#so i guess my ideal game is all games in one lmao

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

(one of) my dream games is a super ultrarealistic city-building game and it's (ideally, though unrealistically) set in america or at least in major american cities.

and i mean extremely ultrarealistic. cities: skylines is like dumb as fuck arcade shit compared to what i want. it may as well be townscaper.

i want it to be detailed enough that it's used by actually irl city planners to simulate their building projects. i wanna be taking soil samples and hydrogeological surveys and flood risk assessments. and i want the regulations and zoning to be really complex and detailed.

and again, i want this to be set around real-life locations. there should be an option for "present day" mode where you start working with the city as it exists today or "historical" mode for some previous period in the city's history or "free play" more where it's just the blank slate terrain and no development.

and of course you gotta manage natural resources and tax revenue and population growth and population happiness and all that.

if you wanna make it ideal-ideal then there should also be a complex political/government angle too.

and ideal-ideal-ideal there should also be an army/military dimension as well. and actually you should be able to play as city, county, state, or federal governments. all simultaneously (although obviously these different governments should also be able to govern themselves automatically so you're not having to micromanage).

[nymphaerie]

GOD LOUISE REGAILIA MAKES ME SO FUCKING INSANE EVERY TIME I THINK ABOUT HER I FEEL LIKE IM GOING TO EXPLODE INTO A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. ITS JJUST LIKE. girls when they havce to kill their former selves in order to survive. girls when the self they take up in turn is constantly destroyed and remade in order to never be attached to one life. girls when the only way they know how to save themself is to lock themself away. girls when they’ve forsaken their home and in turn been forsaken by it. girls when theyre both the abandoner and the abandoned. girls when they think theyre the most sane completely normal one hundred percent hinged person in the world. girls when they already know they didn’t deserve what they went through but can’t imagine a world in which they can heal from it. girls when they won’t let themselves heal because they don’t know who they are without their hurt. because they killed that girl. and theyll keep killing her forever and ever and ever and pretend thats the same as healing her.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

Do you mean Katniss Everdeen?

The original tag was @susandsnell’s but I assumed it was about Katniss Everdeen.

At least personally, I don’t think her getting guilt tripped into marrying Peeta and having children with him is a fulfilling ending for her whatsoever. I guess unpopular opinion, but her feelings for him always read to me as more platonic and that the romantic angle was more being forced on her. And she literally starts out the series explicitly stating that she never wants children!

I understand the thematic thing Collins was trying to do, where by suggesting that Katniss feels safe enough to have children, it illustrates that the games are like well and truly over and they live in a society that’s safe for children now. But I don’t care lmao I don’t think the protagonist’s wants and desires need to be crushed in order to make that theme happen. In the first book we also see how resentful Katniss feels about being forced into the role of a caregiver, and just, nothing about her suggests that, after All That Trauma, she’s somehow going to be more amenable?

If Collins really needed to make that point end it with her be a fucking school teacher idk. Or give one of her few still living friends a kid and note that she’s feeling optimistic about it. The entire nuclear family set up just felt truly gross and forced on her to me— and the emphasis on how traumatized she still is just read to me like she’s all around unhappy with her life. Like obviously trauma does not magically go away but it truly felt like the book was sacrificing all chances of personal happiness for Katniss to make that ending happen.

And even then, if the execution was good, if it was completely believable that that is what happiness looks like for her by the end of the story, I still dislike it narratively. Why must marriage and a baby be the only way the story telegraphs success and happiness for its female protagonist?

If the main point is about the future of the children of Panem, Katniss is herself a child, the epilogue’s timeskip notwithstanding. Why isn’t it enough to focus on her security and future without making her a mother?

The white picket fence ending feels like an especially bizarre choice to me next to the way the series also presents Snow trying to force an idyllic narrative on her for the Capitol audience. Like consider the framing of the showy wedding dress and fake wedding planning, Peeta claiming that she’s pregnant to try to garner more audience and therefore donor sympathy, or even the propaganda video they try to film in the third book where they try to make her look glamorous and it entirely falls flat, and they end up doing a candid video instead. The narrative keeps making a point of how Katniss is idealized and romanticized in this very traditionally feminine way and how alien that feels to her. And then… the series ends with her framed in the exact same way?

But then, that’s always been my main problem with the Hunger Games in the first place. It’s far too enamored with the pageantry it’s also trying to critique, and it ends up undercutting its own purpose. So yeah, I guess, it isn’t surprising that the toothless series has a toothless ending but shfhff doesn’t mean I have to like it!

[vigilskeep]

oh what is your personal characterization of irving? i'm so interested on your take on him

this ask got sent after i answered another one, so i’ll start with what i said there: in many ways, irving and greagoir are the intended ideal of a first enchanter and knight-commander. world of thedas vol2 says: “it is a surprise to many that irving often credits knight-commander greagoir for his success as first enchanter. [...] though their friendship was never entirely without conflict, mutual respect and understanding resulted in a working partnership rarely seen in the circle leadership.” (i consider the first part a veiled joke at greagoir’s expense but that’s my very specific irving characterisation lmao.)

