with me.

And somehow the snowball began to roll and people wanted more and more of what I could do, and I was being actively reached out to, and, well, some time after that I landed my first ever job, I discovered a lot of things about myself, and I found myself in communities that welcomed me with open arms, and many of the people in there have since become among the best friends I could’ve possibly encountered, kindred souls who i’ve shared joys and sorrows for many years and who I can’t imagine living without anymore.

And all the while I kept making the comics, and with every entry posted every week I’d keep having people stopping to comment on them, and whether they were dumb jokes or personal takes on the story, they’d all share how much what I do kept hitting them in the kokoro, and to this day whenever I play anywhere in the game I still get people who recognize me and thank me for doing what I do. It was wonderful, it IS wonderful, and seeing that response motivated me to keep going, because what did still mattered to people, out there.

But I did always say I planned to keep doing these comics until I ran out of energy for them, and I think i’ve finally reached that point.

Because ever since I actually landed that job I’m exhausted and sleep-deprived every other day, so much so that I only have time to work on the comic on saturdays and sundays, and it gets harder and harder to just sit and draw, and at that point it was just more work, and while I still enjoy and play Guild Wars 2 a lot, it no longer consumes my time and attention like I’ve used to and i’ve been having fun with more personal projects, and honestly the direction the story is taking these days does not sit right with me and it’s hard to find inspiration in that, and this might be borderline selfish but every year I find people care less and less about the comics and it really takes a hit to you motivation when hardly anybody responds after you’ve spent a whole weekend trying to squeeze a five-page comic out.

And, well, I have been doing these for six years straight, and I think that’s a good run. I’m tired, and ready to move on, at long last. Let it be someone else’s turn.

But that’s the beautiful thing about this community, isn’t it? Even if I’m hanging up the hat, there are a whole lot of fantastic artists out there, as we speak, still cranking out works of art, deserving of all the attention they can get. And think of all the artists yet to come! For every story that ends, another story is just about to begin!

The world keeps on spinning, one way or another.

I’ll be closing my patreon shortly after this, but the reddit archives and tumblr blog shall remain for people to browse whenever they feel like (or until they both go in flames, i guess, what social media isn’t about to these days)

I still don’t think I ever was that much of a big deal, but all the same, to everyone who’s ever supported me and helped me be the person I am right now, to everyone who’s been there from the beginning, to all the devs of this game that has captured us for nearly a decade now, to all my fellow players and artists out there

Thank you.

See you out there, fellow commanders. Still the stars find their way.

[pinkgy]

PB is fucking things up, but there's hope, and here's why

During the past hours i've gave different opinions about this whole mess that's going on with What in Hell is Bad, but this is my final opinion.

Please, don’t attack me for “justifying” PrettyBusy, because I’m not, I already expect bad reactions because of this post.

I decided to write this because moments ago I checked the game's Reddit page and well, i already knew that many people has been quitting the game for various reasons, like the constant bugs and the lack of new content, but within the past hours this number increased significantly and almost every player of What in Hell is Bad that has some kind of presence in social media related to the game has spoken up about this, and i'm glad this is happening. For change to happen people needs to speak up, but i think that by know, PrettyBusy already knows it. I talked about this in a reblog i did some weeks ago, but i'll say this again, PrettyBusy is a business, a small one, but a business, and they have and can keep track of many things that are going on in the game, and by now, they probably noticed that they are losing players even without having to check what's going on in different social medias, and my hypothesis is that there's some internal issue going on for them to have so many unfulfilled promises and so many things that are lacking in the game. But i don't mean to say that we should be considerate, that's something that's up to every singular person.

They know about what's going on, and if you ask me, i believe that by the end of the day we will have an update from them explaining everything, Prettybusy may be fucking up many things right now, but they are really receptive and i think many of us have noticed that with the past issues, the last one being when they deleted the mission that involved using Nightmare coins during the past Nightmare Pass when many of us started to complain about it, they had no need to fix that because it wasn't an impossible mission, really hard i must admit, but not impossible, but they still did and compensated us later. And no, i'm not excusing PrettyBusy, I’m just trying to see the positive side out of this. PrettyBusy is being greedy, not event the biggest dating games have 40$ cards, or even content that is worth that amount of money, and for a game that doesn't even have a year since it's release that is absolutely inconsiderate, my theory is that they noticed that those overly expensive cards were actually being sold by players so they thought that if they released others, the same would happen and the F2P players would just ignore it and keep playing, and they ended up making a mistake by saturating the game with paid content and neglecting those parts of the game that are actually important, the Main Story and the Organic Players. And surprisingly, this is a common mistake many companies do, but they usually end up fixing it, because at the end of the day, us, Organic Players of What in Hell is Bad are the best promotion for the game, or any game in question since this example can be used for many other situations, a singer can have the biggest billboards, the best music, the most expensive commercials, but the fans are always going to remain as the best promotion they could have EVER, and if they don't have fans, they won't be successful. And if me, a normal 19 year old college student can realize this, i'm sure a COMPANY, a BUSINESS, can definitely do it way better and quicker too. No game wants to lose players, yes, they're earning 40$ for selling those cards, but they’re losing waaaaay more by losing F2P players, and summarizing the last tho paragraphs, PrettyBusy needs us because we are money.

It makes me really sad to see many players lose interest in the game, and if any of you care, I'm not leaving, at least not for the time being, i know it sounds dumb to see the positive side of everything that's going on (Because it's definitely not positive at all) but i will keep doing it, I like the game but that doesn't mean I'm going to justify what PrettyBusy is doing, and I think that's a valid opinion.

To conclude this, I’m going to gaslight myself into thinking that PrettyBusy isn't dumb and they do know that what they're doing it's wrong, and they will search for a way to fix this as soon as possible, and if you think this is impossible, read again this post because that's the whole purpose of it. I hope I'm right, but if I'm not, then I’ll try to stay optimistic until they fuck it up again.

If you want to mail PrettyBusy complaining about this, I'm really glad you are! I'm working on a mail too, I recommend you read THIS post before you do it, and please, remain respectful.

Thank you so much for reading this long-ass post! I'll gladly accept any addition to this post or any comment, but please remain respectful, and remember, this is a personal opinion, I'm also a F2P player, and believe me when I say that I'm as mad as you are about this but I just have my own point of view of it.

[enden-k]

Just wanted to hear other people opinion about what they thought of the new storyline for wuwa.

(If you are unfamiliar with the old/cbt1 storyline drama here's a reddit post that explains the whole thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/WutheringWaves/s/YBEuZ7jhC5)

Long story short I have been hearing people saying they prefer the old storyline when in reality the old story wasn't perfect. Sure it had good moments but it doesn't make up the fact the Rover was still being disrespected even after all the quests they have done for the people.

Considering the fact that Kuro games had 6 months to rework the whole story before their release date it make sense why the story is rushed both in the main story and Yinlin story. There were things that felt like they could've explained better and revise here and there but there were moments where I didn't enjoy the mainstream (Scar, Jiyan and the Battle of Jinzhou were my favorite parts).

My biggest issue about this whole conversation is that people keep bringing up Genshin and HSR storyline. Now there is nothing against these two stories as they are quite in their own way but what I hate about this comparison is that Hoyoverse has a total of 8 games (one of them being a dating sim) so they have alot of experience in making lore meanwhile Kuro Games only has a total of 3 games. This is unfair comparison if you ask me.

Another issue that I have is that most of the lore that Genshin and HSR that you want to know about isn't main story but from the side quests. These sides are so long and info dumping that many players just skip through everything or don't play the quest (Aranana quest is a prime example)

Now I don't know how true this is but as of right now Kuro Games are still working on all the bugs and issues that players are facing but they are still hiring writers to help with the story. If this is true we might have to wait for awhile for the story to be more clearer and better.

But that just my opinion I love the game I think the story could use some work but the game just got released two weeks ago so it hard to decide what will happen next and how the story goes.

i dont have anything to add bc i share the same thoughts as you. the story is a little weak but all the things considered you just mentioned, i have patience and hopes it gets better (since some ppl just looooove comparing hoyo and kuro; gnshn wasnt perfect either, inazuma was a mess before they had better writing for sumeru and i dont even wanna start with what the fuck ever was the luofu story but they COOKED w penacony and belobog). some sections like scar and the final battle was pretty cool

anw im tired of ppl comparing gnshn/hsr w wuwa too thats why i just dont bother reading those comments or replying

[pinkomcranger]

Stubled upon your post about saga and it was a very interesting read. I have to say that i havent noticed mich racism, but thats mostly becuse i started avoiding gamming websites when the release date came.

