#that dialogue i did go to the wiki for to make sure i remembered it right

[mordremrose]

I’m just gonna write a little thing! A little thought for Bloom, nothing too intense, just so I don’t forget it!

1000 words later? Whoops

Writing below the cut, major spoilers for the end of Heart of Thorns and implied End of Dragons spoilers but nothing explicit from EoD :]

Bloom

“Kill me, Commander.” Trahearne could hear his own voice tremble, as horror overtook his dear friend’s face. Around them all, their friends— Rytlock, Caithe, Canach, Marjory, Braham— were exhausted. Worn thin by the fight against the jungle dragon, both physical and within the Dream.

“What? No! Mordremoth is dead. We destroyed its mind from the inside.” The commander protested, their fingers curled around the hilt of Caladbolg.

“But I still hear its voice.” Trahearne looked down at his hands, twisted and blighted as they were. His body was not his— he was corrupted. It was only cruel fate that he had kept his mind this long. Or perhaps something more sinister.

“Mordremoth is alive. One last hateful vestige… a terrible seed, planted deep in my mind.”

Trahearne’s hands curled into fist, as he took a deep steadying breath.

“You must kill me, Commander, before that seed grows. Before… before Mordremoth reclaims what it has lost.”

He reached out now, hands on his friend’s shoulders. The tears streaming down their face broke his heart. He did not want this. He didn’t want to hurt them, to see them suffer so.

Trahearne wished there was another way.

“What is left of me can’t survive on its own, my friend.” He croaked, and felt the Commander tremble beneath his hands. Were they always so small?

“Strike now or—“

Against his will, a rage rose up. A sick bile that boiled in his stomach and burned through his chest as his mind lurched.

Through his mouth, Mordremoth spoke.

“I am the future! I am this world! You cannot destroy me!” The dragon roared, hands tightening around the commander.

“Run while you can!” It took everything he had left to force his fingers to uncurl, to release the commander even as the dragon wanted to tear them to shreds to be remade anew.

Caladbolg flashed in the corner of his eye.

“No!” The commander yelled. Strike true my friend! Trahearne wanted to yell. But he couldn’t, and his mind went dark.

There was no great explosion. There was no dying scream.

If you asked those present what happened, none of them gave any concrete answer.

Canach hesitated to answer, but would confirm that Mordremoth was no longer hounding his mind, or any of the sylvari.

All Rytlock would say was that the confrontation wasn’t pretty.

Caithe mourned Trahearne, in her quiet and melancholic manner, and asked not to push the matter further.

Braham would scowl, shake his head, and shove his way past, unwilling or perhaps unable to describe that final blow.

Marjory Delaqua, normally so elegant and clever with her words, who could see the twists of a plot before anyone else— when she was asked, she could only shake her head and reply ‘I don’t know’.

The Commander didn’t answer at all, because no one was able to find them to ask.

Eventually, researchers at the newly established lab of Rata Novus confirmed what the entire world held its breath to hear.

Mordremoth was dead. He had to be, to explain the slow steady trickle of magic escaping the jungle, supposedly as the dragon… decayed wasn’t the right word, but it conveyed the idea well enough. It was a slow death, they said, not quite the explosive reaction from Zhaitan, who had gorged itself on magic before its death, but a gradual decay. It changed things, about magic, about how the people of Tyria and the soon to be established Dragon’s Watch understood the flow of magic around and through the Elder Dragons. But it was dead.

It had to be.

He woke up. His body ached, as it always did, as he woke. A consequence of being too bigsmall. He stirred slowly, limbs stretching out and tail dragging behind. He had buried himself beneath massive vines this time, the weight of them both familiar and restricting. These conflicting sensations, the constant disagreement with himself… it was the only thing he could rely on. Even his name escaped his memory, although he could hear whispers of it on the edges of his mind.

Traherdremaneth.

It didn’t matter, really.

He moved slowly, not truly wanting to rise, but knowing he must.

He was something in between, and there was no stillness for him. No place of his own.

His one companion, if you could call it that, would be upon him soon. A dogged purserer, both a thorn in his side and a trusted ally, trailed behind him. For a time he thought they left him— and the feelings that had wrought left him stationary in a deep cave for nearly a week before they had reappeared.

He didn’t want them close, he knew that much, but they were one of the few things he had, a consistency. He couldn’t see them well, not with the distance between them, but he could always make out the broken blade at their hip. The one that made the scar across his chest ache.

He wondered what would happen if he let them get closer. Would they strike? Would they know him?

They were his enemyfriend. What would they make of him? Caution kept him at a distance from them.

The longer he was awake, the more memories he could half-remember.

The Orrian landscape stretches out before him and it reeks of his sibling, twisting beneath the dirt. The undead don’t notice him, not yet, and he can take a moment to look closer at the coral. It was neither alive nor dead. Not unlike himself and yet so different to him or anything he had ever encountered before.

He missed his siblings, their quiet talks among the then empty roots, among safe coils with their constant presence around him. They were too distant to feel or simply gone now and it unnerved him. This was wrong. Perhaps they could help him make it right.

There was one other thing, other than his sort-of companion and his unsteady roiling mind, that remained constant. And this was the true constant. A steady beacon, that he could not see or hear, but simply felt in a way that he could not describe. A magnetic sort of pull that had him orbiting closer and closer.

It drew him in, out of the depths and dark underbelly of the jungle and the cave systems, towards the strange golden stones, the elegant walls meant to keep out creatures that wished to destroy the beacon. He was not welcome there, not yet, even though he meant no harm. He just needed to be closer.

He didn’t know how he knew that. He just knew it.

[mythalism]

i realized the other day after posting about this fan theory that, at this point, it is basically talked about in fandom as if its canon, and newer fans might not understand why. my goal today was to explain the theory and all of the evidence we have for it in inquisition to give people a better understanding of why this has become so ubiquitous, and to hopefully have something to look back on in two months with that "apollo gift of prophecy" dodgeball meme when veilguard proves us right.

very important before i get started: this is not my theory. i didn't make it up. unfortunately, i also don't know exactly who did and if it could even be traced at this point. this is something that many people have believed for a long time, and i'm not the first to write about it. there are a lot of great posts and essays that speculate on this theory, and what it could mean for solas's character going forward.

PLEASE feel free to contribute thoughts, or link to posts you have made yourself or seen before in the replies/reblogs!!! much of my own experience with this comes from long before this account existed, so i dont have exact sources but rather random, amorphous fandom knowledge of this theory and what major arguments have circulated in the past 10 years. this post by @sammakesart and this post by @mrs-gauche went around recently and both touch on this theory and i highly recommend them both! i know @corseque has also written about this theory multiple times over the years.

i was first introduced to this on tumblr when it started gaining ground in the fandom after the release of trespasser in 2015, predominantly due to a couple of lines of cole dialogue from trespasser, so that is where we will begin.

shoutout to @daitranscripts and the dragon age wiki for the dialogue

this line of cole's is basically the foundation of this theory, and what is cited most often. i'm not entirely sure if the theory existed before trespasser, but if it did, i dont remember it being well-known or widely accepted like it is now.

this line is usually interpreted to suggest that solas, who would have been a spirit of wisdom/pride at the time, took a body and came into being as an elf at mythal's behest. this is also the line that suggests solas himself once wore vallaslin, and that he removed it himself using the same spell he uses on a romanced lavellan thousands of years later, but did so clumsily the first time and left the scar we can see on his eyebrow.

first i want to acknowledge what are pretty much the most damning indications of this theory

solas means "pride; to stand tall" in elvhen, according to world of thedas vol. 1

the dread wolf form we see in murals, written descriptions, and of course, in real life in the veilguard trailer, bears a pretty clear resemblance to pride demons:

most notably, in the face and eyes. yeah i dont really have anything else to say about those lmao it's pretty blatant

overall, inquisition tells us a great deal about spirits, and gives the player an alternate worldview through which to understand them, distinct from the chantry/circle narrative presented previously.

solas himself, along with cole, has a lot to say about the nature of spirits throughout his dialogue and banter with several characters. one sentiment that he espouses repeatedly is that spirits and demons are the same thing, but demons are a spirit corrupted and perverted away from its purpose.

Solas: They rarely seek this world. When they do, their natures do not often survive exposure to the people they encounter. Wisdom and purpose are too easily twisted to pride and desire

During All New, Faded for Her:

PC: Solas, you said your friend was a wisdom spirit. Solas: That is not its natural form. It has been corrupted. PC: Corrupted? Solas: Forced to act against its original purpose. What did they do, what did they do, what did they do?

second, that spirits and the fade are a mirror, and reflect the waking world. specifically, that spirits reflect the perception and expectation of a mortal, and adapts accordingly. belief makes reality.

On Ostagar:

PC: I've heard the stories. It would be interesting to hear what it was really like. Solas: That's just it. In the Fade, I see reflections created by spirits who react to the emotions of the warriors. One moment, I see heroic Wardens lighting the fire and a power mad villain sneering as he lets King Cailan fall. The next, I see an army overwhelmed and a veteran commander refusing to let more soldiers die in a lost cause. PC: And you can't tell which is real? Solas: It is the fade. They are all real.

and third, that spirits are people.

solas expresses concerns over what the breach does to spirits at multiple points, including here with cassandra.

he also regularly argues in favor of spirits personhood, and passionately pushes back against characters who argue the opposite, such as dorian:

as well as the inquisitor themselves, should they choose certain dialogue options:

PC: You trust these spirits not to possess you the first time you accidentally make a wish? Solas: Do you trust your friends not to turn on you? (authors note: LMFAOOOOOOO) PC: Well, yes, but they're people. Solas: Ah, of course. PC: You know what I mean. Solas: Are people only people because they are flesh and blood? Solas: Is Cassandra defined by her cheekbones and not her faith? Varric by his chest hair not his wit? PC: They're not defined by their bodies, but they do have bodies. You need one to be a person. Solas: A demon possessing a corpse has a body. PC: A living body. Solas: A demon possesses a living mage to become an abomination. PC: They didn't make that body. They just took it over. Solas: Technically your mother created your body, with some help from your father, one assumes. PC: You've thought about this. Solas: On occasion, yes. OR:

PC: Spirits are bound by their nature. You said it yourself. They're shaped by contact with real people. Solas: Just as Leliana was shaped by contact with Divine Justinia, as those who serve the inquisition are shaped by you. If I change your mind in this conversation, does that mean you're no more real than a spirit? OR: PC: Im certain you have some rhetorical trick ready to counter anything I say. Solas: It's likely. I've had a lot of time to discuss the question with people. Or "spirits", if you prefer.

aside from this entire conversation being hilarious and very fen'harel coded, i think its notable that his enthusiasm and snark here is distinct from the way he engages in other debates, where he is often clinical and detached. on the subject of spirits, however, we get a lot more emotional investment from him - it feels personal. as he says, he's thought about it. on occasion.

solas having originally been a spirit adds helpful context for his insistence on spirit's personhood despite modern thedas's completely contradictory beliefs, and also helps inform his worldview more generally, especially in regards to elves.

one of solas's most heavily criticized aspects is his disdain for modern elves and the dalish. and i agree, it's fucked up and he is an absolute ass about it at nearly every opportunity. however, his feelings regarding the elves sometimes seem... strange, even in the context of him being an ancient elf.

keeping in mind cole's line from trespasser, that he "did not want a body", as well as another cole line from trespasser:

most people infer that there is some sort of resentment on solas's end for him having to become human at mythal's request. it seems as if he was turned away from his purpose. wisdom forced to be pride.

cole's personal quest, which shows solas passionately arguing to keep cole a spirit, supports this. it is almost as if he is trying to prevent cole from the same fate that was forced upon him.

throughout the quest he says things such as: "This is not some fanciful story, child of the stone. We cannot change our nature by wishing." "A spirit does not work through emotions. It embodies them." "You would alter the essence of what he is." "It is good that he is not entirely changed, however human he becomes."

most telling of all, i think is this line at the end of the quest if you elect to keep cole as a spirit.