i think irving is clever before he is anything else. one of the things that separates the mage origin out from any other is that irving is making it happen. he is setting you up to be recruited by the grey wardens and succeeds no matter what you do. he talks you up to duncan, he sets you up to talk with duncan yourself, he’s aware of jowan’s secret relationship and his blood magic, and no matter what happens he completely handles the situation so he’s talking like he’s on the templars’ side and only grudgingly letting you go when he in fact planned it from the first. it’s mesmerising. i love it for him. that’s why he’s such a good first enchanter. that’s why he’s the guy who can be so trusted by the templars that on his word alone they will not annul a literally demon infested circle, even when he has been trapped in said demon infested circle. that’s why kinloch hold is the most lenient circle in thedas and you can find enchanters wandering the map by themselves with full circle permission. that’s why anders is alive. because irving is that good at his job. and because greagoir is the right blend of dutiful and not as smart as he is for him to be able to get away with it. this being my reasoning for guessing the above is maybe a veiled joke. irving credits greagoir for his own success because of what he has been able to get away with

that being said, irving is a very flawed man: he is so committed to the game he is playing, to scoring one against the templars and for his own side, that he’s forgotten part of his compassion for the mages under his care. some are protected, like anders and the mage warden, but others, like jowan and any other young mages so desperate and afraid they try blood magic, are sacrificed like pawns, thrown to the wolves for the safety of the whole. (although i do think it is remarkable that in the encounter irving designed, jowan manages to... miraculously disappear from a pre-arranged trap in the middle of the circle tower surrounded by templars. the chantry sister got sent to aeonar and the young mages got out free. like i’m just saying that’s convenient. things turned out pretty well for the mages, there. hmmm.)

so what does all that say for irving’s characterisation. how do i summarise a guy in one ask. uhhh i think he’s bitterly bitterly angry from a life spent under the control of the templars and he wants every win he can scrape away. i think he cares a lot abt the mages under his care but tends to do so specifically rather than for them all, because the sheer number of them (and the sheer number of them who will be lost, who he has seen lost year after year and has had to manage as tranquil or watch the templars kill) is simply exhausting. i think he’s capable of being funny in a sharp dry way with terrible gallows humour among his fellow senior enchanters and perhaps occasionally with his favoured students (possibly an influence on some of anders’ lines). i think he has high expectations of loyalty and ability from his fellow mages because he would expect no less from himself; the guy’s still forcing out the words to tell you to stop uldred after being tortured for who knows how long and then he’s complaining abt having to take the stairs down like a true old man. i think he arranged for the mage warden to become a grey warden partly because of the influence he believed his student might be able to hold if they proved themself on behalf of all mages, and partly because he just wanted them to be free

[quietbluejay]

Prince of Crows

atmospheric so i wonder will i get more of a grasp on Lion from this novella

this is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny good guys bad guys and explosions as far as the eye can see anyways looks like ADB is enjoying some purple prose huh how did Curze survive this he's been badly wounded by Lion, many, many times lion externally: fall lion internally: why won't you die???

you know what, considering i was sitting alone in the dark on my computer during my dnd game, i get it so there's 3 sets of red eyes glowing why is this so funny to me so from context we can gather that: -these 3 are night lords -possibly the only three that escaped a battle -battle started with ambush -opponents are dark angels

the other problem is figuring out who is in command of these clowns okay they have Curze and they're trying to treat him also it got mentioned that Sevatar sacrificed himself well surprise he's here

sevatar: well i guess we know how the raven guard felt sevatar: things are looking bad sevatar: i like you three the least dude 1: This is not the time for your sense of humour he's got a fun sense of humour, Sevatar, I see why people like him

so they want to regroup and strike back at the dark angels sevatar calls them idiots dude's also got style honestly i think maybe i just have a disconnect a lot of the time when it comes to ADB's writing like I feel like it should be emotionally affecting me more but it doesn't well the Black Legion books did more, also I should reread them at some point lol but i had the same experience with Betrayer it's still a good read though don't get me wrong as usual when i feel like i should be getting something from a book that I'm not, I go into overanalysis mode "i should be loving this, why don't i" anyways tldr he leaves his spear there, it's got a special effect, one of the three notices and goes for the door and the other two don't sevatar: you noticed so you get to live dude who noticed calls him insane

so Sevatar doesn't feel sorrow when he sees Curze in the apothecarion meanwhile he hears all his brothers, murderers, torturers, flayers etc weeping

yikes also apparently curze talks to the bodies!\ I like this guy Trez

dude hasn't slept in 2 weeks oh it's another chronic pain dude

eyes emoji

time to meet the new night lord command crew interesting bunch

lmao also owo what is up with the Raven Guard dude who switched sides after isstvan v?? gahh i keep wanting to read about isstvan v but it's in a bad book

click click aw man he really does care about curze

is this baby curze??

i think it is baby curze man like were they babies or young children when they came out of their pods i guess it varied??

the night haunter grapples with concupiscence:

owo

oh this is very interesting also another point in favour of the foiling of dorn and curze in that they both deny themselves personhood for the sake of a higher ideal

wow the emperor straight up blinded people lmao and thus Curze and Sevatar meet inside Curze's head

i dunno, I don't think well okay, Angron doesn't hate his legion he just doesn't care one way or the other about them

uh aren't space marine recruits children

ah man

he doesn't get it and there's no way for him to get it

DRAG HIM

i am kissing sevatar on the mouth do you know how long i have waited for SOMEONE, ANYONE in warhammer to give a speech like this and Sevatar is back in the real world and they're about to be attacked by the Dark Angels

XD also very interesting is the focus on servitors as lobotomized slaves in the POV of all the characters in this or well not focus but how it gets brought up multiple times everyone else in other works just sort of treats servitors as things interesting

you know what sevatar is a great character to throw at idw1

ah konrad is up and about

sevatar internally: sigismund doesn't have to deal with this shit

WOW HE CLUNG TO SIDE OF SPACE FIGHTER SHIP TO MAKE IT TO THE DA SHIP

incredible anyways finished it! very interesting

[anchoredarchangel]

thank you @anincompletelist for the tag on another new (to me) game ✨ you’re a gem.

how many works do you have on ao3?

eight!

what's your total ao3 word count?

