#the animation was so much fun to make but it nearly put my pc in a coma

[midnightectosnack]

Invisobang 2023

First time ever doing a fandom event and I had a blast! Made an animated cover art @ei-w's fic Green Rose Rebel.

The story is about Dora's tragic tale after a meeting with a certain ghost knight, and how it affects them both (plus there's a quick CW appearance!). I'm a sucker for stories where we see the ghosts' human origins, so it was a perfect match. Also, had so much fun talking with my author about the worldbuilding and all the details she was adding to the story!

(Just a head's up, it's a looping video with fade in and fade out effect, although it's not fast by my standards, thought it was fair to warn about it)

Still versions of the cover art:

And the animated art:

And here's another art I did of Fright Knight for a scene on Chapter 7:

[raccoonscupoftea]

🎮A Gamers profession

Timeskip!Kenma Kozume X F!Y/n

Summary: Y/n and Kenma are a couple, also living together. While Kenma is streaming and struggling with a game, he soon admitted to need help from you, a professional game breaker.

Warnings: Nerd talk, SFW, possible grammar mistakes, cause english is not my native language.

| MASTERLIST | REQUESTS |

//----//----//----//

You love your job. It's fun, well paying and not so stressful. Kenma, your boyfriend, also likes your job, but sometimes he just wants you to stuff your face with a pillow when he's playing, especially when he's livestreaming.

You often get to know the next top game before everyone else. You get information on a game while it's still in the making and you have to play the game for endless hours before it's officiall release.

You're not designing the game or anything. No, you're here to break the game into pieces, testing limits, testing the code, testing AI. If it breaks, then the developers have more work to do. Or they simply just decide it is going to be a 'feature'. It's their choice. You just deliver the bugs to them.

So, then why does kenma want to shut you up sometimes?

Because of your job, you have developed a very good sense for game mechanics, attack patterns and the more advanced stuff on how a game is build. When Kenma encounteres a boss, he just knows you could beat it in a few minutes. He knows you could rush to an over the top overpowered boss and never get hit once, thou it would take longer to beat it.

It's when Kenma's visibly is frustrated, staring at his screen with an unhealthy posture, you then sometimes get up from your couch and take a look at what he's struggling with. As soon as you got into frame the viewers will start to spam the chat with messages about you.

Mostly just spamming your name but others will write absurd things like "mama's here to help" or "the professional is watching"

You just have to stand behind the chair and kenma starts to tell you to not say anything.

"Don't you dare tell me, I want to find it out myself" he complains and you just put up your hands "I didn't do anything, I'm just watching, but tell me if you need help"

So far he never needed help from you. He of course is an intelligent and very good gamer himself. Never have you doubted him.

___

You're currently on your own pc in a separate Office in your and Kenma's home. With a switch controller in your hands and feet up on a footrest, you happily enjoy playing some animal crossing on the bigger screen of your gaming setup.

Today's quiet cold so you're wearing a wearable blanked with a hoodie combined. It looks like a cat. On your table is a steaming hot tea, waiting to be cooled down a little. You were fishing all around the island in game to get the last fish of the museum collection, but the sporadic waves of tiredness are definitely not doing you a favour when it comes to pressing the right button at the right time. The game definitely knows how to get you so relaxed you could fall asleep right then and there in your gaming chair.

Another wave made you a little more tired than the usual waves. This time you had doze off for a few seconds before jolting back awake and continued your fishing spree. Work definitely was a bit to much with the winter holidays coming up and a lot of new games wanting to be released in early spring. Is also added up to your tiredness.

You glanced over to the time on your Pc and realised it's only 4pm, definitely to early to sleep now. You also know that Kenma was streaming for an hour now, since he always starts at 3pm.

Thou you don't learn from your mistake to play animal crossing while nearly dozing off and just continued, but rather than fishing you instead decided to continue to decorate the island.

It went well for the first hour. You made a plan and checked on the internet if there's the suitable furniture for it. The first decorations had been placed on their right spot, paths has been made but just a few minutes after the first hour, the tiredness has claimed you back.

While you were in the office relaxing every bone to a complete flat line, the person in the other office was nearly about to destroy a keyboard. The boss he was fighting was beating kenma every time to 0 HP. Kenma had stopped yesterday's stream in a near rage quit but today he had to beat it to get further in the game. He hasn't got past the boss and was getting more and more frustrated as well as confused. Sometimes he swears the boss just doesn't take damage and gets a massive attack bonus. Chat is convinced the boss wasn't beatable and was begging to kenma to bring out the game breaker, aka you.

Of course, he denied it at first but after an hour of trying and dying he finally gave up. Without a word he placed down his headphones, pushed his microphone back a little bit and walked out of the frame. His viewers were ecstatic and surprised that he'll need help from you.

As kenma was busting open the door to your office, the loud noise of the door made you jolt up from your chair. Your hair went places and the hoodie blanket went all the way up to your chin, telling kenma without a word that you were sleeping in your chair just now.

"I was definitely not sleeping" You stated in your defense with a sleep drunk voice, but Kenma did not believe you and smiled at how cuddly you looked. With a quick glance at the time you asked the streamer "Quit already? You're usually up till late at night"

Kenma placed his hands in the pocket of the black hoodie he's wearing and sighed, remembering why he's here in the first place "I think the game's bugged. I can't defeat the boss. I tried so many times" He slightly looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed about asking you.

At the word 'bugged' you stood up, placed the switch controller on the desk and walked over to him. You slipped your hands into his hoodie and took his hands in your own. "let's see what I can do"

The two of you went to his streaming room, but before you entered, the hood from your blanket hoodie went over your head to hide this atrocious mess of hair on your head. You quickly checked your appearance in the hallway mirror. As soon as the viewers got a glance at you and what you're wearing, they all typed in chat 'You're looking so cozy rn' 'where did you buy it?' 'looks so fluffy' 'I want to cuddle with you'

You waved at the camera to greed the viewers and kenma gestured you to sit down in his chair. You smiled at your boyfriend and placed your feet also on the chair, making you a cozy fluffy blanket ball.

He then quickly explained to you what he was doing and what was happening. Kenma then also pulled over another chair to sit down and watch you. You first tried your best max out attack and defence with his current equipment, but there wasn't even a slightest chance. You voiced out a small "Huh?" Before trying again.

The viewers could see on your face that something was up. You aren't a streamer and wasn't talking while playing the game and kenma knew to not disturb your concentration, but the viewers still seemed to enjoy watching you trying the best you could. It was the first time you were seriously playing a game with the intention to win and they were all very ecstatic as you tried to not get hit. One could tell how everyone was excited at this moment, the chat also was getting slower.

After half an hour, you had placed down the controller. The boss could hit the hero, because they weren't dodging anymore and the player dies in an instant. The question marks around your head were very visible. Something definitely is not right here. As soon as the game went to its pause menu, the viewers knew something serious it about to happen.

You grabbed the laptop from Kenma, booted it up, put in his password without a fail and went to the internet. The website from your work company appeared after a few clicks and at this moment Kenma realised what was happening.

He looked over to his camera and explained laughing "Guys, I apparently found a bug. Stuffs about to get serious now" The chat was then filled with suprised emojis. It didn't took 5 minutes and a donation came in.

Kenma glanced over to the donation site and read out loud "Thank you catlover51 for the..." He stopped a second as he saw the amount that was donated and was clearly surprised "Thank you for the 100$ and you had written down 'For Y/n, a little compensation gor having to work now' again thank you very much. You really didn't neet to donate so much"

As Kenma read the donation out loud you had began to smile behind the laptop sceen. Others then jumped onto the train as well and donated money from a single dollar to a little lager than 50$. Kenma was slightly overwhelmed my the sheer amount of donations that came in and couldn't stop thanking everyone, nearly shutting down the donation site so no one could waste more money on them. It was then you who calmed them down after finishing your research. You looked back to the camera and placed the laptop to the side "You don't need to pay me for this. It's my job and I love doing it. Also I get paid whenever I work, so I'm currently earning my money. But thank you for your concern" you smiled brightly at them before continuing to try out stuff in the game.

After some time nothing came out of the testing and you sighed. You glance over to your boyfriend, looking like a vet having to tell the owner some bad news. "You can't progress at this point, I'm sorry" His eyes widend "That's a joke right?" You just shook your head "Unfortunately not. You have found a very devastating bug, which stops you from killing the boss. As soon as an attack misses, the supposed damage gets stored and well... When the boss does hit you, then all of that stored damage gets released. That explains the bug with the one shot kill. This bug alone is manageable and already a known issue, but combined with the boss not taking any damage" you smiled at him with a sad face. "I'm sorry"

Kenma sighed and ruffled his hair "It's not your fault" he smiled and ruffled your hair as well. "Guess my save is busted then"

You took his hand in yours and looked him in the eyes. He squeezed your hand a little and looked back at you. There's a little spark in your eyes, telling him that there's something you could do "What are you up to?" He asked directly. Your eyes shift away, making you look innocent, scratching your cheek a little "I could force you out of the situation, by glitching you through a wall"

Usually kenma is against using glitches and exploits in his runs, but this is maybe the first occasion he'll consider it. He first looks at you with squinted eyes but then stood up "I'm going to the bathroom. Whatever you'll do, I'll don't know about it"

You're smile got bigger as he finished talking and went outside. He closed the door and after a little happy dance, you pressed onto respawn and forced the player to another part of the map. The viewers were watching your every step and were happy about you breaking a game infront of them.

As you were finished, you quickly saved the game and stood up, ready to leave.

"In my defence" you started talking into the camera a little bowed down to fit into the frame "I did not test this part of the game. Not my fault" You grabbed the open laptop and blew the viewers a goodbye kiss before you exited the streaming room.

On the way back to your own office, Kenma has finished his bathroom break. He grabbed your wrist before you could vanish into your room. He also grabbed the laptop and placed it on a sideboard. One hand of his wandered over to your waist, so he could pull you a little closer to him. "Thank you" he whisperd and gave you a little kiss on your cheek. "I'll make sure to finish today's stream a little earlier. Can't wait to cuddle you with this fluffy hoodie" he then again kissed your other cheek and headed back over to his room to see an alive character on a giant grassy field.

You on the other hand smiled and had to control your inner fangirl to not just scream and jump around. The viewers for sure could hear you if you were to loud.

You quickly grabbed Kenma's laptop and hid in your room, filling out a formula to get the new bug over to the Developers.

