#the difficulty level is just right to give you a challenge and not keep you bored while still being very manageable-

[kordbot]

oh yea i forgot to tell my tumblr girlies that i finished rod's route today which means i'm officially done with playing lisa for now ! i dont really feel like doing joyed route variants [too much branching for me. also i beat hardest rider on pain mode first try so it would be. so easy] and i got all 5 joyless endings so that's satisfying enough for me :]

[astrologanize]

august 2024 sun sign horoscope

aries sun: it's a good thing that you guys are usually able to find motivation for yourselves because this month you will have bouts of feeling down & out. within this year's lessons for you surrounding what is & is not worth the energy, subsequently there will be situations and opportunities that fall away from your path and leave you dazed. this month you're going to encounter a bypass/obstacles that make you feel hopeless, like you don't know what to do, and you may be tempted to become withdrawn. there may be something that falls apart or has already fallen apart and you need to try to put your very best foot forward regardless - time to get re-inspired! there may also be a situation that happens that is unfair or challenges you and it would be in your best interest to speak your mind. for the past few horoscopes your advice has been to not act, take a seat, but now it is time to stand up.

taurus sun: all year long there has been lessons for you in your one-on-one connections, the receptivity/give & take, conflict resolution, and hopefully you have been paying heed to such. this month has strong decisive energy coming through for you; your motivation may be increased to do something different with your life, to do away with certain things, you may have some chip on your shoulder that causes friction with others or you may just be involved in friction with others, you may be hasty or make hasty decisions, and its up to you to remember that you need to remain open (to the possibilities) instead of dying on hills. this is a great month for you to try new things, to plan new experiences, to consider alternatives, to listen to new perspectives, to have some spicy time & experiment in the bedroom, this is not a month to be persistent and/or endure.

gemini sun: lol transit mars in gemini wants cause some trouble for y'all i see. you geminis are gonna be feeling stuck like chuck this month, there is a situation or something going on for you in august that will make you have to put aside your feelings/wants and persist because there's not too much you can do about it - at least not at this time. but! you must try to keep up your productivity levels and do what you can with the hand you've been dealt, try not to shrug it off and be 'whatever' about it, get those gears in your head turning for good.

cancer sun: eh, i'm seeing potential carelessness for y'all this month because there are certain things that are being left in the air, there is a focus on options, and it's really on you to decide whether or not you're going to (continue to) struggle in vain or make the choice that is right/best for you - which of course will involve some difficulty for you in some way. it's time to straighten that backbone up, try to be proactive, try to have a good/healthy structure for yourself, and avoid letting things happen/come & go all willy nilly. rise above tomfoolery! very specific situation in my head but say you have a coworker that is shitty and this month something happens with them that puts you out and you have to take the high road. you've never gone to a supervisor about this shitty coworker but this time you need to say enough is enough and stand on business.

leo sun: for whatever reason i had a heavy feeling come through when i was reading for yalls month and i think its because this month the accumulation of everything that has come to pass is going to be nipping at you. you're not going to be in your feels in some woe is me way though, there will be a strong self-focus, you will be action-oriented this month, and you are going to be working towards finding or facilitating resolve. this isn't a month where you need to prioritize progress, what you need to do is take a step back and put the effort into tying up those loose ends - prioritize resolution indeed! try to avoid any crass behavior, you may experience crass behavior from others, find proper resolve where you can, and try to think before you speak (lol pretty similar to the june horoscope of needing to watch your words).

virgo sun: saturn in pisces has really had y'all out here like "what in the world am i doing?", huh? well, there's been a lot of floating for you throughout this year and this month will not be much different in that respect but you will be trying out new flavors for yourself! your expectations will be lessened and re-explored in august so that you can experience a new kind of freedom for yourself. it's like being on vacation in a foreign place and getting to experience all types of new foods and activities and spaces. lessen your expectations but try to have a healthy & flexible routine in place for this month so that you have a bit of balance as you slowly but surely rediscover what resonates with you.

libra sun: ooou la la look at y'all having a productive august. i'm seeing any petty emotions you had or may have being discarded and you actually choosing the mature path as you put your priorities in perspective and recognize the efforts you need to put forth. you have things to work on and by the end of the month you will definitely be far closer to your goals. amongst the productivity is also good rapport with others ; you will be cooperating with others and vice versa, maybe you hear people out more this month, perhaps you get closer to someone in your life, and your one-on-one interactions will be positive for the most part. it's a good month so don't waste it! don't try to control situations, avoid drama, avoid paranoia, and ultimately be open (even vulnerable perhaps).

scorpio sun: now why am i seeing potential messiness and you being reactive, hm? let's try to avoid that if we can buuut regardless. whatever you may have mind for this month i am seeing follow through so if you have a commitment to something then i do see you being able to step up to the plate. surrounding your month is a lighthearted energy and you may be more sociable this month, any plans to meet up with people will happen, there may be some notable gossip about you or adjacent to you or it's just somehow relevant to you, and there is potential messiness...you might get in your feels and want to be petty, you may have certain situations or connections in your life where pettiness is the norm and i do think it will be the same ol' same ol' with those connections (eyeroll emoji lol). you still have situations or habits in your life that you're needing to put an end to or are in the process of doing so and it isn't going to happen overnight, you just have to persist with choosing what's best for you.

sagittarius sun: well the good news is that this will not be a month you need to endure per se but it still involves growing pains nonetheless. this month is about being attentive to your life and any woes that are residual and/or current for you and being honest with yourself about them - i am emphasizing 'with yourself' because it's coming through very strongly that you should not confide or try harder with some connection in your life. either you have a connection in your life that you are struggling to distance yourself from because you're so used to the person (so it's a matter of comfort & familiarity) or you have/will take something more personally than you should. this is a time for you to stop enduring, to quiet your mind, to listen more than you speak, to attend to what you need to for yourself, and recognize any lack within yourself and your life.

capricorn sun: back in june you had a lack of certainty in yourself and the decisions that you were making but by this month you will be feeling, or will begin to be feeling, far more assured in yourself and ready to take life on again. you will have bouts of getting in your feels, you may get impassioned at times this month, but for the most part you're still in a space of trying to remain objective. there is something(s) in your life that you're wanting to let go of or you are in the process of letting go of and you're going to be feeling ready to find a new chapter. buuut like back in april, you need to remember to pace yourself instead of jumping in full force. not the best example but say there was a cat stuck in a tree, instead of you thinking you're a superhero and risking your own well-being in an attempt to retrieve the cat, it would be in your best interest to call the fire department to handle it - there are situations this month where you may have the urge to extend yourself further but try to refrain from doing so, you may feel a lil helpless at times and that is perfectly okay because you may need help this month!