142,413

what fandoms do you write for?

red, white and royal blue

top five fics by kudos:

Unsurprisingly, it’s the five parts of Alex’s POV of The Consequences. Actually surprisingly, this could double as one of the LEAST ideal reading orders possible, which is so fun tbh.

No Consequences (8.7k, E, Part 1) The Wait Before the Fall (57.5k, E, Part 5) Hope is a Five Alarm Fire (11.7k, E, Part 2) The Throne He Deserves (24.9k, E, Part 4) The Cosmos in His Palms (16.7k, E, Part 3)

do you respond to comments?

yes! people are always saying the loveliest things in there, I have to weep sentimentally back at them in return. it’s the circle of life.

what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

is it weird to pick your pwp as having the angstiest ending?? because my instinct is to say The Very Portrait of Temptation, just because it’s the most open-ended.

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I’ve gotta say The Wait Before the Fall. Even if picking the only actual ending feels like a convenient loophole.

do you get hate on fics?

I have been very lucky in that everyone has been very lovely, which is a relief because I am not built for the internet.

do you write smut?

I am but a humble porn peddler who dreamed too big.

craziest crossover:

never done a crossover, only a fusion of rwrb + the m&g universe as a vehicle to, you guessed it, peddle porn.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge!

have you ever had a fic translated?

nope!

have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not! but it seems like fun!

all time favorite ship?

I think firstprince is the winner here in that they actually got me to finish (and post!) something. A feat. 🤍

what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oof. i pretend I do not see anything stashed in the Anchor Vault at current. We’ll go with that.

what are your writing strengths?

i always try to set a scene to be so immersive that anyone reading feels like they’re seeing it just as clearly as I am — and its so gratifying anytime someone tells me I felt like I was right there with them. this also applies to what I refer to as my 4K porn visions. I also received such a touching compliment for my dialogue recently (if you’re seeing this, i adore you btw) so I’ll put that here too.

what are your writing weaknesses?

I have never been succinct in my life so I do not end sentences rationally (@celeritas2997 can attest to the No Consequences one-breath challenge). I think sometimes I use too many words for things, but then I don’t cut any of them and add more. I’m also bad at math, though that’s more of a tangential personal flaw. also, generating an actual plot.

thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I love this, especially when you have multilingual characters, but I would be way too worried about getting it wrong when I don’t speak the language.

first fandom you wrote in?

supernatural, lmao not that it ever saw the light of day!

favorite fic you've written:

I treat the entirety of The Consequences like my baby (which I foolishly cut into pieces because I don’t know anything about the internet or childcare) but I could not choose a favorite part of my baby and okay maybe this comparison is falling apart but you get it

I have been adrift in and out of here so I’m not sure who all has already played, but @firenati0n, you’re up!

and also, an open tag to all you lovely people who want to play! 🤍💫

[aether-friskets]

Why I Headcanon Waylon Park as a Trans Guy?

it came to me in a dream.

ok but jokes aside (well not entirely it DID actually originate because of a dream i had getting interrupted by a nonexistent video essay on the topic... dreams are weird man), i do want to try talking about my reasoning for this (although it's totally legit to hc a character as trans purely because you want to!! thats totally based also lol), because maybe it'd be interesting to hear the lens through which i saw this game? idk lol but i'm doing it anyway... below the cut in case it gets long

Ok immediate prefaces, A: i doubt this was actually the intended at all and i'm not trying to say it's canon, just saying why i read it that way :3 and B: this will probably be a rambling mess and I apologize, I'll try to make it somewhat make sense.

I guess I'll start with: a whole major thing of Outlast, is fighting to tear down this large corporation, that is like. the embodiment of shitty systems that exploit people (this post by bry mentions that general topic, although more focused on miles' angle). It's worth noting because, to me at least, fighting these sorts of systems really aligns with a lot of queer folks (and basically any group that gets fucked over by the system, which is most of them loll). There's like, this whole thing of Waylon seemingly fitting that image of the ideal typical man, with the wife and kids and a job, but he has to risk all of that to do what he feels is the right thing.

(Oh yeah, I guess quick tangent on that note. Yes I know in canon we literally see his dick lmao and also we know he has kids, which you might think would deter my hc here. but A: i already said ik it's probably not canon, i can still read into it regardless. B: intersex ppl exist. C: phalloplasty and other similar procedures exist. D: ppl can have kids in non-traditional way. so im prob not gonna cover that element of it more)

My brain hasn't been able to help but interpret his whole journey in a queer way, because i played it as a teenager still in the throes of understanding my identity and place in the world, so in the end this might not even make sense to anyone else. But, I'm trying to explain, so I'll continue to regardless.

I kind of saw it as Waylon hiding in the protection of an "ideal" life. On the surface he looks like he's in that American ideal family, but it's a subversion. He's only one of them because they think he is. Because he doesn't step out of line. Unlike Miles, who's more outspoken about issues, who seemingly has no one around him. He's treated as part of this "ideal" world, while working in the background to try and stop the exploitation and immoral acts going on.

When he's caught, when he's seen as something more complicated than first imagined, he's cast out. Lumped in with the same people being exploited by Murkoff already. He isn't "human" to them anymore. He's something else. Something they don't like.