[seelestia]

There's no gain without pain fr, I'll do anything to drag more peeps into our cult- I mean our simp group :D

huehuehuehue I won't lie- I didn't know anything about stardew valley apart from the fact that it's a farming game and apparently the npcs are hot (for real)

But, I got to playing and downloading it because one of my friends suggested it after I said I wanted a chill game that I don't have to put much effort in asdfghjk-

It's pretty chill and is actually fun whenever I play, ngl tho once I achieved most of the goals given by the game and only a few more to finish, it started to become a little bit repetitive cuz all I did was do my chores around the farm and also start a family with my in-game husband lmao (my hubby is elliott, aka a long-haired writer hermit that lives in a cabin near the ocean :'D)

As a game, I definitely recommend it if you just want to live out your dream of being a farmer after resigning from a draining desk job from the city :D

One of the highlights of this game tho are the npcs fr, all of them have their own actual personality, they're not all the nice very general and lifeless npc we've come to know. Most of them have their own problems and some have their own dark-ish pasts and plot twists (it's like a telenovela bruh)

It also doubles as a decorating game (which I am a WHORE for ;D) you can decorate your house, your farm, greenhouse, hell even the sewers are available to be used :''D

all in all, a pretty good game fr (it just sucks that there's so little fics for my hubby once I started to look for them :'''D)

Also- sorry to say but I did not have breakfast cuz I fell asleep after playing- BUT I just had lunch, if that makes up for it 👉👈

6 days left until I get to give you my presentt huehuehue >:D - Ever so SIMP-ly yours, 👹✨ Jae (lil tiktok of scara practicing self-love)

you've got a knack for persuading people to join cults and i'm here for it. i'm totally 100% supporting jae's saleswoman era (/j) BUT YEAH, even from an outsider's perspective, stardew valley really does look super chill! it kinda reminds me of when animal crossing was all the talk back then (but i don't have a switch <//3).

farming game that lets you decorate + good npcs with in-depth stories??? SIGN ME UP, CHIEF. i already downloaded it on my pc a few days ago alongside another chill game called our life: beginnings and always, but i got too distracted with the latter 😭 if you're looking for a chill game that is nearly fully-customizable (it lets you customize your looks, personality, pronouns, interests, etc.) where you grow up with this lonely boy next door from childhood until adulthood, you can choose to stay as friends or develop a relationship with him — i'd deffo recc it! this game got so emotionally invested, sobssss <3

but i'll deffo get to stardew valley soon tho and give you updates >:) btw, elliott looks so babygirl and the fact that he is a hermit makes it better LMAOOO i think i'm gonna have fun affectionately bullying him when i meet him. (/lh) please drop your haircare routine, o fine gentleman 🙏 please don't tell me he's got a twisted backstory because i'll flip (/j)

p/s: chibi scara practicing self-love because nahida told him to. he's cute (/j) OH AND HAVE THIS because faruzan and scara's voivelines sound like they're fighting and it's actually giving me life.

[tacko3d]

COOL SPOOKY AD I MADE

I spent 3 days making an ad, HATED IT deleted it and then I made this.

I love making these commercials. Possibly the most fun I have being a freelancer, just ads, Love making ads

I love making wacky, incomprehensible ads for promos that last like a week

if you wanna check out the sale, you can find it on tiny.one/uediscount

I just wanted to share the ad here cause I'm actually really proud of it. It took me so long to find something I really liked for this one. Cause my pipeline is FUCKED right now.

PC is in Bubblewrap. My Mac's mic is shot, so I had to record on my phone and put that in Ableton to fix the audio

Animated a thing on Mac which took like 2 whole hours to render because I had rendered another animation in Unreal

And I sifted through nearly 2 years of Video to find the clips I needed and then compiling that in Final Cut



I put so much blood sweat and tears into this.

Put ultimately, through the fire and the flames, I did good

[jadequeen88]

Incel Tomura

I couldn’t think of a good title for this, so... I just went with something real blunt. Anyway, this was inspired by a friend and how she actually met her IRL boyfriend.

PAIRING: Incel!Shigaraki x egirl!reader

TW: face sitting, degradation, mommy kink, reader basically bullying Tomura (he deserves it)

3.2k~

AS ALWAYS MY FICS ARE STRICTLY 18+

“TCH!”

Tomura scoffed at the screen of his laptop. The Discord server he helped admin had gone to shit since he let that idiot Dabi loosen the requirements to join. It was one thing when Toga joined. He knew she was a decent gamer. But you? With those stereotypical cat-ear headsets, perfectly done make-up and short skirts? Please… He saw right through you. Just another fake ~uwu~ e-girl trying to pretend they knew what they were talking about.

It didn’t end with you being annoyingly informed in the gaming chat, either. You were always in the anime and manga chats, too… Suggesting different ones that there’s no way you actually enjoyed.

But the WORST part of you being in the server? Spamming the picture chat with selfies and outfit pics. No, it wasn’t against the guidelines and yes, you got lots of compliments (of course, you were clearly hot), but it made Tomura livid. Where there used to be pics of half-built PCs and screenshots of character upgrades, now there were endless pictures meant to tease and bait the guys in the server.

Today’s picture is what sent him completely over the edge. Your hair was put up in two messy space buns, signature pink cat-eared headset perched on your head. Your black, mesh top was straining against your tight, hot pink bra, barely hiding your cleavage and your slender neck was adorned with a chunky, black collar with a large, silver ring hanging from the front. The icing on the cake, though… the thing that broke him, was the face you were making. Eyes crossed, little pink tongue lolling past your perfect hot-pink lips, it was an obvious ahegao face. The caption read:

“New collar! Thank you for da gift @XxXknifey_wifeyXxX”

Followed by a bunch of annoying ass emojis.

Tomura shifted in his gaming chair, his growing bulge making his sweats tight. He gritted his teeth and opened his DMs…

******

You snickered as you opened your text chat with Dabi. Poor Tomura… He had no clue his friend was an old high school buddy of yours and sent screenshots every single time he bitched about your presence on the server. At first, it was just a couple of snide comments, but you quickly decided to turn it into a game. You’d add more emojis than you normally would, flirt shamelessly with Toga in the chat, and be very vocal with your opinions. Then it progressed with more and more selfies, pics showing off your new skirts, and pics of your pink, girly gaming setup. Today you pushed it with the ahegao face, you’ll admit. It was pretty out of character for you, but you couldn’t wait to hear about Tomura’s reaction from Dabi.

It was everything you hoped it would be:

Decay_666_

So can we give those bitches their own chat or what? Seriously, I’m sick of seeing their shit everywhere. Did you see her ahegao face selfie? This server was supposed to be for ACTUAL gamers, not fake e-girl sluts spamming the chat with their bullshit…

Cremation_Daddy

Lol, damn dude, calm down… we can make a separate chat. You’re the only one on the server complaining. Y/N really fucking you up that bad?

Decay_666_

Oh, fuck off… she’s just being an attention whore and it’s getting on my nerves.

Cremation_Daddy

Yeah, whatever you say. Prolly jerkin it to that selfie right now

You didn’t know why, but you kinda had a crush on the skinny loser. Knowing how worked up he’d get over the smallest things you did thrilled you. You wanted to know just how badly you affected him and today was the day you’d find out.

*****

Tomura heard a ping from his monitor alerting him to a new DM. expecting it to be Dabi giving him more shit, he scowled and clicked over to his Discord tab. When he saw that it was you DMing him, it was like someone had poured a bucket of ice water over his head. He could barely type he was so nervous.

Y/N

Hey :)

Decay_666_

Hi

Y/N

How did you like my new collar?

Tomura panicked. Had Dabi said something? There’s no way he’d do that. How did he even respond to that? He decided to feign ignorance.

Decay_666_

What collar?

Y/N

*image*

He audibly gasped. You sent him the selfie you’d posted in the chat earlier. Somehow, it was even hotter than the first time he’d seen it. Probably because you had sent it to him. You wanted to make sure he saw it. The thought alone made him painfully hard. He typed out a shaky response:

Decay_666_

Yeah… you look really pretty :)

He grimaced. He couldn’t think of anything clever when he was put on the spot like that. Plus, how long had it been since he’d spoken to a girl one on one? Much less a hot one? Never. That’s when.

Y/N

Aww, you’re so sweet :) wanna see it in person?

Now Tomura was wondering if he’d died and gone to heaven. Did she want to meet up? Wearing that fucking collar? There’s no way… He stared at the screen for a good ten minutes before another ping brought him back to reality.

Y/N

I’m free now if you are. Plus, there’s a new episode of *insert favorite anime* out and I didn’t wanna watch it alone.

Decay_666_

Yeah. Sure.

His response was almost uninterested but inside he was panicking. When was the last time he showered? How much time did he have to get ready? Did he even have any clean clothes? He leaped from his chair and ran to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Another ping rang out and he raced to check his DMs to see that you’d sent your address. To his surprise, you only lived a short walk from him. Another jolt of excitement shot through his spine as he quickly responded.

Decay_666_

Be over in 30 :)

He turned on the shower then started picking through his pile of clothes finding the ones that smelled the least offensive. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this nervous and excited at the same time.

*****

 Tomura shifted from one foot to the other, nervously scratching at the side of his neck. He caught himself before the skin there broke and he ended up having to deal with a bloody neck on top of already being a nervous wreck. He’d only been standing outside your apartment for a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity. He kept checking his phone to distract himself. Just as he was starting to question if this had been a good idea, the door flung open.

His eyes widened and his mouth turned into a thin line. You answered the door in a fucking towel. He began opening and closing his mouth like a fish that had been plucked from the water. You giggled innocently like it was perfectly normal to answer the door nearly naked.

“You’re here a little earlier than I expected! I just got out of the shower. Come on in,” you moved to the side to give him room to walk through the door into your small apartment. You were sure to not move completely out of the way so he’d have to almost brush against your chest. You could feel him stiffen and hold his breath as he passed by.

This was going to be so much fun…

*****

Tomura’s dick had been painfully hard the moment he’d seen you in that towel. Luckily, when you’d gone into your bedroom to get dressed, he was able to position it in his waistband so he wouldn’t be pitching a tent in front of you. The thought of you noticing him popping a boner just by looking at you in a towel was mortifying. 

However, what you decided to change into didn’t help his situation. Your baby pink terry cloth shorts would have shown the curve of your ass had it not been for the little row of ruffles around the bottom. Your tank top, the same baby pink color as your shorts, was pulled tight across your chest (holy shit, were you not wearing a bra?!). A fleeting glance at your chest proved to Tomura that you definitely were not wearing a bra.

“You can come on back,” you beckoned from the doorway of your bedroom, “I thought we’d be more comfortable in here…”

He gulped and rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans before nodding and rising to walk towards you. Your room was foreign to him. Decorated with all shades of pink and purple, soft, plush bedding, and a soft pink glow emanated from the LED strip lights that lined the walls. Tomura stood awkwardly, looking around for a chair to sit in when you flopped onto your bed and began pulling up the streaming app on your tv. 

You looked up at him sweetly and patted the spot on the plush comforter next to you. “Come sit, Tomu! You don’t have to stand way over there. I don’t stink, ya know,” the wink you gave him made his knees buckle.

“Umm,” he chuckled nervously, “No, of course not. You, uhh… you smell…”

No, you were way too close. This was bad. There’s no way he would be able to string together a coherent thought, much less hold an actual conversation with you. You pout and lean in even closer to him.

“Tomuuuuu!” fuck, he hated that he loved that stupid nickname, “You think I smell?!”

“What?! N-no, not at all. I was trying to say that-”

Before he could finish his sentence, you tilted your head to the side offering up your neck for him to smell and he swears his eyes crossed as he tried to absorb what was happening.

“I even wore my new perfume! Go on, smell. Tell me what you think,” you smirk looking out of the corner of your eye.

Fuck.

You were teasing him, he knew you were, but his dick was so hard that he was completely at your mercy. He leaned in to take a tentative sniff and his eyes wandered lower. His breath hitched when he noticed the outline of your hardened nipples peeking through the thin material of your tank top. Before he knew what was happening, you turned your face forward and put your mouth next to his ear.

“Are you looking down my shirt, you pervert?” you purred. Tomura made some sort of incoherent noise and pulled away.