aquarius sun: there is definitely potential for this to be a prosperous month for you if you choose to get inspired because there will be a new path formed for you in doing so. throughout august you will be making decisions to do things and to put things in place but you will also be having to rely on others at times, and this may create difficulty for you. for some of you, you need to be careful of taking advantage and using others this month but there may be an opportunity that does involve you relying on a connection to someone - it's like if you need a supervisor to vouch for you to help get you a promotion. you will have times throughout the month where you gain experience and/or you will feel more experienced or 'above' another. try to seize new opportunities, sign up for a new hobby/allow your energy to be released somehow, welcome in good energy.

pisces sun: there is something you have in mind or will have in mind this month that is not going to happen or it won't happen the way you want it to. whatever it is, you're going to deal with it and throughout august you will be dealing/having to deal with situations that force you to put your feelings aside. even when you have moments where your feelings pour out, you will be quick to suck it up and recognize that you have priorities to attend to. some sort of regret may come up, maybe it's one from the past or a regret that develops this month and again, you're going to deal with it - and by the end of the month you will have a more detached attitude towards it like 'what's done is done, i'm going to focus on what i can do presently'. try not to get in your head this month because that's how you make mountains out of molehills, focus on the reality in front you, be realistic, and be action-oriented in a practical sense.

[shuttershocky]

hey shutters! it's one of those arknights newbies who keeps pestering you haha, could you help me understand what this trials for navigator thing is? I thought it'd be a new event but it seems a bit different from the regular ones

Sure thing.

Trials for Navigator is Arknights' seasonal boss rush game mode inspired by VI-7, one of the most infamous event stages in the game that threw 5 bosses at you all in the same level, culminating in a surprise appearance from Patriot that led to instant resets.

In Trials for Navigator, you're given 3 gauntlets to overcome, with 3 different difficulty modes per gauntlet. While fighting in these stages, the screen moves from left to right, forcing you to redeploy and adapt to the changing stage while fighting a new boss each time.

So for example, this is TN-3, the third stage available for TFN#3. From this screen, you can see all 3 arenas you will encounter inside this elongated stage, as well as the boss that spawns in each. Below, you will also see the 3 selectable difficulty modes. The first option lets you attack TN-3 with any team composition you want. The second option (unlocked after beating the first) gives you a set team instead and only allows for a few of your own operators, increasing the difficulty and challenging you to strategize outside your comfort zone, but also giving you team buffs. The third option is the Spectacular trial, where extra challenges are added.

While taking on various waves, completing certain objectives lets you unlock more of Closure's Gifts.

Closure's Gifts are team buffs you can use to even the odds in this game mode. The requirements to unlock them are written in the screenshot provided.

Unsure if you can beat all the challenges but still want to unlock the rewards and Ceylon's free skin? No problem!

Every clear you make earns you Trial Exp even if you're just repeating a stage you have already beaten. So if you're unable to take on the harder stages, don't worry about getting locked out of the rewards. You can repeatedly beat the easiest stage (TN-1) on the Basic trial multiple times to get all the goodies.

On the other hand, if you relish the challenge, TFN has one more stage to play.

Beating TN-1, 2, and 3 unlocks TN-4, the hardest stage. Previous editions of Trials for Navigator reserved AK's most notorious boss battles for TN-4, the last version having a gauntlet of The Emperor's Blade, Andoain, and the Deathless Black Snake all in one.

Beating all 3 difficulty modes of TN-4 unlocks a 4th Ultimate Challenge difficulty. By this point you will usually have all the rewards unlocked, so Ultimate Challenge is really just for bragging rights.

Good luck!

[culttonotfollow]

Why I love “Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice” so much

So as I stated, I'm writing a post about my experience with this game and why I think it's as good as it is, including my favourite aspects of it. To this day it's my favourite game and one of the few I've managed to 100% complete.

This post is going to include spoilers. Do not read if you do not want spoilers.

Disclaimer out of the way, I actually want to start by saying that before this game was recommended to me by a friend (thank you, Markus- shout out to you), I had no idea what it was about other than the fact that it dealt in some way with mental health. I mostly forgot about it until I saw it on sale sometime in October (it might have been the Halloween sale), at which point I made the decision to purchase it.

To begin with, the visuals are stunning—beautiful and terrifying at the same time. And just to get mechanics out of the way so I can ramble about the story and the way it made me feel—some of the puzzles are challenging at first, but they are so rewarding after you figure them out that I almost didn't mind the difficulty. The fighting feels almost perfect, particularly with the autobalancing option.

The premise of the game is that Senua, a Celtic warrior with severe mental illness, sets out on a journey to the homeland of the Northmen after discovering what had happened to her lover, planning to enter Helheilm, the mythological land of the dead, or what would be considered hell, and retrieving his soul through bargaining with Hela (or Hel, as she's more commonly known). Throughout the entire game- with the exception of a segment in the story- she wears his skull on her belt, wrapped in a cloth.

The Game uses sound to mess with you??

The game throws you right in with whispers bouncing all around your head (even during the menu when you first open the game)- I will never not applaud Ninja Theory for their choice of using binaural sound (here is an article by Splice on what it is), otherwise it wouldn't be what it is. This is one of the few experiences where the classic "Best experienced with headphones" recommendation should be taken seriously.

As you paddle past, well, burnt, staked and hung corpses that don't make it less tense either, the voices get progressively louder and more erratic until you don't know how many there are anymore or where they're coming from, urging Senua to turn back or calling her a coward in many different ways- with the exception of a few, who actually argue with the others and encourage Senua to push on.

There have been moments when the voices stopped for a little while, but by the time I realized there was nothing in the background anymore except for my own racing thoughts, I was already somewhat uneasy.

To add on to that, one of the trials Senua goes through relies solely on intuition an hearing to get throught the darkness safely, with an extremely limited field of view. I can safely say that was when I was most terrified and hyperfocused in my 12 hours of gameplay. I have to admit after my first run I went to bed and the whispers were still there because of how much I was hearing them the past several hours.

Mindfuckery taken to the next level

I spent the majority of the game in awe, watching the story unfold in front of my eyes. A lot of games or franchises, in my opinion, struggle to make their characters feel human, but Hellblade managed to do it. Even equipped with a sword, I felt vurnelable at all times, the game does a great job at causing anxiety even during the most mundane moments.