Although the violence brought upon him is by the variants, it is still in part Murkoff's doing, since they fucked these people up via these experiments to a point of heightened violence and just generally ruining their lives more than they already had been by whatever they had done prior. That being said, they are still responsible for their own actions.

the stuff with Eddie is definitely the part that most resonated with me through this lens. I remember first playing it, and he scared me the most, for a lot of reasons. One of which being what he represented. He's The Groom. He wants someone to be his Bride, and you're it, even if you don't want that. As someone who's aroace AND already knew at that point that i wasn't a girl, this guy felt like a human embodiment of the pressures to fit what was expected of you. That one day, you'll be married and have kids. If you don't, then you're worthless.

But it's interesting especially, because Waylon IS married. He has kids already. He has that family. The difference is, in this hypothetical trans lens, he's not "really" in a traditional family. He's "pretending", as some might see it, because he's not "really one of them". Being Eddie's Bride is the situation that would've been expected of him, but he said "fuck that", and did his own thing.

Plus, like, with Eddie in particular, you will NEVER be what he wants. He will try to make his perfect bride, but you'll never be it. Even before Mount Massive, no one was what he wanted, judging by all the people he killed. He's a broken man desiring something but never liking his options.

Also just fucking. these lines from eddie make me lose my mind.

That part of you the world sees, they think it's perfect. As God intended. Even these idiots and lunatics see it. There's something special about you. On the surface. But when they look deeper, when anybody with eyes to see looks at what you truly are. That's why they don't trust you. You're not what you're meant to be. Not yet. This place can see into your mind. And the things you've done. Oh, they're a sin, darling.

like HELLO??

I know it's probably just Eddie rambling but it felt like he reached through the screen and grabbed me by the throat like.

Anyway in actual relation to my point. uh. Remember the thing I said about Waylon being a "fake" typical family? This kind of relates to that. Like, on the surface, he seems like he's got this perfect typical American family, he's "as God intended" (which. bro. i swear that exact phrase has been used against trans people so many times). But if you look closer, you'll realize there's more to it than that. Also like, going from the "as God intended" line to the thing about the things he's done being a sin, like hmmm. Maybe I'm reading into that too much, considering we know Eddie wants to make you into his Bride, so of course he's gonna think stuff like that. But still. It's a bit interesting to me.

Plus, it's interesting how, despite having a wife and kids, he's still more... feminized, I guess, than any other characters in this game. Both in the game itself, and within the fandom. Like, not just Eddie literally calling him a woman and trying to make him his bride, but also stuff like a variant near the beginning calling him a "pretty flower" before threatening him, Andrew (one of the staff) licking his face at the beginning of the game... A lot of violence and sexual-ish acts that are often directed at women in media. Even Frank, who I don't have as much to say about here, has some weirdly sexual undertones to his whole cannibalism thing.

This isn't entirely related but one part of the game that still sticks with me but I don't see mentioned as much, is near the beginning. Those guys stabbing the dead staff member. One of them remarks that "there are no observers here" and "do you think you're different? Something special?", which I think helps cement the whole idea that he's treated the same as the rest of people being exploited by Murkoff now. There's no turning back to that "ideal" life you were hiding in before. Hell, that's definitely reinforced more at the end of the game, when you choose to publish your footage, knowing Murkoff will come after you for it, and probably ruin your life. Maybe there's more interesting things to glean from that, but i thought they were interesting lines nonetheless.

anyway, overall I know this is probably just the ramblings of a trans/generally queer person reading WAY too much into a character that I happened to resonate with when i played the game, but i thought maybe it would be interesting for others to understand what would lead me to this conclusion? Anyway, that's all i've got on the subject right now, so I hope it was at least a little interesting.

[sssammich]

1 and 2 for character ask game for... Lena and Kara actually. Am curious.

lol me too let's see what comes out of my brain! im gonna assume 1 and 2 for each of them and not 1 and 2 respectively. oh well i love to type so here we go

kara:

Why do you like or dislike this character?

oh i love that she is actually so very flawed and a little terrible if i look at her character really closely. and i think that's what makes her so much more compelling to me. she's this superhero that's meant to uphold hope, help, and compassion for all and boy does she sometimes get it wrong! she gets cowardly about stuff, she gets impulsive about her decisions, she really is the punch first think later which, you know, has consequences. she's a caped contradiction of ideals and behaviors and i like that about her so much. like, i think her cowardice in revealing herself to lena and the fact that she'll face danger head-on without a second thought for her wellness and safety sometimes in the name of saving the world is two sides of the same coin. and i think that makes for such a complex character.

Favorite canon thing about this character?

she has terrible excuses like she's the worst liar? lmao funniest thing about her tbh! also it does crack me up when she puts her hands on her waist all the time

lena:

Why do you like or dislike this character?

well im not gonna lie to you, but i have a long and established record of loving and gravitating towards rich bitch brunettes with terrible family dynamics, arguably morally gray behaviors, high aptitude and/or social capital, and who are specifically emotionally constipated with otherwise good hearts. so, it was literally a forgone conclusion.

aside from those things, i like lena because she's unwavering in her efforts. she tries and she tries and she tries. so i mean, at this point, what's not to love about a character like that?

Favorite canon thing about this character?

oh there are many it's hard to pick just one tbh but i guess one that springs up to mind is that instead of exacting revenge with destruction and mass chaos, her fix of humanity was to heal them of pain LOL like girl ok

character ask meme

[lucabyte]

what would your ocs be as pokemon? or if you've already done that what would they be as bugsnax??

Oh I have never been asked this publicly before (for I have not been asked... anything publicly before this week LOL) but I don't know if you're prepared for how much I have thought about my ocs as pokemon or how much effort I am currently putting in to... Well. You'll see.

So. I have Thoughts.

Here are my thoughts (names quickly added for this to be understandable by anyone but me. But I've had this image made for quite some time)

(I love that regular wingull appears on here twice. It was kind of the only choice for both of them LOL.)