I saw a few ppl on Reddit angry about the "white asshole" line. That line is weird but it makes sense in context. Shes at her absolute lowest, unable to resurface back and fight againts her self doubts. Shes spiraling! And alan did put her in there, kind of. While we can see in their interactions that she doesnt hate him or anything, her feelings of anger and sadness take over, making her lash out as someone rven though she knows its not really his fault. And as some said, it reflects racism of the real world and tells us soemthing about saga - that she experienced this kind of feeling before, implying greater history. And idk, just feels that it makes sense for a black charscter to agnowladge these issues.

i could be rambling but im typing this out on my phone, whoops!

The gaming bros were definitely the worst offenders of it, so you were smart to ignore the gaming websites. It's why I had such high hopes for tumblr and AO3 because I thought for sure Saga would be the most popular new character. Sucks that I was wrong.

The "another white asshole telling me what to do" line CAN seem out of left field, but at the same time, perfectly fits the narrative. Because up to that point, nobody was telling her what to do. The only person who could have immediately took himself out of that position.

At the point the line was uttered, she was at her lowest, like you said and it was evident she had been in that position before. It gave us another character trait in Saga and another hint at her backstory. Alan tried to play God with her life, however unintentionally and Saga had every right to be angry at him.

The fact that she DIDN'T hate him says so much about her, and it's all wonderful. She chose to forgive him. As a black woman, it made sense to reflect on that, however brief the moment was, and I appreciated it.

[rationalisms]

sorry to whack a wasp's nest, and i am prefacing all of this by saying that i enjoyed the game and think there are a lot of good aspects to it, but!

i am genuinely so sick of the way people talk about baldur's gate 3

i don't think it should have won game of the year

it's so, so irritating to see people claim over and over that bg3 is somehow groundbreaking for the genre or some sort of trailblazing star in a charred wasteland that has seen no good release since dragon age: origins. and like, it's not just idiots in the steam reviews and on reddit who are talking like this (though they are fucking everywhere on both. one of the highest rated posts on the bg3 sub for months was some dude literally going "i've never played a ttrpg or crpg and i believe bg3 is a game changer" fucking lol). it's also like. professional video game journalists and reviewers. a lot of them!

and like. dragon age: origins is really not a particularly good game compared to many of its contemporaries and i seriously do not understand the chokehold it has on people but that aside, since it was released we've had so many incredible and amazing crpgs that featured outstanding writing, game design, art direction, music, voice acting, etc. the pillars of eternity duology, underrail, the wasteland series, tyranny, atom, the shadowrun trilogy, the pathfinder duology, even the fucking games larian made before this, the divinity: original sin duology are all doing what bg3 did, and often better than bg3 does it. and that's not even getting into the many, many games that came out before either that still hold up as masterpieces that leave both bg3 and da:o in the dust like planescape: torment or fallout 1 and 2!

in fact, it's really easy to compare larian's previous game, divinity: original sin 2, to baldur's gate 3 because they are incredibly similar in many ways down to the inciting incident being almost a 1 to 1 copy (you wake up captured on a ship and realize you've been shackled in a way thay suppresses your powers and harms you and the first act is dedicated to finding others who this has happened to and getting rid of it). except that dos2 handles a lot of the things bg3 also contains a lot better, like e.g. companion story progression. (it's absolutely baffling to have story progression tied to rests especially when the game goes out of its way to instill fake urgency in the player that can very easily lead to them avoiding rests and makes especially many early game moments permanently missable if you don't happen to rest enough times at the right time. my karlach romance got bricked in my first playthrough for this reason. also compounding this is the fact that even on tactician the game is so easy that you can go ages without needing to rest organically.)

dos2 also unquestionably has the better combat experience because the system was designed specifically for the game and around the games capabilities and limitations, whereas bg3 had to contend with trying to make d&d 5e work in a video game format when that's patently not what it was designed for. the amount of changes larian had to make to the ruleset to make 5e work for a video game should have been a sign that using 5e was probably just not a good choice. (and ftr i felt the same about the game solasta which also uses 5e.) and even with the rule changes and the way larian went out of its way to buff the extremely underwhelming and underperforming 5e martials, character building and progression is still nowhere near as versatile and exciting as it was in dos2 or other crpgs and you still have a lot of empty level ups or repetitive gameplay because you can only put so many rhine stones on a turd.

let me be clear: i don't think bg3 is a bad game. again, i liked it! i think it has some instances of really good writing (mainly in companion narratives and side stories imo, the main story is underwhelming as whole). the voice acting performances are fantastic. larian tried their best to make non-linear problem solving possible in a lot of places which is neat (but also makes the lack of them in other places really obvious and more annoying than it otherwise would have been tbh lol.)

i just hate the way that bg3 is treated like some sort of gold standard when it stands on the shoulders of predecessors who are just as good, if not better, but who get ignored because they don't have fully mocapped and voice acted character models or a 3D camera. there seems to be this complete reticence from so many people to play games that still utilize things like an isometric pov, despite the fact that the games which do so are designed around this. e.g. pillars of eternity and the shadowrun games are some of the most beautiful, artistically impressive rpgs i have ever played and make full use of the isometric perspective in its fullest to create absolutely stunning environmental design which wouldn't have been possible with a rotating camera. just because a technology is older doesn't mean it is worse! people absolutely should get out of their comfort zone more because they are missing out on so many gems otherwise.

also re: bg3 winning game of the year specifically: look, here's why this gets me so tilted. on release? vast swathes of the game were legitimately unplayable. act 1 was mostly alright because it had 5 years to cook in early release with constant community feedback and bug reporting. this was absolutely not true for act 2 and 3. act 3 in particular was legitimately just not working for me (and multiple of my friends). i have a soupy gaming PC that can play other contemporary games on ultra settings just fine, and yet i got as few as 2 FPS and frankly ludicrous amount of stuttering and lag on even the lowest settings while my poor CPU sounded like she was preparing for space flight. it's clear that they just did not optimize later acts at all. they did eventually fix the memory leak issue somewhat in later patches, but the performance in act 3 is still markedly much worse than the rest of the game. (also why the fuck is it like 200GB good fucking g-d learn to compress your shit larian!) and that's not even getting into how many quests were bugged and as a result not able to be completed.

in summary: i paid 60 bucks for something that released in an unfinished state that put my hardware at risk. i spent a lot of money on a game i was unable to complete in the state that i bought it in and that took several months to get to an actually playable state for many people. that is not fucking acceptable.

i am willing to cut larian a lot more slack than i would say, e.g. bethesda, on releasing buggy and poorly optimized games. which is why i was willing to patiently wait for a performance patch to replay it. i am not, however, willing to accept handing something that was patently not finished and did not give customers the product they paid for an award for game of the year.

that's a symptom of an industry that has gotten too fucking comfortable releasing unfinished games and putting the onus of bug detection and quality testing on its paying userbase. that's not my job! i paid for this because i expect a product that has already successfully underwent this process! but apparently games these days don't need to bother with that anymore because it doesn't matter if it's playable on release or not, they can still get a coveted industry award for it anyway.

tl;dr: bg3 is literally fine but i am begging everyone on my hands and knees to broaden their horizons and also the things we deem to be acceptable from gaming companies nowadays are shocking. ok. i'm done. sorry.

[bumblebeerror]

I’ll admit my views of Dream are a lot more negative than positive.

I don’t love that he made MCC so competitive, but I get why he did. Speedrunner. Good at pvp. Etc. I still felt it was whiny and not in the spirit of a competition that aims to let the creators have fun (in that the intake form has things like “do you prefer sillies or sweaty” and each team has about an equal amount of both) but like. It wasn’t just him for that. I think MCC is much more fun without him and a few other very competitive people, and getting to see more range in creators is more enjoyable.

I think he’s a bit overhyped; but I’m not gonna cite Wilbur creating the manhunt idea or Minecraft but, it’s mostly just. I dunno, reflexes aren’t everything in this game. And someone being a builder or redstoner doesn’t mean they can’t win pvp, and I feel like he was very… derogatory, toward those types of players. The Grian twitlonger comes to mind.

I think he dropped the ball severely on his own server, and it impacted the lifetime of that story. I think rushing everyone to finish their stories and refusing to communicate is dick behavior, and I especially think that ignoring how the women and non-binaries on his server were treated by fans when a statement from him would have gone a long way is a bit of a dick move. I understand that ADHD can make you bad at communicating, but even support or information in private would have helped, or even an admission that he didn’t know.