Varric: "He could have been a person." Solas: Possibly. Would that have made him happier?

OUGGHGH.

clearly, for solas, the answer was no. being a person has not made him happier.

regardless, solas still values spirits as fundamentally equal to people despite their differences and worthy of the same freedoms, self-determination and respect.

this kinship with spirits, however, might help explain his disdain for elves, in a way i find to be more satisfying than "all ancient elves are assholes" and more in-line with his character overall.

it seems as if solas doesnt see himself as separate from modern elves because he doesnt see himself as a modern elf, but that he doesnt not see himself as an elf at all, but rather as a spirit.

solas infamously says, following halamshiral if you bring up briala:

"I'm sorry, I was confused. I do not consider myself to have much in common with the elves."

the inquisitor has the option for several responses, and although most of us probably pick the one that tells him to fuck off, the others are more telling:

PC: Nor should you. You're not defined by the shape of your ears. They're not your people. Solas: No, they are not. OR PC: Who do you have much in common with. Who are your people? Solas: A good question. Solas: I joined the inquisition to save the world. Regardless of who "my people" are, this was the best way to help him.

"not being defined by the shape of your ears" and solas's immediate identification with the statement and approval of it sticks out to me. it seems like he's just being racist, and he very well might be, but in the context of this theory, it can also be interpreted as him disliking being "defined" by having a body at all, or any physical characteristics, consistent with how he resists the idea that varric and cassandra are defined by their own physical characteristics.

if the player insists they want to help the orlesian elves even if he doesnt, he still has something interesting to say:

Solas: Stop Corypheus. That will do for a start. It speaks well of you to feel for the oppressed. Help them for that. Know them for what they are.

this is not the only time he equates all oppressed groups of thedas to one another, defined by their shared subjugation rather than the real, in-world divisions such as race and religion. it's also interesting to consider the relationship between oppression, as a situation that evokes certain emotions in those who experience it, such as pride. as solas says of ostagar, spirits there were drawn to the emotions of the soldiers there. are spirits of pride drawn to situations of oppression, where pride is needed for liberation?

solas's failure (or refusal) to recognize the reality of how oppression functions in modern thedas along lines of race and ethnicity specifically is one of his biggest flaws, but it continues to fit with this theory, as it is consistent with that same sort of single-minded, spirit tunnel-vision that we see from spirits and demons. i would also assume that he considers spirits to be part of this monolithic group of "the oppressed", considering the spirit slavery/bondage practices in tevinter and nevarra, both of which he criticizes.

i do believe, however, that to equate all of solas's unfair derision of the dalish to him identifying with spirits over people, rather than ancient elves over modern elves, would be too generous and an oversimplification. its also clear how much of his anger towards the dalish comes from... wait for it.... his wounded pride.

solas is prideful. when he is faced with pride in others, he becomes defensive, even nasty. when his pride is challenged, often by others pride, he becomes almost unrecognizable. the dalish specifically rub up against his pride, in the most specific of ways that grate at his most cherished qualities and that disregard his own perception of himself. the thing he is most proud of, leading a slave rebellion against corrupt tyrants, erased from history entirely. branded a traitor instead, while those he fought against are worshiped as saviors for millennia.

Solas: I have joined my fair share of causes. But when I offered lessons learned in the Fade, I was derided by my enemies... and sometimes by my allies. Liar. Fool. Madman. There are endless ways to say something isn't worth listening to. Over time, it grinds away at you.

its also possible, considering what we know of the nature of expectation creating reality for spirits, that the dalish framing of the dread wolf actually does indeed make him worse - more arrogant, less compassionate, more ruthless, more cunning, more of a liar. a spirit being perverted into a demon based on the dominant perception of it.

perhaps the most interesting tidbit about solas of all which supports this theory, is that this phenomenon of expectation shaping his nature, making him more prideful or more humble, is not exclusive to the world of thedas, but also occurs on a meta-level with the player by proxy of the inquisitor.

a 2020 interview of trick weekes, solas's writer, says this pretty much verbatim.

"Solas mirrors. If you approach Solas from a place of humility and say, "I want to learn from you," Solas will bend over backwards to tell you how flawed he is and how he's just coming at this from his own limited understanding. If you come in with ego, Solas is genetically incapable of not bristling when he sees your ego... because he can't not do that."

this is fascinating for like 7 million reasons, but most notably for the language trick uses that i believe to be incredibly revealing. first, solas himself talks about how spirits "mirror" the real world multiple times. second is the way in which they speak about solas's mirroring as innate, uncontrollable, and involuntary. he is genetically incapable of not mirroring. genetically incapable of not bristling at someone else's pride. this being a genetic incapability implies, pretty unambigously, that he is a spirit. we dont know of any people in thedas who have pride in their DNA. except. you know. pride demons.

pride is his purpose. he cannot turn away from it or betray that purpose to pursue something else. he cannot change his nature simply by wishing. if he were to attempt it, he would be corrupted.

trick offers this information as an explanation for player's extremely varied perception of solas when playing the game, and it perfectly mimics the way solas himself talks about spirits as being created by a dreamer's expectation of them.

when asked about his friendships with spirits, he says:.

PC: You're saying that you became friends with pride and desire demons? Solas: They were not demons for me. PC: Meaning? Solas: The Fade reflects the minds of the living. If you expect a spirit of wisdom to be a pride demon, it will adapt/ And if your mind is free of corrupting influences? If you understand the nature of the spirit? They can be fast friends.

i just love how perfectly this reflects every fandom argument that's been had on twitter about solas for the past 10 years. like seriously.

random twitter user: you like that guy!? but hes a [demon]!! solas stans: he wasn't a demon for me

and it is true; people who are pretty deep into the games often know what solas is like to a low-approval inquisitor, but it can be shocking for new players to see what he is like at the other end of the approval spectrum, whether that is someone who hated him seeing the tenderness with which he kisses a romanced lavellan goodbye to remove her anchor in trespasser, or someone who romanced him witnessing the cruelty and detachment which with he grabs a low-approval inquisitor to yank off their anchor. he becomes almost an entirely different person based on how the player treats him.

for all that solas, in true spirit form, reflects the perceptions of the players, he has plenty of pure pride-demon vibes on his own, independent of player expectation. he is not just proud, or made proud as a mirror for player/character pride, but he often even goes as far as to act in ways that mimic how we have seen from spirits more generally, as well as pride demons specifically.

the wiki states:

"Spirits are not complex in the sense that they seize upon a single facet of human experience, and this one idea becomes their identity.[3] They are formed as a reflection of the real world and its passions.[10] A spirit embodies and latches onto a specific purpose and will do all in its power to fulfill that purpose. For instance, a hunger demon will attempt to feed on anything it crosses,[4] and a spirit of justice will stop at nothing to uphold its name”

along with further reinforcing solas's tunnel vission as characteristic of spirits, he does indeed intentionally attempt to stoke arrogance in others, as well as test characters to see if they are vulnerable to arrogance and power-hungriness. this is probably best exemplified by his banter with vivienne, versus his banter with cassandra.

i mean this one is self explanatory. cmon.

but it becomes especially interesting when compared to his interactions with cassandra, of whom he starts out very distrustful of. however, through their banter, he immediately begins to test her for indications of her inclination towards arrogance and desire for power:

cassandra passes solas's tests and earns his approval through her humility, curiosity, and willingness to give up power for the greater good. as a result, solas softens considerably towards her, and becomes more evocative of wisdom than pride, offering her advice when she asks, though very humbly:

"i would hardly presume" is actually hilarious considering how he does presume. ALL THE TIME. but it shows the extent of this "mirroring" that trick mentions, when compared to how he speaks with vivienne, who does not pass his tests of pride: notice how his jabs at her specifically target her pride, the things she is proud of about herself, and tear them down:

he tells her that her position in the orlesian court is unearned, that the freedom she is so proud of winning for herself will come to an inevitable end, and that her resistance to demons does not make her special. its absolutely BRUTAL.

its especially important to note how little bearing vivienne and cassandra's backgrounds have on solas's perception of them. vivienne is a circle mage, a group of people who solas deeply sympathizes with, and believes should be freed. meanwhile cassandra is effectively templar, a group whom solas despises and finds unjust, and has been complacent in the oppression of mages that solas is so vehemently against.

and yet? it does not matter. he measures their worth based entirely on their propensity for pride.

it’s worth noting too, keeping in mind Solas’s almost uncharacteristic reverence for cassandra’s faith in the maker and (take this with a grain of salt because it was david gaider and he said via forum post….) that there are actually two types of spirits that become pride. wisdom, and faith.

"A spirit embodies and latches onto a specific purpose and will do all in its power to fulfill that purpose."

what we DONT know: pretty much everything else about this. what was the process like? at what point in history did he take the body? how was that body made? was it stolen? did he start as wisdom and turn into pride later? did he always oscillate between both? was he corrupted by what was asked of him, to fight, as his friend was in his personal quest?

i could continue talking about this forever, probably, especially with how it manifests in the solavellan relationship and what it suggests for solas's story in veilguard, but ill cut it here for both my own sanity and yours. but first, a few fun dialogue bits that strike me as very pride-demon coded but didn't fit anywhere else in this analysis.

in conclusion:

[trashyvanillabean]

I’ve been stewing recently over Black Swan’s appearance on the Astral Express.