(also I like how this shows you who my brain considers In A Group with each other... hee hee)

So this is like.. The whole cast of MYMK lmao. Even down to background characters. These are like... PMD style pokemon assignments. I tried to balance "literally looks like them" with "has the right vibes, thematically". So you can see a couple thematic pairs of pokemon like the cherrims, meowstics and such. Then other fun picks like Charizard for Hainu, since he's a, well, hypebeast more than he is a person. Then, Markus and MacGuffin get Silvally and Type: Null for (wink) reasons.... And Miao is Marowak because don't even worry about it. Lupus is Lycanroc-Dusk because funny doggy shounen protagonist :)

Also there are ABSOLUTELY pokemon that fit Tabitha better than Persian does but I've been saying hes one of those since 2015 and I'm attatched to it now.....

The reason I went ahead and planned these out and finalised these recently though.... Is because I also assigned them all ideal ribbons/marks/pokeballs and am going to hunt them all! Right now I'm prioritising getting ones where the ribbons/balls necessitate getting them from gens 4-7, but they're all nearly done and are sitting in ultramoon while I grab the royal master ribbon for a few!

(Obviously I've named pokemon after OCs before but these will be The Definitive Guys... Until next gen inevitably introduces the perfect guy for someone lol. C'est la vie!)

I've got a couple more already in swsh and scvi (recently I caught Lazulite in swsh! Go Raid RNG!) but this is the big first step. As for how many other steps there are....

Don't.

Don't even worry about it.

Anyway! Most of the main characters have fully assigned "if they were a pokemon trainer" Rosters too with some lore. (Chrome does contests, All of Tabitha's pokemon have been gifted to him, Lupus has insane shiny luck, Ali Will Summon Giratina....)

Also! The Alighieri triplets map perfectly onto the shiny meowths! They were the first three I went out of my way to hunt back when I saw shiny G-Meowth and realised!!! Pink Yellow Blue!!! My little guys!!

And lastly the thing you almost certainly weren't asking was "what would your OCs look like if they were fakemon, but I also have that for, you guessed it, Chrome, Tabitha and Ali.

Now... As for bugsnax. I have not played bugsnax but I DO have a resident bugsnax fan... So I asked him out of curiosity and they Extremely Delivered. So, Courtesy of @thebrightesteyes....

(me, going on the wiki for the first time: WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE 112 BUGSNAX I THOUGHT THERE WERE LIKE. 20)

these things are cute i should play this game. i hear there's divorce.

Anyway I've been trying to rotate a PMD AU in my brain for some time now (purrgatorio lends itself well to it, obviously...) I wonder what I'd make the antagonist...

Also, of note. Ali (and their siblings) does actually have a canon favourite pokemon and opinion on pokemon because they're from a real-world setting. Thing is they are like, not a gamer. So...

Ali likes Dusknoir and Seviper because they saw them on trading cards as a kid and likes Hoopa Unbound because Ari showed them on pokemon go knowing they'd like the design. If they gamed though they'd LOVE Giratina but Hoopa would probably stay top spot.

Ari likes Raichu, Lurantis and Toucannon. (Gamer)

Avi likes Clefairy, Meloetta and Brionne. (The kind of person to seek out fanart and gifsets online to reblog)

[fereldanwench]

Questions for Writers

I was tagged by @corpocyborg! Thank you, bb!! ♡

Last book I read: I still haven't finished There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job Kikuko Tsumura I started back in January, lmao. Not for any reason other than I just haven't been in the right headspace to sit down and read for the past few months--What I have read of it is great, so hopefully, I can make the time to pick it up again.

Greatest literary inspirations: I like the female protags in Karin Slaughter novels, and I love Tanya Huff's Torin Kerr from her Confederation series--I'm sure they've inspired me on some level. Oh, and Phedre from Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books, too, although it's been ages since I read those. But I think most of my inspiration actually comes from other forms of media. I love the action babes of the late 90s/early 00s: Lara Croft is the number one inspo here, and pretty much all of Michael Turner's comic girls but especially Sara from Witchblade. And I think Better Call Saul is easily one of the best-written shows ever made--That's one I always go back to when I feel like I need to refill the inspo well.

Things in my current fandoms I want to read but I don't want to write: I have a confession: I usually only read a ton of fic when I first get into a fandom and I can't get enough and I just want to soak it all up, but after a certain point, I just don't have a lot of headspace for other people's stories. 😬 I feel bad about it sometimes, and it's not like I never read anything after that point, but 90% of the time, what I wanna write is what I wanna read. It's kind of a closed loop, I guess.

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: Well, I'm not at all deterred by being the only person interested in something I write, haha. One of my favorite one-shots I've ever written is between my Cousland and Hawke meeting briefly at Ostagar, and it's probably my least popular fic on AO3 by a big margin. But I do like deep-diving into my own OCs, and it generally is harder to get an audience for fic that doesn't have canon characters. Ain't gonna stop me, though!

You can recognize my writing by: Lots of pining and banter; obvious thesaurus abuse

My most controversial take (current fandom): Yeah, no, not gonna be sharing my actual most controversial takes, lmao.

But I do also love the Devil ending! I don't think there's one objectively "best" ending--What's good for one V isn't necessarily good for another--But for my Valerie, it suited her story the best. I love the poetry of her going back to Arasaka after getting fired by them, I love storming Arasaka Tower with Goro, I love the conflict with Johnny, I love making Goro confront how fucked up the Arasakas are, I love the possibilities of Mikoshi--The only way it would have been better for me is if this nixed idea had actually been put into action.