I personally think the situation with QSMP, something Quackity was publicly working on for ages, and Dream’s spur of the moment half baked idea for something similar, was and is dumb. I think Tommy’s criticism of it was both funny and justified. Quackity wasn’t secretive about this server. Everyone knew it was coming for a while, and the only true surprise was Quackity having the language mod developed to release during the second week of the server. I think Dream’s meltdown about lack of communication is a little ridiculous all things considered. I do wish Quackity had been more able to curb his own audience away from harassment and stalking, and that Dream would take literally any responsibility for the way his own fans act as well. It’s not impossible to curb your community - if Techno could do it despite us all being notoriously feral (I.e. encouraging his community not to hate on squidkid or reminding us that roleplay is roleplay) then it’s not impossible to make a statement and calm the masses some. Dream’s relationship with his fans is very parasocial and I know he fosters that a lot. I feel it should come with some sense of responsibility. Just like Fit deserved to be called out for what he said about the one mod’s mobs, I think these criticisms are fair. (and watching the clip of Fit being told about the implications, I do think “it was a refrence” was meant to be an apology - it’s sorta just how he talks, but I get if people still dislike it. He has gotten more mindful about it moving forward and now won’t repeat a meme/joke unless he knows it’s not hateful, so he has changed behavior.)

I find him to be generally up his own ass, in other words. Which is whatever - it’s not a sin. I don’t like his stans and they are regularly a more intense type of toxic, but I also think most stans of any creator are insufferable. I mostly just dislike that Dream seems to encourage their behaviour much more. He’s young, and so is his audience.

I think his work with Technodad has been overall helpful especially when it comes to donations to the sarcoma foundation. I understand those who feel uncomfortable about it, and I hope you won’t lash out against Technodad for it. Mans has barely learned Reddit, let him be.

I don’t know what to say about the allegations. On one hand, it’s an awful thing to do and I feel for the victims, especially with having to deal with the stans harassing them for bringing evidence to light. I think the victims deserved far better treatment. I think Dream’s reputation would have been far more favorable if he had at least addressed the situation respectfully, and either owned up to the clear evidence or provided evidence of his own. On the other, I get that again, he’s young and people make mistakes. This does not mean I think his victims shouldn’t have come forward or that what he did was okay - only that I don’t think I was smart enough at 20 to handle sudden and intense fame either. In this case (unless I’ve missed it) it doesn’t seem like his messages actually went anywhere, which is a slight relief. I would feel better about it if he had handled it more seriously, because I’m unsure if he’s really learned anything from that situation besides that he can get away with about anything if he ignores it. As is, it feels unfinished on his end and I wish he would own up.

All that being said, I don’t claim to know much about the guy.

I’ve watched maybe two manhunts and seen a scattered few videos with him involved. I don’t enjoy his style much, it just feels kinda fake to me, idk.

Im not sure what my point really was, I mostly just wanted my thoughts in order.

[atamascolily]

There's a game I play as a writer that I call "Story Problems" -- I'll stop an episode or a movie halfway to three-quarters of the way through and try to sketch the ending I think the writers have in mind based on what I've seen thus far. Obviously, this is much easier with self-contained mysteries and ten-minute one-shot children's cartoons than extended dramas, but through regular practice, I've learned to pay attention to all the clues dropped in the exposition and how seemingly unrelated details are woven together into a coherent narrative whole.

Some people use the term "Chekhov's gun" for these hints, but I prefer "set-up and payoff". No matter what you call them, writing is essentially a sleight-of-hand performance, where the writer tell the audience exactly what they're going to do while simultaneously distracting them so that they're too busy focusing on other things to notice until the big reveal.

All this is a roundabout way of saying I've spent a lot of time thinking about the "story problem" represented by Walpurgis no Kaiten and how it might unfold.

First and most importantly, why bring Walpurgisnacht back in the first place? What role can a seemingly defeated witch (however mysterious) have in PMMM going forward? What are we, the audience, missing that would allow us to make sense of this? What in her story remains incomplete or unaddressed?

I sympathize with those who wanted Walpurgisnacht's nature to remain a mystery, but I think that ship sailed the moment SHAFT decided to bring her back for the sequel. If indeed Walpurgisnacht is returning--and why name the movie after her if she isn't?--then she must be somehow connected in some way to the main cast beyond her role in the original series as the Final Boss, or else why even bother?

(Seriously, if SHAFT wanted Walpurgisnacht's presence to be a surprise, they could have titled the movie literally ANYTHING else, but they didn't. That was a deliberate choice on their part, so I not only assume that Walpurgisnacht must be important somehow--central, even--but the big twist is not THAT she returns, but HOW and WHY.)

Cut to several years of radio silence after the initial announcement, giving me plenty of time to think. One night in the fall of 2022, the following conversation played out in my head unprompted:

Brain: Hahahaha, you know what, I bet they're really going with the whole 'Homura is Walpurgisnacht' twist after all! "L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace", and all that. Plus, can you imagine how angry this will make people on Reddit? Me: Okay, but why are you telling me this NOW?

Brain:

Me: crying You sick son of a bitch.

To be fair, improbable plot summaries have something of a history in this franchise--if I were to travel back to 2012 and tell people that Homura becomes a witch and traps everyone in her labyrinth and then turns into the Devil, I don't think many people would have believed THAT either until it played out in front of them. But this one was particularly disheartening because the "Homura is Walpurgisnacht" theory*--which was initially popular when the series was released--was seemingly discredited in Rebellion with the appearance of Homura's witch Homulilly. To say otherwise was going to be one hell of a hard sell for a lot of people.

(*I know, I know, I know, Walpurgisnacht is a composite super-witch made of multiple entities, but I need a shorthand way of describing it, even if it's not as technically accurate, so bear with me here.)

But even though my assertion seemed counterintuitive on the surface, I was convinced that it would eventually prove to be the case for several reasons:

1) Another game I like to play as a writer is called "The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen" (alternate title: "Put That Character In A Situation"). Essentially, I try to imagine what would hurt/challenge the characters the most for maximum drama or effect, and then I make it happen. Based on Homura's history and her relationship with Walpurgisnacht, what would be the worst thing that could possibly happen re: Walpurgisnacht's return?

Well, given how much Homura has invested in protecting Madoka from this witch--from reliving the same month hundreds of times over to becoming the self-proclaimed embodiment of evil just to make a world where Madoka could be happy--the worst thing that could happen to Homura would be that she discovers that everything she's done, all that she's fought and sacrificed for, has led directly to the one thing she's been trying to prevent this whole time: the (re?)creation of Walpurgisnacht herself.

In other words, this tweet:

I mentioned my theory to someone recently, and their response (paraphrased) was that they felt the original series had already covered this particular form of dramatic irony and they hoped WnK would go in a different direction. Fair enough, but this is a series that thrives on revisiting the same scenes from different angles, to the point of a shot-for-shot remake of Madoka with her family at the beginning of Rebellion to mirror the original series! So just because they've done similar things before doesn't mean it's necessarily off the table in the future--to me, that makes it even more likely, actually. And frankly, I think some amount of revisiting the past was inevitable the moment SHAFT decided they were bringing Walpurgisnacht back in the first place.

Given PMMM's obsession with cycles and repetition, I'd go one step further and make it worse: not only are Homura's actions what bring Walpurgisnacht back, these same actions are what lead to all the Walpurgisnachts in the past, so that Homura created the very monster who killed Madoka and caused Homura herself to become a magical girl in the first place. Essentially, Homura becomes her own ancestor in a massive time loop/bootstrap paradox with no beginning and no end (or at least, that's how it seems at first--I doubt that's where the story TRULY ends, though it would make for one hell of a cliffhanger).

It would be bad enough if Homura directly or indirectly created Walpurgisnacht AND created a time loop, but you know what would make the situation EVEN WORSE? What if the enemy that Homura had been fighting for so long wasn't some other external force outside of her, but her own SELF-- if Homura not only created her own enemy, but also WAS that enemy, too, becoming the thing she feared and hated the most? I've talked in my previous posts about how PMMM excels at making the metaphorical literal, as well as its proclivity for turning characters into their opposites, so this would be a logical next step in that direction.

Given that Gen Urobuchi's nickname is "the Urobutcher", I think it's safe to say he knows how to make characters suffer. Thus, I'd be deeply surprised if he doesn't play the same game that I do--and if so, he might draw similar conclusions to the ones I've outlined above.

2) A major twist in every installment thus far has been that Homura is not who or what we think she is--first a time traveler, then a witch, then the Devil. If this pattern continues, what new revelations would surprise us about Homura? In order for the story to continue, it's likely that she must grow and change beyond her Devil persona--what might that look like? A transformation into the massive super-witch that was her enemy would certainly answer both questions and then some, although it may not be the answer people want.

(If nothing else, Homura will likely have at least one new outfit in Walpurgis no Kaiten so that SHAFT can sell the merchandise, lol.)

