#thats the entire basis of the franchise

[doomzday-zone]

and i know some of it is probably also that like, purity culture thing where everyone is so scared to have a 'problematic' fav r ship r whatever the hell. but like you really cannot backtrack any of this shit w william afton. fnaf is VERY upfront and honest about william, he is a very uncomfortable gross character. he KILLS CHILDREN. listen to me. he KILLS LITTLE KIDS. its the basis of the entire franchise and its really telling how bland and uninteresting and quite frankly idiotic people are willing to make him to try n blunt that blade a little.

its so!! fucking strange !!!!!!!! and frustrating!! how people will say they loveee these deeply gross freaky characters while trying to actively erase that part of them!!!! and thats one thing i actually really admire about william afton, its genuinely so fucking hard to do this to him cause you have to ignore 95% of fnaf canon. ACTIVELY. AT ALL TIMES. YOU HAVE TO IGNORE NEARLY EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM.

and its so funny watching people try and do this.

i think the worst thing ppl do then tho is take him at face value, and ESP in the theorizing fandom likeeeee it hurts me... so bad..... ppl will take characteristics of his when hes OBVIOUSLY BEING DECEPTIVE and attribute that to his genuine character, like ive literally seen people talk about him and acknowledge his general untrustworthiness but then seemingly cast it aside to lament about how tortured and sad he really is. and its like?!?!?!?? its so frustrating!!!!!!!!! like do you understand what you guys are doing?????????? YOU'RE LITERALLY FALLING FOR HIS ACT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WILLIAM AFTON WOULD WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THIS ABOUT HIM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!! people will look william afton in the eyes and trust that he will tell the truth as if his entire character doesnt hinge on the fact that hes ACTINGGGG !!!!¡! HES PUTTING UP A FRONT!!!!!! HES DELIBERATELY MAKING HIMSELF OUT TO BE MORE SYMPATHETIC THAN HE REALLY IS TO DISTRACT FROM THE FACT THAT HE IS A DEEPLY DISTURBED, GROSS, MONSTROUS MAN. like you are LITERALLY falling for the exact tactics he uses TO KILL PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IN REAL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIKE OMGGGGG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NONE OF YOU would survive william afton.💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

[ganondoodle]

(this is not about anyone in particular but i have encountered this argument alot too so i wanna say sth about it)

the thing that people like to use as an excuse to why totks story was so lackluster that they think of the gameplay first

but how is that an excuse for bad story and inconsistency with the game its supposedly a sequel too? does good gameplay suddendly mean that the story gotta be bad? they made it work just fine with botw, sure its got its problems and there are things that could have been better like in any game, but they made it work with the themes, it felt harmonical with the rest of it

yeah the story feels like an afterthought in totk, bc it probably was, but it didnt have to be, and not to toot my own horn here but thats what im trying to do with the rewrite, yes im including some wishes i have that would never be canon but this is ultimately wasted work im doing anyway, im restructuring the whole game bc i want it to be in tune with itself, i took the route of most changes bc its my little brainfart were i can make it into something i really want while using the real game as a basis, all that work is in vain anyway so why not go all out, but i have several ideas, some even written out, on how you could have made it better, sometimes with minimal changes even and even then, they dont matter, the game is done and higely successful, im just a random dude on the internet thats part of the 0.01% of fans that dont like it, im just insane enough (or autistic enough lol) to basically do game design and writing for an entire game IP i dont own and never will for a game thats already finished and wont change regardless of how much work i do or how much i yell about it

if you think its 'unfair' to the canon game bc some things are not doable (tho honestly given what they have already been able to do nintedny would absolutely be able to do everything im writing) or bc im changing so much then ok? if you think they had their reasons and thats ok with you then ok?

im not tho, and no i dont think they had a good reason nor good excuse to do it like this, thats my opinion anyway, and my opinion doesnt matter in the grant scheme of things

like you dont have to like anything i do with it, its not a demand of the devs, the games done already anyway and nothign will change that, im literally just making it into the sequel i would have loved, i would have wanted, i would think is better but thats just me, all of the work im doing for this project is an outlet for my frustration with the game that i cant let go bc i love the franchise, and most importantly botw, so much that i cant let it go

so if you dont like what im doing, thats fine, but move on then pls bc im not demanding anyone to like it and if you choose to engage with it despite not liking it thats not my fault now is it

and if you do like it i want to thank you for your support!! it means alot that maybe, even if its technically wasted work and time, its really not fully useless, if it can bring even one other person a little joy, thats a good engouh reason for me to keep posting it :3

[doodleduds]

I saw your redesign of Darkspine Sonic. Really cool, makes me wish there was a 3D model of it (base form Sonic's model for Secret Rings is one of my favourites). What was the inspiration(s) behind it? I guess it's something related to Arabic culture, since that was already the basis for Secret Rings as a whole, but could you give more details? Or was it inspired by something entirely different?

Hey!! I’m so flattered, thank you for sending in this ask! Sonic and the Secret Rings always followed the theme of Arabian nights and I loved the concept when the game first came out- only to be disappointed when sonic finally had the big reveal and turned into darkspine. This was something that was supposed to be akin to both dark sonic (my favorite little guy) and one of the djinn-like enemies from the game/just a djinn in general and it always struck me as odd that they’d work for all that world building/thematic setting and have sonic finally lose it to go one step further beyond the ‘curse’ that Erazor Djinn put on him- and just make him… bright purple, and a little More Naked than usual…with a racing stripe (To put it harshly, lol.) For my redesign I of course looked at the original darkspine and decided what needed to change- the color made sense, because erazor djinn is purple too, most of the enemies seen are too from what I remember- but I felt like it was a little too saturated considering the context of the form. With slight color change out of the way I focused on clothing and changing the markings darkspine has on his body. I cross referenced pictures of erazor djinn more than I did anything else because if this was a dark sonic iteration like it was in my mind sonic would need to be a little more intimidating while still fitting into the narrative the game makes for itself. I just based his clothing off of what I thought would look believe-able in-universe for SatSR, mostly pulling reference from Erazor and Sahara. For his markings I changed them to look similar to the ones on Erazor Djinn had on his body; at first I was going to pull inspiration from some of the enemies from the game but decided for continuity the former would be better. I didn’t do much else, the claws were Erazor Djinn again! The tail was just something I was trying out because of a thought I had when I was little- “if a djinn is just an evil genie why doesnt erazor have a cool genie ghost tail”- which ended up being one of my favorite parts of the design!! The more pointed ears/generally more feral traits were a decision made purely out of “if sonics Angry at this point in the story why does he look friendly to me” and I ultimately (last minute) decided to keep his heart-flame out of pure spite- again, a thought I had when I was little influenced this- and thats really it!

TLDR; I used reference images from in-game to make him look more like he really was from the Arabian Nights as the game portrays it, rather than him looking like he could transform into a purple sports-car any minute. <- I mean ALL of this in the most loving way possible of course, darkspine sonic is my sweet boy and the storybook series of games are still some of my all time favorites in the franchise! I’m so happy you like it! All of the models in that game looked like they went through heavy planning and I wanted to give darkspine some of the same traits!

[redxblueihateloveyou]

I wanted to ask, if this 10 years period is real bad? Because I'm not sure whether to read this part or not.

By "real bad" you mean like in angsty? Or bad bad?

Bc to me there's no like any period in DMBJ series that I didn't love reading, like I ofc have those books that I love most, but surprisingly there were none I didn't like. I enjoyed all of them for different reasons. Some for masochistic ones, yes lol

Well, its just if you're already commited and won't read that part, you'll miss out way too important shit. Bc this part of the series (I don't mean just the sand sea, but all the books in between) is a major turning point for everything. Qiling's past, Wu Xie's character and etc. Their relationships, too.

I'm not gonna lie it was hard for me to read (esp SS bc newbies that won't appear anymore that I couldn't get attached to, didn't help), not interest wise (bc I've finished these 4 in like 5 days lmao), but just because despite the usual high quality entertainment and badass dark Wu Xie, don't know if thats an unpopular opinion or not, I didn't enjoy seeing him like that at all. Like after 10 years Wu Xie is my favorite Wu Xie, bc besides becoming extremely badass, with his soul Xiaoge returning to him, he becomes alive again and returns his.. well, not childishness, but idk word for this his thing... cute mischief (? lol) too. And it was just heartwarming to see and be like "yes thats his my baby, but cooler now" haha.