And I wish we could roleplay a V that is actually more "pro"-corpo in the game, especially if we had the corpo lifepath. Sticking it to the man is sexy and all, but I just love delving into characters that align themselves with shitty institutions and exploring different motivations (I personally like cynical pragmatism/self-preservation and delusional idealism) that lead a person there.

Top three favorite tropes: 1) Rivals to friends to lovers 2) Mutual pining 3) Forced proximity

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): Like, 0.5, lmao. I've been rereading and organizing my WIPS, so there's some effort being put in there, but I'm very much in one of my "ummmm, how do I even write fiction?" phases.

Share a random frustration: I have ZERO discipline when it comes to writing. I need to be in a fully feral, totally isolated from distractions place or I just can't get shit done. When I'm in the zone, I'm in the fuckin' zone, but I get like 3 months of that every 5 years, lmao.

Tagging (with no pressure, as always) @ur-friendly-nbhd-cardassian, @dread-red-queen, @vorchagirl, and @aceghosts <333

[insecateur]

What are your thoughts on what za's time period might be? I can't figure out if I'd prefer it to be past or future

i answered an ask kinda about this on the day of the announcement but here are my thoughts now that it's been a bit and i got to digest

i'm honestly starting to be more and more in the "both" camp tbh?? like the trailer involves a lumiose redevelopment plan or whatever which feels like "past" but the overall aesthetic is very futuristic which feels like "future". i feel like it would also kind of ties together nicely with scarvio also having that past and future theming to have both in one extra game?

i also got the TPC email for the game in french yesterday and i was struck by the phrasing (i didn't get the english one so no clue how they phrased it there.)

Une nouvelle aventure se profile à Illumis, où un plan de réaménagement urbain a été mis en œuvre pour faire de cette ville un lieu appartenant autant aux humains qu’aux Pokémon.

"A new adventure begins in Lumiose City, where a urban redevelopment plan has been put in place to make this city a place that belongs as much to humans as it does to Pokémon."

like, to me (and this is very likely overanalyzing don't get me wrong) the way it's phrased makes me feel like it's saying that (at the time the redevelopment plan was put in place) lumiose belonged more to pokémons than it did to humans, which feels like it's pointing toward the past. like maybe lumiose was originally built around pokémons with them in mind and then later was reworked into the state it's at in pokémon xy where it's clearly a city meant to be shared by both species. that was just my initial vibe tho, it might not mean anything.

something about the way it's framed (as i said to the anon before) still kind of strikes me as pointing toward it also being an attempt to actually gives us pokémon z at long last... so i guess my ideal at this point would be we follow two stories entirely in lumiose, one is in the past when they were reworking the city into being a safe haven for both humans and pokémons, one is in the near future after pokémon xy and maybe there are parallels there involving wrestling with the post-team flare stuff. THIS IS A VERY SELFISH WISH THO... LIKE IF I GOT CANONICAL POST-CANON CONTENT I WOULD PROBABLY DIE... tho it would make me sad altho bc it would make all my post-canon stuff would automatically be jossed lmao but whereas a few years ago i would have been wary of that possibility the way lysandre has been depicted in the likes of pokémas etc gives me hope idk. I Want To Believe.

however ! this is all very early rn and we have not much information about the game at all so i'm unwilling to theorize too much. i'm looking forward to having more elements soon...

[runningfrom2am]

23!

im with coryo on being glad that cole died. though, his thought process is always something else.

can i just say that i love how r’s requests are usually not material and it contrasts coryo’s attempts to cheer her up with all the things money can eventually buy. everything he lists is a part of the ideal he held up all his life, even if he couldn’t reach it he was sure that one day he would, compared to r’s first concerns being about tybs, his family and her adjustment.

ma plinth!! if she doesn’t have any fans, im dead. also it is a little too funny that so far she is the only person who understood r’s reference and her son is the one who is least likely to get it.

r’s like, we’re moving. why are we moving? holy shit we just teleported!!!

“He had liked that about the games, he knew where you were while you were caged up at the zoo and he could leave and come back with the comfort of knowing you would be there waiting for him.” there it is!! there’s my problematic fave!!

listen, i understand why grandma’am is the way she is only partially but i don’t even know what i would do in r’s place.

omg hiiii bestie i missed you sm!! i hope you’re doing good!!

1. yeahhhh i mean he’s got the right spirit i guess? lmao

2. it’s so bittersweet because he wants to cheer her up but he really doesn’t know what to offer besides the things he knows she (and him) never had but she just wants to be safe and comfortable 😢

3. Ma!! omg they’re gonna be such good friends and r will really really need her i think. she’s just the sweetest 🥹

4. HAHAH THE ELEVATORRR LIKE THAT WOULD BE SO SCARY

i grew up in a one elevator town and the reaction i had when i went to the big city to discover that escalators were a thing too?? oh my word i was so scared HAHAH

5. classic coryo 😤 (we love him)

6. personally, i would cry and throw up and then leave BUT SHE CANT DO THAT?? terrifying. i always get SO SCARED when i meet peoples grandparents that they’ll hate me but i’ve never had someone say anything like that.

[arkiwii]

For the ask game, AK 9 and and 17 + Saria/Silence 9, 16, and 18? I really love your art, so I'm curious which of your own art and fics are your favourites :D

This is from an ANCIENT ask game, I just straight up had this in my drafts and forgot about it LMAO I'll just reply to the two last asks about it, so don't ask more questions on this ask game so it's not confusing!

woaah many questions, and thank you a lot!!