You laughed and pushed his shoulder playfully, “Geeze, I’m just kidding! You’re wound so tight.” you pause making a thoughtful face.

“Oh, I know how to help! Come on, over here,” you pulled him between your spread thighs and proceeded to rub his shoulders, working out all of the knots in his lean back.

After a few seconds, Tomura began to relax into your touch, slumping slightly and letting out a tiny sigh. He was deathly still the entire time you massaged him. He was terrified if he moved too much that his raging boner would free itself from his waistband. When your hands left his shoulders, he started to move away just to be pulled back into your lap. His head landed in your cleavage as your hands trailed down his chest. 

“Hmm, so tense, Tomu,” you whispered into the crown of his hair, “Is my massage not working?”

He wanted to yell that of course he was tensed up. That his dick is the hardest it’s ever been in his life and if he doesn’t hold as still as possible, he’s scared he might start humping the air like a pathetic dog. Before he can answer, your hand trails down to the waistband of his jeans, and he freezes. The tips of your fingers brush across his leaking tip and Tomura lets out a low, needy moan before he can stop himself.

“Just what I thought,” you purred as you began to trail your fingers up and down the hard bulge in his jeans, “Pathetic. Look at you, so fucking hard for me. And all I did was rub your shoulders.” He wanted to defend himself, but all he could do was whine as his eyes rolled in the back of his head while you continued touching him through his jeans.

“And to think, I never thought you’d want anything to do with some fake bimbo like me. Because I only game and watch anime for attention, right?” you squeeze his cock through his jeans, causing him to yelp. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself, incel? Wanna tell me why your dick is this hard for me if I’m so annoying to you?”

The realization that Dabi had told you everything flitted through the back of his mind, but he didn’t have room in his brain right then to be mad at him. He had to do whatever he needed to do to keep you touching him.

“I, ahh... I’m s-sorry,” he stuttered pathetically. The front of his jeans was wet from your teasing and the denim was rubbing him raw through his thin boxers, “D-didn’t, fuck, didn’t mean it like… ahh, l-like th-that.”

You loved how easily you could wreck him. You pet his hair back from his sweaty brow as you cooed at him lovingly.

“You know,” you removed your hand from the front of his jeans and he whined from the lack of friction, “You really hurt my feelings, baby. I thought you were so cool and the whole time, behind my back, you said just mean things about me.”

He sat up and turned to face you. His pathetic, needy gaze shot straight to your core. The power you held made you drunk and you desperately wanted more.

“No, no no no…” he grabbed your hands and you realized how clammy they were, “I’m-I’m so sorry. Please! Please…”

“Hmm,” you studied him for a moment, “Well… There might be a way you could make me feel a little better.” you tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, “You were so mean to me.”

“Anything! Please! I-I’ll do anything for you!” desperation started creeping in, thinking you’d leave him hanging with no relief. Little did he know, you had no intention of letting him go any time soon. Your plush lips curled into a devious smile. A soft hand reached up cupping his jaw.

“What a good boy, Tomu,” a tremor passed through his body. You reached over to your nightstand and pulled out the collar you’d taken the selfie in. 

“You know,” the collar danced between your painted nails, “This also came with a leash. I was thinking,” your lust-filled eyes meet his, “If you wanted to be a good boy for me… You’d let me see how pretty it looks around your neck.”

Tomura hesitated, his eyes rapidly moving between your eyes and the collar you held. After a moment of consideration, he nodded. You giggled and clapped your hands together excitedly leaping off the bed. You returned with a short, chain-link leash.

“Now,” you leaned in and fastened the collar around his neck. Your bodies were centimeters apart and Tomura thought he might pass out, “When you’re wearing your collar, you don’t call me Y/N,” you nudge his ear with your nose and whisper, “You call me ‘Mommy.’ Do you understand?” you feel him nod against your face.

“That’s not how good boys answer their Mommy. When you answer me, you say, ‘Yes Mommy’ or ‘No Mommy.’ Is that clear?”

“Y-yes… Mommy.”

“Mmm, what a good boy,” you placed a soft kiss on his neck and he let out the most delicious whimper. You hooked a finger through the ring on the front of the collar, “You’re gonna go sit in Mommy’s gaming chair and let her use you as a toy. Okay?” 

Tomura’s head was spinning and he almost couldn’t answer until you jerked him by his collar, “Y-yes, Mommy. Please, please make me your toy.”

You stood and dragged him over to your chair and made him sit, “What a polite boy you are! Saying ‘please’ without being asked. If you keep that up, you just might get a reward,” his belt buckle rattled as you worked his jeans down his narrow hips. 

A ragged breath escaped his chapped lips as you removed your tiny shorts revealing a black, lace thong. You straddled his lap, your dripping slit hovering a centimeter over the angry, leaking head of his cock. His hands shook as you placed them on your hips and slowly moved your thong to the side. Descending an inch at a time, only teasing his tip, was causing him to come undone underneath you.

“You’re already so close and I’ve only put the tip in. You better be a good boy and not come until I tell you to or you’re going to be punished,” you pushed another couple of inches inside and he nearly wept.

“I-I’m trying, M-mommy! I wanna be a good boy!”

“Mmm, I know, baby. You’re doing so,” another inch, “So…” and another, “Well.” you were fully seated on his cock now. Tomura knew he wouldn’t last. Your velvet walls were sucking him down harder than anything ever had before. It made his fleshlight feel like it was made of sandpaper. You had ruined him for anything else. 

With a few rolls of your hips and some high, airy moans, he was about to bust. “Mommy! Mommy, please! I-I’m g-gonna…”

“Tomu,” your voice was authoritative now, “If you come in Mommy’s pussy, I’m going to make you clean it out with your tongue then I’m going to sit on your face until I come as many times as I want.” your hand wrapped around his throat and you started bouncing on his cock. Your filthy words and aggressive motions catapulted him into an orgasm.

“You bad, BAD boy,” a smack to his cheek broke off his moans, “You disobeyed me! Did you do that on purpose?” your hand around his neck flexes, “Are you just a dirty incel that wants Mommy to get mean with you? Answer, Tomu!”

“Yes, Mommy!”

“Tell Mommy what you are…”

“I-I’m a-a… dirty incel.”

“And what do you want?”

“W-want… want Mommy to b-be mean to me…”

You lift him by the collar and attach the leash. He’s thrown onto the bed and you waste no time hovering your dripping slit over his face.

“Now,” you jerk the leash, “Clean up your mess.”

Tomura knew he should be disgusted right now, but his dick was getting harder by the second. With each lick inside your sloppy hole, he shamelessly moaned against your skin. The vibrations were going straight to your clit, causing you to ride his face harder. This went on until you’d almost reached your peak.

“Oh, baby,” you’re making Mommy feel so, so good, “I-I’m gonna…”

Tomura grabbed your ass and moved you back and forth on his face as he sucked your clit into his mouth. Your orgasm hit hard and fast. You lifted your body giving him a moment to breathe before sitting back down, earning a startled mumble from him.

“Don’t think that’s all,” you laughed and humped his face, making his eyes roll into the back of his head, “Be a good boy and mommy might even let you come…”

Tomura only nodded as he began to eat you again like he was starved. Maybe all the stuff you posted in the Discord server wasn’t so annoying anymore...

[bukojuiice]

CUDDLE BUDDY! 🧸 CHAPTER 29: KATSUKI BAKUGO WHO? I ONLY KNOW ISABELLE AND TOM NOOK  [KATSUKI BAKUGO X F! READER SMAU]

CUDDLE BUDDY! 🧸 CHAPTER 29: KATSUKI BAKUGO WHO? I ONLY KNOW ISABELLE AND TOM NOOK  [KATSUKI BAKUGO X F! READER SMAU]

˚*   ੈ✩‧₊ series masterlist

- (Y/N) is a soft, kind-hearted, quirky, and meme queen university student who lives alone in a cute little apartment complex. She mistakens Bakugo Katsuki for her old neighbors; an old woman and her granddaughter whom she absolutely adores. She leaves a giant teddy bear every day before the sun rises for the little girl to see. Not knowing that they had moved out suddenly, Katsuki who had just moved in had never seen such a huge fluffy abomination all his life that it nearly gives him a heart attack. Chaos ensues and you try your absolute best to make it up to the explosive cutie that is your next door neighbor.

pairing: katsuki bakugo x female! reader

genre:  social media au, college au, normal/quirkless au, fluff, romance, crack, humor and lots of memes. lots of them.

warnings: strong language

status: updating

☆ asks are finally open and taglist is open!

[♡: this was originally going to be one of the chapters with Sims 4 screenshots (with very indulgent bakugo as your boyfriend! photos) but my PC broke LMAOOOO so i’d have to put that on hold til it’s fixed! qwq so have you and bakugo playing animal crossing instead for now huehuehue this was rlly fun to edit/brainstorm tbh!! acnh kept me sane during quarantine and i am forever thankful for it. i thought it would be super cute if i could try and recreate both dekusquad and bakusquad into acnh through the animal villagers but alas, i have no time since i pretty much did this on a whim qwq would have been cool if i had the amiibos i needed though but aaa let’s see in the future. see you in the next chapter! it’s going to be a pretty cute and fluffy one uwu]

[taglist: @themagical1sa, @loxbbg, @webkinzfroggie, @melanieacademy, @bakubae-boom, @bakasbitch18, @ravenkake, @softiehawks, @sansiemwah @sizzlingbarbarianglitter, @moon-spirit-yue, @thesuitelifeofafangirl, @spicyhokage, @softpinkangels, @faithfulferns, @bubbzibubbles, @cleverroadscissorscloud, @foreverren, @unknownweeabo, @little-kity, @bakugousflowerprincess, @torilovesmiraculous, @yn-tingz, @sokka-simp, @tired-bat, @omgevaclark, @tsumu-core, @jazzylove, @tarasaoristark, @sailor-earth-1, @fukyouthink, @mini-moni12, @punicorn999, @lavender-moon13, @whalerus, @the-shota-king-masayuki, @ak-may, @yammmers, @dabisdominion, @nightlygiggless, @xomegash, @ynfics, @athenarosaline, @bakugouswh0r3, @reina-de-tay, @katsushimaa, @avatarayeaye, @ianieworld, @akaashis-dumptruck, @chibishae34, @sparkykatsuki, @midnightboy, @minninugget, @paradigmax​, @fluffyviciousbunny, @bxstboy-tetsu​, @katsuk1tty​]

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games). 

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3? 

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones. 

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki. 

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry. 

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).  

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops. 

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it. 

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either. 

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience. 

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me. 

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games. 

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this. 

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series. 

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with. 

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already. 

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun. 

[ashedink]

RPG story time/Pictures

So I am a gamemaster for a pathfinder group that’s been my reliable RPG gang for years. I wanted to make this as like a small gallery of pictures I’ve drawn for my most recent game, titled Red Gold.

As per usual it’s a long one, so I’ll put the bulk of things under the cut:

It was a simple RPG starting point, everyone was bounty hunters in a prestigious organization called the Hall of Red Gold. They deal with prison escapes, grave robbers, train robbers, necromancers, dangerous animals/creatures, and all other sort of variety of unlawful or evilness.

The founders of the Hall of Red Gold, they had a large painting made of a much smaller photograph taken just before their last battle.