But this middle part he just was very lifeless during the whole thing and reading like he was trying to "exist" for several books was depressing days for me haha. I'm just used to authors being nice about stuff like this and do like time skips and gentle flashbacks after maybe xD. But like proportionally.. considering the amount of books its all fair to me haha. And its a really an awesome part and the most informative one for sure.

Is it sad? Heck yeah. I mean, even with the knowledge that he's gonna be back and that he's alive, it's like he's going through all the stages of grief there and it's all not great, yeah. I mean, he also cuts himself on regular basis and just does many things that I think would make Xiaoge not even just super angry but straight up cry, but... BUT...

...I'm one of those ppl for whom "without the bitter the sweet isn't as sweet". Like to me skipping to the reunion would be a blasphemy as it is just cause I wouldn't find it as satisfying. That's just how it is for me. I hate angst without the happy ending as much as a happy ending without angst before that lmao. Thats why I think this franchise and I were meant to be xD. Bc its literally a constant perfect rollercoaster of just that.

So I can't imagine skipping this part, bc to my masochistic ass it would just ruin the joy of the journey entirely lol.

It's like... so you skip to them reuniting... it just wouldn't be as tasty, trust me. Don't you wanna know how he is, when he's angry for the love of his life? Helpless about feeling so empty? Having to do crazy things just to stop hurting and missing him at least for a second? I know u secretly wanna lol 👀

Also don't u just have other faves, too? I mean, Wu Xie kinda scarying XiaoHua with his revenge for my husband plans.. lol. There's just a lot of things you don't wanna miss haha like a bunch of idiots being memes in hard times too xD

P.S. You can also wait for the sea flower dorama to air (we'll see how this one is gonna go, but idk I have 0 hopes as usual lol) besides watching sand sea ofc (if you haven't yet). But again, don't throw tomatoes and shoes at me pls, but like as much as I think that the SS casting was great and the quality of the whole production also great, I still didn't at all get the feels of what it felt like when I was reading it. Again don't kill me, but also there to me it kinda felt like he was his dead comrade or smth (lol idk why I'm sorry), while I deeply love this part for how very angsty fanfiction-y it is in the books. And I just didn't get what I wanted to get from it in the series. It was just not quite the same vibe to me.

And I'm always like willing to give everyone a chance to surprise me, no matter the budget and stuff, I don't care already for this after watching lots of stuff, but if it doesn't fit the certain feeling of the particular part, than I'll pass.

That being said. Just don't think they can put it off. I mean "hardcore romantic longing for someone who's like not even there" part and also that other part xD. I know someone who can, but I just don't wanna be the one who constantly like... whines about them not being able to join it again... But also I'm still totally doing it most of the time lol

So yeah, I for sure recommend the full experience, I mean, it's worth it.

[power-chords]

Oh rain....if you didnt have a show you cant risk getting sick before id suggest going out for puddle stomping. Glad you got your pork rolls tho-im jelly

im an ues gentile thats been on the island for the past two years for pandemic reasons and i can 100% say that ordering anything here for delivery/takeaways is a gamble. Out here you absolutely must dine in for the true quality....even in amagansett.

The blue and white cup fails outside the boroughs.

That said i absolutely agree that the absolute best you're gonna get is gonna be at the artisanal shops. They actually care about coffee and how it tastes and shit. Theres a genuine attempt at an experience being made there-take me to church lol. And the presentation!! Mug, saucers, cute spoons....they'll make even terrible coffee fun if not good lol

My whole thing is that the little blue cups are a consistent kind of good. Like, its not the very best coffee you've ever had, its not even entirely good really, but its what you want need and expect on a regular basis. Like. Coffee from a diner at 3am is almost always gonna be better than whatever the nearest starbies or au bon pian has on at the same time.

Also yes dunkin can die ew and when i said coffee carts save lives i meant in a blood transfusion kind of way like. You're not in a good place but its gonna do its bit to get you where you need to be till you can get better.

Looking forward to your recap and pics of the show!!!

Coffee from a diner at 3 AM is always a spiritual kind of experience. I'm with you there. And it tends to beat most chains, although sometimes I have a specific craving for Dunkin iced coffee. Don't ask me why!

Au Bon Pain is so thoroughly and consistently awful I am shocked it manages to sustain itself as a franchise.

P.S. hopefully more than a recap is on the way, I intend to actually compose a proper Post for the Blog :)

[armorabs]

personally with me i like to think of spongebob as a great multiverse with different timelines and stuff. consistency really doesn't matter with me and if it does i like to think of spongebob taking place in one main timeline with different timelines that go off of the main timeline either in the past or future but that is just me!

if you've read any of my posts about this you know i feel pretty similarly! i dont think theres any one definitive true timeline in spongebob squarepants as a franchise - just the ones we prefer to conceptualize based on episodes we enjoy and our perceptions of them - and not even the original series sticks to one true timeline so there are a bunch of different timelines going on and some episodes exist in different timelines that arent necessarily compatible with others. i mean. its a non-continuity gag cartoon, it doesnt need to be connected in a consistent, linear fashion that makes total sense. its like looney tunes. like yeah, ill still piece together my own linear timeline because thats what i consider fun to do in my spare time but i'm not gonna take it as fact or act like anything that defies my perception is wrong or somehow defiling its own canon or whatever

so yeah, inconsistency doesnt really bother me, at least not long-term, i just also like to categorize and explain things in my own mind and keep track of roughly when things would be or should be even if they dont necessarily take place in the same timeline... even though i also think there may be a mild case of sliding timescale going on in spongebob, too, so those may not necessarily be in fixed positions either. (although so far the timescale literally only seems to affect mr krabs and plankton - with minor effects on mrs puff and karen, due to their relationships with them...)

the only thing about inconsistency that bothers me is like... when it feels like im being actively lied to or intentionally deceived. like if the plot of a story or episode says one thing and half-way through it says something totally different but acts as if it has been saying that specific thing the entire time with no basis or lead-up to the sudden change that would justify the reframing. or more specific to spongebob, herb and margie being brought back in season 12 so that they'd appear at the exact same time as cecil and bunny would be appearing in the patrick star show... while vincent waller is going on about, uh, you know, the shit he says. i tune it out a lot of the time because it annoys me. anyways, it feels intentionally ... misleading, confusing, and deceptive in a way that i don't like.

and its really the only instance of something like that that really gets to me - mostly because of the shit vincent waller had to SAY about the whole deal combined with the circumstances that got on my nerves lol

[demonicintegrity]

Okay so I made this post last night about how the FNAF series is taking on a new story now. Talked about how the dead children was story 1 and that was closed off and concluded in pizzeria sim yadda yadda.

But these stories still take place in the same universe so I still want to look at the connecting dots.

Obviously, this starts with Fazbear Ent.

Now when Henry and William first open the family diner and some of the old locations, I doubt either of them truly expected to be started a corporation. I say corporatation because in current times there is cannonicaly multiple locations someone could build up (Pizzeria Sim), a horror spinoff (Fazbear fright), and two games canon to exist in the FNAF universe (VR and AR). A pretty large operation I doubt they were expecting when they first opened a location to entertain families.

So how did the Fazbear Ent. we know come to be? Henry was the one in Pizzeria Sim, but if I recall correctly he didn’t ever mentioning stating he was in charge of a whole lot. Not actually too odd despite being a co-founder, after the initial murders and just a couple years of working in the business Henry probably was more than ready to retire. William went off and made Afton Robotics (sister location) so I wouldn’t be surprise if Henry was Done™️ as well. Also, with literally murders surrounding the company the only way to win back a public’s trust would be to say “we’re not in charge of it anymore.”

But the thing is, I don’t recall having a single hint as too *who* took over afterwards. I don’t know if Fazbear was given to a senior employee, or if it was sold off, or some combination of the two. Point is tho, it’s in new hands and they have taken the Corp. into some very new territory.

Regardless of who has it and what they’re doing with it, we saw there first attempts at business in FNAF 3. They were aware of the haunted past and first tried to capitalize on it with a horror attraction. Weird idea, but it would have some basis in some nostalgia and appealing to a growing interest into the paranormal the public has been having.

It fell through though. Quite spectacularly tbh. Any company with a decent amount of money would’ve probably invested in a cleanup crew and a safety inspection sooner on. That should’ve prevented the whole vent and fire situation. So that makes me think that whoever was in charged wasnt entirely sure what they were doing and didn’t have a ton of money upfront.

