#spoilers on an 8yo game

[jokersenpai-thenavigator]

Why You Should Play: Oxenfree

*Spoilers for an 8yo game!*

Oxenfree’s story isn’t terribly complex. It takes maybe 4 - 6 hours to beat, depending on how much of the collectable content you’re aiming to grab. Game play primarily consists of walking around the island, talking to your friends, and fiddling around with your pocket radio.

But DAMN does Oxenfree do well in its execution.

The aforementioned radio, as your primary means of interacting with the island, is an amazingly implemented mechanic. You can go through the entire game, only using it for its intended purpose, and it is entirely valid.

But.

If you take the time to scroll through the radio stations in different locations - even outside of the “anomaly” areas - you’ll get little pieces of information and world building.

Music stations exist, though they only play music from the 1940’s.

Certain stations in certain places will broadcast messages in Morse code, which, coupled with the opening call signs from the anomaly stations and the freaking beats in the game’s main music track, led to an ARG back in 2016 when the game was released.

Sometimes, you’ll get clips from old interviews.

And sometimes…you’ll hear yourself. Having conversations that haven’t happened.

And that’s just the radio mechanic.

Another main gimmick of the game are time loops. You’ll occasionally get stuck in a loop, only able to escape once an old magnetic tape player appears, allowing you to break through the frequency of the loop. The time loop will visually appear on the screen as almost VHS quality static, like the world around you is physically being paused and rewound each time you make it to the edge of the loop.

The screen distorts with static, gets flipped upside down and your dialogue choices reversed, still images of nautical blueprints and old photographs flash for a brief second. In the background, seemingly innocent trees and stones will twist and distort into towering monsters, eyes glowing bright against the darkness of the island, there for only a second, leaving you to wonder if you actually saw something, or if it was just your imagination.

There are moments in the game where Alex’s reflection will speak to her, giving her advice. At the moment, the information seems…strange. Nonsensical. You tell yourself to let Jonas speak to his mom - who is dead. You tell yourself to let Michael know to stay with Clarissa - despite Michael having died years ago.

The information doesn’t make sense…until you approach the end of the game. And then you have to decide whether or not to believe your reflection, and make your choices, until at the very end of everything…after everything that you’ve experienced in your play through, everything you’ve learned…you have to tell your past self what to do. The entire time, it was you.

The game ends, your futures are set…and then, as Alex is narrating her closing statements…the audio distorts. Alex says that she has to pick up Jonas for Ren’s trip to the island. The screen gets staticky, and goes black.

And then fades in on Ren, describing the history of Edward Island.

You are on a boat.

At the beginning of the game.

And you are aware that you’ve been here before.

**Link to information on the ARG, because HOLY SHIT I WISH I COULD HAVE BEEN THERE FOR THIS!!! https://wiki.gamedetectives.net/index.php?title=Oxenfree#:~:text=The%20Morse%20code%20in%20the,to%20go%20to%20Edwards%20Island.

[carpeossa]

I’m watching Crocodile 2000 and it’s your basic B movie with college students as fodder for the monster.

I haven’t watched it since it first came out when I was a kid, BUT LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING!

It has the perfect prequel potential!

Spoilers for background:

So in 1904* a man named Harlan Clemens created a hotel called The Nile Hotel and imported a massive (at least 30ft or 9m long) Nile crocodile called Flat Dog and made her the main attraction.

[image of the Nile Hotel at night]

Now supposedly this crocodile was descended from the crocodiles that were rode into battle by the Pharaohs (yeah, right, sure there bud).

[image of a mural depicting a man riding a giant Nile crocodile. Mural says: “Flat Dog - The Eighth Wonder of the World - At the Nile Hotel -Nightly]

So Harlan created a shrine dedicated to her and pretty much built a cult around her claiming that she was an avatar for the ancient Egyptian god Sobek**.

Harlan thought that he could harness Sobek’s powers/gain favor by worshipping Flat Dog.

Now, during this time, Flat Dog was able to lay eggs without a mate and this was considered a miracle/divine intervention. ^^

Harlan then took the eggs and displayed them in the hotel lobby, however his 8yo son get mad at Harlan one day and took a croquet mallet to the display case and smashed all of the miracle eggs.

Local legend says that after this, the town learned that Harlan was basically creating a cult, and ran him out of town and in the confusion, Flat Dog escaped into the local estuary. 