Their center organization is in one of the largest cities in the country (population over 1.5 million) called Mkali (top picture) specifically that’s an area called the Canal Promenade. The canal serves to water their fields, prevent disastrous flooding, and allow for steamboat traffic and it’s a huge and central fixture. It’s almost always filled with merchant cards and street performers, and the city itself is brightly painted.

Their first quest was to cull a pride of man-eating lions and collect the tails for bounty proof. Through their Lion encounters they ended up with multiple critical decapitations. So they cut off the heads, cut off the tails, and quickly solidified their name:

Heads and Tails

They’ve come so far since then. They’ve made NPC allies in their organization, several of whom traveled with the party until they started taking on quests that were just too dangerous for them.

Their first companions were a goblin bard who mostly went by his stage name: Corpsebeater, and a Alchemist Halfling half-fiend who was *mistakenly* rescued from a demon cult under the assumption that she was a 5 year old tiefling. Both of them wonderful companions now retired. Corpsebeater changed his bard name to Venomblood after surviving a dozen scopion stings. He retired from the group shortly after that, but continues to build percussive music to shout exploits to. And for Zippi, after her time experimenting on the party (and herself) she got accepted as an apprentice in a shop called The Basilisk’s Eye.

The way I did it is Red Gold has a number of NPCs who can be invited along, and I’ve made it fairly easy for characters to flow in and out of the party without changing the game up too much. When VB retired Zippi stuck around just long enough to nearly die (she was like 2-3 levels behind the party at that point) and the party had some downtime, enough downtime to get up to a Fun Side Non-Bounty Related Thing.

Performing in the COLOSSEUM OF COURAGE! A temple to a minotaur/cervine god of battle and martial prowess. It trains warriors and also hold grand events in the tradition of old colosseums as a way of generating money. And this temple is run by the Grand Paladin RHEMBOL IRONHIDE!

The number of PCs I expected to hit on Rhembol was 2 higher than the 0 I thought it would be I could not stop snickering to myself I make this big old banged up greyed minotaur but he’s just got so much personality that everyone loved him. And of course he was glad to have Red Gold Participate in THE GRAND MASTER’S MAZE RUN! (Sorry, he is inflicted with SPONTANEOUSLY PROJECTING STAGE VOICE! meaning when I think in his headspace sometimes YOU JUST GOTTA ALLCAPS IT!)

But there was one little condition. You see, Rhembol has four wonderful lovely daughters that he would give the world for, three of whom are mostly like him: charismatic, gregarious, boisterous, always up for a fight but not looking for conflict.

And then, there’s...

Chesvah Ironhide, his awkward, unsociable, perpetually on auto-pilot daughter. She doesn’t like the performative aspect of her father’s temple, never has, but has never known anything other than Be A Paladin/Performer. So Rhembol spoke with Red Gold and allowed their teams into the games if Red Gold agreed to hire his daughter.

She joined a group that had formed just to compete in the games with plans to dissolve afterwards- and boy did they.

The 6-person team she was a part of contained a lot of other NPCs the party could bring into Heads and Tails, but only one of them is relevant- that being Tulio. Tulio is a catfolk who is a crack shot with a rifle, but also a LOT of other problems. He was almost always some variant of high, and showed many concerning behaviors. Red Gold kept him around because of his skill...

But, when in a drugged stupor he opened friendly fire in the colosseum with a crowd of tens of thousands in the audience, Red Gold had had the last of it with him and he was kicked out.

The party picked Chesvah up shortly afterwards.

And they probably didn’t expect Tulio to ever come back.

And certainly for a while he didn’t. Things ramped up, the party had been tasked with wiping out a Lamashtan cult, their leader Jiyaki who was a very prolific murderer, and stopping them from whatever their mysterious and bloody Goal was.

Pictured above is not the cult leader, but a demon bound to her service by another caster, and perpetual game wildcard. A powerful concubus who goes by the name of Kel. Yes, the same two members of the party did hit on them, successfully (depending on your definition of success here). Kel repeatedly showed no interest in obeying their master’s wishes, especially if they got in the way of fun, but its soul-bound sword “Shiver” had a number of contingencies in place to ensure Kel’s behavior.

Around this time they also were contacted by a blue dragon. You see, the last time they were investigating this, they had been told it was bandits, not a cult they were after. It was an inside-attempt to throw potential bounty hunters off their trail.

When they investigated the city one of the things that stood out was that there had been a break-in at a greenhouse called the Greenbriar Reserve. Upon investigating, Heads and Tails comes to the discovery that the Greenbriar Reserve had a dragonsbane plant. Dragons have been known to raize entire cities or countrysides over even a HINT of dragonsbane, because it is one of the few things that challenge their supremacy, and this greenhouse in a massive, populous city just happened to have one. The owner of the reserve kept it secret- for obvious reasons- and didn’t even state the name of the plant or 100% confirm he had one to the party. Hints and innuendo and nothing more. But he did ask them to please keep looking for the snip of plant which was taken- and his missing daughter as well (Kel kidnapped her and many others to use their faces for infiltration)

And then a blue dragon arrived at Red Gold HQ. Hushand the Gardener.

It had been over a month and he wanted to know how they were doing at finding HIS dragonsbane plant.

Because you see, he was working on a cure.

More and more things pile up on this city, culminating in a huge battle.

Someone pulled many strings to create what could have been (and honestly still was) a disastrous chain of events which involved red dragons attacking the city, Hushand the Gardener coming to the city’s defense. And there being two active shooters in the crowd with dragonbane poisoned weapons.

And one of those shooters was

Tulio swift, former Red Gold member, suspected veteran of the 27 year long surriedan civil war, habitual drinker and drug user and over all fringe NPC to the game. 

In the heat of battle one of the PCs killed Tulio- but with the intent of getting him raised afterwards, to interesting effects.

Meanwhile under the cover of the military battles above, the party begins fighting the demon cult in the secret vaults below the city. Down below in the vaults where they had learned a lamashtan Artifact lies which turns sacrificed souls into conduits for summoning powerful demons.

And I’ll continue this when I get back from a walk. I’ve got more to add, but this has gotten long enough as it is.

[jensvisualnoveladventures]

Debated putting this on my website, but decided to just make a post for now as it’s just Closed Beta and I don’t feel I have enough to say for my site but I’ve essentially been playing Tears of Themis since the Closed Beta started and I finished Chapter 4 yesterday evening. 

I already spoke a bit on my Twitter about it, so a summary and expansion of that as it all still holds true: 

I love the cases. The investigating is so fun and I really enjoy nearly everything about it. Every time we enter the Court Room, I feel like I’m playing Ace Attorney. My only nitpick is sometimes you just aren’t allowed to find certain pieces of evidence yet and by that I mean that you may SEE something that looks suspicious, but aren’t allowed to interact with it until the next investigation prompt. It’s really strange and while I get it from a story perspective, it’s hard to tell if it’s because you can’t look at something yet or you’re just not tapping it right (which is the other issue-- I do my best to tap everything, but it’s really finnicky on what you’ve “already checked” and what may actually be new)

I’m actually really invested in the characters! I like all of them. While Luke and Marius are my favorites (I would say overall, I’m leaning towards Luke, but there’s a small few traits for him I’m not too fond of that Marius has in full force and it’s what makes it so hard), I’m already looking forward to the next bit of story for every single character. I have not read any spoilers so I do not know which is to come and we’re not really allowed to say story spoilers for the NDA, but I am concerned for Luke.

Similarly, every case has made me emotional at one point or another and again, just really makes me think of Ace Attorney, but with fancier graphics.

Speaking of the graphics, they’re STUNNING. The MC is really pretty, all the art is gorgeous, the animations are really nice... I actually enjoy just listening to the music. The fact that a minigame mode even has a 8-bit version of one of the songs is super cute and a nice touch they didn’t even need to do. The only issue that comes with such nice graphics is my phone overheats at times and it’s draining on the battery. Putting on the “Low-Temp” setting helped a lot with this at least, but wow do I wish I could play on PC (I know there’s mirroring apps, but I genuinely mean I wish it was a PC game I could play)

They say it’s a WIP, but honestly, it really looks good to go? The only art that looked even slightly off to me, and even then there’s enough great about it that I don’t care, is Luke’s visiting background. Text-wise, I’ve seen some typos/grammatical errors or missing words, but it’s few and far between. The most errors I’ve seen are some translation choices with the texting feature. 

Finally, the Card system genuinely is kind of pointless and it exists only to give the game a gachapon system which is kind of disappointing, but I suppose isn’t uncommon for free to play games (That said, I would pay for this game if it had a price and I didn’t have to deal with any gachapon features). The Card mechanic is easily my least favorite part of the game because the debates are meaningless 99% of the time. I wish they were actual debate puzzles, but they’re not. They use a silly battle triangle and having to level up cards and things is my least favorite part of the game and it’s something I’m worried for outside of Closed Beta when we won’t be given as much from the get-go. 

Chapter 4 was where my lack of Cards/low levels really became issues and I struggled with a 3 or 4 stages due to that, usually winning just barely and actually having an easier time with the final debate than one of the earlier ones. 

I think the Cards are really pretty. I LOVE reading the Stories for the SR and SSR versions. But I don’t think they should be part of the main story walls. I think they should be solely side content and minigames like one of the current modes that is just debates. I still want to earn and level up regardless, but having to pause in the middle of main story for a debate that has barely anything to do with said case is really annoying. 

One thing that’s nice though is if you fail a debate, you actually don’t lose the energy you used to try. You can try over and over again and you’ll only lose that energy when you succeed. 

Similarly, you can use the Hint System as much as you want. You lose nothing for using it, there’s no limit or anything, so if you’re struggling or unsure, you can just tap it with no problems. 

Writing-wise, I would say the only thing unneeded is how often the MC says she wants to lose weight? It feels like it’s meant as a joke anyway and just let her love her dessert, god. 

Anyway, the special event starts sometime this week and I just really hope I manage to finish all the CB goals. 

I genuinely can’t wait for more of the character stories and future cases. I’m going to be sad having to redo so much when the Beta is over and the game officially opens up... 

I do hope maybe we’ll eventually have English voices though. I have no issue with any of the current languages available, but they used different names for the characters in EVERY language which, at least for me, is kind of confusing. I’ll pick up words from hearing or look at certain things and be like “wait that name is not the one written here” and it always takes me a bit. I wonder if the names have similar meanings in each language or not. 

Anyway, miHoYo, please make the Bunny/Puppy plushie, thank you.

If anyone wants to be friends on the game, feel free to message me with your friend code! :)

I can’t wait until the game releases and I can record it T~T <3

[thesilkenlair]

(Casey Here!)