3) Not only do Homura's actions drive the plot of PMMM, the franchise is deeply concerned with her emotional life, and she is the center around which everything revolves (although this is not always immediately apparent due to the way each installment is structured). Thus, it's likely that Homura's relationship with Walpurgisnacht is both central to the plot and deeply personal--and what could be more personal than this?

4) In a show with excellent visual design, where every detail is selected with care, and usually means something (even if that meaning is not immediately apparent), there are far too many visual and narrative parallels between Homura and Walpurgisnacht to be a coincidence. Having the two be connected in this fashion would explain all of this in a concise and satisfying manner.

5) One of the things I admire about PMMM from a storytelling perspective is how efficient it is--every character and detail has a purpose, and nothing is wasted. Having Homura be/become Walpurgisnacht is not the ONLY way to establish a connection between them, but it is undeniably the simplest and the most efficient from a purely technical angle, as it only involves one character the audience already knows and cares about vs. adding an entirely new entity to the mix.

That was my answer to the story problem of "What is Walpurgis no Kaiten about?" in late 2022, based solely on the limited information available to me (i.e.m the title of the movie + everything that has come before). But while it seemed abundantly clear to me--almost inevitable--that Homura would somehow become Walpurgisnacht, I didn't have a good explanation for HOW this might come about beyond "timey-wimey reality-bending and/or multiverse shenanigans"--which, while adequate for my purposes, was not enough evidence to convince others of my argument, and so I let the matter rest.

Then the key visual dropped in September 2023, and I burst out laughing the instant I saw the second Homura, because I knew how SHAFT was going to solve the problem that had stumped me: one Homura would create/become Walpurgisnacht and the other would attempt to stop her (and probably fail, at least at first).

Homura is such a complex and multi-faceted character, I think it's a bit simplistic to say that one of the pair will be purely good and the other evil. Suffice to say there will be one Homura that we're rooting for (the one with ribbons) and one that we're probably not rooting for (the one with the headband) and leave it at that for now.

I'll freely admit that I still don't fully understand the mechanics of how and why there are two Homuras or how Walpurgisnacht arises from the actions of one or both of them, but I don't need to: everything we need to know is contained within the framing of that key visual. Homura will be the source of all her problems in this movie; that's all that matters. Everything else is details--delicious, to be sure, and I look forward to analyzing them in great detail, but the core (heh) conflict of the movie is already apparent.

Of course, you could make the argument that my original gut feeling was wrong because the second Homura doesn't "count" as Homura. To me, that's semantic hair-splitting--for my purposes, if she looks like Homura and is voiced by Chiwa Saito and retains all of Homura's powers, abilities, and associated symbolism, then she IS Homura in all the way that really matter, but I'm sure people can and will disagree with me on that. In the end, when it comes to PMMM, it's Homura all the way down--and I think Walpurgis no Kaiten will make that literal before the end.

(not gonna lie, the idea that all the Clara Dolls turn into Homuras too, so that Walpurgisnacht is made up of nothing but Homuras is pretty delicious--but so is the idea of the doppelganger Homura somehow hijacking or corrupting the Law of Cycles, which we know is full of witches, and turning it to her own ends. Or both, both is good, too!)

I know a lot of people hate the "Homura is Walpurgisnacht" theory, but I think it keeps popping up for a reason, and will continue to do so until Walpurgis no Kaiten finally gives us sufficient information to either make it canon or lay it to rest for good. Personally, I love the idea--as a quick browse through my "#vein of gold" tag will attest, I love when characters are forced to confront their shadow selves, their dark sides, and their doubles; I love when the call is coming from inside the house. For me, Homura becoming Walpurgisnacht wouldn't be cliche or boring, it would be a plot twist that would explain everything we've seen to date while simultaneously re-framing it, making it a Greek tragedy of incredible proportions. And a lot of people hated the whole "Homura becomes the Devil" twist when Rebellion came out, so why should Walpurgis no Kaiten be any different in this regard?

One of the things that I love about this franchise is that it's never been afraid to go big and bold and cosmic while simultaneously remaining deeply personal--and solidifying the connections between Homura and Walpurgisnacht would be all of those things at once and then some. I don't know why this particular idea has captured me, or why I feel so strongly about it, but in the end, I don't have any inside information, just an intuition that refuses to let go.

Ultimately, I suspect whether you like this theory or not comes down to whether you think the primary conflict of Madoka Magica is external (characters battling an enemy outside of themselves) or internal (characters battling an enemy within). My gut feeling is that Walpurgis no Kaiten will be an internal battle playing out on an external stage, essentially making this a "both/and" situation, and it will revisit many elements of both the original series and Rebellion while simultaneously breaking new ground.

It may well be that Urobuchi and SHAFT have a different answer to this particular story problem than the one I've outlined here--but if so, I can't see it. In the end, all I can do is imagine the story that I would write based on the clues I've been given, which may or may not be the same as the one they are planning. We'll find out if there's any truth at all to my intuitions or if I'm barking up the wrong tree when the movie finally comes out.

And hey, if I'm going to be wrong, I'd rather go out with a wild and crazy idea than playing it safe with some half-assed guessing. If I can't be right, I might as well be INTERESTING. And there's always fanfic to fall back on if the movie ends up going in a radically different direction and I still feel strongly about this by then.

[cherrybombrs]

do u have any wiz101 beginner tips!! i just started recently cause it's a very charming mmorpg but after the unicorn way quest it threw so much tutorial and gameplay mechanic at me and my little pea brain cannot keep up, any advice?

OK HIII for starters thank u for helping me realize i had asks turned off on da wiz blog... i've since fixed that so. that should be good now <3 ^_^

AS FOR BEGINNER TIPS... i played the very first arc YEARS ago like a year or two after wiz's first release. i played back in 2011 so everything is like a blur to me- and i do have like. TWO wizards that i made to start fresh with just to see like. how things changed and. YEAH. i see what u mean with how they just kind of throw u at the wolves once ur done with that section

unfortunately i dont have many tips in that regard just because the starting point of the game has changed SO much fundamentally from the time that i played, to now. but i could give u some small things that might make ur life a little easier???

edit: PLEASE ALSO CHECK ALL THE REBLOGS AND THE REPLIES FROM ALL THE LOVELY PEOPLE!!! THEY HAVE ADDED MORE THAN I COULD EVEN THINK TO REMEMBER THEY R THE REAL MVPS!!!!

find a friend who can trade u monstrous TC (treasure cards)!! they're additional spell cards you can add onto your deck that upon use get used up, but monstrous comes super in handy because they boost your damaging spells DMG by a big amount. it'll make the slough of early game much quicker.

WHILE UR DOING UR main scenario quests, look around at the side quest in the area!! i never did this growing up but it dawned on my now how crazy smart this is LOL a lot of side quests will be like "hey wizard go beat up these things for me pleaseeeee" and you can sync up ur quests along with ur sidequest and they'll both count. literally a win-win

the further u go on in the game, u should keep ur deck smaller- less spells means more likely to pull what u need in that moment means less prolonged battles that go on for longer than they need to. ALSO LEARN RESHUFFLE its a balance spell and you learn it in krokotopia. CORRECTION YOU LEARN IT IN COLOSSUS BLVD FROM MILDRED FARSEER (THANK YOU @/divine-deer!!!!) literally worlds most op spell in the game love it

there's some side content that the game throws at u randomly. iirc, theres grizzleheim starts at level 20 and then you keep getting called back there until u reach 45 (that's for wintertusk, highly recommend for that level!!) wysteria, lvl 25 i believe there's the underwater section in wizcity sewers in olde town aquilla (HIGHLY rec doing this for the sky iron hasta, that bad boy will carry you to lvl 100 LOL) and much much more. i know there's more but I'm literally forgetting because there's so many side worlds

when in doubt. just look up whatever you're dealing with and add reddit on the end. i don't like reddit but damnit those mfs have ALL the answers for literally anything

this is ALL i can rlly think of off the top of my head rn BUT if u ever have anymore questions my dms are always open as well as my ask box ^_^ i love wizzzzzz

[ghostoffuturespast]

hey ghostie i was gna get specific for the ask game but I wanna know *all* of it now, the acronyms, the full names, all of em! are they for cyberpunk or other fandoms? no matter how much there is to know, i wanna know! talking about an idea helps a lot, i speak from experience! thanks for the mention, ill get on the wip game soon, too! ❤️

WIP Game Here

Thank you for the ask! I appreciate it :) They are all Cyberpunk 2077 things lol. I’ve largely been a lurker in other fandoms until this one, and this is the first one that finally compelled me to make stuff and that I’ve had the bravery to share. Don’t have many snippets at the moment, all of what I have so far is already out there. Since you asked for all of them though, I shall dish and give you a bit of a peak behind the curtain on how all this got started…

(I’m sorry, this got very rambly.)