But the grandson of Harlan said that Flat Dog killed and ate Harlan for the disrespectful act and later killed Harlan’s son once he became an adult and tried to hunt down Flat Dog in vengeance for killing his father.

[image of Flat Dog exiting a convenience store by breaking down a wall.]

That’s the basic back story to this film and I LOVE IT! Imagine it as its own stand alone movie (just get rid of the historical inaccuracies) set in the early 1900s just before the King Tut craze!

Just some dude getting a giant croc and doing some lines, turning to his sone and saying “you know what, that’s an avatar.”

I like it and give it a thumbs up.

[image of skeleton hand reaching through the grave and giving a thumbs up]

Author notes:

*Movie says that what happened to Harlan occurred 96 years ago and the movie is set to 2000 so 2000 - 96 = 1904).

**Wikipedia says Sobek is a dude, but the film keeps calling him a her so whatever ghoulie; big croc with bad temper is the important message here, ghoul.

^^I’ve tried to find if Nile crocs are capable of parthenogenesis like Komodo dragons or if they can perform long-term-sperm-storage. I found no research that confirms if either biological function occurs in female Nile crocs.

I did learn though that female Nile crocs used to form communal nests in the wild, but it hasn’t been observed since 1952 in Uganda’s Ntoroko peninsula.

Apparently human disturbance contributed to isolated nesting (at least from what I understood).

My phone and tumblr and having a disagreement right now, so I can’t add links of my half way done research into this post (I’m not Roanoke Games) - so here’s a screen shot of the links I used:

[bard-llama]

WiP Wednesday: Upcoming Thronebreaker Fics + Gascon Backstory

Okay, for today’s WiP Wednesday, I wanna share a few fics I have planned for Thronebreaker! Don’t worry, I will definitely continue writing Iorveth/Roche (and also Isengrim/Eldain, though most of those haven’t been published yet. But I have a doc with 8 WiPs for them).

But now that I’ve properly met the Thronebreaker OT3, I am suuuuuuper here for them. I’m still kind of figuring out their dynamic, but to be honest, 90% of my fics will probably take place in the months they travel from Lyria’s capital to Aedirn, ‘cause that journey would take a long time! Even just to the border would be a long walk (and armies move SLOW), but then Vengerberg is fairly central and I assume Black Rayla comes in somewhere near the Moulderwoods, since that’s Eldain’s territory. So like... it would take MONTHS of slowly traveling down the road - and also probably avoiding patrols and maybe even towns, because they’re outlaws now. And considering most towns are BUILT on major roads...

Point is, there’s plenty of time for them to get to know each other while traveling to Aedirn. And I hear that Thronebreaker gets pretty sad and depressing (I don’t know the details, but I also don’t mind spoilers. I know some big ones already, but I’m sure there’s more) so tbh, not sure if I’ll ever finish the game. Which makes the period of Meve, Reynard, and their handful of deserters traveling with Gascon and his Strays of Spalla perfect for fic settings lol.

So far, I have 3 specific fics planned and a few other ideas percolating. The first one is the Taint of the Common Man, which I went into pretty in detail here, so I won’t repeat that (but be warned, link goes to very noncon/dubcon set up stuff).

The second fic is Gascon-focused angst! Well, really ot3 angst, but I’ve only written Gascon’s POV so far, though next is Reynard’s POV and then Meve’s. The premise is that they’re on the road to Aedirn and they’ve been sleeping together the three of them for several months - but Gascon gets a reminder of exactly what he is to them when they mention their 10th anniversary. And he tries to act normal and cheerful and brash, but his heart is breaking because he stupidly fell in love with a queen and her top general and what is he? Nothing.

So he starts to subtly pull away from them, trying to protect his heart. But Reynard notices and worries over it and brings it up with Meve - who is all “nah, he’s fine”, and then watches Gascon and has to rescind her words, because he is absolutely not fine. And Gascon is spending more and more time with his strays (and his right hand gal in particular, which they’re totally not jealous over or anything), so it has to be them that are the problem. Which means they have to talk. 

I’m still thinking about non-sexual ways Meve and Reynard can show Gascon that he’s loved, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to throw them my way! But it’s definitely gonna have a happy ending with them working to show Gascon that he does belong with them.