As much D&D as I play, you'd imagine I would eventually get around to illustrating some of their most iconic monsters! Which is to say, the ones that I personally find the most iconic. Which is to say, the ones I memorized when I was reading my dad's monster manual at age nine. Purple worm - Sandworms never go out of style. I've seen a lot of rad designs for this bugger over the editions, but I favor the slightly less reptilian older takes for this particular critter. It's kinda basic, but sometimes that's what you want. It's like a shark or a crocodile: Just flat out unchanged across the ages. Hook horror - I've heard it rumored that Gygax used a small Gigan figure to represent this monster. I can't verify that, but it definitely sounds right. Hook horrors are one of the very first things you meet when you play around in the caves, and they kind of remind me of the Father Deep monsters of the Hork Bajir homeworld that way. Mind flayer - Mind flayers! Basically, take all of your Dracula conventions and dip them in a fresh coat of Lovecraft. There's that old "decadent aristocratic upper caste system who literally eats the poor, but still somehow comes across as less evil than the actual real life 1%" setup that will never stop being relevant. Though personally, I see mind flayers as the first alternative for folks who want to play that monster-who-feels-the-urge-to-eat-their-friends-but-refuses-to-do-it shtick but don't want to deal with vampire baggage. You know, the furry option! ... Slimy? Rubbery? Do we have a word for anthro-cephalopods? I'm only a casual furry. Gelatinous cube - I'm not apologizing for giving this one a slot. Froghemoth - So, back when I participated in my very first long-term campaign, I played a druid. You've met Talia before. Naturally, I was chomping at the bit for the day I finally got to turn her into a froghemoth, and celebrated the day my wish was finally granted and she was allowed to chug human-supremacist-cultists like popcorn. Yeah, okay, the froghemoth is one of the classic vore-monsters. But it's a charming design in its own right. Kind of a freaky Hanna Barbara critter, like you'd see Space Ghost fighting. No matter how many artists draw it, they can never shake that inherent goofiness that third edition tried so hard to purge. I would probably cram them somewhere onto Fronterra if I was sure they were public domain. As is, I'm 99% certain that this is what Visser Three turned into when he ate Elfangor. Tarrasque - D&D's original kaiju! Kind of just takes the name and nothing else when it comes to its mythological origins, but I don't mind. The Tarrasque is that endgame "let's test the players" final boss monster... Or at least it's supposed to be. My DM reskinned it for our final Pathfinder session, and one of the PCs still nearly killed it in a single turn. Also, he let Talia turn into one, so maybe Pathfinder is just bullshit? Regardless, the Tarrasque has one of those simple, iconic designs. I've heard rumors it was based on the concept art for Fallout's deathclaws, and like the Gigan-figure, I can't verify this in any way. With its reptilian features, twin horns, spiny carapace and grabby fingies, it has an undeniable lizardlike quality that I can't help but find charming. Kinda feels like a more refined version of Zilla? Though for an insatiable eating machine, I notice a lot of artists give it very little belly to work with. Come on, this guy eats entire cities! Give him somewhere to put it! Rust monster - An icon of icons, the rust monster! Drawing its origin from a bizarre Chinese "dinosaur" toy, later designs have made it more insectoid in appearance, but never feeling QUITE like anything Earthly. It's the four limbs. Between the four limbs and the tail, it's hard to tell if it's an arthropod mimicking a vertebrate or the other way around. I'm pretty sure this is part of what inspired my ossaderm creatures for Fronterra. Also, Ryla can turn into one in our campaign. I have no shortage of havoc to wreak when the opportunity comes. Behir - Dragons in D&D are kind of... extra. Godlike beings, paragons of whatever personality trait they represent. Whenever there's something uber powerful in D&D, it gets compared to dragons. It makes them kind of unapproachable. Behirs provide all the essentials of a dragon - Serpentine body, scaly skin, horns, sapience, breath weapon, taste for human flesh - wrapped up in a smaller, weirder, IMO cooler package. You know, your Lambton Worms. A lot easier to port in and out of adventures, a lot less of an event when they show up, but still a formidable force in their own right. I like the behir. The behir knows how to taunt me just the right amount. Bulette - Another Chinese "dinosaur" figure monster, the bulette is actually another one I associate with Talia. Whenever we faced a problem that didn't have a glaringly and immediately obvious solution, she would turn into a bulette, whether it was for beating up robots, digging through obstacles, trampling smurfs, navigating labyrinths, distracting slashers with cute dog tricks... it was kind of her signature form. But shenanigans aside, the bulette is just an excellent monster. While the "land shark" shtick may be common, there's a lot more going on with the bulette's design. It's rumored to be a mad wizard's creation, as he combined a snapping turtle with an armadillo and mixed in a helping of demon blood to taste. Personally, I always considered that to be a neat little rumor to flesh out the world, but never assumed it to be true. The bulette just feels too naturalistic for that. Like some kind of protomammal or crocodylomorph, or weird triassic monstrosity. Magic and demons and dragons and so on DO affect the ecosystem. I always figured the bulette was just something that evolved to compete in this new biosphere. Owlbear - This one, on the other hand, I fully believe the "mad wizard was bored" explanation. Another chinasaur critter, the owlbear is frequently made fun of. What makes it scarier than a regular bear? It can't fly, so why have owl parts at all? Why trade fangs for a beak in what is at best a latural move? Well, first of all, fuck you, owls are creepy motherfuckers, and that alone is enough to justify it. But secondly, that's part of its charm. Besides some improved vision, the owl DOESN'T make it more dangerous. What makes the owlbear dangerous is that it's an insane, Frankensteinian monstrosity roaming uncontrolled through the wilderness! It doesn't need weaponry, its sheer temperament is enough to make it a worthy opponent. Sure, the practical threat might not be hugely above that of a bear, but storytelling isn't about numbers. Any asshole can go outside and get eaten by a bear. The owlbear is part of this world. The owlbear is a reminder of what magic can do. Someone somewhere actually made this thing, for whatever reason, and now the world is irrevocably changed because of it. Owlbears go beyond practicality. They bring the lore! Also, bears don't have very good eyesight, so the big owl eyes probably make them better hunters. Flumph - Is that a Japanese-style martian? Do we just have aliens in D&D? Dear lord, I love them! Okay, the flumph has got a sizable hatedom. And that hatedom can eat my ass, because the flumph is precious and perfect just the way it is! Flumphs are designed as a sort of sidekick-type creature. They're not very good fighters, but they bring knowledge and lore to the table. Whether they're aliens from some far off star, seeking your aid to prevent catastrophe, or psionic natives of the Underdark eager to bask in your positivity and hopefully stick it to the tyrants they're forced to share real estate with. My group generally treats them as straight up aliens, benevolent but strange. Course, we're all pretty strange, so we get along just fine. Otyugh - Okay so, the aberration creature type implies that this is something from another world that doesn't belong. And yet otyughs, which are aberrations, are an essential part of this world's ecosystem? Okay, I can buy the idea that an alien organism adapted to our world and is now a key part of it. Fronterra's got a TON of that. It just feels like after a point, the otyugh would be considered a beast? Otyughs are great. Every ecosystem needs a decomposer, and every fantasy story needs at least one dive into the sewers. Otyughs provide both, and are intelligent enough to keep the plot moving if it hits a snag. There's always going to be garbage, refuse, carrion, decay, things that need to be broken down and processed. Carrion crawler - The carrion crawler is pretty similar to the otyugh in that it's technically not considered a beast, and therefor must have its origins elsewhere, but feels so integrated into the ecosystem that it just feels like it belongs. They usually can't talk, so they're not just reskinned otyughs, but I still consider them pretty essential. Otyughs find a singular spot where waste is dumped and shovel it down at their leisure, while carrion crawlers skulk through the tunnels, actively seeking their food. The crawler got one of the most radical redesigns on the transition from second to third edition, but I can't really choose a single favorite. The oldschool tentacle-faced cutworm looks like it could be a real animal, while the googly-eyed Halloween decoration feels like it could be from another world, merely having set up shop here. Could there name apply to two wholly different creatures? If so, then I'm not sure which one mine would be considered. I kinda mashed them together into something that doesn't quite feel like either. But I like it for what it is. Maybe I'll sneak it onto Fronterra. Aboleth - Tentacled, telepathic sea creatures who turn humans into slimy minions, who remember everything their race has ever seen, and who are always plotting something behind the scenes. Yeah, the aboleths really crank up the Lovecraft elements. Actually, between the mind flayers, the flumphs and the aboleths, even the most oldschool D&D covered quite a few essential Lovecraftian bases. The flayers are your corrupt yet still recognizable humanoids who can be considered truly evil, the flumphs are benevolent-yet-bizarre guardians who know more than you, and the aboleths are the truly unknowable, sinister intellects. The fact that they can barely function on land honestly only adds to that, IMO. They're inherently difficult for a party to reach, and they offer some nice underwater adventure seeds. Not enough adventures go underwater. There's this perception that the ocean is bad for storytelling because so many writers lack the creativity to make it work. I wanna run an underwater adventure now. Beholder - Icon of icons! THE D&D monster! The beholder! Paranoid, jumpy, always five steps ahead and twenty steps perpendicular! Beholds are fun in just about every way. Between their wacky, diverse designs, their elaborate lairs, their eccentric personalities, their bizarre powers, you're never gonna run out of fun with beholders. Remorhaz - It's always been a thing that bothered me with environment-based monsters. Why does the ice monster who lives in the cold use ice as a weapon? Aren't most of the things it encounters going to be resistant to the cold? Sure, a cone of cold will still kill a polar bear, but a lot of the monsters in the tundra are outright immune to cold. A while dragon's not going to get much use out of its breath weapon fighting frost worms and frost giants. That's one reason the remorhaz sticks out to be. We have an icy tundra beast whose insides are a scorching furnace, which it can intensify and weaponize as it sees fit. Which also conveniently explains why its design - a sort of cobra-esque centipede - invokes warm-weather creatures, despite its icy environment. It's a nice subversion of the usual tropes, plus it's just a memorable, cool looking critter to begin with. On a smaller note, the remorhaz feels like a good loophole for Ryla's "no cold weather morphs" rule. Turning into something elementally affiliated with ice is no good, but a non-magical monster that survives the cold by superheating its insides? That seems perfectly viable to me!

[kanene-yaaay-o-retorno]

You’re a WHAT

Kanene’s Notes:

I’m weak for carzy scenarios  and glitter, so BOOOM!! Why don’t get these two things together??? :D)/ This fic marks the end of my break, I will be (trying to) going back to my old projects and probably won’t be writing for some weeks kjnhgfvghjkjhg. Wish me luck! <33

This wasn’t suppose to take so much to be written but I lost my PC and life got in the way :v   Buuuut! I manage to finish it and I already count this as a victory! xP

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* That fanfic has Remy and Roman. They’re friendos yay :3. Oh, and this is pretty crazy. Context: The morning after Black Friday when you’re grumpy and wanting to kick the society in the face. A LOT of swearing, Patton does not approve.  

* This characters do not belongs to me. They all belongs to the amazing Thomas Sanders in his series of Sanders Sides.

* Something around 2.900 words. -w-)b.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any advice is very very welcome!

* Tô com preguiça de postar a versão em português brasileiro aaaa! Thankys for reading, my lollipops! Try and have fun with new hobbies, be safe, talk with the one that you love, drink water and sleep well! Byeioo!~

                             [~*~]

Roman thought himself as a really lucky human being. Unbelievable lucky.

 It wasn't due to the apartment where he currently lived - Too much dull for his personal taste and space, getting even smaller from the day he admitted a messy, sassy and with sleep problems roommate, since Roman just started his musical career and couldn't afford an own house yet. - or the fact that was finally able to pursue his dream after years and years of just picturing, painting this moment on his future, only to find out his fantastic breathtaking and incredible goals weren’t nearly close of the cold reality, at least for now (Who would know that, after umpteenth days of hard studying and training he would need years and years of experience in order to even START wondering in get out of his partial-time job on that Electronic Store) or any other reason someone would be able to consider himself a receptacle of pure, brute luck, enlightened by the spotlights of the good, pleasant destiny...