And def tag me when you do yours! I will come find you and your wips! 🧡

SIG - So It Goes

(The title is based off the radio song from the game that you can listen to on Morro Rock. Never officially released and credited to the fictional band Fingers and the Outlaws in the game. Officially sung by Ryan Kattner, the front singer of the band Man Man.)

SIG is my current V/River conspiracy theory long fic that I’m working on, and the project is coming up on its two year anniversary. It’s also my first fic. I’m hoping to wrap it up this spring so I can move on to other creative endeavors. There are a lot of art projects, fandom and non-fandom related, that I’ve held off on because of this and I miss those hobbies. I also feel like I’ve been missing out a lot in the writing corner of the fandom too because a lot of new writers have popped up on the scene since I started (back when there was still a monopoly on the tag, but that’s a different story) and everyone else seems to be having fun reading everyone else’s fics, except me… Reading’s complicated for me right now. Writing this had a lot of ups and downs, but overall I’ve loved telling this story, learned a lot, and I’m really proud of it!

I think most people get into fic writing for the ships, the romance, the smut, the processing of internalized trauma, a more satisfactory ending, weird niche interests… And don’t get me wrong there’s a lot of appeal with all that, and definitely those aspects in my own work. But this whole thing got started because of conspiracy theories. I fucking love mysteries and puzzles, so after playing the sun ending and then I spotting Mr. Blue Eyes on the balcony during the conclusion of Dream On, I just about lost my damn mind. I went down the rabbit hole, spent hours reading shards and messages in the game, combed reddit theory posts, and started picking up on all the hints and foreshadowing of something larger looming throughout the game.

I initially didn’t have any answers when I made the decision to start this fic (fuck, high probability I still don’t), it was largely me brainstorming and trying to figure out what kind of story I wanted to write. Seeing if I could even piece things together. But in the process of thinking all that through, I came up with this little theory. I thought it was pretty mind blowing at the time (still think it is) but it’s been my little secret since I got here and I’m very anxious to finally share it.

Most people probably would have just written a theory post and been done with it, but I decided to turn mine into a fan fic lol. Which may or not have been a mistake, we’ll see. This is either gonna be game changing or everyone is going to think it’s dumb and I’m gonna be wearing a dunce cap for the next fifty years.

River Ward. The other half of my reason for writing this fic. I actually wasn’t sure if I liked him at first, it took me a while to warm up to him. But the more I got to know him, the more I started to like him. The more he grew on me. He got hotter over time. Plus, I’ve got a fondness for detective characters and unusual coats, so I should’ve seen it coming.

River’s gotten a lot of flak from this fandom. People claim he’s boring. He’s a cop, so acab. Being unemployed and living in a trailer park with your sister, niece, and nephews isn’t a particularly redeeming quality. I don’t agree with most of those statements, but I do agree with the folks who do appreciate his character, that in terms of development, he absolutely got shafted in the game. This fic is also an attempt to rectify that.

For as underdeveloped as his story arc was, there’s a lot of nuance to his character that I think gets glossed over by the game and most people. We didn’t get much, but out of what we did get, it’s been interesting trying to piece a story together that’s in line with what we got. And I did mention earlier that I like puzzles.

I’ve noticed that a lot of folks tend to lean very hard into the cop aspect of his character, but as far as I’m concerned, River Ward doesn’t give a shit about the law. Conducting an off the record investigation, intimidating a confidential informant, illegally obtaining evidence, breaking into a restricted lab, committing arson for your ex so she can pass a medical exam, conducting another investigation after being suspended; those are not the actions of a man who holds the letter of the law above all else. Those are the actions of man who is determined to get to the bottom of things, and protect people, all while navigating a system that is anything but equitable or fair. They are the actions of a man who is willing to go above and beyond for the people he cares about, even to his own detriment. His own safety. For River Ward, it was never about the law, it’s about justice. And pursuing that sometimes involves breaking the rules.

River is also Pomo. Which is something that was only added in subsequent patches, heavily glossed over in the game, and is only disclosed if you choose to actually romance him. But he’s Indigenous. Native American. And yet he still made a conscious decision to join the NCPD. Given the historical participation by law enforcement and government institutions in North America, and around the world, in the cultural erasure and mass genocide of entire nations, tribes, and communities of people. And given the current state of issues regarding law and judicial enforcement on tribal lands, I think River's character is a rather poignant reflection. Of wanting to good, of wanting the world to be better, but being confined in systems that simply won't allow that. There's a billion other little details I could ramble on about, but his character had the capacity to walk a very fine line of complexities which the game never really did justice to.

Diversity and representation in media are important to me, and I want this fic to reflect that. Being bi-racial, I didn’t get very much of it growing up, so if I can provide representation, even in some small capacity, I think it’s better than nothing. And while I don’t know if I’m achieving that, well, shit if I’m not trying.

I wouldn’t say this story was really meant to be original, but rather to fill in the gaps on the story we got and for me to practice writing. Practice telling a story. CP2077 is a violent game set in a violent world. And I somehow managed to start writing a story that accidentally ended up being a love letter to aikido. (Much to my chagrin. It’s everywhere. In everything. I cannot escape it.) Aikido is a martial art that translates “to the way of peace” or “the path of harmony.” Yet again, another study in dichotomies. How can a martial art, an art form designed to inflict violence, be peaceful? Aikido is as much of a martial art as it is a philosophy. We train to practice and learn that philosophy.

One of the major themes I’m exploring in this fic series is the nature of violence. What it is, the forms it takes, how cyclical it is, that it is a relationship - violence requires your participation. So the question ends up being: how do you break cycles of violence when you live in a world where you are beholden to it? V and River are very much two characters that are caught up in cycles of violence. Will they find peace? I don’t know, but maybe they can find out together.

From The Top

(This one isn’t named after a song. I just decided to start from the beginning.)

From The Top is the VP project I started up last spring where I’ve been taking storyboard style photos of all the main missions. Plus whatever else I feel like. I take all of my photos on PS5 in vanilla photomode and randomly started snapping pictures just because. I did landscape photos, shared a few. Got a bit of nice feedback from people who cared to look and then started branching out. I eventually got to the point where I started a new playthrough for the sole purpose of snapping photos.

Taking VP is very different from writing for me. I don’t have to think about. I don’t agonize about making sure every tiny detail is just right, because for the most part I don’t have very much control It’s candid, intuitive, experimental, it’s straight up play. I simply wait for opportunities to present themselves and capture whatever I think looks or feels interesting to me. It’s easy for me to walk away from it if it doesn’t do well when I post. Unlike my writing, there’s no ego attached to it.

I’m getting to the tail end of this project, I still have a couple of the base game missions to get through, but I’d also like to do Phantom Liberty as well. Not sure what my VP career is going to look like after this, might go into soft retirement. But that’s okay.

NR - Night Running

(Named after Night Running by Cage the Elephant)

Is a sleeper wip that’s currently in the notes, brainstorming, and kitchen drawer phase. It’s part 2 of my Nothing Comes Before Night City series. So It Goes is part 1.

It takes a long time for me to mull over and ruminate on ideas, so this document is largely just a repository for notes and thoughts. Jamming the utensils in the drawer until I’m ready to organize them. I have a very broad idea of what I’d like to happen in this fic, key moments I’d like to hit, but there’s still a lot of refinement that needs to happen, and stories this involved require me outlining. I do already have a running set list of songs to draw from though.

Les Preludes

(Named after Les Preludes by Franz Liszt)

Another sleeper wip, also in the brainstorming phase. These are meant to be one-shots or short stories from the Nothing Comes Before Night City series. Moments I mentioned in the series, but can’t fit into the larger story. Character studies and background lore from V, River, Johnny, Jackie, a couple of OCs and whatever else I can think of.

I will probably start casually working on these after I finish SIG and while I’m outlining NR. I’d like the series to go in chronological order. Should be fun. And I think it’ll be good practice for being more concise. Unlike, this response...

If you stuck around for this TedTalk and made it all the way to the end, thank you! 👻

[fayesdiary]

Rhea for the "send me a character" w/ the "first impression, impression now, etc." ask game!

Cringefail pope my beloved💚

First impression

The days of 3H pre-release are long gone, but from what I remember I didn't think much of her beside her being another Mikoto archetype which I didn't have any interest in. (especially because this was back when I was still on Reddit and by extension the Fates Bad™ circlejerk)

Then I think I remember seeing a screenshot of an official tweet that went something like "fight/destroy the Church of Seiros in Fire Emblem Three Houses" (nevermind it happens in only one of the four routes and the most villainous one at that) so I was something like "welp. guess she's the villain of another Evil Religion™, whatever."