Usually after a Trailblazing Mission, we say our goodbyes to our newfound friends, and it’s on to the next journey! (Or we go back to revisit other worlds we assisted.)

That doesn’t seem to be the case with Black Swan. Instead, it seems she still wants something from the Astral Express and, oh boy, she makes quite another entrance by casually strolling out of March’s room. (It seems becoming Memokeeper causes you to forget basic courtesy, like respecting your hosts’ ground rules and privacy. *side-eyes the Messenger*) Whatever Black Swan’s motives are for staying with the Crew, it surely has to do with Amphoreus.

For a a brief recap, Amphoreus is also known as “the Eternal Land,” can only be seen through the light of the Garden of Recollection’s mirrors and is “fettered by three Paths.”

I’m willing to guess that two of those Paths are the Permanence and, of course, the Remembrance.

I’m guessing the Remembrance because of the aforementioned description, and also Black Swan making her entrance from March’s room, whose owner has already been established as amnesiac with ties to the Garden of Recollection, and there are a few clues pointing towards March previously being a Memokeeper such as Black Swan mentioning a Memokeeper who liked to preserve memories with a camera. (You can find this dialogue towards the end of the Dreamjoy Memoir event by talking to Black Swan.)

I’m also guessing the Permanence is one of those three Paths because when Black Swan addresses Dan Heng, she points out his “mired memories.” She could have well simply called him the Astral Express’s archivist, or just left it at him being a descendant of the Permanence and a charming little dragon and whatnot; but she also draws attention to, once again, someone’s memory issues.

As for what the third Path might be…um…I have one crazy idea, but I don’t know how to string it together just yet. 😅

What I’m also slightly curious about is that Black Swan doesn’t address the Trailblazer, who we know since the beginning is also amnesiac. All we know is that they’re connected to the Stellaron Hunters through Kafka. Maybe Black Swan already knows about this and doesn’t feel the need to bring it up; but again, she could have done the same thing for Dan Heng and well left it alone, yet didn’t. (This leads me to think that we’re probably not going to get crumbs of Trailblazer’s backstory during the next journey. 😞)

As for Black Swan herself and the Remembrance, some background on Fuli and the Remembrance’s related factions can be found in the Aeon and Factions tabs of the Data Bank, but I’ll put screenshots here for convenience~

Here is the entry for Fuli:

Here’s one for the Garden of Recollection:

And here’s one on the Cremators (and I’ll get to them later):

And then we have Black Swan herself. (Note: Unfortunately, I did not feel like pulling for her — nor did I even have enough Stellar Jades — to try and pull for her when she first released, so I’ll have to resort to fan wiki. 🫠)

According to her character stories, it seems like one way you can join the Garden of Recollection and become a Memokeeper is if another Memokeeper invites you. Obviously, this would require said Memokeeper to reveal themselves, as they otherwise make sure to leave no traces of their presence.

Now, for Black Swan to appear out of thin air on the Express to initially recommend a location as the Crew’s next stop, she most likely wants something and the Crew would be the best people to help her get it; and with the Astral Express running low on fuel, she now has greater leverage.

NOTE: This thing has been sitting in my drafts for so long, I lost my train (oop 🫢) of thought and have been struggling to remember the gist of this.

If you remember our first encounter with the Memokeeper next to the Memory of Chaos mirror, it was mentioned that the Garden of Recollection has some set of “rules” in place that apparently prevent the Memokeeper from introducing herself to the Crew and making some sort of arrangement for her to stay on the Express to do as she needs to (within reason — though I suspect some Memokeepers are not usually reasonable). She even goes as far as to tamper with their memories if we try to alert them about her presence (and basically proves Welt at least somewhat right about needing to be cautious around people related to the Garden of Recollection).

So that leads me to think that Memokeepers are not normally allowed to interact with the tangible (for lack of better words). All they can do is observe and record the memories of the universe. The only exception so far is when Gallagher sent out those invitations to the Charmony Festival, and the Garden of Recollection was among the factions who received the invitations.

Leading us back to Black Swan, who we met and collaborated with to fight off the Beyond the Sky Choir. That probably should have been the end of any business with her since she’s Memokeeper, so for her to appear to us again, and not only make a suggestion but also a recommendation…there could be something happening and the Garden of Recollection is involved this time, and Black Swan wants us to help her solve it.

And there could be a chance that the reward includes not only unlimited fuel for the Astral Express, but also precious memories — specifically, some details into March’s past before she was frozen (and maybe more as a bonus, such as Dan Heng’s past life as Dan Feng and what happened leading up to the Sedition, or even the Trailblazer’s time with Kafka and the Stellaron Hunters).

Now, again, there are rules in place that apparently prevent Memokeepers from interacting normally with other people. At the very least, they don’t seem to be allowed to interact with other people unaffiliated with the Garden of Recollection, or Fuli in any way. (Talking to the Trailblazer was probably as close as that MoC Memokeeper could get to communication.) If March really was a Memokeeper, did she violate some rules, and was frozen with her memories gone as a punishment? Welt mentions that whoever froze her probably meant to protect or banish her.

So, is the situation with Amphoreus dire enough that Black Swan is potentially bending those rules, or even outright breaking them? And if Black Swan is violating those rules, what are the repercussions for that?

Let’s hope nothing too drastic happens.

[geminialchemist]

More Shadow of the Erdtree discussion, because I seriously cannot shut up about it.

God damn, my posts must make it seem like I loathe this dlc, when it’s one of the best I’ve played in my life. Screw this just being a good DLC, this was an amazing Fromsoft GAME with the title of DLC attached to it.

With that said… I still have complaints to air, because I’m a whiner baby, and I find it easier to construct my thoughts around my criticism of things rather than my praise for them.

I’ve seen the idea floating around that some people think that some other people don’t care for the ending because they don’t like that Fromsoft made Miquella a villain. I’d like to utterly dash that idea. I don’t dislike that they made him a villain, I dislike that they made him a bad villain.

What’s Miquella’s motivation? We know his end goal. Become a god, make the world a compassionate place via brainwashing. We know how he put his plans into motion, convoluted and brow raising as the writing choices for that was. But what is his reason for doing it?

Messmer’s motivations, we know. He is, at least outwardly, a brutal tyrant. He leads a genocidal crusade against the Hornsent and any Tarnished he crosses paths with. We also know his motivation. To take the blame off of his mother for these actions. He doesn’t particularly like being so brutal, but has become the figurehead for the worst actions of his country, and has faced a willing exile with his loyal followers to shift the blame way from his mother, who he loves and cherishes, even after she has abandoned him to his fate. His villainy is his complacency in his mother’s conquests. This actually makes him a sympathetic antagonist, which is why everyone paints him as a soft boy in need of hugs. I’m simplifying this a lot, because outside of no plot for Melina, I have no major issues with Messmer’s side of the story in this DLC, it’s good stuff, great writing.

What’s Miq’s motivation? What made him wake up one day and decide he was going to be a god, and use mind control to pacify the entire world? I realized as I was theory crafting that I… don’t really know? I certainly have headcanon and ideas, I just can’t remember it ever being stated in canon. Just that he wants to do it. Did I miss something? I can’t have missed something, could I?

Was he evil all along? Is he doing this to control everyone just for laughs? Is he a broken person, who witnessed the horrors of war during the Shattering, unable and unwilling to fight due to his body and pacifism, showing up after battles to tend to the wounded but knowing that for every living person he found, a hundred more were corpses, and that for every one he did manage to save he was forced to leave a dozen others to die in agony and so decided to end the cycle of violence by any means necessary?

Did he simply want power and a complacent population? Did he want to fix all of his mommy’s mistakes(no, couldn’t be that one, fans would have woobified him to the same level as Messmer)? Or was it overpowering grief that drove him to tear his too-soft heart out and cast it aside? We don’t even know! Or at least I don’t. I’ve scoured the wiki’s for NPC dialogue, and item descriptions, but unfortunately those are still incomplete, and are missing huge chunks. I’m in the middle of my second run of the dlc, too, but haven’t come across anything yet.

Can anyone tell me what I’m missing, if I did miss something? Or is this just another example of the second half of Miquella’s questline being terribly written? If I did miss something, let me know, and make sure to shame me and call me an idiot, it’s the only way I’ll ever learn!

EDIT: Thanks so much for giving me some answers! I’ll go look more into Ymir’s dialogue, I’m curious to if reversing Marika’s Sin is his motivation, or just another endgame goal to add to the pile to ensure “World Peace(tm).” For instance, Hornsent still doesn’t trust or accept anyone in the group for what Marika did, even under Miq’s charm, so fixing that could make his charm sink in easier for the Hornsent population? I’ll go check it out in my NG+ run, I actually haven’t spoken to Ymir yet in that run.

[daisynik7]

This is a long one, sorry babe, the socks and feet fetish just gave me such a funny idea for a gag gift for Nanami. Here where I live we have these things called "nakurnjak", it would translate to willy warmer (men wear it in winter to keep their willy's warm) 😭😭😭😭 and the idea of reader buying, even better knitting or crocheting it them self for Nanami is so funny in my head (she could make several to match with his ties!). I did bit of research and to my surprise this fits Nanami's Danish roots BECAUSE they had a tradition where a girl would present her boyfriend with a willy warmer to see how seriously he took their relationship. If the gift was rejected, this was seen as evidence that he was not yet ready for marriage. Reader may or may not be hinting something @ Kento. (References: wiki and reddit)

Pairing: boyfriend!Nanami x f!reader

cw: established relationship, language, suggestive dialogue, fluff

Author’s Notes: Hi anon! Thank you for the request, this was a fun one! I hope you like it and get a good laugh out of it like I did. 😊

With the weather getting colder lately, you decide to put your knitting skills to use. It starts with easy projects, like scarves and bonnets. One day, you go online, searching for different ideas on what to make. Several minutes of browsing, you finally find your next creation: a willy warmer. It’s the last item listed on this website, more of a throwaway as a joke. But you’re absolutely serious about making it. Just thinking about it has you giggling. Upon further research, you discover that in certain traditions, a willy warmer is gifted to a boyfriend to see if they are ready for marriage. This motivates you even further to take on this ambitious project in hopes that Nanami, your boyfriend of several years now, will finally take a hint. 

It takes a while to knit it, but eventually, your hard work pays off and the results are outstanding. You manage to recreate his signature spotted tie pattern exactly, so now he’s matching, assuming he accepts this ridiculous gift. 

After dinner, the two of you digest your meal on the couch while watching a show you’re following. At the end of the episode, you pause it, reaching into the drawer beside you to retrieve your creation. He eyes you nervously. “What’s going on?”

You grin, holding it out to him. “Surprise!”