 ... Or at least the most pleasant it could be in the horrible and exhaustive middle of the night after a whole day filled with his attempts to survive and treat respectfully the unmerciful, dirty jungle that humanity was at Black Friday. Something around fifteen  hours working with massive hordes of unscrupulous zombies starved for a sale and able to even kill and die (more likely the first option) to get what they want and with souls (if they still got one) free of any slight sight of education, patience and morals to be inserted in a society which, as it seemed, was equally rotten as them. View point only proved as Roman was obligated to be working after his shift to "clean all the mess" - more like hide the bodies of exhausted warriors after such bloody battle. – the store because those sons of a...

 "... Bitch, YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!!" The poor, frustrated employed shouted to nowhere specific, his face turning towards the sky, seeking in some way to show his all his hate to the cinematography - because this was too much coincidence to NOT be part of a movie or some random fanfic on the black hole that was internet - rain falling at full force leading the weather to became even more freezing as soaked them both with its cool, thick drops.

Anyway, what he was daydreaming about?

"Roman." Oh, yeah, the reason why he viewed himself as a truly lucky person. "My gurl, if you try to impersonate a fucking, dramatic, bitch crow in my ear even again, I swear in the name of my life juice bean that I'm going to KILL you with my bare hands and these sunglasses."

 At least his best friend since, honestly, diapers, who coincidentally was his roommate and even more coincidentally, his coworker was just screwed as Roman himself. Which automatically made the duo less screwed, however equally pissed off, something that neither of them discovered if that was a good or bad thing, yet.

 "Fuck you, Remy" Roman whispered between an tired yawn, too much tired to even think about some nickname or to put real heat in his words as he got instinctively closer to the other, the one called taking off his jacket and lazily throwing it over their heads, doing his best to cover they both with the small available black leathered fabric, the act intertwined with grumpy grumbling and motions which would probably slap Roman's face if he wasn't careful. "I'm the one who buys your coffee."

 "Having my incredible, unique personality in your life should be motivation enough for you to buy me the entire Starbucks Company, be glad I'm weak to your cute face and am going easy on ya."

 " 'Cute'? Excuse me, I'm the most handsome, hottest and fabulous man you will ever met in your lowly life, mortal."

 Remy snorted at this "Whatever helps you sleep at night, babe, but if it's going to be like that your ego soon will have to pay his part at the rent."

 "Well, this 'ego' here was the only thing between your highness and jail after stopping you from committing all those murders today."

 "Bold of you to assume I wouldn't use my contacts to hide the evidences." Their tune were already completely sleepy, bodies instinctively leaning onto each other as the words stumbled, mixed and almost lost themselves in the soundly wind as slipped from their lips. Roman just laughed.

 "Well, if by ‘contacts’ mean 'Virgil' good luck getting him out of his bed on his free day. You would became the fucking new King Arthur." Roman rubbed his eyes, trying to physically force his eyelashes to not close, a new yawn finding its way to his mouth. He didn't even know about what they were talking anymore.

 "I roll the dice to cast Badass Nerd Bitch."

 “Logan??”

 “He likes to study nature stuff, especially at night, I’m sure he already knows some good spots to hide bodies. Glasses.”

 “Glasses?”

 “Glasses.”

 “OMG, the anime character with glasses.” Roman stopped, his mouth wide open as if all the secrets of the universe had been revealed to him.

 “Exactly.” Remy extended each syllable, grinning smugly.

 “I’ve never-“

“THIS IS A ROBERY!!”

 The sentence, which appeared to came out from nowhere, cut the air in a harsh, sharp tune, breaking the barriers and tying them up in the same place in a frozen position and wide eyes staring astonished the hooded form and their unreadable features under the bad illumination of the light poles helped by the increased storm. The wind trespassed them, stirring their clothes and making the muscles shake both of the alone employees in the middle of a dark, empty street at the dawn, even if the dangerously shiny knife directed towards their direction still in a hatred silence. 

 “My.” Roman knew he probably should be afraid, the freezing feeling running across his veins and frightening his brain and actions as infected his words in an unspeakable terror impossible to ignore nor escape. “fucking.” However, the only thing that slipped through his next was the purest, deepest, truest... “ASS.” Indignation.

 Roman thought about a lot of things. He thought about running away, grabbing Remy’s arm and sprinting across the street, about scream in the top of his lungs the waterfall of swearing already racing half way to his throat and even about kicking the knife out of the other’s hands and then kicking him - with a couple of cool moves he saw in some actions films - together with their frecking audacity to try to rob him of all the people in the world. Roman, who asked himself if he would have enough money to eat in the next week with a concerning frequency, who wondered if this is the life he will have until the end of his existence, if he will ever be able to accomplish his dreams.

 His gaze changed to Remy, who was paralyzed, trembling between the poor light of the street and the massive rain. Roman swallowed. Everything was in his hands.

 For a piece of Roman felt the strange urge to spill to the figure before him the story of his life, all his tries, all his battles, his everyday fights to make his dreams real. Blow by blow. Day by day. A life destined to go after everything he wished to himself, everything he wanted to life, to experience, to savor, to do everything in his hands to ignore and one day maybe, hopefully forget all the ghosts - these ones always accompanied by those emotionless, sharp whispers - asking, doubting nonstop if he ever would be able to do all of this, if he was doing the rights thing, if it was really worth all of it.

 However, before the first word even slipped of Roman’s tongue or his mind came fully back to Earth, Remy was already positioning himself strategically between the robber and his friend, the currently only one with the leather jacket falling on his shoulders. However, Remy didn’t seem nearly soaked as he should be, and for a heartbeat, the same one which Remy moved his hands to his jeans’ pocket, his fingers touching and firmly holding something there, Roman could swear that the unexpectedly shiver running across his spine wasn’t due the cold wind.

 Nor the sentence hurled in the clouds.

 “You know what?? Fuck it.”

 And then he unsheathed his magic wand.

 Roman loved with the entirety of his heart all kind of magic, he could easily spend an entire afternoon (which he already had, by the way) listing his favorites movies, musicals and stories with that theme. That also could be easily said by the thousands and thousands of worlds, universes and lifes he invented – in and out of his head - about the subject trough his childhood and handful of teenage years, random ideas and inspirations appearing and dancing in his mind until nowadays. If that only wasn’t enough to convince someone then the umpteenth memories of mornings and afternoons bathed in the smell of books, rocked by the calm silene of the public library as he turned one more page, his back lightly aching by the bad position assumed behind the shelters, in a place he strategically found and claimed as his own Bridge to Terabithia, enjoying every moment as if nothing else mattered. Perhaps you wouldn’t even need to swim in such deep, ancient waters to find out his love, since at least fifty percent of his day was dedicated to shout, hummer or murmur Disney songs.

 However, as rays of pure energy  - shiny and kind of glittery one - involved and swirled from Remy’s, who now was floating a few centimeters above the ground, wand in stripes that got lighter and lighter, begging to spin faster around the aforementioned, creating a spere of a power stunning and big enough to stop the rain in the corner.

 The silence resulting from the lack of the storm didn’t had the opportunity to fill the moment, being obligated to give its space to a soft, intense melody whispered in their ears. The notes standing some more moments in the air, the beating following the changes in the shadowed figure inside the spere. Hesitations taking over the loud, quick heartbeats when the song finally stopped.

 The power’s spere finally exploded, the impact leading to an unbelief and intensive force push both human meters away.

 “Get. Out.”  Remy’s tune still the same, his form – Now adorned by a gleaming crop top, his fluttering skirt over shorts floating in synchrony with the veils which surrounded his clothes and wrapping his arms, the ending spreading in the air as a bunch of angry powered and fancy snakes. - even with the new vestments full of glitter (this probably would be a hell to get off, later) still the same, his gaze, powerful – a new meaning pouring from this word – strong, still the same. But yet…

 Yet his wide eyed, heart hammering in his chest friend since he could remember found himself struggling to connect the same Remy who he had known – if he could still say that? -  all his life with the same being who gleamed dangerously before him.

 The magic wand danced in a quick flick and a trash can came of what seemed nowhere to hit the wobbled and absolutely terrified robber, who fell with a soft thumph in the ground, unconscious.

 “-man, Roman!!! Don’t just stay standing there like a tree, help me here, gurl!” Suddenly the called snapped from his own sea of thoughts, submerging and astonished blinking in Remy’s direction. The rain started to fell on them again, and when their eyes met, when Roman saw the same guy who spent afternoons climbing trees and pretending they were knights and dragons attacking or saving the world, when he recalled the silent sleepovers where they just sat near of each other enjoying the mutual company, the grumpy mornings in their apartment, the comfort hugs, the looks full of words, the smiles filled with meaning, the friendship stuffed with so many, many memories... 

 Nostalgia. The feeling that everything was changed albeit something… something important always stayed. Roman felt, truly felt it and fixed his glare into that brilliant – quite literally - glare adorned with a ‘I’m about to punch your cocky face if you keep fucking narrating every freaking second of your life, ya bitch’ he realized... 

 It was Remy.

 He took a deep breath, moving closer and gradually relaxing as the aforementioned focused in trying to lift the guy, swearing more frequently than raindrops fell from the sky.

 “Remy?”

 “Yeah?”

 “First crush.”

 The other stopped, frowning confused. Roman didn’t quiver, feeling he deserved some sort of answer. At least about this. “What?”

 “My first crush. Who?”

 “Kovu.” Remy maybe was a bit cold hearted, maybe he wasn’t the best with human interactions or knew exactly what Roman wanted with that… but he knew Roman enough to realize this was important. Essentially when the said seemed to relax, his form untensing itself and being allowed to get closer of the magic being.

 “Okay. Okay, okay…” Roman took a deep breath, grounding himself. Their gaze met, his next words coming a little calmer. “Okay.”

 “Please don’t make me sing that serenate you made for him. I’m gonna fucking quit.”

 “Oh, shut up!! Our first love is something special, mister I-Can’t-Choose-Between-The-Beast-And-The-Beauty.”

 Remy decided to ignore the words, slightly lowing his sunglasses with his special Judgmental ‘Bold of you to assume I have enough shame to be mocked’ Look. Roman just flipped in his direction, taking advantage that the other’s hands were occupied.

 It was still Remy, with a whole more of style and glitter – Why are there so much glitter here?? - but it was just Remy. Like just any other day.

 Before he even realized, Roman was already at his friend’s - and as it seems a magical being - side, helping him to carry the robber’s body to somewhere dry so he wouldn’t die of hypothermia.

 “Why don’t you- Ouch!! My feet, dammit!” His breaths came out as puffs, the effort leading to his already exhausted muscles only protest even more and very much probably curse him later with sore movements for the audacity to transport anything heavier than a pen. “Why don’t you use your... Wizard magic or something to carry him??”