The third fic is actually about Gascon becoming the Duke of Dogs XD If there’s a canon explanation, then too bad, because I like mine lol. Anyway, remember that right hand gal I mentioned? Well, her name is Medusa and she has purple hair that she braids and styles meticulously to look like snakes around her head. She also happens to be the best cat burglar in Aedirn - but she wasn’t always. So this fic is set way in the past, to when they first meet, because she’s the one that introduces him to the Strays of Spalla and vouches for him at first. Obviously later they both rise through the ranks and once Gascon takes over leadership, he works to make them more of a family (a family of crime lol).

Anyway, before any of that, we have Gascon as an 8yo who just saw his entire family murdered by the king’s guards for the crime of speaking out against the way nobles treat their people and their land. (idk if a reason is given in canon, but that’s my reason because it connects to some of the changes Gascon makes to the Strays. Basically, while they’re still a gang of criminals, I’ve decided to take inspiration from the incredible Black Panthers (who, to be clear, were NOT criminal, but were extensively treated like it by the FBI because they took care of and protected their community (you know, the ones the FBI was actively spying on and introducing highly addictive drugs to). I think I’ve lost the thread a bit and there are a lot of parentheses, so I’ll just conclude this bit by saying that my version of the Strays of Spalla steal from wealthy merchants and even wealthier nobles and use their ill-gotten gains to help the peasants (esp around Spalla, but across Lyria too). Which matters because I think Reynard semi understands that poor people are people (he talks to Meve about being proud to fight alongside the Strays because they’re fighting for freedom and what better cause is there?), but he’s still a nobleman who has spent the majority of his life at the king’s side. And Meve is queen. She has no fucking idea what the actual people of Lyria’s lives are like, because she’s always been concerned with managing her realm - which means managing nobles, who then are responsible for tending to their land aka getting taxes and shit from the peasants. So basically, both of them have a LOT of blindspots about what real actual people’s lives are like in their ‘great realm’. But Gascon? Gascon has lived that life.)

Right, so, the plot. The plot is actually not at all about how Gascon changes the Strays (oops), but about how he first joins them. So, 8yo Gascon. He just saw his family murdered, he was only saved because he was hidden in a closet, stuffing his own fist in his mouth to keep the guards from hearing him cry. But he Knows that they’ll kill him if they find out he survived, so he goes through the house and grabs what he can (what the guards didn’t loot) and tries not to throw up and cry too much. Then he runs.

But lil Gascon Brossard is a nobleman’s son and that’s the only life he’s known until now. And it’s obvious from his fine clothes that he has money - which means he ends up getting beaten and robbed on the streets a lot. Eventually, he learns to not share his name (’cause WOW that’s such a nobleman’s name lmao), but like... he’s 8. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s just trying to survive. (Also, for extra angst, I’m thinking he got his mom’s signet ring from the house before he left, but it got stolen. But when he’s older, he steals it back.)

I’m not sure why he decides to rob the house of a minor noble in the Spalla area, but he does. And he actually plans it pretty carefully - he creates a cigarette bomb for a time-delayed (minor) explosion that busts open the door to the kennel and scares all the dogs, so they go howling and barking and running and create chaos. (A noble’s household would likely have a lot of dogs, most of them working ones.) His plan is to break into the kitchen while everyone is otherwise occupied and steal enough to eat for a good while. 

But before he can do this, while he’s hiding in the bushes and waiting for his bomb to go off, someone else finds him. Specifically, Medusa finds him - because she was casing the place to steal stuff (probably jewels. She really likes shiny things). So she pulls a knife on him and demands to know who he is. And idk if the Brossards owned a duchy or if he was just being cheeky, but he’s all, “I’m a duke!”

“Yeah?” Medusa laughs. “Duke of what?”

At that moment, the bomb goes off with a little pop and then utter chaos descends as dogs start howling and baying and barking. And Gascon just grins his gap-toothed grin (he probably lost some teeth getting beaten tbh) and proclaims, “of dogs!”

Then he invites her to come raid the kitchen with him. And she’s not 8yo, but she’s only a few years older and those pastries do smell good. So the steal the whole lot and then Medusa brings him into the Strays and it starts to get a little bit easier for Gascon to survive. Idk how much he hides his name (’cause Gascon is SUCH a nobleman’s name, but also, he later signs orders to his men with all his amazing made up titles and then -G) but he definitely starts going predominantly by “Duke” and “the Duke of Dogs”.

Anyway shit, I gotta go get ready for an event, so - hope you enjoyed hearing about my upcoming Thronebreaker fics!