He gives you a confused look, waiting for you to explain. When you continue to stare at him, beaming, he asks, “What is this?”

“Babe, you’re Danish, you should know what this is!” You pinch at the tip and the balls, stretching it as if that makes it any clearer. 

His brows are furrowed in uncertainty. “It looks like a penis.”

Laughing, you say, “That’s because it’s for your penis. It’s a willy warmer. I knitted it myself. And it matches your tie!”

He chuckles, his expression relaxing. “What on earth am I going to use this for?”

“It’s pretty self-explanatory, honey. You use it to warm your willy.”

“I don’t need to warm my willy.”

You frown at him. “So you don’t want it?”

“I appreciate the gesture, sweetheart, but I don’t think I’m going to use it.”

Crossing your arms, you toss the willy warmer back into the drawer, slamming it shut with a bit of aggression. “Fine. If you don’t want it, I’m sure somebody else will.” You stand up, stomping towards your bedroom, kicking it closed.

~~~

Nanami fucked up. 

He knew it as soon as the smile dropped from her face. It would have been so easy to accept the silly gift like a good boyfriend should, but, of course, he had to mess it up in a royal fashion. 

Immediately, he follows her to the bedroom, finding that it’s locked. With a small knock, he says, “Honey, I’m sorry. I’ll use it, okay? If it makes you happy.” He leans against the frame, pressing his ear to the surface to hear any response. When none comes, he sighs, returning to the couch. 

He remembers what she mentioned earlier, about him being Danish, and he wonders what that has to do with it. Phone in hand, he goes to a private browser to do a quick search. After a few minutes, he finds out that hereally fucked up. The tradition says that a man must accept the willy warmer as a gift whenever it is presented to him to indicate that he is ready for marriage. 

He buries his face in his hands, groaning at his mistake. Of course he’s ready for marriage. He’s been in love with her for years. And while they’ve discussed it in detail, imagining with fondness about their future together, he’s never actually given her a straight answer about when it will happen. She’s always been patient, never one to pressure him about timelines or threaten him with ultimatums. This is the closest she’s gotten to it, in the form of some crude penile covering. He chuckles to himself at the absurd situation they find themselves in. Still, he has to find a way to make it up to her, and fast. 

~~~

You’re actually upset Nanami didn’t accept your gift. Not only did he reject what you spent hours working on, he essentially told you he wasn’t ready for marriage. And sure, maybe he doesn’t know that hidden meaning behind it, but still! You’re annoyed with him.

There’s another gentle knock on the door. This time, you don’t ignore it, swinging it open to give him a piece of your mind. However, the sight you find instead has you speechless. 

Nanami is completely naked from head to toe, except for the willy warmer wrapped snugly around his cock. He smirks at you, holding his arms out, presenting himself. Before you can respond, he says, “I’m sorry, sweetie. I accept this gift with all my heart. And, I guess, my penis.”

You burst into laughter, stepping towards him to slide your arms around his waist, face nuzzling his chest. “So, does this mean you want to marry me then?”

He squeezes you in a loving embrace. “You know I do. I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you. And I can’t wait to officially call you my wife.”

You grin, peering up at him to give him a kiss. “So,” you tease, palming his cock through the yarned fabric, “Shall we test how warm your willy is?”

[fictionfixations]

i had a thought

spoilers for up to book 6 (i thought dump. A LOT.)

remember the prologue

i have a thought so im sharing it

question: what does he think we can even do to stop. well. anyone??? nobody really listened to us (considering we're magicless too a bunch of ppl would look down on us) until we became like friends to them n stuff?? well ace and deuce listened to us i think but we were united under a goal that at all costs had to be reached. to not get expelled. (except us i forgot what was going to happen to us. ..cause we're not actually students ??. ACTUALLY where the fuck are our papers? did crowley just. make them up? cause if you need papers to expel someone then you need some written form of proof then. which means each student probably has files for them, like. say. proof of 'hey this person goes to this school' etc etc. what did he do with us? did he just not admit we existed to the government? but literally everyone in the school knows we exist so surely one of them blabbed like. idk. maybe some stereotypical rich brat whose like 'EWW THERES sOME' uh 'MAGIcLESs PERSON COMMON fOLK wHAtever the fuck IN THIS prestigious SCHOOL!' and like idfk like how ig maybe some of the rich think the poor will give them a disease just by breathing the same air as them [actually maybe they could though but like YKNOW what i mean] but like. if we're just completely undocumented, excluding the unexplainable shift of some funds for ramshackle i IMAGINE so we can pay for shit and live then are we not really. documented anywhere else? styx probably has something but uhh. also theres probably a bunch of law violations attached that i cant even be bothered to touch at the moment. also there are magic diseases right? but so they also have immunities to stuff. but we're from a completely different world so we've never had contact with their sicknesses. so like. ...yknow how theres a ban around like this one island i cant remember the name of because if you interact with them you'll spread stuff to them theyve never been in contact before with that you might not even realize u have cause ur immune and they'll die? like its illegal to go there at all, they're living entirely without technology. also they're hostile. you will die if you go there [if you dont get caught by the people patrolling to make sure they stay without contact]. ..i mean stuff has happened outside of canon we can see. its canonical that the overblot peeps have gone to counseling and medical mages. so maybe im making a big deal out of nothing)

im. sorry. i got really distracted i didnt intend to spiral down to papers i meant to talk about something else

so just. listen.

actually about the expelling ^ three as in Grim, Ace, and Deuce. oh (so wait if they got in trouble would we just. ..still be able to stay?? ?? he doesnt even address us?? well actually grim isnt a student yet but theres FOUR of us not three then so ????)

wait sorry how did we get here ?? (why are we involved? i dont think crowley spoke to us at all when he was angry at the others with the chandelier 😭)

the wiki might be outdated a little because it doesnt update itself when dialogue changes, people have to notice it and then take the time to add it if anything changed so this is from

so if anything changed since then well huh

(if he blamed us for not being able to stop two teenagers with magic while im magicless though i wouldve been throwing hands but im glad crowley hasnt gone that far. ..he still put a firebreathing cat into our custody though. ramshackle dorm is very flammable isnt it? is dust flammable? idk. a lot of wood also i dont think they know what fire extinguishers are. youd think someone would deal with the flames during the entrance ceremony besides riddle and azul trying to catch the flame setter. or if we have one its very unmentioned.)

but so considering grim is our responsibility.. i have to ask how we're meant to stop him..?

like so this is before we really bond with him (aka we find him annoying. unless u got attached to him right away which good for you, i dont know when he wormed his way into my heart but he did at one point and i realized it at the end of i think book 5 aka ignihyde teaser) so grim wouldnt really listen to us (looks down on us)

also i dont know about you but burns HURT. ive burned myself a few times but they're not like the really bad ones (i dont know the difference between degrees and i feel like googling it will haunt me in my nightmares). i imagine grim cant shoot fire too far? maybe a little more shorter/mid range? what even is mid range idk (and the reason it lasted to hit the statue was because of ace's wind magic imo)

well either he can control the range or he can only shoot it out so far. so then. we'd be really close trying to catch him. maybe its in one of the twistunes where he's running away. he turns around and shoots fire at you. fucking OW (also its BLUE. i dont know how colored fire works, but assuming its blue because its even hotter than normal fire. um. ow.)

like SIR im new to this world i dont know how things work

its like... like being saddled with a baby after being suddenly kicked out of the house with no warning (and thus without any of your stuff besides the clothes youre wearing. ..but youve also been isolated from the world youre whole life so WHAT theres MAGIC? whats this about strange laws i dont know about-- wait THIS IS A BOYS ONLY SCHOOL? .........THERES FURRIES?) and the baby is VIOLENT

like HOLD on a second let me at least get a source of income first before giving me a being that utterly depends on me to survive (well. grim can probably survive on his own if we assume he's lived on his own for a bit until NRC. but um. ...well theres a reason there probably needs to be a bunch of childproofing for grim.) when i can barely figure out how to survive here

so. i feel i got very sidetracked. but its also nearing the time i sleep so my brain is slowing down on me and my thoughts have veered off the train tracks enough that this is just a whole mess of thoughts spewing out

i hope im making sense but im probably not

wanted to crowley bash because why are you putting me in charge of people probably the same age as me (minus grim) but with an advantage against me considering they have magic and i dont (not to say that people who know how to fight cant beat their asses but like. ...i dont know how to fight so.)

but he also hasnt given me reason to in canon i guess (if anythings happened outside of prologue i have no recollection of it. i just went through the wiki searching for every page with 'bill' or 'expense' in it)

surprisingly fanfiction either turns to 'crowley is an asshole' (and also actually pays attention to yuu and blames them like oh) or 'parent crowley' which speaks for itself (and is very cute in its own right but i also dont like him regardless as i dislike all adults that put responsibilities on children to be fucking idk child soldiers or to fight shit or deal with shit. i mean crowley doesnt go that far but i still dont like him)

those fics though start from prologue and go in order (some include vignettes and events) so i assumed that it followed it close enough to be a recreation but [so and so] but i was wrong apparently

still tho

[derekscorner]

Ghost of Ramblings: Dad of Boi

Started a New game plus Recently

I have been playing God of War from Ascension in chronological order over the past few months and I've finally made my way back to GoW 2018 and it's new game plus.

It's been a hot minute since I played the NG+ and it took even more minutes to adjust to it's combat after playing Classic GoW for so long. I got hooked on Ghost of Sparda and GoW3 for quite a while.

The whole while I was just taking in how beautiful the whole game is. Remembering the story beats or how this one game got me into the whole series. My god slayer journey began here with Dad of Boi.

I was reminded of how good its story truly is. How tightly written and delivered it's dialogue is. The nuances of Kratos hit harder too since I have played classic GoW this time unlike my first time playing Dad of Boi.

Back then all I had was curious youtube and wiki searches to get a grasp of Kratos' world. It's hard to explain but it truly does feel different if you play GoW 2018 after playing, at minimum, GoW 1, 2 and 3.

Hell, I'd even argue that GoW 2018 will hit different after plaything through it's own sequel Ragnarok. I know Ragnarok has some harsh critics, I'm not one of them, but it is hard to deny that it's predecessor is just written better.

Every little story in the boat, every little dialogue when exploring, the whole adventure is a bonding and learning moment for Atreus and Kratos. Every scene with Odin's kin, the parallel to Freya and Baldur in particular, shows what Kratos is trying to avoid.

A pacing and blend so well done that I'd call it a lightning in the bottle moment.

I love this scene ^^^^

Nothing in this world is perfect mind you but it's hard to talk about GoW 2018 and not praise its story.