9. Which character of Arknights should have interacted more in canon.

WELL! I already replied to both 9 and 17 in this post in fact, BUT I will use this as an excuse to talk about other blorbos with the question 9. how about mmm, every Catastrophe Messengers? Eyjafjalla did got a whole event about her, but I don't think we ever saw her doing her job as a Catastrophe Messenger, but more as a geologist. Provence and Skyfire really didn't shine a lot in Heart of Surging Flame, Leonhardt is pretty much absent, and Earthspirit and Tsukinogi, who? well to be fair Earthspirit did a good job in Vigilo. but the rest, well, huge shrug. I'm personally weak towards Leonhardt, because I enjoy Ayerscape a lot, and I think it would be really nice to have more of them in canon! Catastrophes are a huge part of Arknights, and yet we rarely get to experience them in the game. I'd love an event that is all about escaping a Catastrophe, with the Catastrophe Messengers involved! and Leon and Ayers relationship is pretty interesting, they're both huge dumbasses but they can't be without the other and trust each other a lot. I'd love to see a situation where Leon is a weak point and Ayers has to come to face that both need each other... my bad that's literally Ayers's Operator Record. well I don't care!! I need more of them anyway. give love to my bunnies!!

9. What is my ideal endgame for Saria and Silence.

in all honesty, Lone Trail was quite enough what I wanted. it's really bittersweet, but it did a good job with their dynamic and Silence alter's files give away what happened after the story. BUT, the only thing I'd love more is a conclusion, about just the two of them - where Saria is now weak and exposing her feelings, how much she has to carry, and Silence showing her that she's here for Saria, and that she's loved... ah, yes, the question, right

I can hardly imagine what could happen beyond what happened. they're reunited, and try to balance their professional and personal lives, trying to see Ifrit while having to get regularly absent... if I'm being a dumby lovey dovey, I'd say that my ideal is them being together and happy and free from their responsibilities and a family and yada yada. but I'm not, so something bittersweet and where they are bound to continue to fight, but all together and with each other, is perfect to me. all I ask is to give them a temporary break from time to time, but it's good enough to me!

16. Three of my fanfictions involving Saria/Silence, and which one I'm the most proud of.

mmmm I'll name Divorced lesbians and a creature for the first - and you will very much notice it's my first fanfiction with them... well my first Arknights fanfiction at all. my first fanfiction actually!! I wrote it in the plane and the writing is... probably bad! but it's not too annoying to reread it again, so I guess that's a win. I mostly picked this one, because, well, first work, and because it was made before Lone Trail. I think I did well in making it interesting, with the Musbeast echoing Ifrit, and how both are brought together and able to collaborate and communicate when it comes to saving a life. I don't remember if I went for the headcanon "they are exes" in this one, but it's a headcanon I no longer have honestly.

another one would be the chapter Nightmare, in my collection of one shots Grass and Rock. I love to write Saria's weaker side, and the idea that she's the one who is more affected by the past events is more interesting than if it was Silence. and most of all, the discussion they share is really sweet, I like how I explored Saria's feeling that she has to protect and be of use, or else she thinks she's not worth of being loved, and how Silence asks nothing from her but to know that she loves her and Ifrit. it's a nice story about insecurity and self love, and it's something that is deeply needed in Saria's character

and finally, the one I'll pick up as my favorite, Remission, which is a fanfiction I had the idea to write for MONTHS. I knew that Saria would be hurt after the events of Lone Trail (I got spoiled :( ), so I waited for so long for the event to drop so I could get the context and everything. it's my longest fanfiction, and even tho I was trying to not make it too much of a ship work, it's very much about Saria and Silence, so teehee I failed. but otherwise, I really am proud of the way I wrote it, the way Saria keeps looking at the sky, because she refuses to accept that Kristen is gone, and this line Silence tells her, "Look down Saria, there are still beautiful things to be seen on Terra." in reference to herself and Ifrit, and how she wishes for Saria to move on and stay at their side, where she could be loved back and heal. I rarely am proud of my own fanfictions, because I am not a huge writer and my difficulties with English make them not written very well, but I am proud of this one, yep!

18. Three of my artworks involving Saria/Silence, and which one I'm the most proud of.

aw hell nah, complimenting my art!! /silly

if I have to pick up three artworks, I'd say mmm this one, I had it in mind for a long while and I love to put bird headcanons into bird characters!! it's really important to me and precious.

this artwork is really good too, it's less a ship art, but family is important, and I'd love to do more pieces like this!

but if I have to pick the one I'm the most proud of, it'd be this one. not necessarily in terms of ideas but purely in terms of art. I rarely draw fullpieces nowadays, and even less full painted fullpieces, so it was nice to do one again, and it turned out good! I still have a lot to go to be frank, I'd love to achieve a level close to some artists I admire, but recently I've been extremely focused on human anatomy rather art techniques, I'm getting better at it!!

[queenburd]

stanley and the narrator and 432 are made to torture each other for eternity. the curator alone understands that the only way to break free of this cycle is not participating in it. the only way to beat the game is not to play.

I wouldn't use the word torture, if you can believe it. I cant really explain why, other than it feels more complex and self-oriented than that. They're not doing what they do with the explicit intent to hurt each other.

I guess one could argue that their opposing personalities are created by the devs to be in conflict with each other in a way that torments each character.... I think my brain is still rebooting after I fried it yesterday overanalyzing meta lmao.

it's true the curator has the benefit of disconnect from the rest of the game, so her belief is that the only way to beat the game is to stop running it. The issue is she relies solely on the player to be the responsible one to make that choice. (Madame Curator, I do not have that willpower. Sorry.)

It's.... aaa.