There isn't a combat tutorial of any kind; you have to either figure out the "guide" is in the menu, or keep failing the first battle until you figure it out. The game actually only gives you a single prompt in regards to combat: Each time you fail (die), the rot on Senua's arm spreads, and when it reaches her head all progress is lost. This alone made me so much more conscious of every move I was making for over half the game, until I learned the truth.

It's not an actual mechanic, it's only put in place as a warning to add another thick layer of tension to every other already existing, anxiety inducing element of the game, and further enforce the game's primary goal of distorting your perception: what's real and what's not, what/who can you actually trust, what is the truth? It brought me anxiety to the point where it was borderline uncomfortable, and that's exactly why I loved it so much.

I spent the majority of this game in awe, just watching the story unfold. Every twist or reveal felt like a gut punch (in the best way I could mean this), and it made Senua (the girl you play as) feel human, something not a lot of games can do properly in my opinion. This game uses everything in its arsenal to create a truly dreadful experience: visuals, audio, light, combat, etc. without abusing jumpscares or scary monsters (although fighting Fenrir scared the ever loving hell out of me, but so did dealing with him in general). Rather, it capitalizes on its strongest suit: the childlike fear of what lies in the dark- what might occur if the dark really does take control.

The ending made me question my entire purpose (sort of)

It's going to sound weird, or insane, but the ending changed me as a person I think. It made me seriously reconsider some major things in my life, and take a moment to appreciate some others. It's both some sort of psychological torture or terror and an enlightening experience. It brought me to tears and left me completely speechless for what felt- and actually was- hours.

In its own very special and well done way, it's not strictly a game about a girl that's gone mad, or a quest about retrieving a soul, but it sucessfully and sensibly touches upon themes of grief, loss, and folklore. I can safely say I've never been more immersed or touched by a game on every single level. There are tens of memorable moments that I think back on, and I can't believe I got through every single one of these.

The ending took a twist for me. It was far from what I expected, but I think that's what made me as satisfied as it did- and yet it left me wanting even more. Which is why I'm so incredibly pumped for when the sequel comes out. Despite warning about spoilers, I won't actually say how it ended. I'll let whoever reads this discover for themselves one way or another.

Conclusion?

I recommend this game with my whole heart to whoever can handle these kinds of topics. It's beautiful, the story is heartbreaking, the gameplay is fun, and the visuals are beyond gorgerous.

[studentbyday]

week 1 / small commitments challenge

Summary: I was not focused on my challenge goals this week. I was preoccupied, thinking about the different paths I could take and weighing my options for the next couple of years. Not a bad thing, except I let the thinking invade every moment of my life I had to myself. That includes when I was supposed to be studying ochem and when I was supposed to be sleeping and when I was supposed to just be getting on with my day and doing mindless self-care stuff as quickly as possible so I can dedicate time to what's urgent. Yes, I needed to weigh my options and gather information across multiple days, but I did not have to go about it the way I did. It led to me becoming overtired and having difficulty sleeping which led to me being unable to get through my ochem goals which prevented me from doing anything else. The more tired I became as the week progressed, the worse it got. So my two new priorities for next week are: No. 1: Get enough sleep with a consistent sleep time (9pm be in bed, 10pm at the latest) and wake time (7am ideal but 8am bare minimum). Soothe yourself until you're calm enough to sleep. Like you would a baby (e.g. swaddle, massage/gentle touch, dark room, don't voluntarily subject yourself to anything stressful or overstimulating in the half hour before bed). That's how you stop and keep out of the overtired cycle. No. 2: Lots of meditation throughout the day! 5-10 mins when I wake up, minimum of 10-15 mins before bed (unless perhaps i feel less frazzled thanks to the meditation breaks which help me stay focused throughout the day? idk), and 1-2 minutes in between big tasks (those that take 2h or more) in order to reset my mind before I move onto the next task and give my brain a rest after processing lots of info on a deep level, so it can sustain that level of activity throughout the day and the rest of the week. I'm hoping that by prioritizing rest, I can succeed at my new study routine (which has also changed from last week as my priorities have changed...yet again) and work more efficiently and quickly while staying cool in mind! A chaotic breakdown of the week aka my sleep-deprived end-of-day gibberish where I try to make sense of everything that's happened lies below 😅

Monday: sleep deprived -> slow start to the day -> quite behind schedule. i listened to 1 and a half chemistry lectures, added to the notes from last week, read and annotated 1 of the 2 sets of notes i'm supposed to read this week, and answered all except 4 questions of a practice quiz on last week's material. asides from this, i did 1/3 of an Algebra 1 lesson, took a nap, and practiced driving.

Tuesday: later start than yesterday bc i wanted to get enough sleep. overall worth it, but that meant there wasn't enough time to get everything done and there were lots of distractions to field. i only did ochem and practiced driving today. i didn't even finish all the ochem i wanted to (i finished 1.5 lectures again, added to notes, started reading the second set of notes for this week, and answered 1/4 of the questions for 1 of 2 assignments for this week). i'm still trying to find a routine that works for this subiect bc it's really condensed (most weeks cover 2 lengthy modules at once 😭) and it's not a subject that's that easy to feel confident in just right off the bat...at least for me 😅 who knows, perhaps for the time being, i'll have to spend more than 4 hours on it a day until i feel confident in the fundamentals?? i also have lots to improve on in my lecture notetaking skills (i.e. trust my memory more and write down notes only AFTER i finish watching a lecture instead of attempting to write notes DURING the lecture and getting confused -> rewinding)

Wednesday: my problem this week is that i'm very distracted. still trying to figure out which path is best for me (i.e. to transfer uni or change program within my uni if that's possible...definitely probably shouldn't stick with my current program tho, that's one thing i've pretty much decided), asking around, doing my own research, trying to think of any combo of reasonable options i haven't explored yet (this is what i was doing for a lot of today). i really hate unresolved issues. they stick around in my head until it's resolved and even if i'm not actively thinking about it, i can still feel its presence in the back of my mind (and if it's big and concerning enough, it will keep bugging me at inconvenient intervals)! 😤 and this issue will stay unresolved until i have made a decision. and even then, i might still question it until enough time passes to show me that it was the right decision 😅 it's like...either i'm in "re-assess" mode aka "question every decision i have made and could make and predict to the best of my knowledge where it will lead me and do i like where it leads me?" mode (WHICH CANNOT ALL BE ANSWERED IN ONE SITTING SO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SCHEDULE THIS?!?! 😵‍💫😫), or "put your head down and do the work" mode wherein i'm in danger of losing sight of the bigger picture. i swing from one to the other whenever smth happens to make me realize i've stayed too long in one mode. (like in this case where i was feeling very annoyed with my current lifestyle, finally decided to say "fuck it" to my strong desire to stay within my comfort zone, and explored other options and their pros and cons which included grad school admission requirements 🤦🏻‍♀️). i'm grateful to have this many options, but today i got so overwhelmed by them and the deadlines by which i need to have made a decision and the fact that there's a lot of ochem this week to do which is more urgent but also not as existentially worrying that i decided to rid myself of the mounting anxiety with a cardio abs workout. 🥵😮‍💨😮‍💨 it worked...but now i am so pooped and don't wanna get up 😅 (update: i did get up and did a little more ochem)