Of course, Ragnarok is still an improvement in gameplay overall. I had grown too addicted to the customization options for appearance. The very fact that I can unlock and play young Kratos in Ragnarok is amazing to me.

It does make me wonder what went wrong in the story department of Ragnarok though. As I said, I'm no harsh critic of Ragnarok but I can't deny it has pacing issues.

Thankfully they added scene skip so even the Atreus segments can be skimmed on repeat playthroughs. They didn't bother me on the first run but I can only handle so many two hour stretches of Atreus wandering Ironwood.

I've always heard rumors that it's because they chose to make the Norse story a duology which I could believe. Ragnarok feels like it needed to be the third game not the second one.

The whole personality shift of Freya truly does feel rushed. As beautiful as that scene is when she lets go it needed more time to be truly believable.

I also think it would've made her conflicted feelings more conceivable if she had witnessed Kratos' memories in some magical mumbo jumbo way. It's hard to imagine he's talk so freely about his family yet I also think it's crucial for Freya to shift the focus of her rage after hearing about Calliope.

Kratos did do her wrong while trying to do something right but I think that would only get through to Freya if she saw that moment. Kratos was by no means a good person but his love for his family was real and it drove him to a madness that ended a pantheon.

Kratos is easily the only man there that understands her feelings.

I glitched the blades in these scenes somehow

But even this is a minor complaint. I do not consider the narrative of Ragnarok worth some harshness I see it get. It's badly paced to be sure but it's not offensive.

If anything, I hope they learn from it for their new projects. I have next to no interest in Atreus since he genuinely is annoying in Ragnarok but I wouldn't mind giving him a shot in a spin off if they learn from it.

Or, ya know, send him to Greece. I do not care how annoying the boy of war is. I would pay them money to see him walk through Greece and see the monster that his father was.

I'd even give them my respect if Atreus realized just how hard Kratos worked to channel his bottomless rage into a weapon to use. I know many fans hate how weak Kratos seems to be now and I personally find the "holding back" excuse weak on the devs part.

So I relate a bit. I do not fully agree since I began the series with 2018 so my opinion is forever biased on such topics.

I have no real point to make with this post by the way. I am just gushing about a game I like and rambling about the contrast it has to it's own sequel or predecessors.

The whole of my praise is also limited to GoW 2018's narrative. In terms of world building or story consistency I could rip the God of War series apart.

The classic games weren't exactly consistent with some things like the potential paradox of using Fates threads, Kratos losing that time travel power in 3 despite using it moments prior in 2's ending, or the whole ambiguity of his godhood. (I wont even get into the last minute hope thing in 3)

It's not a mess like I'd rant about with Kingdom Hearts or Bleach. Sure, there are some details in a novelization or two, a comic story here or there, but it's nothing you need to know.

Kratos even references a novel detail in Ragnarok. When asked why he doesn't just throw his blades away Kratos will retort with an annoyed statement that he "tried".

Step into the light Boy

That doesn't confirm a novel as 100% valid but it does show subtly that the blades follow him against his will.

My own personal take on Kratos' continued godhood is also a curse. He's got to live as what he despises most until something powerful enough finally kills him in a way where he won't burst out of Hel's gates.

That's a tangent all its own I think. I just felt like rambling a bit, there's even a lot I left out. Like the pure pointlessness of a lock-on in either game due to how often the enemies dart around and break the targeting.

I wonder what many of you think about 2018 now that Valhalla has come and gone. Ragnarok may have been hit or miss for many but Valhalla is nearly as good as 2018 I feel.

Though, not having young Kratos speak with his original voice actor in that one scene felt like a missed opportunity imo.

Oh well, I'm done now. Bye~

[triangle-strategy-notes]

All the chapter scripts for Triangle Strategy are now up on the wiki! The scripts should contain essentially all of the text from the game, with the exception of some UI and other not-dialogue things.

Long-winded list + rambling about what I still need to clean up under the cut:

I haven't touched the mid-battle dialogue yet for the most part. It's all pasted in every chapter, but I've pretty much just slapped a "This dialogue is triggered if [condition unknown]" label on all of the lines and called it a day.

The dialogue for each side story is only included in the data once, so if one side story is included in multiple different route paths, there's a decent chance I missed that. Once I get the basic script down, I'll go back and take a closer look to make sure I have the side stories duplicated where they need to be.

There are also a few scenes that were in the script and that I can remember playing through, but they didn't seem to actually be in the chapter the datamining said they would be in, so I need to track down where they actually go.

Event descriptions are mostly all there, but there were a few places I need to go back and check.

There are a lot of little general things I might have missed (things like conditionals that didn't show up in the ids I was looking at, so they flew under my radar).

Question-answer associations are likely mixed up in a lot of places. I touched on it in a previous post, but this is due to the fact that when Serenoa is answering a question, there's no real id that's used to indicate what dialogue follows a specific answer. So I've mostly just gone off of what sounds right for the time being. But if you're dying for a not-tldr explanation (and of course you're dying for a not-tldr explanation!!!!):

The way I've been "datamining" a lot of this isn't actually datamining so much as it is sort of......... making educated guesses based on the developer's variable naming system. Like for example, a specific piece of dialogue might be named:

MS01_X01_A1_0010_F_FRE_0070

And what I did was sort of reverse-figure-out what those ids indicated. I figured out that MS stands for "Main Story," 01 is the chapter number, X indicates that it's part 2 (if there ARE two parts, otherwise it's just the whole chapter), A1 is a reference to the location (Wolffort Demense), 0010 I think is technically some sort of scene id, but I haven't been able to crack what exactly the value indicates. "F" is the gender, "FRE" indicates that Frederica is the speaker, and "0070" is some other numbers that I did actually figure out what they meant but it's not relevant to datamining (it's a counter for how many times a specific character has spoken in a scene, which was probably useful for making sure each dialogue line got a unique id but it's not super useful in any other sense). (Also my little brother was actually the one to figure that out for me so shout out to him!!!)

There are variants on this with other information included, such as:

MS02_X02_RESEARCH_01_DRAMA_M_ELA_S01_0020

Which is a line of Erador's dialogue with roughly this interpretation:

MS: Main Story

02: Chapter 2

X: Main Chapter Content

RESEARCH: Comes from Exploration phase

01: Version 1

DRAMA: This happens during the exploration phase (as opposed to before or after it)

M: Male

ELA: Erador is the speaker

S01: Scenario ID 1 (usually means this is the dialogue that displays the first time you speak to him, vs. any time afterward)

0020: speaker count again

With questions specifically (like Benedict asking, "What do you think the purpose of the tourney is, my lord?"), those lines of dialogue usually get the label S03. That "S03" label is applied to all parts of the question-related conversation, including: the question itself (e.g. "What do you think the purpose of the tourney is, my lord?"), Serenoa's answers ("I think it's to show off our military might", "I think it's to make friends," etc.), and any NPC response that follows (e.g. Benedict saying, "Not quite, my lord. You see, it's actually..."). As far as I can tell, there's no way to tell what answer goes with what NPC response. It would PROBABLY be in the code somewhere, but while variable names are really easy to see, the actual code is a lot harder to break into and would require likely learning a new coding language and other stuff I simply don't feel like doing.

So thus I'm just guessing a lot of times. For a fair amount of it, it's pretty easy to tell what response goes with what question, but whenever it's ambiguous, it's entirely possible I mixed up the placement of a few lines here and there.

[galaxywhump]

Please yell about Return of the Obra Dinn

OKAY

Obra Dinn is a 2018 mystery game, which for me was very much a case of "third time's a charm" because I gave up the first two times I tried to beat it. I finally finished it a few days ago and I'm so happy I did, and I've been thinking about it pretty much nonstop since.

It's super unique - you play as an insurance investigator sent to investigate the Obra Dinn, a ship that suddenly appeared with no-one on board. You have a pocket watch, which you use to travel back in time and view scenes from life on board, and a book in which you have to determine each of the 60 people on board's identity and fate. It's hard at times, but extremely satisfying to figure out.

The game's graphics are also fascinating:

(via the game's official site)

I'm gonna put yelling containing spoilers under a read more, but before that I think I'll share an idea I've had for a while now? Basically I love hanging out with people while playing games, and I thought I could make a Twitch account and link it here, and maybe play some games there. I'm curious if anyone would be interested 👀

Anyway, warning cause the game is pretty brutal.

I think my favorite thing the game does is that at the very beginning it doesn't reveal the full scope of what you're going to be dealing with. You go through the first few scenes and the deaths are pretty mundane, but then all of a sudden you jump into a different scene from a different scene and KRAKEN is just there. And sure, while determining the fates of the people in the first few scenes you might have noticed causes of death such as "torn apart" or "spiked", and "beast" is a possible culprit, but the Kraken scene makea you realize exactly what you're going to be dealing with.

I thought I wouldn't grow attached to the characters, because you mostly look at still scenes and only get some bits of dialogue, but boy was I wrong. There are moments when you witness the characters in normal circumstances, just living their lives on the Obra Dinn, you see what they do in their time off, who they hang out with, and that makes the more tragic fates so much more painful later on. I'm still emotional over a couple of characters in particular, like the three midshipmen.

Now some smaller things:

- a few characters can only be recognized by their footwear. Holy shit.

- the only Polish character was voiced by Piotr Adamczyk, a very popular Polish actor who's mostly known for playing in shitty rom-coms and also playing the Pope. I find it hilarious.

- took me until I started browsing the game's wiki to learn that one of the characters died on the toilet. Poor guy.

- you can choose the captain as the culprit in every single fate to get the achievement "the captain did it".

- even the reveal of how Obra Dinn, well, returned, was shocking - as was the reveal that the being responsible for it was still around.

- so many people disappeared in "THE DOOM" that it's become an inside joke between me and my sister. If there was a character I couldn't remember the fate of, they probably disappeared in "THE DOOM".

- the introduction of the "SOLDIERS OF THE SEA" chapter is incredible, and the chapter's track makes it even better.

I think that's it? Thanks for giving me the opportunity to yell :D I can't recommend the game enough.

[desultory-novice]

Do you think that Daroach has killed someone off-screen? He is referred as a ruthless thief in star allies even after his friendly meetings with Kirby and him stopping the villians has more so to do with pragmatism than him feeling actually helping.

...!! A Daroach ask! I'm so happy!

Anyway, warning for brief talk of killing, stealing, and other immoral + gray morality stuff! And remember that regardless of what your favorite video game characters would do, everyone has someone who cares about them the same way you care about your most important people! (If you don't think YOU have that person in YOUR life yet, you will, someday! I promise!) </Dess positivity>

Now, Daroach gives me strong "phantom thief" vibes (The hat, the cape. Red is not exactly a stealthy color. It's clear Daroach cares more about style than being undetected. Plus, his JP description constantly throws around the word “calling card” - another staple of the phantom thief) and phantom thieves traditionally outsmart those they encounter rather than kill them but...