 “Oh. My. Gosh. Roman, you are sooo intelligent, why aren’t you in Harvard? Ow! Ow! Ow!!” Remy’s sarcasm was cut when the other kicked, or did his best to with their actual position, him in protest.  “Homophobic.” He exhaled a mix of irritation and a snort, receiving a playful punch in his arm by their inside joke.  “I’m your Fairy Godmother, brainless. Unless it was you laid in this stupid, cold ground I can’t use my magic anymore... Except if this is someone of your family but I doubt-”

 “Wait, wait, wait, WAIT!!! YOU ARE MY FAIRY GODM-”

 “No, no way, nope, we are NOT having this conversation right now.” Remy, the Fairy Godmother let go of the unconscious body in a way that probably will make the guy wake up sore, perhaps with a concussion even, directing his index finger in Roman’s direction in a deep, determined stare full of darkness and things that Roman could swear would make Remy be expelled from the group of Friendly Fairy GodmotherS  or whatever... thing he was inserted. “Let me tell you what we are doing right now: We are going to home, change our clothes then I’m getting coffee and you will get sleep so I don’t have to face nor care about the freak consequences of my damn actions.”

 ...

 “That...” Roman stop, as if was considering his next words. Remy’s face just scrunched in a bigger, firmer frown. “That would be hella scary if you didn’t look like someone who just stole a store of glitter and got attacked by the gay, glitterly, shiny fairies who protected the place.”

 “Go fuck yourself. I’m locking you outside when we get there.”

 “Noo, please don’t! My evil stepmother didn’t let me go to the prince castle and now I need help! Crying emoji, crying emoji.” Roman mocked, imitating sad sobs and sniffles as quick his pace to follow the other, who flipped him.

 “I’m this far from knock you out with my magical wand and then you will see who is the evil stepmother.” His wand gleamed in warning, the red color getting mixed and trembled by the fast movements of his veils, one of them getting dangerously next to Roman’s face, who cleverly got silent for some heartbeats, the sound of the rain slowly calming their heartbeats and rocking them, the tiredness gaining the space which, piece by piece, was being unhanded by their adrenaline.

 They arrived home, both still quiet, feeling free as a relieved sign left their lips. Remy threw his soaked jacket in some dark corner, the bed being the only thing which was allowed to take over all his thoughts and will. 

 An awed gasp echoed behind him and he immediately regretted his move.

 “YOU HAVE WINGS????”

 Before his eyelashes closed, the shiny of the wand disappearing gradually as an ungodly amount of sleepiness gained complete control over his body, relaxing each one of his fibers and as a warm, magic good feeling fills every single cell in his being, Roman wondered if ‘Fuck it’ was the name of Remy’s spell.

[ranger-report]

Thoughts On: Heretic

Earlier this year, just before the beginning of quarantine, I played a little game called AMID EVIL, something I would not have done were it not for the enchanting video skills of YouTuber Civvie 11. In his video, Civvie demonstrated the awesomeness of the retro shooter, both in graphics and gameplay, and since I was jonesing for something a little more dark fantasy than I was used to, I decided to give it a try. The game is a thrilling rush, and worthy of its own post here, but that game was a segue into me finally picking up and playing a game series that I had been intrigued by for nearly twenty some odd years: the Heretic and Hexen games.

AMID EVIL owes a lot to these games; in fact, it's not much of a leap to say that it owes everything to these games. It's even less of a leap to say that most first person shooters, whether dark fantasy or no, owe a lot to these games. Raven Software introduced a monster of a franchise when they dropped Heretic in December of 1994, working in collaboration with id Software as Raven was creating their games using the DOOM engine (or, as I think we're calling it now, “id tech 1”). John Romero helped in-house, giving advice on how to work with the engine, which was instrumental for Raven to push id tech 1 to its limits. They made changes to the engine which eventually became staples in other FPS games: an inventory system, translucent objects, pushable objects, the ability to look up and down, and the ability to fly. While the game itself was objectively a reskinned version of DOOM, it was stylish and engaging and reworked the most popular game engine at the time. In short, it won accolades in no small amount, and sealed itself in history as a high watermark for boomer shooters, hell, for PC gaming in general. So when we're looking backwards into the foggy past of our ancestors, is Heretic a game that we, in the Year of Our Lord Gaben 2020, should consider playing, either for the first time or as a throwback? Roll up your sleeves, party people, we've got a deep one to dive into today. Because we can't simply look at Heretic alone; oh, no. We're going to have to look at the whole franchise.

Heretic is not a complicated game per se, but it has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. We have the standard issue Run-Gun-Have-Some-Fun gameplay that Wolfenstein and DOOM brought to the table. There's three keys of different colors – yellow, green, and blue – there's a variety of weapons that almost line up point-for-point with DOOM's stack of damage inducers, and there's a horde of enemies that are around every corner waiting for you to come out magic blazing. But where DOOM has a mostly straightforward path from point A to point B, Heretic is a trickster which can and will give cause to tear one's hair out. Secret doors, invisible walls, fake walls, and hidden switches are everywhere, which means that nine times out of ten you'll either be consulting your map to figure out where the fake walls are, or you'll be pressing the space bar on every surface to see if it will open or activate something useful. Raven did a bit of a whammy on the game, setting up the simplistic stuff to lure you in, as though promising a hot night out with the kind of experience you think that you're used to, but then they strap you in for the kinky stuff that you always imagined you'd be into, but now that we're here you're not so sure. Make no mistake, I did consult a walkthrough at least once, maybe twice if I'm remembering right, during my playthrough. And the game is punishing the deeper you get: enemies lie in wait immediately behind doors, around corners, hidden out of sight or just above you since some of them can fly, and as your limited ammunition dwindles down into the red, you'll be forced into running risk-and-reward of melee weapons and inventory items to keep moving. Fortunately, each weapon has its own ammo stock, and some enemies are more susceptible to different weapon types. Adding to the bonus in the player's favor are inventory items that boost weapon damage, specifically the Tome of Power which magnifies the current weapon's attack power into a secondary fire that more often than not is absolutely brutal. But, unlike future entries in this series, the motto of the day is: Keep Moving, Keep Shooting, Don't Stop Moving, Don't Stop Shooting. It's Fun, Fast, and Furious in an entertaining way that only occasionally leaves you pondering why you even booted up the game this morning.

However you may feel about the gameplay itself, it can't be denied that the visual aesthetics and gamefeel are dripping with atmosphere. Everything from top to bottom feels like the best of cheesy 80's style fantasy art, from the front cover to final screen. Gloomy castles, underwater domes, craggy hellscapes. Weapons impress with over-the-top magical properties. The default staff acts like the DOOM pistol, lobbing nearly harmless yellow energy, while the Etheral Crossbow shoots multiple energy arrows at once, like a magic shotgun, easily the most versatile weapon in the game. Besides that one, my other favorite weapons are the Hellstaff (which blasts rapid-fire red energy, and causes acid rain to fall when Tomed up) and the Phoenix Rod (basically a magic rocket launcher that belches fire when overpowered). Depending on what you're facing, proper usage of these weapons (all finely drawn sprites, natch) can either chew through a mob with ease or leave you scrambling to get back. Stun lock Disciples with the Dragon Claw while obliterating Golems with the Crossbow; save the Phoenix Rod for big bads. And enemy creatures run the gamut from the simplistically annoying Gargoyles (red bat-winged creatures who also shoot fireballs) to the sturdy Golems (which come in a secondary variety which throw flaming skulls at you) to the Disciples of D'Sparil (faceless hooded monks who fly, chant, and shoot fireballs at you, on theme). Usually these damage sponges come at you in packs, rarely doing so in solo numbers because otherwise the game wouldn't be a DOOM clone. What really gets challenging is when boss creatures start popping up like regular enemies – in packs. Take the Iron Lich for example, a massive floating skull wearing a spiked helmet that throws walls of fire and tornadoes that do continual damage, they appear as a boss at the end of the final level of the first episode, then appear later on in groups. They take incredible amounts of damage and return fire constantly, which leads to a tense game of bobbing and weaving and staying as far away from them as possible. But the absolute worst is the Maulotaur. Basically, a minotaur that stands head and shoulders taller than the Iron Lich, carries a huge mace, and shoots waves of fire at you which can one-shot you if you're not paying attention. Staying away from them is key, but they can charge forward fast in order to close distance and take a few swings at you with the mace. These assholes also start as a final bosses, then appear as regular enemies surrounded by waves of other mobs. Maulotaurs are the dealbreakers of the game; they require ridiculous amounts of ammo to kill, and will force you through most of your inventory items if you're not already powered up. Thankfully, your inventory can hold quite a few helpful items, such as quartz flasks for health, the aforementioned Tomes of Power to boost weapon damage, invisibility spheres and wings of flight, and even motherfucking time bombs. But amongst all these, the most ridiculous and yet satisfying item is the Morph Ovum. Shaped like an egg, when used it gets thrown outward and whatever it hits is transformed into an easily killable chicken. Got a wave of monsters crowding too close and you need to thin the herd fast? Turn them into chickens, then turn them into fried chickens.

What gets me is that this game doesn't feel nearly as highly regarded as its indirect sequel, Hexen, and that's probably because for the most part this is a full-on DOOM clone. There were a lot of them back in the day, too many to count, and I think that if wasn't for the legacy of Raven and Hexen, this might have fallen through the cracks of history. Is it uninspired? No, not in the slightest. The quality of the spritework and animations are top notch, the production values are stellar, putting it just above the quality of the average obvious Doom clone. The amount of innovation, with the aforementioned inventory system and modifications to the engine, mesh well with the ambitious world/story crafted in the background of a single warrior trudging across worlds to defeat an evil tyrant who has taken over his people's lands. The current version on Steam is actually the second version released; initially, the game launched in 1994 with three episodes, the first one being the shareware version, and then later on in 1996 had a second physical release which added on two new episodes. It was like an expansion pack folded into the main game, and considering that Hexen was released in 1995, it makes sense that the two new episodes of Heretic feel so much more brutal in difficulty by comparison. And thematically it makes sense for them to have a higher base difficulty, since it’s about escaping the dark world you had to break into, and now you're crawling your way back out of it. Kind of a neat trick, having the hero beat the bad guy halfway through the story, then showing his journey to get back home. Hell, even the name of the main character is awesome. A later game in the series will reveal that his name is Corvus, but originally the character was simply referred to as The Heretic, and in a gaming landscape featuring such characters as Doomguy, the Quake Ranger, and the Doomslayer, the Heretic ought to stand right up there with the rest of them.

So is the game worth playing today? Absolutely. Any fan of boomer shooters or retro gaming in general should absolutely play this game. Utilizing DOSBOX (which the Steam release uses) is fine, but doesn't allow for the best playing experience currently. A quick download of GZDOOM to launch the game will give better controls, easier mouse compatibility, and smoother graphics. There's a method to tie GZDOOM into your Steam page so you can even track how long you've been playing it (for those who this is important for). And it's super cheap, meaning there's little to no excuse to not play it. So why then is this game sitting in the background, kind of like the little engine that could? You know, I'm doing my best to get into the meat and potatoes of this game, to be more descriptive of it and really entice you, the reader, into wanting to play this game. The powerups are fun, there are segments where you absolutely get to go apeshit on monsters and laugh hysterically while you do so, there are moments where the “AHA” is so enlighting that the relief is palpable. Some of the bosses are so memorable that to find them around the corner later in the game as minibosses – in multiple! – is downright frightening and adds to the risk/reward, since they're usually guarding something good that you want to pick up. Long story short, if you like DOOM, you'll like Heretic, which feels like selling the experience short. But the real reason I think Heretic is overlooked is because it is overshadowed by the more complex, more engaging, and more brutal Hexen.