Thursday: too tired to do all the ochem i wanted to (i did a little reading, a little bit of lecture watching, and finished the last 3 Qs on 1 of 2 assignments this week). i keep letting myself get overtired with my overthinking against my better judgment (like, especially after an intense workout the day before??? girl, you need to sleep!!!). anyway, i've finally pretty much decided to just switch programs at my current uni but i don't think i'll really believe i've made the decision (objectively! all on my own! using a weighted pros and cons list! 😁) until the end of this week. 😅 it will still be a more rigorous program, although not in the ways i expected (but still good!), and it will challenge me in all the right ways but i won't rack up as much expense (thank goodness! 🙏🏻) and it will be a shorter commute and i will get to spend more time with family which is just such a relief. i don't want to fall into the rat race mentality, tho sometimes i think i need to. but perhaps that's just FOMO and comparing myself against others in an unhealthy way. like, i don't actually want a rat-race/hustle culture type of life for myself if i have the option not to live one, yet i sometimes feel like i need to be a completely different person living a completely different lifestyle in order to really make it in this society...well, there are many ways to skin a cat.

Friday: ochem lab, watching another lecture, reading the ch, working on ochem assignment, and driving.

Weekend: sleepy. reset routine and family time. finishing up ochem submissions for this past week (done is better than perfect! 😤) and driving.

[magnuficentwo]

My dad and I play Borderlands 2 together as a bonding activity and we recently beat the whole main campaign + all sidequests, so we started doing DLCs as a way to warm up before TVH mode. Here's our reviews of all the DLC we played so far (I'm doing all the write-y parts but my dad agrees dw)

Captain Scarlet and her Pirate's booty -

Pretty fun, though the slower pacing really did make it hard to get through a lot of it, especially with how ginormous the maps are. It takes a long time to get anywhere, and we got pretty disinterested in most of the side quests due to how far apart everything is. The set design is really gorgeous, but you can only appreciate it when you're walking by it slowly and taking note of all the fossilized coral– Otherwise when you're in the boat most of what you see is just A Lot o Sand.

Captain Scarlet herself is awesome, super witty lady with hilariously upfront intentions to betray you and leave you to die, I just wish she was allowed to have more dialogue that wasn't directly related to the quests like Jack was. The reveal was thoroughly expected and although the battle with her pet Rakk Nest was a bit boring, she was still very funny. Shade is so fucking funny and I felt bad for him, I kept joking we would just bring him back to Sanctuary after the dlc was over, but he was also slightly underbaked due to the lack of focus the dlc had with its characters. We liked the boat more than the usual cars even though it was a pain in the ass to shoot with. Also the racism was really fucking odd I don't know why they did that for.

Combat was just kinda fine. Maybe weirdly balanced sometimes ? We had a lot of sections we breezed through completely without the intended difficulty level because we accidentally overleveled, but enemies didn't really keep up with that. Could be our fault though so I'm not giving the game shit for that. What I AM giving the game shit for however is the fact it was VERY bad at rewarding us for when it actually did keep up with our level, because all the loot we got was all blues and greens. And I'm still pissy about not getting at Least one Leg in that final loot room.

My rating: 6/10 (Had fun overall + Scarlett and Shade are awesome - points deducted for Racism.)

My dad's rating: 6/10 (He had fun but thought it got boring very fast - Racism also bothered him a lot.)

Tina Tiny's Assault on Dragon Keep -

Such a blast all around. Enemies were challenging but once we got used to the difficulty spike (from PB to this one), it was really fun. The comedy of having a 13 year old girl dungeon Bunker Master guide her grown up friends around a brand new campaign, all while having to learn balancing and storytelling on the spot, is just Objectively really funny, but with how charming Tina and the gang are here it's even more so.

Tina is such a delightful weird little girl, and I love how you immediately gather that the whole game is her coping (A Bit Badly) with the recent deaths of her friends. Lilith, Mordecai and Brick are also really good too, from Lilith being a total dork and getting super immersed in the game (her getting defensive of Torgue not being a real geek is so funny to me because I acted like that when I was 13. But she's like a grown woman so its even funnier), to Brick embodying every murderhobo rpg player in the history of the world, to Mordecai slowly but surely warming up to the story, it's so damn fun.

The combat also gets spiced up with all the fun new enemies and status conditions, to the point where when we went back to base game temporarily we got confused some of them weren't present originally. Also the ending had us both sitting there in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time which is ALWAYS a plus in my book ! Overall, the dlc captures the whimsical nature of tabletop games and fantasy super well, while also being incredibly funny in the classic borderlands way and surprisingly emotional at times. Very fun time, both of us want to play Wonderlands now though.

My rating: 10/10 (No notes, just a very good time all around for me)

My dad's rating: 10/10 (He's hard to please but he really liked it + he said he wishes he could play the whole dlc again + We played the whole thing in one sitting, that's how good it is)

Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt -

Whoever is responsible for this DLC needs to go to hell right now. Immediately.

(Lots of interesting concepts that go completely unappreciated simply due to the fact that this DLC has no respect for you as a player and even less for minorities. Genuinely a huge shame, because it's honestly really cool stuff that could've been a lot more interesting if they weren't tied to a pile of garbage. Sir Hammerlock sweetie let me get you out of here please you deserve so much better all the time, I wish the actual dlc was about a big game hunt with this guy instead of whatever it was. We didn't play a lot of it because it's just ridiculous. There's better things to do with your time, don't bother w this one)

My rating: -1/10 (I'm bound by no entities saying I need to give it a positive score, and personally I don't think it deserves one as it deserves nothing, so -1 will do.)

My dad's rating: 0/10 (Got so disappointed we just stopped playing the game all together and started playing Diablo IV on his computer instead.)