...If we're talking about a Kirby universe where everyone comes back to life in a week or so, then perhaps...?!? That is to say, at least as many as Kirby has "killed." (Aka, has "killed" no one that's gone forever :cough: ignoring Sectonia :cough:) But being ruthless (I did a quick wiki browse and couldn’t find a direct quote, but I trust that it’s mentioned somewhere) I'm SURE he and the Squeaks have gotten into violent confrontations before.

The question here is, who would a thief "need" to kill? Even in real life, a thief's focus is on stealing. Anything that gets in the way of that/complicates that process is something they DON'T want. That includes violence/violent confrontations. Killing someone and THEN taking their stuff is more liable to be associated with feelings of power/domination/control. Stealing CAN be about those things, but is usually more concerned with profit or survival. Or rebellion, if you're stealing from an institution.

(Btw, as for writing all that, I actually have zero experience with thievery - and I've never taken a psychology class, so treat the stuff up above with a grain of salt - but when you have ambitions of being a writer, you look a LOT of stuff up/think a lot about motivations.)

There's the possibility of Daroach having harmed or killed someone in self-defense, such as some yet unseen law-person or bounty hunter, but unless his reciprocation was particularly cruel or brutal, it doesn't exactly follow that such an act would lead him to be described as ruthless. And that level of violence doesn't line up with anything we know about the Squeaks anyway. They made Kirby apology cake!!

"Ruthless" does mean having no compassion or pity, but I imagine that is more in reference to the degrees they will go to get their treasure. Recall that Doc built at least two giant killer robots to stop Kirby!

...Oh.... 

...I just said "killer" robots, didn't I?

O-Okay. Let's just make a division here between cartoon violence and real world violence. I don't think the Squeaks have committed anything that could be comparable to the horror of real world violence. I DO think they have gotten up to their non-existent elbows in cartoon violence though!

But as much as I could imagine a growly Daroach threatening someone "to the pain" style in a dimly lit room, the tip of his cane pressed right up against their throat, I don't see him going through with it. He's got so many better methods of getting what he wants than serious violence! Plus, his dialogue in Mass Attack is a perfect mix of “Robin Hood” and “Noblesse Oblige.”

In fact, I went and checked the Japanese Star Allies description and while he mentions “taking” those “Dark Heart Gems” there’s no indication he plans on using them to do anything bad. Daroach speaks as if the thrill of the (treasure) hunt is what he’s in for more than anything. (And being able to lay back on a pile of gold and jewels like some kind of tiny, furry dragon.)

...He'd definitely make someone who hurt his crew regret it though!

Slightly related, I happen to love any HC in which the Squeaks are treated like space pirates, considering they have an airship AND are capable of inter-planetary travel! I feel like someone once mentioned that since Samus is (sort of) canon to the Kirby universe, she's probably seen Daroach's bounty on her radar, at least.

...Though I cannot say for certain what a Metroid-canon Daroach may or may not have done to earn that bounty!

[eliasdrid]

oh speaking of warframe

duviri spoilers ahead (consider I only played yesterday and may be so so wrong)

I was double checking the transcript of the quest on wiki since it'll likely be a while til its out for replay and all.

Anyway. There's this bit, right.

Teshin: You saw that ship in the sky... The Zariman. Our child king must be one of those who was abandoned there. A Tenno. Drifter: You said the Tenno are trying to help me... this paradox stuff. Now you're saying Thrax is one of them? He doesn't seem too helpful. Teshin: The history I know... that Zariman ship returned from the Void, bringing with it the extraordinary power the Tenno command. But here is a different path, I suppose. A difference in parallel. A paradox in itself.

And Dominus Thrax design shows some human skin in his left hand specifically but his legs may be partially uncovered too (or at least that is the case in the concept art). When I saw the weird metal belly thing my first thought was that it was a Fortuna sort of deal and his head/brain rests in there but it might just as well be in its rightful place and he's just trying to look like an Orokin ruler in his complicated fairy tale land (so he has that mask/helmet).

Moving on. I was checking other stuff on wiki and it said somewhere that the Drifter made everything up themself - including Dominus Thrax. This idea is supported by this dialogue but I want to explain what I interpreted which is not exactly this. Bear with me.

Teshin: You did it. You took control. Drifter: I always had it. Thrax didn't make this place- Teshin: -you did. But... you reset it. You gave it all back to him. Why?

Now, the Drifter being the original king is interesting because the first thing we hear when trying to leave is this (below) and while the first citizen does say they are not sure... the Drifter is quite different from Dominus Thrax and it struck me as odd while I was playing. Besides, it seemed to me that Dominus Thrax didn't leave the palace much.

Citizen 1: The king! The king! There goes our honored king! Citizen 2: Where? Where?! He gave me no eyes to see him!

So, like, I am absolutely wondering how long it's been since the Drifter lost control of Duviri... because clearly they are an Adult Now and clearly they were a child or teenager before Duviri, aboard the Zariman.

If Duviri happened with the "crash" and that's the point of divergence... well, our operators are teenagers to young adults (at most). And before the War Within update, on Second Dream, they were more child-like (and I personally adhere to the idea that there was a time for the operator to "grow up" at whatever slow rate void-immortality has given them out of cryo/suspension between these two events). So, the Drifter was a teen (or preteen) and they were with others of their age (or about). Of the adults of the Zariman we know little but I do not remember any of them surviving so we have a bunch of children whose parents are all dead. Of course the Tenno managed somehow and were later retrieved by the Orokin who experimented on them and made them weapons on the Sol timeline. Not the case on Duviri...

During the quest Teshin says we are not experiencing our own memories but Dominus Thrax's. This is the one thing that leads me to believe that Dominus Thrax is not a Conceptual Embodiment but a Tenno - like Teshin guesses at first. The Drifter could have also poured their memories into Dominus Thrax to rid of them too but... let me follow my line of thought to the end.

SO.

Consider: The Drifter and Thrax were taking care of each other during the events of the Zariman. The Drifter decided to read Thrax, perhaps much younger than them, this book he carried around constantly to help him calm down - he even had a doll of one of the characters, it was clear that he liked it very much.

Sidenote, the book we get has doodles on the pages, which reinforces my idea that it belonged to a child. Moving on.

It's all going terribly aboard the Zariman and it's gonna get worse. Reading the book to Thrax is almost a ritual. Escapism. The Drifter being older and capable of understanding what's going on wishes that Thrax would never have to see the horrors of this and could live in this fantastic book... Something happens (perhaps many of the others die) and this all develops into The Drifter creating Duviri and making Thrax king. The Child King. To Cope.

The Drifter plays along at first, they are no longer in danger and they have an entire amazing world to explore. The Drifter is the Drifter because they explore ever-changing Duviri and won't stop visiting places, coming back and telling tales. Years go by. Thrax being much younger and having all his needs met never grows up from his child self, it's not like they have anyone around to teach them either. Additionally the Drifter may be too trusting of the fact that he can do all the growing up on his own too, having grown up quickly themself due to the Zariman incident, or believes he understand that this is all made up and one day they'll have to leave. In any case, they eventually reach the conclusion that Duviri is nice, fairy tale land, but they should call for help or find a way out already. They can't be children forever. When they express this, it sparks a conflict between them.

[...] You keep calling this a prison, but you know what it really is? It's the only place in the entire universe that is... Actually. Safe.

Thrax doesn't want to leave this world of fantasy and doesn't want the Drifter too either, this is the only other real person he knows of. And it is safe here. Nowhere else. Maybe they play cat and mouse for a while, maybe Duviri was bigger but got reduced so the Drifter couldn't go too far. Whatever happens, Thrax ends up getting the Drifter and executes them for treason ad nauseum until The Duviri Paradox quest and here we are now.

Anyway these were my thoughts, cutting it here because I feel I might get sidetracked. Also this interpretation kinda makes it all a bit sadder that The Drifter decided to reset the day and give Thrax the throne back even though they likely had the power to change that.

[cure-typhoon]

this is probably a stupid question but i've seen it around a lot. does john canonly transition after homestuck?? i haven't looked at any post-homestuck in-universe content since the og comic ended but i feel like i see trans woman john (june? jude?) stuff a lot but can't find anything on the wiki

Oh, okey this is going to sound crazy, but like a couple of years ago after the release of the Epilogues/before the release of HS2? (I can't remember which one) Hussie did a scavenger hunt for 4/13 i think, where if you found a toblerone you would get a wish, and he would make it canon or smt like that

Well someone who found the toblerone wished that John would be a transwoman and Hussie was like "yeh sure" so thats how it became popular/canon

It seemed like that they we're going to introduce more of the idea of John transitioning in Homestuck 2 but they never we're able to get to that point in the story before the HS2 stopped.

June is the most popular name for post transition because of a dialogue they had with Vriska and because the person that wished for June named her that way and I just realized that lol*Edit

And Jude is actually a character of Hiveswap! They are Joey Claire's younger brother!

[finnritter]

Fingon or Húrin for the ask game?

-@outofangband

Ask Game:

Thank you for the ask @outofangband! Finally getting around to do this. I’ll gladly do both, Fingon is under the cut.

Húrin

one aspect about them i love

This is cheating a bit because it’s not really a character aspect and more like… plot, but. The ending of CoH with him wrecked me on a level not many books have managed. Not going into detail here in case someone reads this who hasn’t finished the book yet, but I’m sure everyone else knows what I’m talking about. Idk why this touched me so deeply (after all the pain the rest of this book was I would expect to be inured to the tragedy) and it’s such a short scene but I was not expecting that ending and the dialogue and then the book is just over and you’re left alone with all the pain and feels for Húrin.

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

Nothing really comes to mind here, I don’t think/know enough about him to have an informed opinion on this. But I always, always love posts that define the parallels between Húrin, Huor and their children, and how interconnected they are. Had they never found Gondolin, Húrin’s whole story had not happened. But neither had Tuor’s and in turn, Eärendil’s, which would mess up the whole timeline of Middle Earth. Húrin and Huor (and in turn Túrin and Tuor) are like two sides of the same coin and I love reading takes on this by people who have deeper thoughts about this whole topic than myself.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character

This is only gut-feeling, but I’d imagine him as a rather quiet type of person. Not in a brooding kind of way, and he is also not afraid to speak his mind when necessary, but he’s the “few words but silent comfort” kind of quiet. The “smiles and meaningful looks” kind of quiet. The “I’ll go on a hike alone, see you in five hours” kind of quiet. He also likes to be around louder/more easily excited people as well as equally quiet ones – which is why he clicks so well with Morwen. They can spend hours either apart or in the same room but not talking and never feel like they’re losing touch.

one character i love seeing them interact with

This kind of slips into the territory of the next question already, but to be fair, there are not really any characters we see Húrin interact with much, so: Huor and also Fingon. Honestly, Húrin is not a character I have many thoughts about, but I am super intrigued by the posts about Fingon and Húrin’s friendship I see sometimes, and the dynamic with his brother, albeit also not very popular in the fandom, interests me also!