[lesenbyan]

I think a lot of the remaining “archives” crew doesn’t understand Jon’s guilt at this point. Let me explain:

Spoilers for: season 5, and esp 199

The crew seems to remember Jon Knows Everything any time they want to know a Certain Answer to a Certain Question (ie “what’s happening here?” “how many other dimensions?” “Where is X?” etc) but they don’t seem to really comprehend what knowing everything means in the same way my roommate without chronic pain can’t quite understand the fact that I am always in pain. There’s knowing and there’s knowing. and none of them can do the latter. Esp considering Jon’s been admonished for having feelings so often over the series, told to bottle it up and get it together bc he doesn’t matter, he’s hurting people. And sometimes he was! But as far as we know (and canon seems to support) he never talked about these issues, he never really dealt with them. So when it comes to something like this, something so massive, to knowing and Seeing everything his instinct is to play it pretty close to his chest. He’ll talk to Martin about more of it than the others, of course, bc he’s the only one who has never failed to validate Jon’s feelings.

But then you get to the conversations about guilt, esp the one in 199 and you see Jon say “I” and everyone else insist “we” but they don’t....

Jon’s been walking through this fearscape since he and Martin left Scotland. And the entire time (except when with Salesa) he has been feeling the suffering, the agony, the torment of everyone in those domains. He has been hearing himself cursed and reviled as the man who did this (even if he didn’t mean to!) and he already has a massive guilt complex with crushing amounts of survivor’s guilt, starting from when he was 8yo. Except now he’s hearing thousands and thousands of voices saying you did this and this is your fault and why would you do this to us and Oh god make it stop. And a man can only withstand so much. Andb Martin wants to help! he does! but he can’t handle Jon talking about the suffering and agony of those around him for too long, there’s a reason he doesn’t want to be around for statements.

And the others? have all shut him out. Melanie hates him and Jon wants to respect that, Georgie, as much as she cares, left him high and dry when he most needed an out, during the last time he probably could have left. And Basira’s been a Daisy apologist and an actual asshole to Jon on and off up until Daisy’s dead. He’s not going to sit there and explain “no really i because because because” He’s not going to tell them about the endless hours of the endless mantra of fear and screaming, not going to tell them about the guilt of knowing this is sustaining him, not going to tell them that he’s lost count of the number of people cursing him for bringing this about, not going to tell them about the agony he feels along with them, not going to tell them about the sadistic joy he can’t help but feel, not going to tell them that that makes him feel even worse.

Because how do you explain that? How do you explain that no really the entire world hates me specifically and the world would actually be better off with me dead to people who refuse to believe it? To Martin who refuses to live in a world without Jon in it, who refuses to imagine the world could be better had Jon not existed in it. How does he tell his kind, patient, loving, bleeding heart boyfriend that he’s not sure he’d be able to live with himself even if everything does go as planned? How does he say that even if they fix this the entire world knows him as the man that made them live that? How does he explain that he actually knows now what it’s like to literally be the most hated man on earth.

So everyone else says “we”. Everyone else tries to share the guilt. But it’s not theirs. Yes, all of their decisions and actions helped Jon end up here in varying ways. No, no one is more to blame than Jonah. But the insistence on we diminishes the sheer agony and torment Jon’s been through. But it’s okay. He’s used to his feelings and trauma being diminished and belittled and pushed aside.

and then there’s this:

MARTIN

The point is you don’t have a responsibility to sacrifice yourself just to make everyone else’s lives a bit easier.

ARCHIVIST

I’ve already made them a hell of a lot harder!

MELANIE

Hmmm.

MARTIN

[Sharply] Then we should all sacrifice ourselves, because everyone in this room has some responsibility for it.

Which also drastically misses the mark. This isn’t just the blame game. This isn’t “everyone is equally responsible for the parts they played.” This is “Jon was groomed for this for four years whereas the others had arguably minor roles that didn’t change Jonah’s script too much”. Is it Jon’s fault? Absolutely not! He’s a victim too.

But at the same time if, under duress, you make a decision that kills a person you still go to jail for murder.

What Jon wants is to feel like he’s paid the price for actions that, while not entirely his own, he played a large part in. Jon cannot live with himself and the consequences of his actions even if they weren’t his fault. Jonah didn’t read the incantation. He lined everything up, set the stage, manipulated all the pieces to where they needed to be, but he didn’t pull the trigger. Jon did. And Jon knows that. And no amount of “we” from the others will change that. No amount of “I can’t live in a world without you” from Martin can make him understand this.