Then we don’t hear from Fazbears until pizzeria sim. Which is a couple games ahead and a considerable gap in our knowledge considering how big it appears to be by the time we reach pizzeria sim.

So what the hell happened inbetween all that???? How do you go from a failed horror attraction to multiple franchises and the money to create illustrated tutorials to your employees??? So idk if the new person got smart or changed hands with someone who knew more but they busted their ass ngl.

I’m guessing they opened more locations with the rockstar animatronics. Familiar faces but updated enough to look new. This paved way for the mediocre melodies to have a place, probably Fazbear’s way of testing the water with new characters. Don’t think they did that well but hey, at least they tried.

Then in VR it’s stated the company paid for FNAF 1-4 to be made. I’m assuming it was done around the time they were opening new locations when they realized there were people who grew up with the haunted locations. They held skepticism towards the place and likely to the new owner(s) and something needed to be done.

Boy oh boy, the intern who decided to commission a “maniac” to make the games and thus dismiss the claims must of gotten one helluva promotion. It also generated significant income which led the company to make the VR! Not only as further income, but to hopefully get a new generation of fans to be interested in the company for a totally different reason.

“Ooo look, this animatronics are haunted! Hahah isn’t that something? Here, go play with them and see how ~scary~ it would be! Isn’t it a hoot?” And judging by the amount of toys and DLC made, it must’ve been a hit! People took to it and thought it was cool, new, and fun. Hey look at this game! It pokes fun at some old company thats haunted! Isn’t that weird and yet likable in a toootally unironic way??

Well hey, these new kids like the creepy “story” that was “made up.” Wouldn’t it be cool to use all this new tech we have and some old suits we found to deliver the pieces of rusted metal to them?

Yea idk how that found base in the company meeting either, but it worked somehow. And apparently the company is big enough and driven purely by money to be able to not give a proper damn about the consequences.

So not only was Fazbear Ent. able to poke fun at and dismiss the original story as just a story, but now they essential have the chance to do whatever they want with the characters now. They got a boatload of money.

I guess this is where the glamrocks come in. They got people to ignore the murders. Guess they figured to try and push their way into the mainstream as something hip and cool for the teens to be into. What better way than a mall/party scene for teens to hang out at? Lmao. Points for originality I guess.

Didn’t expect this post to be this long jfc but it is now.

TL: DR: Fazbear Ent. is now owned by people solely concerned how to milk a lot of cash outta the franchise that’s dismissed its haunted past. Whew capitalism?

[applekitty]

ive noticed that a LOT of fanfics that try to redeem dedede really dont try. like its not like the author is lazy but the way its executed is

i have never read a fic wherein dedede is given a satisfactory redemption arc, he’s usually just nice from the beginning and very flat with the same personality every other ‘game’ dedede has, basically just ‘i am loud, i’m not mean or cruel im just loud and also im very sassy and a dad dont mess with me im epic’ which seems at first like it might substitute for his evil nature but it doesn’t

or he’s just really outrageously stupid, which is more anime dedede. 

i do agree with you, though i think dedede in and of himself is a hard character to do perfectly ‘correctly’. because when it comes to game canon, there is no correct way to write him. because dedede has no personality. he has hints of personality. which is not replacement for a personality. you are left entirely to your own devices when it comes to dedede’s flaws and his entire mindset in general, because canon supports absolutely everything you could ever put onto his canvas. i could say dedede is a hostile matriarch with no care for anyone other than himself and his kingdom and it’d be supported, because the only times dedede has been forced to act out of good is to defend his planet from something (potentially, in magolor’s case) hostile. or i could say he’s just a cozy uwu dad who’s done some wrong but he’s fluffy and cute nao and canon would sort of shakingly support that.

i went out a LOT about this on the hnk discord server. i’ll leave the entire transcript below but it’s about how people write game canon / why i don’t read game canon fics / the intrinsic, EXTREME difficulty with writing game canon fics. had this convo with @sociallyunacceptableorb , @toon-kirby , and azuranaito

i’ll tl;dr it here but: the reason why game fics seem a little strange while going in is because the games themselves lack a solid personality for the characters. fanon personality exists for them, and usually when writers write for them, they step in such a way which may not align with you, the viewer’s expectations of the fanon personality. it may seem inherently unsatisfying, to you, but for others, it’s very satisfying. the status of game canon and fandom canon makes it harder for you to be satisfied by the fanfics you read unless they are very surface level, boring sorts of fanfics. 

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:40 PM

kitty’s opinion time

most writers cannot go without incorporating the anime in some regard to kirby content due to how much the anime had bled into the interpretations of the games. people will write spanish meta knight as a game thing, people will write kirby being babyish / saying poyo being a game thing, as well as dedede being southern a game thingthe writers who decry the anime as bad / only good ‘at the time’ yet use anime personalities / interpretations make me lul extremely.(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:44 PM

Galaxia was from the anime.

Girlaxia was from 4Kids.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:45 PM

kirby saying ‘poyo’ is an anime thing, galaxia is an anime thing, to pick and choose from the anime shows that the games and their lack of writing cannot stand on its own without having to take from the very franchise that’s being decryed to help a worse written franchise

(edited)

no writing / intrigue writing ≠ good writing

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:47 PM

To be fair, it’s probably for the best that anime bleeds into the games or else we’d be stuck with oceans of edgelordery KIRBY IS EVUL AND EATS INNOCENT LIVES… though that’s already on AO3.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:47 PM

looks at matpat

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:48 PM

He ignores all canon to make people mad on purpose.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:48 PM

honestly if removing anime canon / anime’s bleed into the video game’s interpretation = writers to go 'KIRBY EVUL’ then idk what to say other than lul

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:49 PM

I mean, I don’t think the games writing is shit, but I also don’t trust edgy people with Void Termina.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:50 PM

i think saying 'game writing > anime writing’ is just blatantly.. wrongbecause that’s just saying 'little to no writing so that way you can focus on gameplay > a literal 22 episode made for television with themes and lessons’

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:51 PM

Oh! Yeah, that I agree on.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:51 PM

i also dont trust edgelords with kirby or void honestly

or any kirby characters

i dont trust edelords period

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:51 PM

I thought you were saying that all game lore was trash.

It’s crumbs.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:51 PM

i used to be one and i made EVERYTHING baaad

it’s comparing crumbs to a loaf of bread

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:52 PM

“Well, I hate pumpernickel! So the entire loaf is bad!”

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:52 PM

uerGHERUG

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:53 PM

“But you haven’t even eaten it.”“IT’S BAD.”…this metaphor is getting lost.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:53 PM

honestly it’s why i just.. dont read game fics, because there’s little to no ground for writers to stand on and write stuff with

things get too wild and they feel just.. weird ig

i dont know how to put it into words, really

AzuraLast Wednesday at 12:54 PM

That kinda makes me mad with what happened with one of my friends. People got onto her for crossing the anime and games together, which, when she wrote it, it wasn’t bad at all, but because the anime was involved people wanted to bitch at her for it.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:54 PM

interps of game canon are based purely off the person who writes it and all the people reading said thing all have different interpretations which inherently makes reading a game fic unsatisfying and ooc for you personally because your hc filled in the void the game left differently than the authors did. but for the writer it is ic.(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:55 PM

Like gijinka fic?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:56 PM

reading mirror fics also, inherently, can be unsatsifying i think

for the same reasons

people have so many different interps of how mirror world works that reading anything about it, just on its core basis that the author uses to define a 'mirror world’ can feel unsatisfactory

gijinka as well suffers from this

AzuraLast Wednesday at 12:57 PM

My friend didn’t write gijinka. But she self projected quite a bit onto Meta; her HC for him was that he was an engineer trained under Haltmann.Which also ended up writing out the actual irl problems her major has which is an aerospace engineering.Hoo boy, with the Mirror World, there’s no clear line with it but the majority is usually edgy.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:58 PM

people have different interps, and because of how the western world works, we all think our interpretation is the best we can possibly have. usually when we read things we suspend our disbelief, and when it comes to kirby fics, game fics, gijinka fics, i don’t think people can really.. deeply get involved in them.it’s a problem fics i suppose in general have. but it’s especially bad for game canon writers, or gijinka writers.people have hugely different adaptations of the same subject. with the anime there’s clearly written rules and characters defined over the course of 100 episodes. there’s a clear cut story with lots of dialogue and content there to be tackled. but even still, it can be interpreted differently by different people because thats how life works. only the existence of a canon episode cannot be refuted; a fic can be

game canon is harder to do because yes you have the games, and a lot of them, but there is no writing. it is all gameplay. which means that personalities and dialogue and whatever else is not the focus. people can have extremely varying interpretations of canon because of this, which is what intrinsically makes game canon harder to write for. with anime canon it’s easier to write closer to canon because there is a clear cut one. but with game canon, there is no clear cut canon.