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more

Morwen! His children!! The people he did not ever get to spend enough time with. This is not necessarily a “I wish they would interact more” and more a “I wish they would get the chance to interact at all after his capture”. I’d love to see how they would work as a family, even though that obviously takes away all the meaning from the story. But on a slightly more realistic note, I would love for him to get the chance to just once talk to his children, the children that he knows so well, whose lives he sees in all of their details, why they never really get to know him. I’d be so interested in what he would say to them, if he could.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

Okay okay okay I just read parts of his wiki page to check something and was reminded that Húrin and Huor were only 16 and 13 when they came to Gondolin??? I had somehow wrongly remembered/assumed that they had been young adults, but THIS CHANGES THINGS. So yeah, give me absolutely overprotective big brother Húrin, please. I mean, they obviously have been raised in a very harsh environment, they knew how to fight before they came to Gondolin and Húrin completely trusts his brother even at that age to stand his ground and make smart choices – in the forest they grew up in. Not in a strange, gigantic city full of elves that are probably all extremely curious about them. Huor, if he is at least half as chill as his son, is probably very happy to be there, explore everything and taste all the good food. Meanwhile Húrin, who has been cast into the role of the lone adult, frantically tries to keep him from wandering off, drills him into saying please and thank you All The Time because he is terrified of accidentally offending a super important elf-lord or something, and meanwhile also tries to stumble through conversations with an actual King (!!!) without embarrassing himself, his House and his whole species. He has a stressful couple of weeks before he finally manages to relax and enjoy his time there a bit more.

Fingon

one aspect about them i love

His presence!! He seems like a person who enters a room and everyone knows he’s there. He’s pretty social, confident and also knows how to carry himself and together with the sort of roguish charm he radiates, he always leaves a strong impression on people. This, obviously, are in-universe personality headcanons, but honestly, the very same thing happens just by reading the book. He doesn’t have an extremely huge role in it but he just manages to break his way into the memory of the readers. This guy just has +100 charisma and is just unhinged enough to be insanely likeable (if a little intimidating sometimes) imo.

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

I have the feeling that everyone who analyses him on an even slightly deeper level will say this but: He’s not only a happy-go-lucky guy who wants everyone to be friends. He’s honestly doesn’t seem carefree to me at all (if rather reckless at times), at least not as his main character trait, and especially not in Beleriand. Yes, what I just wrote above is (supposedly) all true, BUT, as I said, that’s mostly charisma. He seems more impulsive and at the same time very persistent to me, which seems to drive almost all of his big decisions, rather than him being a cheerful foil to Maedhros’ gloom. He’s probably easy to like (as a leader, king and acquaintance alike), but surprisingly hard to be close friends with.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character

Very random, but he loves flying. Which is a shame because elves don’t actually get to fly a lot and it’s not like you can just catch one of the great eagles and make them your pet. If you could, Fingon would have been the first one to do it. After Thangorodrim, when they were flying and Fingon could take off 1% of his attention off making sure Maedhros doesn’t die for the first time, he fell in love with the feeling instantly and was honestly a little bit sad that he never got to do it again under less stressful circumstances. He dreams about it a lot, though.

one character i love seeing them interact with

I know this is the boring answer, but Maedhros. I don’t actively read much about them, but even then, they are present in a lot of fanwork and their dynamic is usually super powerful, no matter if they’re a couple or not. I love the thought that they chose each other as best friends in childhood/youth and always felt like they had such an “against all odds”-relationship because of their family and because they were so different in a lot of things. And then everything up to Angband happened and, well, all of that seemed so simple in retrospect. I love that they’re both a little fucked up but in a way that works for each other. I can absolutely see them not getting along and being furious with each other at times, I can also imagine that there was still always a bit of unspoken baggage between them that they just didn’t want to deal with. But no matter what, they always relied on each other, always trusted the other to be there when it was important. (And now I’m sad about the Nirnaeth again.)

Also, honorary mention: Maglor. Just because I love it when they don’t actually like each other a lot/never really got close again after Maedhros’ rescue, but still have an unspoken agreement to make sure that Maedhros is safe and also that, if it comes to it, at least one of them should probably make sure to stay alive because Maedhros would be lonely otherwise. It’s the peak dynamic for the two of them, honestly.

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more

Angrod and Aegnor. Their friendship is pretty underrated if you ask me, and I would love to know more about what the dynamic was like back in Aman – and then all the Helcaraxe angst later. I do think that Angrod and Aegnor forgave him after a while, but also that they never quite got as close as before. Still, the Bragollach was basically a triple gut punch for Fingon, who was basically on his own afterwards, except for the Feanorians. There are so many interesting stages of their friendship and their feelings towards each other, and I always love seeing this depicted!

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

While Fingon had always been close to his father, the Helcaraxe made them almost inseparable for a while. Fingon really grew to be Fingolfin’s right hand man on there, supporting him in his leadership but also trying to take as much load as possible off his shoulders. He felt like he was one of the few ones who could really grasp what Feanor’s betrayal meant to his father (because he felt almost exactly the same way about Maedhros) and the depth of how it had hurt him.

He also purposefully tried to throw himself into as much work and exertion as possible because it was a good way for him to keep moving and not be weighed down too much by his decisions and the doom resting on all of them.

This dynamic loosened a bit after the Ice, but he remained one of the closest advisors and confidants of Fingolfin up until his death.

[waheelawhisperer]

Stuff I dig about your OC's TA jaunt excerpt, in no particular order: (1) good range of third-person perspectives/voices; (2) the Mower Incident; (3) Biff-er, Cardin's crap not going unnoticed; (4) Blake getting a bit back WRT Weiss' Company Heir screeds; (5) Fei also a bit put on-the-spot by the Doc. Finally, put my vote down for a full-bore school supply duel (papercut aura slashes? dual-wield staple gunplay? Protractor fencing?).

Aw, thank you! I appreciate the compliments!

(1) This chapter takes place relatively early in the story (iirc the scene's in chapter 10 and I've written about 105 overall), so one of my priorities here was establishing the distinct character voices. Yang is different from Ruby who is different from Blake who is different from Weiss who is different from -

and I wanted both their internal narration and external dialogue to both reflect that and remain consistent with what we know of how they speak and think and act and feel in the show. If I can't imagine a character saying a line with the actual voice and inflection and word choice they use in the show, I'll scrap it or rework it until I can.

(2) Yang and Ruby are both accomplished engineers and habitual troublemakers, you cannot convince me they didn't test out their newfound knowledge and skills on the most readily-available household appliances, much to their father's chagrin. You also can't convince me that Qrow did not encourage them enthusiastically, partly because he wants to be the cool uncle, partly because he genuinely enjoys seeing them be happy and learn, and partly because he wants to antagonize Tai.

(3) That was important because Cardin's crap doesn't exactly go unnoticed in canon proper either. The main characters think his behavior is deplorable, but they don't really step in to stop it, and neither do the staff. The explanation this fic posits for that is, essentially, that this is a Huntsman Academy, and thus that anyone who can't defend themselves and is too proud to ask for help had better find a way to deal with that in a relatively safe environment before they go out into the field. Huntsmen need to be strong, good at working with others, or both, and there's no room on the battlefield for stubborn pride. Better to let them learn this lesson now than when lives are at stake.

(4) Yeah, so, like, I've been pretty vocal about my disappointment in the way Weiss's racism and Blake's racial activism have been handled in canon, so one of my goals with his story was to remember that these are, in fact, elements of their characters that exist for more than two episodes and would logically cause friction between them, especially early on before they were able to bond and reach an understanding and Weiss started putting in the effort to change and be better. I wanted that change to be more gradual in this story than it was in the show, with Weiss acknowledging that she's trying her best and still making mistakes (and not even recognizing some of the mistakes she's making) and Blake acknowledging that Weiss means well and is making the effort but still messes up and needs correction, rather than the very... abrupt... transition Weiss makes from "racist" to "not racist".

Also, Atlas sucks and Blake deserves the chance to clap back at it, because she sure as hell didn't get the opportunity when the narrative actually traveled there

(5) That was actually Ozpin's idea. I looked at his entry on the wiki and apparently he likes introducing chaos and studying the significance of people's choices (iirc we got this information from the CFVY books I haven't read), so I figured things were getting a little too easy for Feilan and had Ozpin ask Oobleck to shake things up a bit. This was also meant to show that while he's not, like, fully prepared to be a leader or a mentor at this (early) stage of his development, he does have the innate ability to think quickly and respond to changing circumstances.

Also yeah I feel like someone should get to stab Cardin with a pen John Wick style but I have plans for him so he gets to live another day

Thank you once again for the feedback!