The rest of them we haven't touched on a lot yet. Raid on Digistruct Peak was kinda forgettable but a good enough concept for what it's worth, Fink's Slaughterhouse didn't seem appealing to us so we haven't played yet, and we want to play Commander Lilith last just for dramatic effect, but overall the Borderlands 2 consensus for DLC exists in 3 categories: A) Life changing DLC of all time B) Pretty okay, but it's just Borderlands 2 in a different place and C) This should've bever been created. I'll see if this keeps true for the rest of them but for now that's it. Thank you for reading, goodbye and don't die.

[gasolinerainbowpuddles]

𝑭𝑬𝑹𝑨𝑳 𝑾𝑶𝑴𝑨𝑵 ║ Chapter 2 - Not Yet Corpses, But Still We Rot

| FERAL WOMAN | series masterlist | main masterlist | | PAIRING(s): Joel Miller x fem!OC/reader | RATING: explicit material | 18+ | WORD COUNT: 5.1k | CHAPTER WARNINGS: mental health struggles related to anxiety, trauma, PTSD | CHAPTER SUMMARY: Your first 24 hours in Jackson serve as a hard reminder that some things may change but others stay just the same.

Please read with caution if you have difficulties with works concerning: SA, physical violence, torture, captivity, trauma, and similar topics as they are discussed throughout the series. All highly sensitive portions WILL BE MARKED with my sensitive material banner if you wish to skip the more challenging portions. The sensitive material banner looks like this:

║ＰＲＥＶＩＯＵＳ ║⋄── •✧• ──⋄║ ＮＥＸＴ ║

Maria felt comfortable to be around. At least, she felt more comfortable to be around than anyone else you had encountered so far. You wondered if she was the only woman in this entire place as you had only seen man after man after man. You found yourself seated across from her in a small room near the front gates. 

It was chilly, but it paled in comparison to the hours you spent locked in the shed.  The small bowl of soup and Tommy’s jacket that still engulfed you certainly helped you hold onto some warmth. You had tried to give his jacket back, but he insisted you keep it until they could get you one of your own. You can hear him pacing out in the hallway.

He was kind, but he was still unsure of leaving you with Maria alone. She catches your attention by calling your name – the fake one you had given when you were still too afraid to be honest about such a personal detail. And now you were too afraid to correct your lie, so you answer to your alias, although a bit too slowly still. You would need to work on that.

“I’m not going to ask what you’ve been through,” she started with a level tone and gaze. She leaned back in her chair and adjusted her legs to accommodate her belly. She studied you with a placid expression, taking time to carefully choose her words. “I don’t need to ask what you’ve been through because it’s clear that,  whatever it was, was a lot.”

You make no measure to agree or disagree. You were still weighing your current predicament. You had refused medical attention upon entrance, and you tried to ignore the way Maria’s eyes zipped every now and

then to the injuries on your face and neck. After a few moments of silence, you decided you’re already in this deep and might as well return what kindness you could to these people.

You tell Maria there are no more in your group other than the party that had left this morning. You give her a rundown of Sam’s  movements over the past 6 months. It’s to the best of your knowledge, but it’s limited information considering you were purposefully kept in the dark most of the time. “And, are there . . others, like you?” she carefully probed. You shake your head and focus on a dent in the tabletop. “No. They’re all gone now.” The memories of Mae, Sam’s sometimes secondary pet and sometimes group consolation prize, flooded your mind. You wished she could’ve held on a little longer. She could’ve been here with you right now. Instead you were alone, arguably safer, but that didn’t guarantee the safety would last. If your past experiences taught you anything, it was that things can get very bad, very quickly and with little to no warning. It was never wise to trust things would stay okay just because they happened to be at the moment.

“You know, your group was sizing up our settlement earlier today. Made the mistake of assuming we don’t have outposts and watchtowers to catch that sort of thing,” she revealed. Your eyes widened as they met hers.

“How do you know it was my group?” you challenged in a weak voice. Of course you had wondered what Sam had done when they made it back to the cabin and discovered you were missing. If it was truly Sam and his men that had been spotted by Maria’s people, you wondered who out of anyone had made it back to the cabin at all.

“All it takes is one rider to be lazy with their tracks. Makes short work of following their entire trek. That’s how we were able to locate that cabin out in the middle of nowhere. How we found you.” Maria explained this all in such a velvety way that you wanted it to make sense, but you were struggling to piece together all the new bits of information she was feeding you.

“Are they … are they here? Did you bring them back here?” you questioned, the last few words inching up an octave with fear.

“What do you mean? After the ambush? Did we bring any of their party back to Jackson? As prisoners?” she amended. You nod your head with a stiff jerk as you feel the sick creep of panic slip into your bones. There weren’t enough metal bars and locks in the world to confine Sam in a way that could make you feel safe, not if he was still alive. You would never be safe from him.

“Pointless to keep dead men as prisoners, don’t you think?” she posed with a weary smile.

“Dead?” you repeated. The word sounded hollow and unreal. “They’re dead?”

“Would’ve been a lot harder to pick them off if they hadn’t so quickly gone into ‘every man for himself’ mode,” she mused. “Caught them by surprise from the left flank, and they didn’t stand a chance with our vantage points and manpower.”

You cough in a choke, unable to lodge the thick lump in your throat. Maria pushes some water across the table to you, and you numbly take a few sips before looking at her again.

“How do you know it was them? How do you know they’re really dead? How do you know somebody didn’t get away?” The questions spilled from your mouth before you could stop yourself.

You didn’t want Maria to be offended, getting the impression that you didn’t find her or her group up for the task of handling Sam and his men.  They seemed very organized and established, but you knew what Sam was capable of.

“Like I said, we have our own patrol and watch groups to stop this sort of thing before it can even start. Each body matched with the headcount our first watch post clocked, about an hour before we ambushed them on the mountainside,” she clarified.

“You got Sam?” you pressed. Your lips were tingling and joining with the static haze in your ears.

“I’m not sure which one was Sam, but, yes, he’s dead. They’re all dead,” she confirmed.

Your mind was racing trying to remember what he was wearing this morning. “He had– There was a-a green jacket. Yes, gr-green. And, and his pocket! His pock-pocket has a m-missing button?” you said in a frenzy.

Maria sat for a moment, absorbing your uncharacteristically animated reaction. “Can’t say I was looking for any missing buttons on green jackets.” 

Of course not. It was ridiculous to even consider she would’ve been focused on such a trivial thing while clearing an entire group of armed men.