Impression now

fgdgdfgdfgdfgsdfgshfgifuhg

She's my favorite Fodlan character, something I never saw coming.

While I have my issues with how she's treated as a character (mainly being relegated to the red herring for Edelgard in Part 1 and the late Nabatean infodump only to then die in Part 2. You know, when she's not completely absent or treated as the scapedragon. In general she's treated with the "tell don't show" approach Fodlan writing loves) they are definitely mitigated by all the small details that make her so interesting. And while I find her lack of spotlight and moments where she shines at her best incredibly frustrating, I'll admit that digging beneath the surface and starting to see who she actually is as a person is quite fun in its own right.

She's a truly kindhearted, deeply flawed and quite cringe woman. Of course I love her.

Favorite moment

Funnily enough, her weed quest. Not just because the sheer concept of the pope indirectly giving weed to her students is hilarious, but because if you look closer you'll notice that every herb she gives seems to fit the specific students a bit too well to be a coincidence (for example Bernadetta's herb is said to give her the courage to strike a conversation, Marianne's gives her a more positive outlook on life and Ignatz's boosts his self-confidence).

This shows that while she feels unable to get close to the students on a deeper level, she's clearly paying enough attention to them to know the general things they struggle with and tries to secretly help them, and it's really sweet!

Idea for a story

I've been entertaining the idea of a Silver Snow rewrite (AKA a scenario where getting an A support with her changes the entire route instead of just the ending) where Rhea is rescued early and becomes the de-facto lord. Featuring character development where she finally starts to actually talk to the students and her loved ones, Dimitri in a secondary role because I think the dynamic between her and early-timeskip Dimitri, not to metion in a context where Edie's already dead, has some insane potential (also makes for a nice foil to CF).

Also changing from her requirement to survive from being A Rank with Byleth to being A rank with all of her support partners. AKA overcoming her fatal flaw allows her to not only survive, but live.

Basically her learning to stop compulsively keeping secrets, openly talk and get close to others again and rely on other people on a deeper level. You know, the good stuff!

Don't count on it ever actually getting written beyond a few posts though. I know my limits :(

Favorite relationship

Romantically with Catherine, platonically with Cyril!

Unpopular opinion

I mean, this is Rhea we're talking about.

Liking her to begin with and not treating her like she's responsible for everything wrong in Fodlan is already unpopular to begin with.

Also people severely overestimate the political power she actually has.

Favorite headcanon

As a joke headcanon: Rhea has been every single archbishop in the past as well, so to keep humanity from finding out she's a dragon she faked her death every few decades... in increasingly ridiculous ways.

It got to the point where the Seiros faithful believe the position of Archbishop is cursed, and whenever people act concerned about her because of it Rhea is grateful for it but at the same time is internally laughing her ass off.

[chrisgraves09]

Hey, have another one of my ramble posts cause I just wanna get this off my chest.

When I first got into FNaF when the fourth game released, I was growing interested into the community and what it was like. That’s when I started lurking both Tumblr & Reddit in late 2016 during Christmas time. That’s when I getting into drawing. By then in early to mid 2017, I began joining the Five Nights at Freddy’s subreddit and Discord server and just… wow, seeing an entire community full of great people showing their support and love to this franchise is just incredible.

I began getting involved with showing off my drawing and art of the FNaF characters and lemme tell you, it was really nice. So nice that it was when I began my Freddit Users Drawing series where I would draw almost every single member in the Five Nights at Freddy’s subreddit. I didn’t even wanted attention for that alone. I was just showing my appreciation and my thanks for being a part of the Five Nights at Freddy’s community. From 2017-early 2020 I’ll say were my best years of being in the FNaF community. Being able to be excited for new game entries, books, merchandise with the community was so good that I wish I could experience that phase once again.

But then in mid 2020, I started getting inactive on Reddit and only focusing on Discord. This ain’t a problem in of itself mostly because I was focusing on the FNaF fangames that were released like Five Nights at Sonic’s, Project Readjusted (😵‍💫), and many others. Not to mention my high school graduation happening. By then, Twitter took over and I have only lurked there until many years later.

2021 came in and the first FNaF related controversy started and it struck a blow in my head. People started fighting, distancing themselves from the franchise, and I’m just sitting there if it’ll affect me in someway. Thankfully (for the moment) it didn’t and I continue making FNaF art like usual. Then 2022 came up with the Pear tree, striking another blow to my heart. And THEN 2023 came up with there being several people being not so good people and the whole FNaF + situation, making me question more and more if this’ll become an ongoing issue. And what do you know it? This year has the goddamn Talbert Files thing happening and probably more coming. And this is supposed to be FNaF’s 10 year anniversary. Everyone is becoming increasingly pissed, fighting with one another, and even leaving the franchise as a whole.

I said it before on Twitter and I’ll say it here: This community has devolved into just bitching around for the sake of bitching around and both Twitter and Reddit are especially the case. FNaFTwitter is by far the most miserable side of the community and I mean it. The Freddit community has become so toxic that I’m becoming so ashamed to be apart of it now. It’s not the same Freddit I used to know. I was originally gonna do a third Freddit Users Drawing series last year to remind me of the good old days. But it seems like that ain’t happening anymore. This is just depressing to look at…

All of this controversy, drama, and turmoil this fanbase endured ever since 2021 has unfortunately changed my perspective, mood, and feelings toward any FNaF “fan” that chooses to be an asshole. It’s gotten to the point where I wanna dissociate myself from the community. Specifically FNaFTwitter, Freddit, and even several Discord servers. I’ve became conflicted day by day and week by week and if I really want to stay in this dumpster fire of a community and deal with this bullshit mess or maybe leave everything behind and go on my own terms. I really don’t know what to do. Maybe time will tell in the future, who knows?

Ok, I’m done rambling for now.

[theplumbobguide]

How to Make Your Game More Interesting:

you're so... ~interesting~

Intro: Hello all, Really quickly, I'd like to introduce myself. I have been playing the sims 2 since release when I was quite young, and still play 20 years later. In playing for 20 years, I have read the prima guides like they were the guides to my personal religion. I have deep dived into all the lore, and gone through more than a person who is not a dev should in this game. I've played too much. I've done too much. I also regularly peruse sims 2 subreddits, watch the sims 2 on youtube and generally seem to have made the sims 2 my life (writing this out, I'm feeling a little sad but... worth it). The main thing I see REGULARLY when reading comments and posts on reddit or the youtube comment section is that people generally don't know how to make their game interesting. Why? Well, it seems like generally people get very attached to their sims (same tbh) and don't want to cause chaos, or don't know how to cause chaos. My fun fact: I used to be just like you. Yes you, the person reading this is who is stuck in the loop of creating one perfect family after another and getting bored. I chronically made families of sims with the LTW of Fortune and Family who loved each other deeply, who had perfect A+ children, who succeeded in everything they did... sims who became stale. (how boring!) That was until I decided to use the skills I have learned through reading books, watching soap-opera-y shows, intense movies, and attempting to write my own novels to good use. This is where we come to part of what you came here for. Golden Rules: Rule #1. No good story has a main character who isn't flawed. Creating flawed sims is my main rule; if you had to leave this blog with one thing it's this: make flawed sims. Now, this doesn't mean all sims should be Romance sims or have a Romance secondary aspiration, but rather giving your sims "human qualities". Example: A sim with "anger issues", a sim who always chooses the wrong type of sims to date, a sim who is struggling with their sexuality, AN EVIL SIM. The list can go on. You can do this with your imagination and interactions in-game. You can also download wonderful mods like: Traits Project. This mod will help you create more dynamic sims without needing to think too much about it (OR thinking a lot about it, and adding the traits manually to really build your character). As you can see, there are tons of ways to create flawed sims. I ask you to be inspired by characters from the entertainment you enjoy consuming. You'd be surprised in how many little ways you can make a sim interesting and build a story around them. - A side note in this section: never underestimate a good "mid-life crisis". Quitting a job, gambling addiction, a new romantic interest, shopping addiction, arguing with a partner etc. The possibilities are endless. Rule #2. When in doubt, don't be afraid to take a sim out. No, I don't mean for a night out on the town... Here's the thing, sometimes your sim rolls boring wants regularly, seems to serve little to no purpose, and gives you the general feeling that there isn't much going on behind those pixelated eyes. Regardless of whether or not you like the sim you're thinking of in this moment, it's time to use them to drive the plot or create character development for your other playables. *Grim enters stage left* Never underestimate the storytelling tool that involves making your sim a ghost. Now, with that being said - we all enjoy occasionally letting the intrusive thoughts win when it comes to introducing your sim to the grim reaper; but we can't forget one of the main rules in storytelling plot drivers. You cannot off a character "just because". We must have reason, and this is where we can get really creative. Maybe your sim secretly really dislikes their so-called "perfect life". Maybe they just happen to hike in the desert, during the summer, with their needs really low... Maybe they fall asleep while making family dinner... MAYBE they take a little nightly swim while tired and seem to forget where that pesky pool ladder went.