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:02 PM

That’s also why so many people also freak out about all the supposed lore the games have, right?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:02 PM

the lore in games is very open ended is the thing, so it leads to people’s speculation and very different extrapolations of the lore and canon, yes

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:03 PM

Yup! It adds to their own things; it’s satisfying less for the confirmation and more for the new content to tinker with.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:03 PM

kirby is very, VERY dry in terms of story telling in the games, so any piece of lore given is EXTREMELY important for content creators / theorists(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:04 PM

I can’t really fault people who build off lore since it’s such a personal thing. Other people get huffy and whine about them “not really appreciating the game” but I find it is appreciation, just in a different fashion. It goes downhill once people get childish and argumentative, though.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:05 PM

the thing is people can also do that ^ for the anime too

remember that one server you were talking about in #newbie-chat

lol

in the end we are the people going 'you are not appreciating the anime right and the way you write for the games is going to intrinsically be unsatisfying unless you go onto the crutch of anime lore'i do anime/game fusion because i know the games can’t stand on their own

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:08 PM

Aheh. But of course.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:08 PM

[snobbish laughter]

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:08 PM

I actually don’t for the same reason. It feels cheap, like I’m forcing a square peg into a round hole.The barebones of the games doesn’t mesh with the backstory of the games that well for me.

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

So, like, if I wrote a fic with a sentient Galaxia, and then threw the rest of anime canon in the trash, it wouldn’t be cool?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

it’d be relying on the anime canon in some regard, showing that the game canon can’t hold its own

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

Too many plot holes

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:10 PM

it would be a tad bit jarring, at least in my opinion because im the local brutal 4kids anime stan

but for other people it wouldnt be, i’m just a person with too much time to complain about kirby

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:11 PM

I’ve been really curious if “a nightmare of a galactic crisis” was just a coincidence or a deliberate lore inspired word choice, hence why I’ve steered away from capitalist idiot nightmare….it’s fun to write him like that though.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:11 PM

Also, if it’s a prequel… where the hell does Tiff go? The Cappies? Cappy Town? Dedede just abandons everybody for no reason and there’s a fountain powered by something that Kirby had to create by eating?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:11 PM

schrodingers cappytown

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:12 PM

I would like to know my own headcanons give my own appreciation to both the anime and the games. Games can’t stand alone with their bare bones and the anime can always be expanded upon. Nothing wrong with having fun while writing, that’s all it is, isn’t it?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:13 PM

honestly i think the best way to write kirby stuff is anime/game fusions

i wonder if it’s because thats what i write HMMMMMMEIUGUIERGHERG

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:13 PM

I fuse. I go by manga lore.

Novel, whatever.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:13 PM

novel lore or bust

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

I fuse because it feels the most natural for me.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:14 PM

Because the novels actually build on it! They don’t pop backstory in everywhere! It’s just a Kirby game with more explanations for stuff in it!

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

I just wanna write about an evil vampiric wizard for some reason

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

the games do need something to help them, i believe. when it comes to content creation of the purely fic type, anywayscourtesycalling does great one-shot comics and what not, they do game lore to the t because their comics are.. well.. oneshots. they’re satisfying by themselves

anyways i’ve got a lot of feelings on people decrying the anime as bad or cool to hate then taking things from the anime and putting it into game lore. that’s mostly what this is about

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:17 PM

It seems kind of hypocritical in a sense too, doesn’t it?“Oh, I hate the anime but love the games but I’ll piss on the anime as I write my fic because even though I love the games I need to strong bones of the anime to hold me up as I write my fic.”

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:18 PM

yeah that’s sorta what im on about here thank you for summarizing it for me

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Yep! I joke about it a lot myself.Especially people using 4kids voices when they say 4Kids is trash.

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Same, all it seems to be is a freaking joke.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Sorry for turning this into a Steven Universe-esque debate thread.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:19 PM

i instigated it

:v

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:19 PM

:v

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:19 PM

it’s an interesting thread anyways so

[avoutput]

Gaming And Film: The Tomb Raider Example

A golden opportunity has arisen. I get to make another example of the star crossed genres, Film and Video Games. Two narrative forces bound by their visual narratives, but separated by a single major mechanic: Control. But a new challenger has arrived, or rather a returning challenger, another gaming legend. Tomb Raider. The gods have deigned Square Enix another chance at the big screen after their massive flop at the box office over 20 years ago with their own classic title, Final Fantasy. Gaming has made its way back to the big screen with Tomb Raider “parenthesis 2018 film” starring the legend herself, Lara Croft. Well, it stars a real actress, Alicia Vikander, but you know what I mean. Gaming has its own stars. Previously, this role had been played twice before by Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003). This gave me a very unique opportunity to take a jump back in time to gaming’s initial foray into the world of the Third Dimension (3D), its replication of cinematic narrative structure, and all of the freedom that comes with giving the player the ability walk around in that space, instead of just watching. It was during this 3D polygon era that cinema took a fundamentally flawed stance to the translation from game to film; they tried to duplicate as much of the minor details as possible in effort to reanimate and profit from a movie going audience. In doing so, they sacrificed the heart of good cinema trying to capture the flavor of the game, hoping that the only thing fans would need is a the skeletal carcass of their favorite game.

By the time that first installment of  Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) had hit the screens, there had been 4 full games released, none of which would ultimately become the story of the film. They surmised that simply making a film that imitated its main attraction, a (British) woman who raids tombs for treasure, would suffice. And in a way, this might be the most correct course of action. There had already been series of similar action films to take from, including Indiana Jones, James Bond, Mission Impossible, and Jackie Chan’s Armor of the Gods. With the games already pulling inspiration from these existing films, intentionally or not, it doesn’t seem that unreasonable to think that a film version of Tomb Raider would succeed at the box office.  All they needed was to eject the male as the lead and pop some abnormally large breasts on an otherwise perfectly attractive female figure. But then the real question becomes, why make this film based on a video game character at all? Obviously brand recognition and the all mighty dollar, both domestic and international, but wouldn’t they need more to really entice both the fans and the uninitiated alike? And this exposes an issue with the Hollywood mindset that, while I have come to understand, I can’t abide or come to terms with. Forsaking the heart of intelligible film making in favor of a return on investment. When art and capitalism mix in which the art comes second, the audience usually loses, and the house of Hollywood usually wins or breaks even. Because for the audience, what’s on the line is a chance to make a good video game into a great movie, and if that movie flops, then investors look at not just the game franchise, but all gaming films as a risky or unworthy investment. Stranger still however, is what ended up happening with Tomb Raider. It returned big on its initial run, almost certainly powered by Jolie’s star power. But when you make a cheap, flimsy version of  a game into film, and it works, it becomes the model that all video game films run on. We end up being served a deformed representation of something that, in my opinion, never stood a chance of becoming anything more than a cash grab. (See: Resident Evil (2002) starring Milla Jovovich)

At no point does Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) or its sequel try to become more than a cheap representation of its source material sewn together using existing action-adventure movie tropes. The original games themselves offer little more than an exploratory cave diving, gun slinging shell for people to play in. Games (at the time) were not as harshly criticized for taking huge leaps in story, tone, or realism, but the films never really took that risk. In the game, Lara shoots at bats, bears, and wolves while cave diving. Yet, both Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and The Cradle of Life (2003) look indistinguishably bland compared to other films of their era like LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring, Swordfish, Training Day, Jurassic Park III, Pirates of the Caribbean, Kill Bill, The Matrix Reloaded, and many more. Granted these budgets are a bit more inflated, even their smaller moments are better than Jolie’s biggest. In fact, some of the stunts seem to come right out of the Mission: Impossible series. Taking a game thats little more than an empty, fun action platformer and trying to build an entire film franchise around it without adding some spark of originality or building any sense of a larger world for its characters will ultimately lead to a lackluster, forgotten film. Anybody watching these movies today are only returning because they might be a fan of the franchise, which might be the only win under the belt these films, but it’s another loss for gaming, gamers, and film.