“Can you take me to them? Can I see them? Can I see if it’s really him?” you begged. You had to see for yourself that Sam was gone. You had to know he couldn’t get you anymore. You needed to see the body. His body. Lifeless. You needed to see he couldn’t hurt you anymore.

“Look, I understand if you maybe had some sort of… ‘attachment’ to some of these guys, but–” Maria started gently.

Your incredulous bark of a laugh hit the air so abruptly that Maria’s eyebrows rose straight to her hairline. “Attachment?” you echoed with revulsion. “No. They are going to come back for me. You, you don’t understand! Sam is not going to-to just let me go. He’s not going to just let s-someone else have me.”

You shook your head with a humorless laugh as you hugged yourself tightly. Your heartbeat was thrashing against your ribcage like a hummingbird was trapped in your chest.

“Stay here,” Maria ordered calmly as she stood and exited the room. You were preoccupied with the gripping possibility that Sam was still alive and was certain to come after you. He wouldn’t stop until you were his again. He would blame you for the deaths of the crew. You just knew it would be your fault, somehow.

You try to stop the shaking of your hands, but it only travels up your arms and rocked your chest as it made its way through the rest of your body.

Your teeth were chattering with fear when Maria, Tommy, and another man you recognized from the patrol group entered the room.

“This is Jason. He was head of the watch group that first spotted your old group. He said he saw a few green jackets out there today, and he is willing to describe the men to the best of his memory,” Maria explained.

Jason gave a quick nod in greeting and began recalling the first sighting. “First green jacket was on the guy we think was head of the group. Calling out orders and seemed to be making the decisions.”

You listened with rapt attention, desperate for any undeniable identifiers. Jason gave a physical description of the man that was eerily accurate to that of Sam, but you couldn’t let yourself believe it was really him, that he was really dead.

“He was easiest to remember ‘cause he was the leader, we think. That and he had a brown and white spotted horse. Rest of ‘em were all solid color or looked that way.” Your stomach bottomed out. Of course. Sam never let anyone else ride his horse, and you were all too familiar with the pattern of their coat.

“Oh my god,” you whisper hoarsely. Your eyes felt hot and wet, and you scrunched them shut.

“If that’s Sam, I’m the one that took him out. Wanted to clear leadership first. I’m sorry if you were, uh,  close to him,” Tommy confessed. He had no way of knowing he was offering up condolences for killing the man who had kept you prisoner and subjected you to absolute torment for the past two years.

“You? You killed him?” you repeated, locking onto Tommy’s eyes with fierce concentration. You didn’t feel lightheaded, but your body was rocking back and forth in a small circuit. It felt like electricity was shooting through your veins.

“I did, sweetheart. I’m sorry,” he apologized again.

The surge of relief exploded out of you in a loud sob and propelled you into Tommy. Your legs gave out, and you grabbed haphazardly at his lower legs and boots as you tried to remember how to embrace someone.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” you chanted in a strangled sob against his laces. 

Tommy was rigid under your touch, unsure if he should react or return your gesture. Jason cleared his throat at the uncomfortable shift in the room, but Maria’s hand found its way to your back with a gentle pat. 

“You don’t have to worry about Sam or anybody else. Not while you’re here,” she said firmly.

She and Tommy both helped you to your feet, and all you could do was mutter apologies for your outburst and try to pace your breaths. You shoved your hands at your face to wipe away the tears and winced when you hit a particularly tender area you had already forgotten about. 

“Let’s get you to the clinic before I take you to meet your new roommate,” Maria encouraged.

 You sniffled and shot her a confused look. “My what?”

Susan seemed pleasant enough, considering you had shown up to her doorstep at nearly 9 o’clock at night, looking like fresh hell and as skittish as a cat with a long tail under a rocking chair. She seemed thrilled to have your company for some reason, but you could’ve just been reading the situation wrong. It had been a long time since you had been around other people like this.

Susan was probably in her early 70s if you had to guess, although the state of the world tended to make everyone look older than their age. You were surprised when she shared that she had lost a daughter that would be around your age.

She had been a single mother and lived only a few hours from the settlement, which she identified as the only reason she had made it here alive in the first place after she and her daughter fled their QZ. As for how she survived and her daughter didn’t, Susan only offered a sad smile and a “wrong place, wrong time.” You didn’t press her for any further detail, and she was kind enough to not ask you a single thing about yourself. 

“Susan lives alone but has been looking for a housemate for quite some time now. So long as the right candidate came along,” Maria explained. “It’s harder for her to get out some days when the snow picks up, so having a young set of helping hands will be appreciated, no doubt.”

Susan nodded in agreement, and her eyes sparkled with excitement when she caught your gaze.

“Don’t worry, though, about getting to work just yet. We’ll give you plenty of time to rest and settle. I’ll see to that.”

Susan spoke with such unyielding affection that it was hard to feel hesitant about anything. You nervously fidget with the cup of tea she made you. “Sleepy time tea” as she called it. All of this unsolicited goodwill still had you on edge if you stopped to think about it for more than 3 seconds.

“Tommy and I are just a few doors down. His brother and niece are right next door, too,” Maria informed you as she stood slowly and stretched her lower back against her hands. “There’s not much going on at this end, so you’ll be away from the busier parts of town. I know it will be a big adjustment.”

“You want some fruit leather for the walk home, dear?” Susan offered. 

“That sounds great, Susan,” Maria replied. Susan shuffled off to the kitchen, leaving you and Maria alone once more. “Listen, I know it’s a lot to take in, but you’re in good hands with Susan,” Maria uttered in a low tone so your new roommate couldn’t hear. “It’d be nice if you were able to find a way to let her indulge in some of those mother instincts. She lost her daughter, and she’ll be the first to tell you that she’s been sort of … ‘lost at sea’ ever since. Losing a child doesn’t mean you’re not a mother anymore. You’re always going to be a mother.” Something sad flashed for just a moment across her face when she spoke.

You nodded in understanding. The idea that you could fulfill someone’s emotional needs was just another outlandish concept that had turned out to be true today.

Susan sauntered back into the dining room with a small brown bag for Maria, and she placed a few pieces of dark burgundy squares on your saucer. You looked up to find her giving you a small wink and a quick squeeze on your shoulder. You must have been completely flummoxed by the day’s events because you didn’t even flinch at her touch.

“I’ll be by in the morning to check on you. Head to ours if you need anything overnight,” Maria instructed. Susan saw her out and then focused her attention squarely on you.