There are tons of ways you can use these ideas and use it to drive your plot forward. Subjecting their loved ones to the reprocussions of their loss. It is here that I can't fail to mention that while random death can be important; as well as heart breaking. Here are a few ways I make random death possible in my game that I think are great: - Death By Childbirth - More Dangerous Fire - Real Sickness

The big thing I would like to reiterate, is to make sure that if it is not random, and completely your choice as the player, either send them off to the simulated great beyond for passion or pleasure. *Passion would be to move a plot forward, cause chaos, create a character arc for a sim or family, etc. *Pleasure would be just because it makes you happy to have more graves in your cemetary. you're a tad evil aren't you, you little minx. Rule #3. You Can't Always Get What You Want... but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find *you get what you need* Now, as you might have guessed: I am a semi-wants based player. You may be wondering "what that means?" What that means indeed, little friend. Semi-Wants Based Playstyle essentially boils down to: I try to achive almost everything my sim wants to do - but only if I like it for them. Also, sometimes your sim may not "want" something per se, but you've decided that you want to do it and don't want to wait for them to tell you they want to do it. This means, if my family sim decides that maybe they are more or just as attracted to their neighbour as they are their spouse and run a want to flirt with them... we may ruin a marriage or keep a deep dark secret, OR I will feel like it is too far out of left field for this particular sim and chose to ignore it completely. I go off ~vibes~ and suggest you try that too. Story time: I have the "Death by Childbirth" mod in my game. Two of my sims that we're romance sims lived together as a polyamourous couple sharing the sims they brought home. One day the female and male sims did an autonomous woohoo (thank you ACR), and fell pregnant wups. During that pregnancy, though, I noticed them be cute and close and... not have wants for other sims? I thought it was interesting and intended to maybe make them secondary family sims... until my female sim died during childbirth. Now, I could have gone two ways: 1. let the game be as it was and have the male sim be a single dad, or 2. use some cheats and get the resurrect o nomitron. The female sim who died was in the paranormal career, so I figured "why not! DO IT FOR THE PLOT." I resurrected her and decided that both sims underwent such a significant change that they may have also changed their outlooks on life, and changed their LTW. However, I always made it part of their story that while at first things would be good... at one point they would begin to feel like maybe family life wasn't really what they wanted or thought it would be. 3 children later (he wanted it), my female sim is going stir crazy; just wants to make friends and go to work and find the *more* that she knows is out there; my male sim is feeling very alone and like his wife isn't really there for him and his eye is beginning to wander... Who knows what will happen. What I'm trying to (and hopefully) get at here is this: The sims is YOUR game. Your sandbox. While it is fun to create chaos for chaos' sake, don't be afraid to do what YOU want. That's what makes the game enjoyable overall. So yes, maybe something bad happens to a sim, you have the complete ability to turn it around, as long as it what? Say it with me kids: "PrOgReSsEs ThE pLoT." That is what makes interesting gameplay/storytelling. you can really tell my creative writing teachers drilled something into my brain... but what was it? Rule #4. Jump Around! I know not everyone is a rotational player, nor is playing rotationally for everyone. I do, of course, think it's great (however you do it). I don't think it's a *must* to enjoy the game, though. I do stand on the hill that believes that some amount of "changing it up" is important. Once again, everyone is different, so find what you need or speaks to you in this section; but here are some things I do to make sure that I don't get burnt out.

Part 1. "Traditional" Rotational Gameplay: I play for the full EA/Maxis length season (5 days) with each family. You can do more or less. I also play in a pretty regular rotation that only gets changed based on circumstance. For example, if the family breaks apart, the moved family gets played after the original family.

Part 2. I build and/or upgrade all my lots slowly. Whenever I get the itch or inspiration to build I run with it. I usually get the feeling when it's beginning to be necessary in my game. Sometimes you need a coffee shop for a date… then a restaurant… then you think: wow my sims can meet more people at a bar. I build based off my wants and my gameplay needs. With that being said, I also love making my own hoods and slowly building up the town are more sims join the rotations (kinda like a BACC, but not really).

Part 3. I am never opposed to moving sims into a different house/location or simply sending them off on a vacation. Maybe even making sure they leave the house for more mundane reasons. When was the last time you took your kid to the park, you monster? You'd be surprised on how refreshing it can be. Also, how realistic. Gone are the days where your sim lived in the same home from College to Elderhood. Gone are the days where your sim never used their vacation days. Gone are they days where your sim only ever knew the four walls you built around them. Hopefully with doors and windows... but maybe not.. Rule #5. Remember Who You Are, SIMba. Keep in mind that the sims truly is your game. Your imagination. Your little world. You can make it as perfect or as chaotic as you want. As someone who's roots are in "the perfect sim/family" type gameplay, I always allow at least 1 if not 2-3 families who fit that bill somehow, to keep my little heart happy. (Another great idea for you comes from the movie "Don't Worry Darling": think of a town where everything is the 1950's vision of perfect - but everyone *is* happy... until... and fill in the blank as you go.) I digress, you can try out any/all these rules. You can even take inspiration from my game or ideas I layed out in this first ever post here, but at the end of the day, you will always be you. The Sims will always be your game. Don't be afraid to try things, don't be afraid to be your real and truest self. For some of you that means a town of insane sims wearing chicken costumes, and for others that might be trying to actually create the perfect town/family (I challenge you to make sure they have not 1 bad memory). Either way, and all the ways, I hope that this post at the least gave you joy and at the best gave you inspiration. More to come in the future! Have an exellent day, meaghanplumbob xox

[brunette-crisis]

I’m going to start writing as a way to release energy. I don’t know how it will do or tags to use, but I hope you enjoy it and it turns you on.

Lately I fantasize about being made of shadow able to drift through solid objects and make myself part of the shadow at will. This is a short story inspired by that.

If you have suggestions for specific kinks/genders/dynamics that you would like represented let me know and I will feature it. The Shadow can fulfill your darkest and filthiest desires and I would love to use my energy to put them to the page for you. I used red to emphasize words as triggers for some kinks but also to help keep you reading (tik tok subway surfer ass generation) (don’t take it personally I literally do the same thing and listen to Reddit stories while I play video games and scroll.)

This is inspired by many of my own kinks for both receiving and taking. I tried to keep both charachters gender neutral and heavily open to interpretation so that you could insert yourself directly in. That being said it may not be perfect. Thank you for your time reading.

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The Shadow: Chapter 1

One night as you sleep, you awake feeling uncomfortable in your room. You aren’t really sure what’s going on. It’s your room. The safe place it’s always been. The doors are locked. The windows shut. Your noise machine hums softly. Just a dream you suppose. As you lazily close your eyes sleep starts to overtake you, you take a deep breath.

Just as you exhale arms shoots out from the darkness clamping down over your mouth and throat. You don’t even scream. What’s happening? This CAN’T happen. Not to your Not in this room. It’s safe. It always has been. Nobody can get in. Nothing can hurt you here.

The shadows growl at you to keep your mouth shut if you want to survive, tightening its grip to show its threats carry weight. You don’t know what’s happening or who is threatening you, but in that moment you realize this thing WILL kill you and finish with your corpse if it has to. You are nothing before it. Not a boy. Not a girl. An object. A thing to be used and discarded when it no longer serves.

Just as you begin to run out of air the shadows grips lesson, allowing you to desperately choke for air, only to have your throat and mouth stuffed by darkness and shadow. Your brain tells you it’s a cock, because that’s the only thing that has been forced in your dumb whore mouth before. But it isn’t really.

If you had the bravery to look upon your attacker, you would see no shaft pumping in and out. No balls slapping again your chin with every thrust. Only cold shadow. The absolute darkness of the void dripping, condensing, and congealing with your spit, dripping down your mouth.

You feel it thrust, but the darkness. It’s too much. It’s all encompassing. It forces and retreats from the depths of your throat with a steady and unyielding pace. Your mouth is completely stuffed with shadow, like a child trying to fit marshmallows in their mouth. You always did win at that game.

You don’t know how long it thrusts. Between the gasps of air through your nose, the ethereal tendrils of darkness lick up and down your body, leaving and soft warm trail that lingers briefly before dissolving into your body. If you could see in the absolute darkness. You could see these tendrils did not move randomly, but carefully tattooed strange patterns and designs across your chest, neck, shoulders, rear, and at the entrance of each of your holes.