Moving into the next generation of consoles and computers, as games become more modern, they began to more deftly integrate cinematic techniques. Game creators can control the world, the camera, and the characters with complete freedom, unlike film which has to worry about pesky things like props, actors, and reality. In 2013, Tomb Raider was re-imagined by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. They created a more sleek and vibrant world that embraced a mixture of realism and paranormal. Lara was modernized, made a bit more youthful, and her skillset was more refined and deadly. She went from a caricature to a character and her adventure matured into something a bit more robust. Coupled with expert pacing, the new Lara Croft moves through her deadly environment and faces foes head-on in the same vein as Indiana Jones. Only she is a bit more willing to pull the trigger or sling an arrow. I don’t want to continuously gush about this game, so to summarize, I will just say this game was by far one of my favorite action games in this last generation. This reinvisioned version would become the basis for the recently released Tomb Raider (2018), and I was excited to see what kind of adaptation would spring forth. After the many, many Hollywood failures, had gaming finally caught up so completely to cinema, possibly even overtaken it, that it could allow for an easy transition from game to film?

As much as I don’t want to spend the entirety of this review discussing the differences between the film and the exact game it was based on, that is technically the point of this article. Still, I’ll spare you a lengthy diatribe and stick to the key differences between Jolie and Vikander’s Lara Croft. In this version, the realistically re-imagined Lara Croft is crafty with a bow instead of guns, inexperienced instead of an expert, and hasn’t attended any higher learning in pursuit of abandoning her heritage to find her own way. These also happen to be departures from the Crystal Dynamics’ Lara Croft as well. However, I found that these character changes spoke the language of cinema better, making for a more relatable character, especially for late millennials and gen Z at which this version is aimed.

Tomb Raider (2018) stars the new Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) as she takes on the challenge of living life as a broke young woman in the big city. But, a twist, the young lady is broke by choice, turning down the opportunity to take up her family name and with it , the family business. Angry that her father, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), never returned from a business trip and is considered dead, she mounts a personal battle against her heritage. Through a series of turns, she finds a final message from her father in a secret bunker outside her family estate, warning her to burn all of his research just in case some bad guys come looking for it. Instead, of course, she sets out to find the last place he was said to have visited, enlisting the son of the man, Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), whose boat was to have taken her father to his final resting place. At this point the film finally takes a similar shape to the game, introducing Mathis Vogal (Walton Goggins) as the leader of digging team sent to find the treasure of Lady Himeko’s tomb. Vogal has been employing as slaves shipwrecks and treasure hunters who have come to the island in search of such a treasure.

At this point, I would like to praise this film for actually making a decent adaptation of the game. The actors are great, the story is pretty tight, and they do a pretty good job keying you into just how far Lara will have push herself to get what she wants. Unlike Jolie, who was characterized as a fearless expert, Vikander is an inexperienced young girl who struggles at almost every turn. Throughout the film, she misses, she loses, and she takes hits, which is similar to the game, except when you lose the game, it had some pretty incredible death scenes. But in a way, I personally liked her Crystal Dynamics video game persona better. She was both experienced and still struggled. She used her wit and cunning to elude her captors. In the 2018 film, Lara spends most of the runtime falling into situations and just kind of winging it, but not with tools or weapons found in the game, mostly just through luck. My only other criticism is a bit of a spoiler if you have played the game and not seen the movie or have seen the movie but not played the game. But here it is. The film rejects the concept of the supernatural, which is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to see the film after having played the game. The game continuously hints at the supernatural, but only towards the end do we actually see it in action, which totally caught me off guard. I half expected some ancient local tribe would be behind some form of sabotage from the shadows, like in an episode of Scooby Doo. But how does this stack up as a video game film? Can we build a new legacy from here?

Well, unlike the Jolie era, video games and film are not so different anymore. In fact, film often doesn’t have the runtime to contain an entire video game plot into a single movie. The golden age of television would be a better place for your favorite game stories. Japanese anime has been doing this for years with shows like Star Ocean EX and Persona 4 The Animation. In a very short time, film has been surpassed as an entertainment medium in size, scope, and runtime/playtime. But the one thing that you can feel has really changed in Hollywood is that they no longer underestimate the need for authenticity in the transition. Gaming films are getting better because gaming has become better. The stories they tell are taken more seriously, and triple-A titles have bigger budgets than some triple-A films. Gaming companies could be looking to invest in adaptations to film, seeing them as an extended product to their own. With that dollar power and some guaranteed butts in seats, we should be able to expect better films. I would like to imagine if both Godzilla and King Kong can be re-imagined into great films that also get to share the same universe as a plethora of tokusatsu monsters that gaming can get of its ass and produce some better films. Still, it was only 2 years ago that Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) was released, ending a series of terrible video game films that did nothing to elevate games as critically good films. Assassin's Creed (2016) also didn’t help.

The thing is, we don’t need video games adapted into film. Gaming has its own thing going on, and when it’s done right, it does it all bigger and better. But, if we are going to continue to see them pushed into film, let’s at least get a few things straight. First, there is a balance between authentic and creative. Take care to have a vision for the film beyond simply taking a bird’s eye view of the game and applying that visual to the film. The old Tomb Raider was built on the back of action genre films we had already seen and for the most part lacked any sense of creativity. It was authentic to its source from afar, but up close it offered nothing for fans beyond a push-up bra and two guns. Second, be aware of the scope of the game’s world. More and more games are open world, meaning that the world is going to be as much a character in its own right, so don’t forget that it exists. Even older games can have a vibrant world. A good example is Castlevania, which saw an amazing mini-series produced by Netflix. The story was small, but it never betrays the world in which it takes place. Now more than ever, the lines between gaming and cinema have all but been erased, so narratively, you can take a much more direct approach to the translation. Feel free to rewrite the story as long as it doesn’t forsake the game’s characteristics. Games are no longer manufactured for control alone, they have well thought out characters, themes, and motifs, all with a joined motive. If Lara Croft has taught us anything, take calculated leaps, not blind jumps into the abyss.

[junietuesday]

june I respect you but that recent post just seems... like the logic kinda falls apart? it just seems like it’s working off of an incredible lot limited definition of love. Like how else do you define the effort of creating an entire fictional language and translating stuff you’ve written into it? the thought you put into your writing? listening to your friends and helping them if they need? you have a sibling you’re on good terms with, right? all of these are labors of incredible care, like obviously you care about the Zelda franchise and your friends and sister? what’s wrong with calling that care love? it seems ridiculous to imply that you’d do these things *without* caring? and I mean... isnt that sense of ‘other humans in my life that I respect and want good things for matter to me’ or ‘other people’s well-being matter to be’ the basis of empathy, compassion? I apologize for being rude, if that’s how this comes across. I respect you and like you! the idea of not feeling ‘love’ for anyone or anything in your life just really confuses and honestly bothers me, ideas of being ace or aro specifically aside bc that’s 100% not what I’m talking about.

ok i dont know who you are, im assuming youre in the botw discord if youre comfortable coming up to me and saying all this. and im really not good at being coherent but for one thing. did you actually read the posts that made you send this ask. did you actually read the essay linked. bc here it is again, the author really words everything well. did you actually look at that blog linked in the post. bc here it is again.

essentially for me it's like, literally everything in society is telling you that you have to love. yes, the "romantically" is sort of implied, but it's not just romo love everyone's really talking abt. and for aromanticism specifically, people are always like "aros can still love tho!!" as like, a justification for the fact that we don't love romantically. like "yeah we dont have romo love but we're still human dw!!! cause we love our friends pets hobbies yada yada yada" and why do i have to justify anything to you? "love makes us human" fuck you! no matter how you change the definition as it suits you you dont get to tell me what makes me human! you cant make me love!

i do care abt all those things you listed off. i genuinely do, and often instead of explaining all of this i usually just slap the word "love" on what i feel bc its easiest. and maybe it sounds like im just being petty abt words but like, after all the shit tossed at aros abt loving and loving and loving, and all of the complicated experiences and thoughts i have surrounding it, for me it just feels so much more freeing to reject the concept entirely. i care about all of these things, but it "just really honestly bothers me" to call it love after all of my experiences as an aromantic. 

(sidenote, empathy is also something many people dont feel. thats separate from compassion and kindness, but empathy is something a bunch of neurodivergent people have issues with. just like love.)