“Eat up, Lovebug. You’ve got a ways to go before I say you’re fit for duty,” she chuckled warmly, rubbing a swift path between your shoulder blades before clearing the rest of the dishes from the table. You were grateful for the first moment of real solitude since you had been discovered in the shed earlier today. The strange hum of electricity filled your ears, punctuated by the crackle and hiss of the fire in the living room. The cascade of water from the kitchen faucet was a white noise, just like the whip of the wind outside.

You nibble at the square of fruit leather Susan had left you, and it took all your remaining fortitude to not burst into tears at the heavenly sweet flavor of strawberries and apples.

Maria was right. This was going to be a lot for you to comprehend.

You tossed and turned for most of the night. The warm shower Susan got running for you had been an intense experience. The feeling of hot, soothing water running over your sore, damaged body was a foreign sensation, and your body didn’t know how to respond to such a pleasant thing. You lied and told Susan yes when she asked if the shower had calmed your nerves any.

The soft, warm clothes Maria found for you were a little baggy, but beggars can’t be choosers. You squirmed at the sensation of fuzzy, cozy fabric against your clean, soft skin. You felt like a different person, but your mind wandered back to your reflection from earlier.

The shower was heating up while you disrobed, and you caught sight of yourself in the vanity. You didn’t come across mirrors very often, and you tended to avoid them whenever you did. The frail, battered woman looking back at you in the crystal clear vanity mirror was unrecognizable. Was that you? Surely not. Why were your eyes so blank and flat? Was the mirror dirty? Were you so exhausted your eyes were playing tricks on you? Was it a trick of the lightning? But it was you. You’d recognize that heaping mess of curls anywhere, twirling and twisting every which way over your shoulders. It looked like a dark cloud around your head. Your fingertips grazed the muddled blues and greens across your cheek, a complimentary palette to the hues on your neck, chest, shoulder, wrists, backside, legs … You shut your eyes and turned away from the mirror.

You rushed through your shower, and Susan had somehow set up the spare bedroom in the time it took for you to get a shower and get dressed. She made no effort to hide her enthusiasm for tending to you, and after an hour or so of it you had gotten a little more comfortable with it. After all, you were doing this for Susan’s benefit, just like Maria had asked. Who were you to begrudge this hospitable, gracious woman, who hadn’t blinked twice at the notion of you living with her? She didn’t even know you. None of them did. Why were they so trusting? You knew you weren’t exactly in peak physical condition, but you were still much younger and wilier than Susan. You could overpower her if you really wanted to.

When she kept calling you “Lovebug” or “Bug” for short, you tried your best to hide the curious confusion at the nickname. Susan seemed to notice because she asked, “Do you mind me calling you that? Sorry. I have such a terrible habit with little nicknames. I can stop if it’s bothering you.” She was earnest, and you appreciated her willingness to address you by your own choice of name. “I don’t mind it at all, Susan. It’s really nice,” you promised, only partially embellishing the truth.

You had given them all a fake name, so neither one was even your actual one anyway. Maybe in the coming days you could work up the courage to introduce yourself properly. The last thing you wanted was for everyone to think you were a liar. If you weren’t trustworthy, you’d probably no longer be welcomed here, and you had nowhere else to go.

The twin size mattress in your room hugged every rigid curve and poke of your body. So much open, uncramped space was unsettling. You stretched your legs out, but it felt too strange, so you curled them back up into your chest. You silently counted the number of stars you could see from your window.

You jerk awake, and realize in a groggy haze that you must’ve fallen asleep after all. The stars you’d been counting had faded into the pale morning sky. You still and listen for any movement. Your new living arrangement slowly came back to your memory. You didn’t hear Susan. You didn’t hear anything at all. The silence was deafening and claustrophobic. There wasn’t a warning from your body before your breath began quickening in the quietude of your room. Your room. Another distressing pleasantry to add to the pile, right on top of hushed, peaceful house. The warmth of the quilt and your new clothes suddenly felt stifling. You shimmied Tommy’s jacket off you, but the oppressive heat only grew.

Locks of your unruly, kinked hair stuck to the sheen of sweat on your brow. You licked your lips, faintly aware of the chapped but not as dry as usual feel to them. You scanned the room for the glass of water Susan had left you last night. It sat empty on the nightstand. You must have drank it sometime during the night, forgetting about it just as you had forgotten drifting off entirely. A shaky leg hit the carpet followed by a firmer second leg. You tried to get your bearings through rapid, shaky inhales. The combination of plush fabric and cushy carpet on your feet was too much all at once, so you ripped your socks off.

Your new,  light blue t-shirt hung loosely around your frame, but it didn’t offer reprieve from the creeping blaze spreading through your body. You gather your pants tighter, tying the drawstring in a snug knot, before prowling into the hallway and down the stairs. The walls feel like they’re closing in on you. A suffocating sensation grips your throat.

You fumble with the lock on the front door before wrenching it open and stumbling onto the porch. The icy wind that stung your face felt like a mollifying fog surrounding you, but your breaths are still coming in jolts and tremors. You clamor for the open area past the porch steps. The freezing bite of freshly fallen snow riddled your bare feet like glacial needles, and it instantly brought steadied breathing. The whip of a wintry, harsh wind collided into your body, wrapping you in a grounding clutch.

The crushing feeling of impending doom was subsiding, and you had enough of your senses to notice the dry, itchy thirst in your mouth and throat.

You surveyed your surroundings, an entirely new environment with the slow sunrise leaking faint light across everything. A large snowdrift against the side of the house caught your eye, and you trudged to it with devout focus. You were starting to lose feeling in your feet, but you managed to drop close enough to the pile of fresh snow to reach out and cram a handful of it into your desperate mouth.

Your eyes flutter closed at the quenching drip of ice across your tongue. You didn’t care that you were on your hands and knees in the snow – an oversized pair of flannel pajama pants that were getting more saturated by the second, a short sleeved cotton t-shirt, no shoes, no socks, no jacket.

You actually feel invigorated being able to flee the overstimulating house and sate your own needs. The corners of your lips turn up from all the excitement, and you hastily shovel more handfuls of snow into your mouth. You hum with satisfaction at the tranquility settling over you. The trees in your line of sight swayed gently with the gusts of cold air that make you feel present for once. For the first time, you lucidly contemplate your new situation. You’re not confined to the house anymore because you simply got up and left. You aren’t a prisoner to anyone or any place.

You push yourself back onto your knees, the tops of your feet planted firmly onto the ground on either side of your thighs. Your eyes flutter close one more, just briefly for the moment of peace that found you.