The shadow lets loose a cry of approval, praising you for your obedience and submission, claiming no human has ever submitted so quickly and so completly to its touch. It taunts you, reveling in your loss of trust in your own space. You hear a beastial roar that somehow fulls only your ears and a wave of darkness fills you. Its warmth fills you just like any wave of seed, yet it extends to your entire body. Its warmth is so surprising you begin to weep. Nothing makes sense anymore and you can help but notice that you want this shadow more. You want its darkness touching every inch of your skin.

The joy of its warmth is replaced with the icy cold of normal. After its warmth pulses your skin returns to a regular temperature, yet is icy cold. With dread you wonder if you might ever feel the warmth again. This darkness has spoiled you. Little do you know just how many ways it has. From the darkness something whispers, “Do not worry my child. I will see you tomorrow. And the next night. And the next. There is no escape now.

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I wrote this in bed while I couldn’t sleep, never sure what I wanted to write but just letting my fingers fly over the keyboard. Lots of potential story threads popped in my mind for future chapters.

If I learned anything it’s that I like to provide. I think I have at least decent writing skills and the imagination to create vast complex narratives. This is a creative writing experiment to explore that. I think?

[calder]

"Some Tips for Exploring Skyline Valley"

Head to the lookout towers early! There's three of them in the region, and with the exception of one location (which I'll explain how to find in a moment), they'll reveal every map marker in Skyline Valley.

To find the one location the towers won't reveal, head to Hawksbill Weather Station and go straight through the facility to the other end. If you do this, there should be an undiscovered location marker that will eventually pop up, leading you to Three Ponds.

Nuke the region. The Storm and ICBMs don't mix, and firing a nuke at any point in the region will lead to the bomb detonating well above the ground. This will release no radiation, create no flux flora and destroy no players or CAMPs, but it will kick off the newest nuke boss in the event Neurological Warfare.

During Neurological Warfare, you're fighting three bosses at once and they gain resistances as they are defeated, alongside more dangerous fodder enemies. It's best to try and keep all three at the same level of health during the fight so you aren't dealing with the tankier versions for long. Also, Adeline’s (the assaultron camp ally) buff is immensely helpful for this event.

During Neurological Warfare and Dangerous Pastimes, don't try to camp on any sort of generator-type structures. Those will electrocute you and give a massive accuracy debuff and damage over time.

Dangerous Pastimes was providing improved repair kits during the entire PTS cycle on every clear of the event. This may have changed between the last PTS and the update, but I doubt it did, so the event is likely a fantastic source of repair kits.

Speak to Alyssa at Vault 63's door after you finish the Vault 63 main questline. You'll be taken to the door at the very start of the quest, but if you can't find it again afterwards, fast travel to the Slocum Joe's and head towards Sutton. Alyssa just has some fun dialogue after you finish the quest, but its worth seeing.

Boost your perception when you're working with Craig. Each part of his tasks asks you to find a trinket near a corpse, and having high perception (up to 12 with the last body) gives you a hint as to what to look for and where.

There's a Pioneer Scout scavenger hunt started at Camp Liberty. The note gives you some instructions on how to find it, but if you want to skip to the end by going to the north of the river's spring on the right side of the region and finding the rotted stump between three rocks , you absolutely can.

Within Skyline Valley, there are locations that will always spawn an Ogua and a Sheepsquatch (note that the sheepsquatch is non-legendary, unlike every other sheepsquatch in the game). I won't say where these two spots are to avoid spoiling it, but they do exist if you ever want to just kill these cryptids for sport.

Overgrown and fanatics are coming to daily ops, and bringing the aquarium and foundry with them alongside new rewards. Overgrown will not appear outside of the aquarium and fanatics cannot appear outside of the foundry; additionally, no Appalachia enemies will be found in these locations (thank you Gilpo!).

Ticket to Revenge saw a last minute nerf today without a PTS update. It’s now a furious, fire rate and weightless railway rifle that still has the doubled ammo capacity and custom mothman skin. It’s still fairly potent due to being a railway rifle, but the effects are far worse than the prior bloodied, vats accuracy and critical fill version (furious really hurts, but its okay for enemies that'll survive more than ten shots). The devs said that apparently the change was to ensure it’d be in a good place for ‘future systems coming to the game,’ so apparently they were thinking of game balance here. The thing definitely was brutally powerful before (might've even been overpowered), but it’s a shame this change happened at the eleventh hour.

Edit: 13. There's a small shed on the outskirts of Dark Hallow Manor that requires a key. The key in question is inside the security office of Vault 63.

[puffmais]

I'm tired of all the negativity and unfairness that is happening regarding the ifylita series. The fact that this drama is undoubtedly the very best bl production we got this year, yet sh*tty things keep coming and as a fan I'm done already.

Let's start from when Bright and Nonkul said since the very beginning that they won't be doing any fanservice or sell any ship just for the sake of making the series popular. This? This was brilliant, and I totally applauded them, because great actors like them don't need to do any of those things just to be relevant or successful. But of course, there was a big part of the fandom that was upset about this, saying that they should do fanservice for the series to become even more popular and whatnot. Things here were already becoming agitated.

Then, all the solo interviews that Bright was getting, in which all the questions were about the ship, fanservice, not a single question about his future work, his upcoming projects, nothing. It all revolved around that topic to the point that he had to clarify it with his most serious expression about how he doesn't want to grow his career based on a ship. And a ship that we all know won't be ever real because we are all aware of Nonkul's real-life relationship. So, even if they sold a ship, what would be the point? Nonsensical.

And here I have to talk a little bit about Nonkul's love life. I'm happy for him, congratulations to the couple, and I wish you all the happiness in the world, but the fact that he talked about this in not one, but two events which he attended with Bright, in which his co-star had to leave just so he can keep answering all those questions about his personal relationship... that's a no from me. There is a time and place for everything, and even he said that he would answer those questions during solo events which is alright, but then he did it again and... no. I respect him as an actor, and as a person, but those actions were not right.

And even after seeing how Thai media treats Bright, as if he's not there, as if he didn't star in the series, as if he's not one of the main cast in the drama... and they just keep disrespecting him, writing awful articles about him, never putting focus on his acting career, it's like they're all plotting to go against him.

Then we got the happiest announcement which was the special episode's date we were all waiting for, finally something to celebrate, right? Well, almost. Yes, it's great, and I bet the whole fandom is partying, but the fact that after that announcement we found out that Nonkul's upcoming drama is set to be released the day after ifylita's special episode??? What is happening? As far as I know, that drama was supposed to be expected for next year, but right after the special episode, really? Nobody can't tell me that this is not all plotted, nothing here makes sense. And of course, this is not Nonkul's fault, he's not the one who decides when the series is released, but this is too much. I'm actually speechless because he has another series going on right now (The Office Games), and another one is going to be released like??? Never seen this before, it's like they are not giving time to the audience to enjoy his current projects, and we all know they want to release this drama right now because of their real-life relationship.

Another thing: the constant topic about Bright and Nonkul hating each other's guts, where did that come from? Who started this? I even talked about this with a few ifylita fans during a podcast because we couldn't believe the sh*t that people were saying. I read this here, on Twitter, on Reddit, on Instagram, on TikTok, it's everywhere. People are just writing bullsh*t everywhere, discouraging people from watching the drama, saying that the main actors can't stand each other, and can't even breathe the same air, are you all okay out there?? At which moment did the actors express rejection to the other one? When did they ever talk badly about the other? Perhaps you are all expecting them to be best friends or something, and maybe they are just co-workers and that's it. Even Bright said they only talk about work, and that's alright, they do not need to have the deepest bond out there. If you have never worked once in your life, you won't understand this: work-related relationships rarely end in friendships, maybe you keep talking with some people, but real friendship? Yes, that's pretty uncommon.

And let me tell you that if they did hate each other, then why is Nonkul always talking about a possible second season? Would you want to work once again with someone you supposedly hate? Please, start using your brains for once. These two actors respect and support each other, stop making up things, we have enough already.

I'm tired mentally, and I'm done, I'll keep spreading the ifylita love everywhere because it has become my favorite bl series, I'll keep supporting the actors, but I'll ignore all drama that will happen in the future, because it has been a month since the series ended, and we haven't had a single peaceful day, and it's too much. I've seen plenty of people on Twitter wishing and praying that bad things would stop, and they don't, so on my part I won't involve myself anymore. We don't deserve this, we all just wanted to enjoy a great drama, not be angry, sad, and frustrated every single day. That's it.