[ramblyravingnnjashark]

Nier Automata - Genius and Madness

the works of Yoko Taro are something that have eluded me for most of my life, and that I have given very little attention to. Probably for good reasons because from the outside, the gameplay of his games range from Mediocre to Average at best and I consider myself a very "gameplay First" person. Some of my Freinds would rave about Drakengard and how weird it is but that didnt quite convince me to look into them much further. However, one Fateful Day a little game called "Nier Automata" was announced, a sequel to Yoko Taros Xbox 360/PS3 game Nier with a little line of Text that would change things in an instant

                                   "Developed by PlatinumGames"

now friends of mine will know that, PlatinumGames is one of my alltime favourite Game Devs for their Crazy High skill Character Action Beat em up titles, containing Larger than Life characters and great and tight Gameplay that owes their roots in the Arcade games of old, which is something I have a appreciation for.

So, with a combination like this I finally decided to take on this series, by means of watching Youtube essays about it because goddamn, the gameplay in these games can get rather mind numbing sadly but honestly? Yoko Taro mighta earned himself now a nice cushy place as one of my favourite Directors, right next to  Hideki Kamiya and Hideo Kojima themselves.

But there is one thing I realised from watching these Essays and actually playing one of them it is one thing to watch a guy sum this series up for you, its a whole different thing to watch the Insanity for yourself

because the works of Yoko Taro arent stories about Heroic Knights slaying Demons and Evil Dragons, or Loving Fathers/older Brothers trying to survive the Fall of Humanity with their Daughters/Little Sisters

they are stories about Love, Hate, War, the meaninglessness of the Universe and the Hope growing from it, what it means to be Human, and what it means to lose all reason and go complete and genuinely Mad

(there will be spoilers, so be warned if you wish to expirience these games yourself!)

so originally, this was gonna be a brief recap of Drakengard and Nier, but then I realised I couldnt do these games justice so I just link this and this recap of these games that should give you a good idea what these games are about but to keep it brief

Drakengard is essentially to RPGs what Evangelion was to Mecha Anime, and thats a fairly approviate comparsion when you just look at, this

its also notable for how it handles its different endings, usually referred to as Ending A, Ending B etc, Ending E of the first Drakengard game was a Joke ending that nontheless became the basis for the setting of Nier, a ruined Planet Earth set hundreds of years after the Fall of Humanity about a Father (in the Western Releases) or a Older Brother (Japanese release) having to fend for himself and his Daughter/Younger Sister in a world under constant threat of creatures known as Heartless Shades

both these games are interesting, because their gameplay is nothing special, in the case of Drakengard its outright terrible,they got mediocre reviews and poor sales and yet these games have a dedicated Cult following and  tons of Novels, Audio Dramas, Manga and even Stage Plays that expand the Universes of these games and its lore

and thats for a simple reason: these games may have mediocre gameplay but, their Stories, their Characters, their Art Direction is actually of fairly high quality featuring intriguing Characters and worldbuilding that makes you invested in them regardless I mean, theres a entire exchange in Nier thats entireley between two Magical Talking Books for cryin out loud, and its one of the best parts of the game!

however, these games have thus far had a life as just that, Cult Classics, that didnt manage to garner a mainstream audience due to its aforementioned quirks, the Gameplay just could never stand up to the well written stories of these games

this is where PlatinumGames comes into play

now, the gameplay of Automata I honestly felt like was more on par with what Revengeance offered: there is stuff you can do with it but all in all its below the likes of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry 3 but thats not to say its poor, of course not, it doesnt encourage you to try anything other than just Mash about, but thats Fine, theres also Chips that your characters can even equip Chips that enhance their abilities and giv e them new ones such as a Bayonetta style Parry and Witch time or give them Heals upon Killing the enemy and while the actual enviroments can be a bit of a chore to go through (until you get Fast Travel), it still felt good to Parkour your way through them, nice snappy and smooth which gives me hopes they take a cue or two from this game for Bayonetta 3 in that regard at least

another thing I loved is the Soundtrack itself. Now I dont consider myself a musical person, however I can tell when a Song is used perfectly, and in Automata? Every Song is used to actual perfection. Music to me can be the deciding factor wether a Area or Scene in a Game or Movie is Garbage, Forgettable or Legendary, and for Automata, every song makes each area fall niceley into the latter fortunatly. One Standout track for me is Birth of a Wish (Become as Gods) a retake of an earlier song that adds in additional Chorus, and the Theme for Pascals village which is a cute Melody involving Children singing.

now onto the game itself, Route A puts you in the sexy and Lucious Thigh High boots of YoRHa Unit 2B, whereas Route B puts you in the cute Boy shorts of her Partner and mostly Good Boy YoRHa Unit 9S both tasked with ridding the world of Machine Lifeforms and making Earth inhabitable for the Humans stuck on the Moon again Both Routes play out roughly the same, 2B plays like a Standard Character Action Heroine with Lights and Heavies and such, whereas 9S is mainly focused around his ability to hack enemies and engage into brief SHMUP segments.

of the two I felt like 2B was a little more fun to play all in all, the Hacking was fine but also felt a teeny bit like a pace breaker but not too much, at least until late in Route B the game throws curvebals and unique hacking segments into the mix

a thing Yoko Taro games have been very good at showing, is showing the process of a Person losing their mental stability and throwing it all away to become a one track minded Mad Man and I find that interesting.

Drakengard had a good example when the Character Inuart completley loses it and becomes obsessed with bringing back his Dead Love interest, causing here to turn into the monster posted above. Automata meanwhile, shows this also but with Machines, being that shouldnt even go mad in the first place but become Insane with concepts like Revenge, Fear or other. Now I am not a Psychology Major or anything but I cant help but feel "this is Intriguing", not sure if thats a bad thing or anything but thats how it is.

now, Route C is where officialy the PlatinumGame ends and the Yoko Taro game begins, in that things become utterly, utterly Bleak. Not to say it was happy funtime before, many of the sidequests end on a very sour or outright terrible note, but here? Shits gon Bad!

YoRHa falls, everyone on the Protagonists homebase dies or becomes infected with a Virus that makes them go insane, 2B dies and 9S is severeley wounded and has his mental state utterly ruined by seeing 2B, his Love interest, die. from this Point onward, you play as Either A2, a former YoRHa gone Rogue and 9S as he tries to kill every last Machine Lifeform, and as hes utterly loses his mind. Focusing entireley on his one Goal so that maybe, he can find Death and be with 2B in the Afterlife.

this is where the game really became interesting to me. Gradually 9S goes from this sweet pure boy to a Violent Mess that only wants to Kill and Kill and Kill, Over and Over, its a Interesting Development for such a Character I feel. A2 meanwhile, while still a Great Character and a Blast to play, I felt like was severeley underutilized, getting very little playtime compared to 2B and 9S, with most of her greatest character Development limited to a Japan only Stage play that got a short text recap on a terminal. and it just goes from there and it keeps going, plot twists happen, reveals happen, callbacks to the first Nier and Drakengard 1 happen, its just this huge Mountain of themes and stuff to uncover and analyse. references to old Philosophers and the Concept of Nihilism itself ebing explored, little details that popped up in the early game and now have much greater meaning, its....actually incredible?

I dont think I ever played a game that had so much going on, the last time I think I did was, Metal Gear Solid 3, maybe?! I think....this might actually be one of the best written games I ever played?

and there is still so much content I could go through, the Stage Plays, the Novels, theres probably a buncha Audio Dramas for it too already its like, Jesus christ. and then theres Ending E, which while rather difficult (and probably causes at least 4 people to fucking hate my Guts) was probably one of the best ending sequences I seen in recent years, I'm not gonna go into detail what it is because, it needs to be seen to be belived, but I find it genuiley incredible.

I dont think theres a single game in the Drakengard and Nier series I would actually consider my "Favourite Game", maybe Nier Automata but thats up for consideration still, but I think I can safeley say that both games story as a whole is easily up there with Metal Gear as  one of my favourite Game stories out there, and friends and followers of mine would know by now how much I love that Franchise and its wacky insane story, Drakengard and Nier are special little series that you dont see enough of these days, but maybe thats for the better

I'm not gonna say "Nier Automata rekindled my love for video games" or anything, but I am glad I got to expirience these two series.

[tumblunni]

The big post about how i love my sneasel who is great

Welcome to that post. It might get long.

Reaper the level 100 Naughty nature Sneasel with Keen Eye who experienced pokerus once and has contest ribbons from too many regions oh my gosh Leeeeeeets get going on how much I adore my little guy!

Okay, the story behind him. He is kinda unofficially my starter pokemon?