[coffee-in-veins]

As someone who (very casually) enjoys Eldin Ring, I am very curious what you think

thank you for the ask! ^^ that was quick xD

well, then, i hope you won't be upset about what i have to say about it. i genuinely love it from worldbuilding perspective and it looks cool and thrilling more often than not. other things, though...

for the context, i did my best to like it for like casual 80 hours or so, playing very slowly, very cautiously, and probably very inefficiently, because i would often just chill at the location, so those hours mean almost nothing. i managed to kill the grafted guy, the moon lady, got to meet Ranni (god i remember at least one name from it all without cheating!) and got to the point where i was supposed to get into the autumn plateau which name i won't remember even if you torture me.

and this is my first gripe with the game. this one is more of a personal struggle, so take it with a grain of salt. i struggle quite a lot with remembering names, both irl and in media. i remember visuals, i remember voices, i remember plots. but names? beats me. hell, i only remembered Dis and Rey after like half a year of a deep dive into DD, if it gives you any perspective.

with that explanation out of the way, comes the gripe itself: most of the time, i was completely, utterly and hopelessly lost who were those people, whom they wanted killed and where they wanted me to go. my quests would go something like this:

"Go fight General Radahn!" someone said. I think I saw their helmet, twice, and I remember they are a blacksmith. probably. i remember the voice tho. they are genuinely nice to me, so i'd probably do it.

however, not a single braincell rumbled in that head of Tarnished of mine as i sat in front the screen and looked at them blankly: "Who?"

but the NPC already continued: "They are in Caelid!"

not a drop of recognition. "Where?" okay, i sit and think frantically, i have a map, maybe it has parts named, maybe i won't have to wander for half an hour before giving up and going to the wiki again...? no? well, fuck, maybe some locations are named? right! locations. jackpot, some have 'caelid' in them. ah, the red poison swamp! dude, why didn't you say so? on my way!

me, meeting Radahn: aaahhh, that big dude on a tiny horse! sure! from the promo! wait, who asked to kill him again? and why?

and that was every time. there are dozens of names and places and they all are deeply connected and you somehow are expected to keep it all in your head or make notes on a piece of paper, idk. call me whiny, or call it an aesthetic (put a pin into that, we will return to it later), but wouldn't it be convenient to have something like bestiary that Witcher 3 had, with a tab for people you met or heard about? nothing too concrete, hell, this series is know for being frugal with explanations but... like, something, so i don't have to keep wiki constantly open and ready to alt tab to understand who am i talking to and who are they talking about.

and while we're talking about dialogues, BG3 made me understand how much i need a tab where i can re-read recent dialogues. if not to understand things better with all the ye old-english-y words some of us filthy non-eng speakers have no idea even exist, then to see how those names are spelled so we can search them in wikis later.

and have you noticed a thing which is going like a red string through all of my writing? wiki. hell, i'm writing all of the above using wiki because i still don't remember how those people are called. you get used to it just to know who's who. wanna laugh at me? because i was so stressed out by the first bosses, i completely blacked out at the first boss, only seeing vague shapes, and i genuinely thought that Godrick and Morgott were the same guy for the longest time because i was stressed out, didn't have enough time to look at them and was frantically thinking of moves and skills instead of actually watching the cutscene with proper attention. it didn't help that they both spoke with similar tones and in a ye old-english-y way, and were in the same location. so yeah, you can imagine my confusion during the game later on...

there's one thing, though. constantly checking names in wiki makes you feel like it's fine to check other things too. and, Io and behold, before you know it, you're just tired and grumpy and look up where the hell are things you need, quests you missed, resource nodes... and suddenly, the best part of the game (exploration) is gradually chipped away, without you even noticing.

i mean, i had to look up how the horse is called and I love Torrent to bits, even if he is as responsive to controls as a DD2 bangwagon that was put on two very greasy, very non-cooperative pigs on skis. which is another gripe of mine, but the poor guy is so abandoned in the second half of the game, that it's genuinely depressing.

which brings us to my second most gripe in the game: menus. remember that aesthetic pin? let's get it out. menus are a genuine pain in the ass to navigate, they don't respond to mouse (oh, we're gonna return to that. oh, we're gonna...), and for the first thirty or so HOURS i wasn't aware there were other tabs in the inventory. genuinely. i simply wasn't aware. i hovered the mouse on tabs, they weren't scrolling, and knowing that this is primary console game, i didn't pay much attention to the keys besides those, assuming (rightfully, as i thought) that those were for consoles to switch tabs. forgive me for my 'pc master race' mentality, but i'm not used to things in the menu not being responsive to the mouse. so some of the quest items you see in there somewhere? any tab after keys? nope, i didn't know they existed.

remember painting quests? i loved those. but also i had no fucking idea you carried a copy somewhere in the bowels of the inventory tab. thus, like the moron i was, i would come to them, make a photo of my screen on my phone, and try to go around, keeping the photo up on my phone as a reference. or go back to the actual in world painting to check. my frustration was immeasurable and my pain was immense. or maybe you wanna find the weapon you just looted and see if it is of any use? pff, good luck, hope you remembered its name or how it looked, or didn't have anything in your inventory, else get ready to go through a warehouse of other gear you carry. not to mention that sorting on those is extremely non-intuitive. why are lantern and looking glass and prattling pates in one section but wraith calling bell and mimic veil have separate ones? why is horse whistle with flasks and flasks 2.0? why are memory of grace with the flasks and horse whistle? am i missing something?? genuine question.

quick side note while we’re at the topic of prattling pates, should i even mention how notoriously convoluted the better ending for my sweet boy Boc is…?

not to mention that 'Switch display' option is very... unexplained, to say politely. it turns out you can see how many runes exactly is Golden Rune [7] - if you switch the view. because having explanation of 'use to gain many runes' on one screen totally gives you a hint that it would say 'use to gain 2500 runes' in another.

i mean i get it. the series has a reputation. it is dark souls 4, 5 and 6 with a new coat of pain (or maybe paint), it has to be hard, you gotta 'git good', you have to fight for every sliver of lore and then listen to 12 hours of youtube explanations anyway just to have a semblance of understanding what's going on. but - and this is an important but - there's a difference between working for the lore and being unable to understand what the hell you looted and not being aware you can actually know how rune [6] 'many' differs from rune [9] 'many' without trying to go and use it and make a table with those orrrr - say it with me! have the wiki opened.

also the fact that nowhere does it say that spirit ashes can be summoned only in specific areas AND you need a bell you need to get later on somehow bumbling into Ranni is simply false marketing. i took twin imps as my trinket and boy ho boy, lemme tell you someone was pissed for the first hour of the game...

which brings me to creme de la creme of my gripes. the controls. pc port is... well it exists, and i still haven't recovered from that. it makes you extremely aware from the word go that you're not the target demographic. that you're unwelcome here. that no one looked at it and thought: huh, we have battles where we expect Tarnished to get on and off Torrent mid-fight, so how shitty of us would it be if we make Torrent summon be "F + [arrow up]" for keyboards? you know, so the player would have to get their hand off the mouse. mid-battle. naaah, that would work just fine, ship that bad boi as is! oh, and make it non-mappable too. they have keyboard with 75% keys being unused? who cares! it mirrors gamepad, and that is what truly matters.

i said it once when a pal of mine let me use his acc and try Dark Souls. i think it was the third one...? well, my experience was - 'i'm not fighting the monsters, i'm fighting the game'. and it's pretty much the same for Elden Ring. did you know there's a power off hand attack? i didn't. did you know there's a way of switching your weapon to hold it in two hands? i didn't did you know you can make it on the fly? i sure as hell didn't. did you know your RH attack is bound to your LMC and it fucks your brain when you play because here it plays role and you can fuckup by using weapons in 'wrong' hands? yeah, that i experienced a plenty.

do you know how i know all those? i plugged in a gamepad and oh god all of the mapping makes so much goddamn sense! i had to reverse-map things because i only played FF9 with a controller, and was extremely uncomfortable with it in a non-turn-based game. which left a taste of bile in my mouth.

loading times are awesome thought. i dunno how they achieved that, but that's hella impressive for a game this big.

i ended up liking the world. vistas. lore that people dig into. but this game isn't for me. not because i'm not interested but because i have a setup they clearly don't care about. and it's okay, i guess. but i have too little free time to spend it fighting not the monsters the game sets in front of me as a challenge but the game itself

hope it wasn't too convoluted ^^'

and thanks again for the ask! :}

[fictionfixations]

twisted wonderland (and talking about visual novels)

TWISTED WONDERLAND SPOILERS.

and brief mystic messenger mention

okay. so. im getting into twisted wonderland

and. can i just ask. why does the story actually seem cool? also DESIGNS??? WOAHHH.

Maybe I'm biased, I've had the story a bit spoiled to me cause. Okay so I got into Twisted Wonderland because I was reading Katekyou Hitman Reborn! fics, and there's this series filled with Skull being characters from Twisted Wonderland (and other stuff ofc). And I decided, why not, and it seemed so cool (I adore bamf skull), and also. Honestly. My favorite is Riddle Rosehearts. (Also the 'OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!' ability. 1. Ayo CoLLAR ME PLS HAha- 2. I don't know if it gets more extreme but in the fics its been used to kill a bunch of people at once because, y'know, off with your head. The ability seems very cool.)

honestly i have no complaints about the story?? and maybe thats on me because the most experience i have with japanese visual novels is they're all romance games. and i really appreciate it not being that. HELL YEAH. give me my fantasy adventure with disney villains everyday!

i cannot tell you how much i LOVED Ever After High. And then there was Descendants (i think it got so popular that Ever After High got discontinued, which NOOOO)

Anyway I got so obsessed with Descendants. And then I went to a store and there was Descendants stuff and I bought a lot. I don't know why but I even bought like a Mal wig?? I don't even know why, I don't cosplay.

I'm not sure whose related to who and where exactly it fits in the universe (like, for example, if Riddle's related to the queen of hearts or something, no idea), but there's basically these dorms for seven of these like.. villains. Introduction to who they are in the prologue imo is kinda portraying it in a way that you want to be inspired by them? Like, oh, Scar just wanted equality between the Hyenas and the Lions (I think? I haven't watched that movie in so long), and while technically that's kind of true.. I think other stuff happened but I honestly can't remember.

Or like... The. evil queen? I think that's from Snow White's story. Uhh, that she wanted to be the fairest in all the land and was willing to do whatever it takes, which that was something to be admired about. Honestly don't hang on my word if you don't know about the game's story and reading this anyway because I don't remember a lot from the movies.

(ALSO for once not a story where we're assumed to be like, a girl? again, my only experience is those romance games sadly, but oh my god. I've been trying to get back into Mystic Messenger cause I never had the patience for it before, but the

me: I'm not a girl [dialogue option]

707 I think: ..Then why are you here??? Did you miss the 'something something. It was like [for females] or [female-oriented]'

it was 'youdidntreadsweetfantasyforladies?'

apparently its cause korea wasn't supportive of lgbtq stuff so even the more gay-er routes (COUGH COUGH jAEHEE MY BELOVED) were risky, sad.

but i don't know man. (can we talk about how guys are pushed to like those really overly muscular and buff men.? Wouldn't that technically make them possibly more gay? like idk. question:

if a boy were to play with, say, a barbie doll, would that be more gay then

playing with muscular half-naked men??? i really wonder why it's not flipped the other way around to promote f/m instead of f/f or m/m admiration lol)

anyway i got so off topic. and then i got distracted and i dont remember what i was talking about

segway to my next topic:

also. also. can we just. talk about the overblot designs? okay so im spoiling myself and going on the wiki but im not that patient

LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS. ALSO HEELS. and i cant tell if its heeled boots but STILL. that little dress part that hangs around the body, the thing behind the head i dont know the name of but ive seen it before, the marking on the face reminding me of like one of those widow veils, the flowers around the waist is a nice touch

and the mark on his neck is 👀

like just SQUEEE, its very pretty, i would LOVE to play him but I'm pretty sure that's not possible

and cause overblotting is like a dangerous thing

(ive read that its like a rare thing in a fic but kept happening often since we arrived [one overblot for every 'book' or dorm] but idk if its canon cause i havent gotten to the explanation in the game and i dont think the wiki mentions it)