If it hasn't become obvious yet, this is going to be a multi-part Thoughts On post. You've read Heretic, which is a fine game that does what it does and is memorable and fun and fine. But next, we're going to dive into the second course of this delicious fantasy meal, Hexen, and talk about how the second game in this series is the one that got everyone to sit up and take notice of what Raven Software was doing.

[kittenfemme27]

Genshin Impact

Breath of the Wild was a game I wanted to love. I love the Zelda games, always have, and I eat up open world games like candy. Yet, BoTW has sat on my digital shelf collecting digital dust for ages. Why is that? Well, to put it simply, I don't want to play as Link. BoTW has a beautiful world, rich combat and game play puzzles, tons to see and do and experience, it's a sandbox for the ages. But it's hampered so heavily for me by the fact that I have to play this very boring and to be honest kind of forgettable boy named Link during the game play. That may sound petty, but if I'm in an open world game I want to fully immerse myself into that and video games are where we all go to escape anyway. If I wanted to be misgendered, I'd simply forget to shave and go outside.

I don't mind playing other Zelda games because in those, Link is a self contained character in the world and they're relatively short and self contained games. But BoTW is a sandbox. And for a large majority of it, you're not going to be doing the story or being addressed as link. The size of the world and the sheer amount of hours you're going to put into it mean that for almost all intents and purposes, Link isn't Link, he's a faceless avatar that you're supposed to put yourself into. The game offers so much freedom in so many avenues and yet, in your choice of how to explore the world as someone you'd actually like to be, you're not allowed. You have to be a skinny blonde twink.

So, in late 2019, in comes a trailer for Genshin Impact. It's making its rounds on the Internet as a "PC Free to Play Gacha Breath of the Wild Clone" which, while a mouthful, was something I initially wrote off. Didn't see a point in checking it out, as I really don't like Gacha games very much. But in late September 2020, MiHoYo the developers released the public 1.0 build of the game to everyone. Multi-platform, too. iOS/Android, PC, PS4, and even a switch release down the line. And maybe its the pandemic, or maybe the Internet was simply too lured in by the cute anime girls, but it took the many by storm. It took me personally over 12+ hours to download the 11 gigs of the game because the servers were so swamped with people.

Now I do want to be clear: Genshin Impact borrows many things from BoTW, but it isn't a clone. It's not a sandbox in the same way BoTW is and aside from some general game play things such as gliders, stamina/wall climbing system, and general aesthetic, the games are massively different. Still, though, playing it has highlighted to me why I never felt quite right playing BoTW, and its that lack of freedom. That lack of ability to play the game on my own terms and explore the beautiful handcrafted world the way I want to. 

Despite appearances, Genshin Impact is a lot more like a single player MMO than it is anything else. Requiring tons of farming and grinding to create high level powerful characters in a world that gets increasingly more powerful and hostile as you do. The core game play loop of Genshin Impact is pretty phenomenal, essentially giving you a massive world to explore with literally thousands upon thousands of chests and rewards to find. Either by clearing out enemies, doing random in world puzzles, or even just sitting around. Being inside of and exploring the world of Teyvat is as rewarding as it is beautiful. The art and animation design of the game are stellar and do a lot to make you forget how much time has passed since you booted up the game in the first place. There's tons of different lore books to find, NPC's to talk to, quests to complete, the world is chock-full of lore and world building even down to simple weapon and material descriptions. Teyvat is a wonderful place to be and the developers MiHoYo deserve a pat on the back for how good the world of Genshin Impact is. The other side of game play is a simple system of Character Progression where you farm materials to make your characters/weapons/abilities better so that you can farm even more materials from harder enemies, much like an MMO, and you also acquire gear called Artifacts with randomly rolled stats much like an ARPG. In that regard, Genshin Impact is highly addictive. There are a myriad of weapons, talents, artifacts, and characters all to level up and build up over the course of your play, and every character can be made viable very very easily. The game also lets you keep a party of 4 characters that you can swap between at any point, as well as each character being attuned to a specific Elemental Type that reacts to other Elements. This causes the end-game to be centered around doing some of the hardest dungeons the game has to offer by theory crafting incredibly powerful teams that work off of each other and cause Elemental Reactions in enemies. It’s some of the most fun i’ve had in a game in ages.

All of that is fantastic but unfortunately its all also held back by one simple, huge problem: Original Resin. The game uses a currency called Original Resin that you use to challenge the harder content in the game. Dungeons, World Bosses, Elite Weekly Bosses, you name it and if its end-game content, it likely costs Resin. And not in insignificant amounts either. Dungeons are 20, Bosses are 40, and Weekly Bosses are 60. So, how do you obtain this material? Time. You start with, and are capped, at 120(Later 160 in patch 1.1). 1 resin takes 8 minutes to get back. If you spend it all, it takes 16 hours to get back. Given the rates you spend it, you can go from 120 to 0 in roughly 10-15 minutes. With no way to increase the resin cap, and the incredibly slow acquisition rate, that frequently means you only have about that much playtime a day of the game in the endgame. And that's, needless to say, incredibly frustrating. Thankfully its not an entire stamina system that means you can't play the game at all when you're out of resin, but it does mean that character progression itself is gated as all upgrade/progression materials are locked behind these dungeons and bosses that you must use Original Resin to face. Effecitvely, this means single characters will become weeks and weeks of work, with weapons and artifacts being only slightly less time consuming. I can only hope MiHoYo is looking to change this system in a way that isn't just increasing the cap as the feedback they've received has been very negative regarding it, but only time will tell.

Unfortunately, this isn't the games only problem with its players either. The game is a Gacha, there is no getting around that, but despite the fact that pretty much any character can become massively overpowered and viable in the endgame, people are going to want the rarest characters that exist. This is by design and unfortunately is more or less a glorified gambling system. And while the game is quite nice with its premium currency and how often it gives it, what isn't nice is that the rarest “5-star”characters cost a minimum of 200$ to get through money. With no guarantee you're getting the one you want.

Worse still, outside of a guaranteed 5-star drop at 90 rolls on the gacha wheel, the chance for a 5-star weapon or character is 0.6%. Not even a whole rounded up 1%. This is frankly ridiculous, as is the cost of real money to premium currency. For reference, most other popular Gacha’s doing well offer their rarest characters at anywhere between a 1-6% rate. In general, gacha's aren't known to be kind in their rates. That’s the point, they want you to gamble with real money. Genshin Impact, however, is so unkind and unfair that even other regular players of gacha gamers are very, very vocally upset. If it wasn't for the game play loop and the world, I'm not sure this would fly. And its certainly not flying in the west with the crowd that doesn't play Gacha's nearly as much. Neither is the resin system, as gamers in the west typically want to play for hours and hours at a time.

I’d be remiss if i didn’t bring up the story in Genshin Impact, as it’s genuinely fantastic. As previously stated, the world has a metric tonne of hidden lore in books, weapon/item/artifact descriptions, character stories you unlock as you use a playable character, etc. But the main story you can currently play from start to finish in the 1.0 release is the prologue.

This prologue stars very simply: Your character, the “Traveler” is an alien from another world. Not much is known about them so far, other than that the Traveler and their sibling were people with the ability to hop between worlds at will. In the opening moments of the game this power, along with your sibling, are stolen from you by an unnamed assailant. Thus trapping you in Teyvat and leaving you to begin a journey to find the Seven Gods of Teyvat, simply known as “The Seven” and seek their power and wisdom to find your sibling and potentially leave. This journey is how you meet Venti, one of the Seven in disguise as a simple human bard, and his best friend Dvalin. The events that follow have you help this strange bard, as well as the people of Mondstat, defeat the dragon Dvalin. Previously, he protected the lands of Mondstat for hundreds of years. However, as you meet both Dvalin and Venti, he has had his mind corrupted and been lied to by an order of evil mages known as the Abyss Order, and its caused him to go on the offensive against Mondstat and her people.

It's a fair bit emotional, humorous at times thanks to Venti, and overall very engaging. Mondstat is a city built on freedom, to the point that its own god Barbatos(Venti) refuses to rule over it and allows himself to be the weakest of the seven gods, as that would take away some of the cities freedom. Within this prologue, there is a huge focus on Mondstat being a city of Freedom, the prologue quite literally ends with Venti telling Dvalin after you have saved him from the corruption that even though he is "meant" to be the protector of Mondstat, he hopes Dvalin chooses whatever life he wants, even if that's not Mondstats protector, and that Venti simply wants him to be happy. Venti's own personal story quest goes further in depth about the foundation of Mondstat and its origins as a rebel city founded after the citizens overthrew the oppressive rule of an awful tyrant God and killed him. In a very pretty hand drawn "cathedral window" style cutscene, you get to see the end of this war and why Barbatos chose the form he currently inhabits and took up being a bard, which was to honor a dead friend from this very same war. This explains why Mondstat and Barbatos value its freedom so highly. I cried at this moment both times I played it.

For a free game, the storytelling here is off the charts. As i said before, Venti and many other characters have personal stories that both introduce you to a trial version of the playable character, thus letting you see how they work and play, and also giving you either more info on the world or an introduction to the character in question, or both. They're fantastic little stories and are up there with the main story in quality. One of my favorite parts of the game and something that will only be expanded with time. Each one takes you on a journey of discovery or even simple fun with a character and it all feels very personal and touching, as all of the main stories and character quests are very well voice acted.

The prologue being so focused on freedom makes it all the more awkward, then, that MiHoYo is a game developer based out of China, and as such has to follow China's censorship rules. Taiwan and Hong Kong both are censored in-game chat and if you're reported for saying them, you'll be banned for daring to speak the words. These aren't the only censorship decisions in the game, but they're by far the ones that struck me the most. I understand that the company is based out of China and thus has to follow the censorship rules, as they are the actual law of the land and they could be fined or even shut down if they refused. But the disconnect of knowing there are actual human rights atrocities being committed in China with the Uygher Genocide and Re-Education camps, the human rights violations in Hong Kong, the breakdown of democracy and the treatment of Taiwan, while this game that comes out of China boasts on and on about Freedom and the Human right to self actualize and choose their future is... troubling. It's one that I don't really know how to reconcile, if it can be reconciled at all. I'd like to believe that the developers really believe in their own story and secretly oppose those sorts of atrocities. But at the same time, banning players who mention Hong Kong or Taiwan isn't in the law. That’s a decision MiHoYo is making. Right now, China doesn’t have the freedom that Venti and Mondstat and Genshin Impact try to instill in you so hard as important and a human right. And knowing that and knowing the censorship is in the game make it very difficult to get a read on what the game actually wants you to feel.

Overall,i think Genshin Impact is a fantastic game. Its updates plan to bring in not only more story, as there are meant to be 7 Acts and currently the game features the Prologue and half of Act 1, but in those acts it plans to explain the playable areas and bring in new Events, Characters, Weapons, etc. And that makes me excited for the future of Genshin Impact! It’s a beautiful game of genuinely Triple AAA quality completely for free. But. Its also a Gacha game and by far one of the least rewarding Gachas you could play right now. Maybe that will change with time. I certainly hope it does. But it feels hard to recommend something that, once you beat it, disrespects your time so much and so badly. I hope Genshin Impact has a bright future, I really do, and I’m definitely going to continue playing it. But right now, I can’t say for certain that I feel confident in the developers to make it the game it clearly wants to be if it wasn’t shackled down by its Gacha.