Cos of course there was no way to keep your mons from RBY and GSC back then, but I’d kinda only had one pokemon anyway. I was a dumb kid who just solo’d both games with my raichu Chuppy. And sadly I ended up losing them even before the whole transfer issue, someone stole my Gold cartridge during school and when I found it half smashed in the playground all the data had been corrupted. It did actually play though, just with some colour issues I think? I never really restarted cos it felt cruel to Chuppy to do it. So I’m happy that the virtual console rerelease let me reincarnate Chuppy and even make them a cool new alola form! (though they had a different gender this time, but meh i get to headcanon my chu is trans like me, haha) So yeah thats the story of my official first pokemon, but Chuppy didnt really have any personality or headcanons back then cos I was so new to the franchise. And Reaper ended up lasting way longer and sharing every single other region with me, so he kinda took the spot of ‘starter’ even if he wasnt ‘first’. (I still was really happy to welcome reincarnation Chuppy home tho!)

Reaper actually came from Pokemon Colosseum, of all places! His OT name is the completely-wrong ‘Tom’ cos he was from when I restarted my game after getting stuck and just buttonmashed one of the default names out of frustration. I actually caught him in a master ball just cos I was that excited to hug the lil guy! Sneasel was my fave gen 2 mon but i never managed to catch one actually in GSC, i didnt know it was limited to a rare encounter in the very last area. And even before I caught him I knew sneasel was in this game via guides, so i was waiting with baited breath and establishing headcanons even before i found him. Then I just COULD NOT WAIT, hence the master ball! XD I kinda preemptivel based him on the iron mask marauder’s sneasel from the celebi movie, cos shadow pokemon are similar to his brainwashing stuff. And I always liked his sneasel, scizor and tyranitar, for such minor roles they are. It was a nice nuance for the bad guy’s pokemon to be shown as VERY MUCH not evil, just enslaved by magic brainwashing and mistreated. It warmed my heart seeing them freeing each other and escaping in the end once the control was broken! But also it established sneasel as a really cool badass fighter that I wanted to have someday, yknow?

So yeah I got this guy from colosseum before I even played RSE, and he ended up being my ‘starter’ in that game so much that i cant even remember which one i picked. I boxed it right away and never thought about it again, I was a callous kid! It was actually really interesting playing ORAS and finally getting to see what the hoenn starters are actually like, lol And Reaper remained my best friend across like ELEVEN OR MORE REPLAYS of every single gen 3 game except emerald. Cos at that time in my childhood i literally did not have any other games. i spent around three or four years with just sapphire, leafgreen and final fantasy tactics advance. (Oh boy that game’s script is stuck in my brain for all time) And getting attatched to the characters and making new ones all the time was how i kept from getting bored this way ^_^ Buuuuut... it kinda meant that I just discarded most of them super fast to make more. the only other pokemon that migrated to sinnoh with Reaper was Nether the sableye, who was kinda his rival/best friend. (Tho I mispelled it as Neava so he’s stuck that way, lol. And both of them are in all caps forever...) Nether is kinda the basis for my recent oc Malachi, so he’s like an entirely different story for another time. But he was my Sapphire buddy and Reaper was one region older via the power of spinoffs.

And oh man yeah i totally loved the shadow pokemon plot lol! I just headcanoned his plot with regards to that was the same as the marauder’s mons. Perfectly nice tiny sneasel boy is kidnapped and experimented upon by evils, but my love saved him and now he is soft once more. He didnt really have much angst from it, but it helped such a wild spirit grow to trust my hero and trust humans in general after such a rocky introduction to them. I imagined it was like training a dangerous dog to be a police canine, with that arm guard thing that they bite! Shadow pokemon training must be WAY more tough than it seems on the surface! So like ash’s charizard plot, where it ends up with really fire forged family love after all the hardship. I think that before he met my trainer he was just like a loner robin hood type character who valued his freedom and thought that tamed pokemon were all wusses. But alas, he was forced to experience human hugs, and now he’s addicted! but he’d still be quite rebellious and wild and have a lot of goofy cute interactions as he tries to learn all this complicated stuff about being a pet. Why cant I pee on the carpet?? Why do I have to eat pellet food? Why are you mad when i bring you dead mice and pidgey eggs?? bad bad influence on the other mons, but also a softhearted big bro who WANTS to be a good influence. He pretends to be all aloof and stoic cliche angsty antihero, but always messes up and looks cute instead! And he gets crushingly sad if any of his lil siblings actually does get afraid of him. Noooo the grumpyness is for the humans! Not for you!! No-one is allowed to pet the sneas except the other pokemon. It my duty to protect my new pack of strangely shaped sneasels! Oh and he likes booze. In human terms he’d be around 25-30, but still its not good for animals to drink human liquor. Never stopped him though! He’d always find ways to sniff it out and swipe half-finished cans from the trash and stuff. Bad angstman! I know thats part of your archetype but stop it!

So... basically he was like.. cloud? original version from ff7 where he was sassy and goofy sometimes, except reaper is like that all the time with less angst and pretty much zero ego. He’s just like a kind yet not completely competant fun uncle who tries his best to put up a cool guy front to impress the kids (and push away scary humans) but his innate sweetness means he always messes up. And he’s super tsundere about the fact he considers his trainer part of his infinate pack of children, even if every other human is DANGER MODE. Must protect this human from the other ones! Must teach them the ways of the sneas! Oh, and I imagined his appearance as a gijinka would be kinda like Squall from ff8. cos he actually started off as a parody of that unlikeable angstman archetype, and i didnt even know Cloud existed until yeaaaars later. (Played the ffs completely out of order...) So i figured he’d be like squall but with dark skin and a kinda sirus black hairstyle. (Cos that guy contributed the kind uncle part of his inspiration!) Oh and of course a sneasely colourscheme for the fur coat. And I ended up making him hold Blackglasses so often that it was an in-joke that he actually wore shades 24/7 even in normal pokemon form XD

When I first got him in Collosseum he was really useful for his Brick Break move, and im actually really happy that the brick break image on bulbapedia is the collosseum sneasel using it! It was very very good as one of the few mons available with that move in the very limited choices you had for that game. But his signature move kinda ended up being Surf, even though his stats would have been awful for it even if I’d ev trained him properly XD I just found it so bizarre that sneasel of all things could learn that HM! I imagined he formed a surfboard out of ice to carry the trainer, cos there’s no way you could stand on the back of a 30cm tall weasel...

And man lets just have some random sneasel headcanons now!

* Their feathers exist to sense wind fluctuations, which are useful in their natural environment to anticipate snowstorms and track prey in low visibility.

* The ear feather is just for this, its the more sensitive one. The tail feathers are more for manipulating objects and other day to day life. They’re more matted and dont really have the same hearing ability, but the joints are way more flexible so they can be moved independantly like three actual tails. Sneasels can pick up small delicate objects by brushing them up between the tails, then rolling them down their back to reach their mouth. they also use the tails to brush away dirt, hide their tracks in the snow, form surprisingly intricate igloo-like nests and groom their fur with the utmost precision.

* Sneasels will outright resent any attempts to groom them by anyone but their closest human friend, since inevitably humans cant do as good of a job. But humans can scratch behind your ears and give cuddles, so it all works out!

* In the wild, sneasels eat primarily eggs, some nuts and berries, scavenged semi-rotten meat and not so much live prey. Even though they’re very skilled, they’re also very fragile and cautious because of it. They’ll only hunt in extreme situations, instead preferring to confuse and mislead their way to dinner. Sneasels are very social and loyal to each other even if they’re not to anyone else. Their most common strategy is the whole pack wards off a dangerous foe while one lone unit sneaks past and robs that pokemon’s food stores, to share with the family. Even if they’re forced to hunt their own prey, they still follow these strategies and try to just outrun the enemy until it dies of exhaustion or freezes in the blizzard. They’re experts of making cuts that disable but don’t kill- going in close enough to deliver that final blow means risking a valuable pack member’s life!

Not really a headcanon now but back to reaper himself, I always kinda imagine him looking more like a real weasel. I like sneasel’s design but the bipedal humanoid proportions arent exactly the best thing, yknow? i feel like it should have had shorter more pawlike back legs and just been top-heavy with the super claws. Like.. I imagine kinda a furret? just the appeal of actual weasels and stoats plz. I love sneasel but when i looked up weasels as a kid i was like MY HEART!!! they’re sock puppet babies with lint fuzz faces Also I think sneasel’s claws are kinda comically short and boring considering theyre like its Big Feature. I liked when they were drawn a bit longer in older artworks, and i always imagined reaper had longer ones like scyther-y level. Thats why I named him that! Crescent moon claws of awesomeness, striking in the night~! ...he would be really cool if he wasnt such a cuddly dork. I love him so much, he’s my baby. And my dad. And my uncle?? he’s just a very good friend and im happy videogames can touch my heart like nothing else let me love my nonexistant magic weasel from cyberspace forevermore~!