This isn’t a burden he can share, so he doesn’t try. He’s happy they don’t know or understand bc it means they don’t hurt like this. But it also means they don’t understand why he simply cannot live with himself after it’s all done.

Even if MAG had and ending where everything went as planned and Jon and Martin made it out, I don’t think Jon would survive long anyway.

[haneys]

Hi beloved if you’re able to can you tell me about don’t starve 🫂

baby yes I can explodes so much okay so Don't Starve (+Don't Starve Together) is a survival game made by Klei Entertainment that released in 2013. It has a very stylized hand drawn artstyle that some people call Tim Burtonish or whatever but idk since I never watched any of his movies LOL but like it's very unique especially in the older shorts and characters. the original and single player Dont Starve ended up having 3 major dlcs, Reign of Giants that expanded the base game adding spring and summer seasons (the og hand only autumn and winter), new mobs mechanics bioms characters etc etc. next was Shipwrecked that basicislly was a different game as in you need a different save file to play on shipwrecked. It is based around islands and oceans with whole new mechanics, completely new bioms mobs seasons bosses lore, new characters, just literally holy shit. a different world completely. the third dlc is Hamlet who also is another compeltlt different world this time kinda jungle like? with, again, new mechanics bioms etc etc, now also with the addiction of literal LITTLE TOWNS of pigfolk in the Thou hast speaketh old English style. It's arguably the most difficult of all them and NOT recommended for new players LOL. In the original single player dont Starve the main goal was to finish the adventure mode and (spoiler but this game is 8yo so lol) free maxwell from the nightmare throne, unlocking him as a playable character.

Players begged for a multiplayer mode for ds but klei realized that implementing multi servers to the og game was difficult LOL and thus Don't Starve Together was born - built upon the og game, designed to play together with others. Dst automatically had the reign of giants mode in knrself since it became the staple of ds gaming and is being constantly to this day developed with free major updates, the lasted major group of updates being The Return of Them. the single player is being basicislly left alone since it's like mwah perfect and the lore and overall mechanics are being explored and widened in the DST. the lore picks up right after freeing maxwell and we have a brief moment of Wilson being imprisoned on the throne just to be kicked out bt Charlie LOL who becomes the queen of The Constant (the world of dst). The rest... is history haha lek I'm not gonan go into the lore the characters etc bc this would be hours long but I can share so many fun facts abt the overall creation of ds haha *is normal and not shaking irl*

[meetmyglowinthedarkboyfriend]

Cassius Headcanons

The following list contains massive spoilers for The Tower of Nero. Reader discretion is advised.

I was prompted to make this post by a post from @haec-est-fides.

In case y'all don't remember, Cassius was that 8yo childée in Nero's imperial household. You know, the one who was forced to chop Lu's hands off -- nasty moment, that was. Meg was super soft for him and Apollo also had a moment where he goes “holy shit he looks like babey Jason”. All in all, he's an actual gift who deserves better.

He's a son of Mellona, the Roman goddess of honey

His mortal parent lived in Pennsylvania and had beekeeping as their secondary source of income and he was so happy there. Naturally, Nero made them “disappear” so that he could “adopt” babey Cassius

He can control honey and any flowers that can originate as a source of nectar for honey, and also honeybees

This is part of the reason why he gets along with dryads so well

He once generated toxic honey which was used to poison one of Nero's enemies → poor babey cried for days when he found out

Meg installed some beekeeping stuff for him in their Californian home because she knows he loves what he does

Absolutely a “save the bees” kind of person

He still finds The Bee Movie weird tho, because human/bee relationships are very very weird

He loves penguins too. Get him a penguin toy or book and he'll be happy for days

Meg once got Alice (from Hermes) to get him some penguin stuff and she got an Emperor/King(?) penguin plushie from the Osaka Aquarium and he absolutely adores it, it can even make a squeaky noise when you press down on its belly (no, this isn't me projecting about my childhood, why'd you ask?)

He (post-ToN) went through a medieval phase and basically knows a lot about the era. Of course, he also charges his siblings down in a full suit of armour because he's a child who wants to have fun, which was pretty funny

Loves playing family board games with his siblings

Basically an all-round happy cinnamon roll with a not-so-happy childhood who deserves better