It's a conflict between story and game design. In stories, narrative foils are supposed to advance character growth by making characters acknowledge different perspectives, etc etc. they end with changed characters, who are not the same as when they started the story. that's the point.

games, of course, contain stories, and when you replay it all that character growth is "reset", and of course because it's a game with its own inworld logic, characters don't know. it's just a clean slate.

with TSP turning that on its head, making the audience aware that the characters do have that knowledge that the game resets progress, it makes us the players complicit.

In truth, Stanley wants freedom. The narrator want Stanley to be free, but he also wants to tell his story, and I don't think he INTENDED Stanley to become self aware and aware of the multiple endings and restarts, etc etc. I think he expected Stanley to be like a normal game protagonist, wiped clean, and it should be easy because Stanley is supposed to be a simple character.

432 on their part wants to keep the game functioning. He, like Stanley, became aware of his role of protagonist, but unlike Stanley, 432 doesn't want freedom. 432 wants the loops. Wants the eternity. They're right, the game is not a sacred thing that needs to be frozen in time. They want to play AND change.

They honestly would be the ideal protagonist for the narrator if he hadn't goofed it so bad. or if they didn't want to antagonize him so bad.

Im not sure where Im going with this. like I said, very tired.

but I think my own stubbornness is shouting "there has to be another option. there's always another way" to the idea that the only way to beat the game is to not play. i think my brain keeps going back to the idea that the game is meant to be loved by its audience, because in its self awareness, if it can know it's a loved thing, it knows it can be changed.

"to be loved is to be changed" "transformative nature of love" listen. listen.

I'm a sap.

[irrigos]

got really annoyed looking at twitter bc hannah did a thread about how shes dealing with the game releasing to "mostly negative" reviews on steam, and people were replying to the thread to tell her that they, too, did not like the game. like jesus christ guys. read the room

but my favorite of these little worms was someone replying to her thread to say that the problem was just due to the genre switch to visual novel, because visual novels are boring and nobody likes them

which like. first of all, incredibly rude thing to say to someone expressing sadness that her teams visual novel wasnt well-recieved (basically just going "hey cheer up! its just because it was never ever going to be good anyway!" i mean come ON man)

but also. deeply incorrect lmao. frankly i wish motr had been MORE boring. i think a good chunk of the problems with it are that its trying to shove too much Big Lore stuff into a game that ideally (imo) would be focused on actually forging bonds with the people who live in London. my favorite part of the game that ive played so far is Moss meeting May, but like... did May even need to be in this game? i feel like all that time and effort would have been better spent on establishing why griz or archie are supposedly in love with me, given i have only just met them.

idk i think when you boil it down, theres no amount of patches that will make it into the game i wanted, because fbg just had different priorities than the ones i wanted them to have. i wanted a fallen london visual novel to be about everyday peoples everyday lives, and about getting to know them and learning to care about them, but motr is really more of a tour of fallen london lore, with a short murder mystery slapped on top

...thinking about it, what i WANTED was a DATING SIM. but i guess thats on me! they said at the very start that it wasnt gonna be like those OTHER dating sims (because the romance stuff was gonna be so perfunctory that i was baffled as to why they bothered including it at all) so i guess its kind of on me, for hoping that was all just marketing and not taking them at their word

[blank-house]

Back at it again! Sorry that you have to put up with me 😵‍💫 But I keep collecting questions... I guess I'm going to become a regular :'))

This is going to sound too much like your typical kpop idol interview lol but does the cast have an ideal type? Or like, something that they look out for or really like when they're meeting someone?

As most of the players I loved the interactions with Cam and I'm sure this is me being delulu (the songs on the playlist... Some of them got me clearly wondering :>) but the reaction at the car when we tell them that they're hot it's completely platonic rightt? That reaction was everything, it was so cute! I get that there's people who like unrequited love trope but I hope they get their own "route" and that was merely a teasing :')

Okay, a dumb question because I think it was kind of foreshadowed in the demo lol Is Percy really the most romantic one? Wild guessing but Elio just seems so sweet to me! Jamie being so guarded too doesn't really help... I mean, who knows right? 👀 Actually doing a most to least about it has to be very subjective, sorry that I'm always going near spoilers 😅

As always, thanks! Seeing such detailed answers for all of the questions really makes my day ❤️

Lmao no need to apologize. I’m happy to keep answering especially since I know know it makes your day. Hopefully others also enjoy learning more about the cast! ^^

But onto the questions!

I’m so sorry but I definitely can’t answer the first one. Good news is that it’s in the extended demo! Bad news, you gotta wait. DJFHRHEHEHRHD it’s literally a focal point in one of the events but I promise to satisfy your curiosity there. 🙏

- - - - -

Regarding the Cameron Q, yeahhhh it’s strictly platonic. Sorry Cameron enjoyers! We did muse over an eventual friend route where you get to romance Cam and Deja, but since we’ve got our hands full with the guys it’s definitely a “after the entire game is finished” idea. But right now, there’s nothing in the works for it. Sorry to break your hearts 🙇

- - - - -

Man, you really like spoilers

Haha I get it— it’s the kind of question I’d wanna ask too but I also gotta keep my lips sealed for this one.

I will say— though Percy is obviously charming, Elio and Jamie wouldn’t give him the title of most romantic easily. They each have their sweet gestures that can be seen as more romantic than the other, so I’ll leave it to the players to decide for themselves. Whenever we get to that part of the game haha

I think I’ve said this before, but I really am stupid excited for when we get to the mushy feelings. There are so many scenarios just sitting on my notes app waiting to be used 😭

~*~*~*~

Sorry that I didn’t really answer your questions this time but I hope you can look forward to when we get to show it in the game!