[guyinlovewitheremika]

Has Attack on Titan ever provided you with any life lessons? Have you ever cried while watching it?

Mhmm...life lessons? Probably not. I mean, maybe on an unconscious level, without me realizing it, but thats about it. That said, at times it definitely gave me a reason to live. I usually need some form of entertainment  and fiction to fixate myself on to, focusing my entire life on, something to obsess over on a continuous basis; if I lack something to focus on I quickly turn into self detrimental husk of a person with a strong absence of a will to exist; so having an external, invariable constant supplying me with non-negative emotions while distracting me from my actual life is pretty vital for me healthy right

And Attack on Titan has perfectly fulfilled that role, perfectly taking over my life for almost two years (it’ll be exactly 600 days on April 1st, isn’t that fitting), and I’m damn grateful for it.

I haven’t ever properly cried over it, that said, I’ve certainly had my emotional moments with snk. When Eren “died” in ep 5 during my first time watching it I was horribly shaken and hurt and suffering, so the reveal that he was still alive, plus eremika reunion, was an incredible emotional moment for me (had I not been watching it with my pal I might have actually cried back then. During my first six binges or so I teared up a bit everytime Carla died, and other moments just hit me randomly every now and then. Ilse meeting the titan got me slight tears in my eyes for a period of time for unknown reasons, and just yesterday I had sudden wave of emotion over Annie apologizing to the dead in Trost, ep 13. It just randomly happens sometimes, though its pretty rare since I’ve seen and read this whole franchise 5 billion times already.

I am fully prepared to sob my eyes out over Season 2 though. Chapter 50 is a big contender, but in all honesty, I might actually lose it just during ep 26. All that waiting, all that daily hype and anticipation, all the suffering and struggling end on that day and I might have to let all of that out on camera lmao. I’m excited for ep 26 in every possible aspect lol 

[narcisbolgor-blog]

So This Is What American Greatness Really Looks Like?

This week, Garry Kasparov, former Russian chess champion and perennial critic of Vladimir Putin, tweeted about what autocrats do when caught: 1: Deny, lie, slander accusers. 2: Say it was a misunderstanding. 3. Boast & say What are you going to do about it?

The day after that tweet, Donald Trump stood on a dais in Paris beside the French president and said of his sons now-confirmed willingness to receive campaign help for his father from Russia: I think its a meeting that most people in politics probably would have taken.

That would be jaw dropping and bizarre coming from a mob boss at his pretrial hearing, let alone from the president of the United States. But that line is now standard issue among much of Trumps political party, which has come around to the notion that collusion with a foreign powereven an adversarial one like Russiais no big deal.

Trump, his family, and his defenders in the once Grand Old Party have mounted various defenses for his campaigns collusion with Russians and their cutouts to win the 2016 presidential election. They have tried to ignore Russiagate. They have said collusion with Russia never happened. They have blamed Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Loretta Lynch (Trump now says the Russian government lawyer who met with Donald Jr. was only in the country because Lynch let her in. It will surprise no one to discover thats not true.) And they have landed on the notion that even if collusion did happen, theres absolutely nothing wrong with it. Check off all three of the Kasparov boxes.

With Trumps ascension, the Russification of the Republican Party, which once supported apartheid-era South Africa and continues to back a Cuba embargo, both on the basis of keeping countries out of Russias sphere of influence, is complete. Trump, who in the 1980s complained that Ronald Reagan was too tough on the Soviets, and who has used Russians, including reputed mobsters, as everything from bailouts to buyers to brokers for the expansion of his hotel and pageant franchises, has officially brought kakistocracy to Washington. None but the most unmoored to any recognizable morality need apply. He has made fools of his own spokespeople. He has exposed the religious rights leaders as very much men of this world, with all its hatred and avarice. He has unleashed the forces of white nationalism and even neo-Nazism in our country. And he has revealed an America that is far less than we thought we were eight years ago when the United States became the first former slave republic to make a member of its once entrapped minority population its national leader.

One wonders whether this democracy, as fragile as it has been revealed to be, and whether the presidency as an institution is entirely salvageable, now that Trump has exploded the norms we thought constrained the office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Since becoming president, Trump has flouted the emoluments clause and openly profited from his office, taking payments from all comers, from the State Department to foreign governments at his golf courses, hotels and his private Florida club. He has encouraged his children to treat the White House as a marketing tool for the Trump businesses, and allowed them to commingle their business activities and ongoing involvement in his government. He has turned American foreign policy into a Santas workshop for Saudi and Russian interests and goals, from the needless fight with Qatar to pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords to attempting to return the Kremlins spy facilities, which the Obama administration seized in retaliation for Russian interference in our election, to giving Russian oligarchs direct financial interest in the Keystone pipeline boondoggle to having his administration lean on House members to soften a Russia sanctions package. (He even briefly floated the outrageous and absurd notion of cybersecurity cooperation with the Kremlin.) He has invited the Russian foreign ministry into the Oval Office out of the eye and earshot of the American media, who now are reduced to audio-only press briefings where they take a back seat to Trump sycophant right-wing blogs, and he has now canoodled with Putin himself, taking the murderous Russian autocrats word for it that no election meddling occurred.

Trump has made political thuggery the new American political standard; throwing allies overboard and cuddling up to dictators and autocrats around the world. He has diminished American influence and credibility every day he has been in office.

Meanwhile, he has stripped the presidency of its basic dignity, tweeting his every thought at all hours of the day. He presents America in his world travels as a troglodyte nation, led by an ill-mannered, ill-tempered, praise-needy buffoona real life Joffrey Baratheonwho still thinks hes a television performer, and whose attention to duty lasts only as long as his favorite Fox shows arent on.

Domestically, he has thrown the country into chaos, from his Muslim travel bans to his utter incoherence on healthcare, which he and his party are threatening to strip from up to 23 million people so they can fork over a trillion dollars to Americas own oligarchs. Putin must be positively gleeful at the damage his little rusetricking the arrogant ignoramuses of the Trump campaign into believing Russian hackers had the goods on Hillary, and then reeling them inhas wrought.

And so, a political party that long prided itself on a particular kind of patriotism now welcomes foreign interference, so long as it helps them win. A nation that dragged itself, painfully, from slavery to the Voting Rights Act now faces a federal government that is the single biggest threat to the right of all people to vote. A country that stuck out its chest in promoting a particular kind of greatness now wallows in defunding public education, gutting scientific research, and promoting basic ignorance about the planet in the service of bygone industries belching pollution into the air and water, as if American innovation that could create new industries and new jobs for those displaced workers is no longer possible.

Meanwhile, our children are learning that bullies do indeed prosper; that cruelty and narcissism can be a pathway to power, that one of our two major parties believes the poor and struggling do not deserve health care, and that according to the president of the United States, women essentially have no value beyond their looks and dress sizes.

One wonders whether the presidency can recover, or whether were doomed to live in an endless cycle of lowbrow celebrity autocracyAmerica remade in the image of Italys Silvio Berlusconi.

Already, other entertainers are bellying up to the bar, eager to follow Trumps grubby example and take their turn at political powerball. We could soon have a national leadership that includes The Rock, Kid Rock, and who knows, maybe Ted Nugent, now that white nationalism and public vulgarity have gone mainstream.

What hope is there for a country that has reduced itself to this? What future? For now, its hard to see a particularly bright one. If this is what making America great looks like, God help us when greatness ensues.

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So This Is What American Greatness Really Looks Like? was originally posted by 11 VA Viral News

[salmonsnakerune]

god imagine if i waltzed into the lobby of a cinema airing endgame and just said some bullshit like “THERE’S TWO MARRIAGE SCENES AND EVERYONE DIES, THE APOCALYPSE WIPES OUT ALL KNOWN LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE” thats probably like 99% false because i know nothing of this franchise

an entirely made-up spoiler, no basis in reality and no earlier knowledge of the plot or theme

i wonder if people would get mad, kick my ass, then go in to watch the movie sourly, waiting for the spoiler that never comes

you have been tricked, my dudes

[mitziguerin90-blog]

The Execs And Cons Of Franchising For Your Business

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