“Uhhh, you alright?” 

You whip your head around to locate the voice. A teenage girl, no more than 15 or 16 at most, is eyeing you curiously from the neighboring house’s porch.

“You fall or something?” she called out, grinning despite herself at the strange scene she’d stumbled upon so early in the morning. Her face fell when you scrambled to stand and face her direction straight on, revealing your battered face and numerous bruises. Your hands ball into fists reflexively. This was the first person you had run into alone.

“Hey, whoa. You okay?” the girl asked in earnest. She kept her eyes trained on you as she took a few steps back, heading towards her front steps to make her way to you. It’s then that you see the large silhouette of a man coming from their front door. Your entire body goes rigid. Your feet feel like they’re cast in concrete, anchoring you in your spot. You can feel the tremble moving through your legs and up your body.

“Everythin’ alright over there?” His deep, booming voice sounds like thunder after hearing the small girl’s.

Your stone hold breaks with a frightened jerk at his question. He reached the banister at the edge of the porch, and the massive entirety of him seems to be looming over it to get a better view of you. His large, hulking frame wasn’t just a trick of the eye from your ground level view. He really was that broad and imposing.

Your gaze burns into him as his eyes travel to your arms, neck, wrists, cheek … You realize you must look incredibly unwell and probably in need of help. Your stomach clamps at the thought. If you were in a bad enough situation that you needed help, that only ever meant someone was waiting in the wings to take advantage of you.

Your lip quivered uncontrollably, and your teeth chattered now from fright more than frost.

“You from Canada or somethin’?” the girl playfully bids in a self-soothing tease. She’s clearly trying to downplay her bewilderment and tension at this injured, mute woman before her - outside, disheveled, and underdressed.

You hadn’t noticed the girl  had already bounded down the steps and made her way right next to you. Your eyes dart between her and the man, who remained in his same place on the porch. You manage a shaky step backwards and raise your hands in front of you, palms out and waist high, in a motion of retreat.

Your brain is in overdrive. How quickly can you move before the man is able to close the gap between you? It’s stupid to even entertain the thought you could escape him. There was no doubt he could outpace you many times over. Your labored breathing is accented with errant, nervous whimpers, and you know it only serves to make you look like weaker prey.

The man on the porch gripped the railing under his incredibly large hands as he watched you closely, taking in your wary and terrified disposition. He could see the primitive terror in your eyes and face.

“Give her space, Ellie,” he commanded sternly to the girl. You jump again at the sound of his deep voice. He has an unfriendly face, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s something more gentle there. Not gentle enough for you to let your guard down, however.

“So, you got a name or . . .?” Ellie pressed, fascinated with her new wild woman neighbor.

Your cognition was on the fritz. You offered your name -your real name,  not the made up one you had been giving. Your eyes felt like they were going to snap out of your head from zipping between Ellie and the man on the porch so fast.

Ellie didn’t seem put off by you whatsoever as she introduced herself.

“I’m Joel,” the broad, intimidating man informed you as he raised one of his hands from the railing to send a single, jerky wave. You recoiled at the small movement despite the fact that he was several feet away from you. His hand returned to the railing within seconds of your jumpy reaction. You had to stall for a moment, just long enough to buy yourself enough time to build up the courage to make a break for it. “Huh-Hi. Ellie. An-And Joel,” you grunted so quietly it’s a wonder how either of them heard you at all. 

The sound of your name - the fake one you had given Tommy, Maria, and Susan - turned everyone’s heads to your front porch where Susan stood, looking very concerned. 

“Oh dear, my little Lovebug, come inside!” she beckoned, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders tighter as she made to come into the yard to gather you. 

“I-I’m coming, Susan. S-Sorry,” you croak. Your throat is back to feeling dry and scratchy again. Your steps are heavy and wobbly, but you cower away from Ellie who had kindly tried to steady you. “Jesus, sorry,” she muttered, unsure of what she did to make you so nervous. You walked faster now towards Susan, just in case Ellie - or worse, Joel - decided to try to help you walk.

“I’wa - Jus thought’a - Thought I heard s-something. Came ta’see the n-noise,” you lied through chattering teeth, making the short trip to meet Susan on your front steps.

“Bug, you’re safe here. It’s alright. You don’t have to go looking for noises. It’s not that kind of place,” she reassured you, rubbing a hand against your shoulder.

You felt safer next to Susan even though she was even less capable of defending herself or you from Ellie and Joel if she had to. You fidget nervously with your shirt and wish your feet weren’t numb from the cold so the freezing sensation could still be a distraction to you.

“Besides, if there’s any noise, sweet Joel here will come to our rescue. He and his sweet little daughter Ellie. Tommy is Joel’s brother, you know,” she added as extra encouragement, sensing your tense mood.

It was clear Susan was fond of both Miller brothers as well as Ellie. You glanced over to Joel to find him still studying you. His searching gaze made you uncomfortable, so you dropped it and looked the other way.

“Yeah, I th-think Maria had, uh, h-had said that,” you mumbled.

“Oh my word, you are out here with hardly a thing on! You don’t even have any shoes on! Bug, come inside this instant!” Susan scolded with no real malice behind her words. She ushered you up the steps with a wide arm.

“Nice to meet you,” Ellie called out in what sounded almost like a question.

You peeked back over to her and then to Joel, who nodded once in acknowledgement that he shared the sentiment. You snapped your head forward and headed inside with Susan.

Thank you everyone who read ch1 and have come back for this next one. It means a lot, and it really does make me happy that people seem to have a connection with it.

A quote I think fits really well with this chapter is from Sylvia Plath: "Is there no way out of the mind?"

Catch ya later, 

♥Puddles♥

[leomonae]

Tips for BG3 fans considering giving BG2 a try!

Disclaimers: I never played the enhanced or extended or whatever it's called - the Beamdog edition, that one - so I can't say what, if any, of this it might have changed. Also, while it continues to be my favourite game of all time, it's been like 5 years since my last BG2 playthrough, and I always ran it with a whole bunch of mods; I might get a few things mixed up, but I'll edit in corrections if I find that I have!

Much of this will apply to BG1 as well, of course, but not all. I am not really addressing BG1 because I've played through the whole thing maybe twice to my couple dozen BG2 games, and also because people who started a series at #3 don't get to be too picky about doing the first two out of order either :P

Right, so! I'm going to try not to spoil much here; these are just things to make your life easier and less annoying before you are blindsided by them and have to back up three hours to avoid the issue.

1) You might find yourself having to back up three hours to avoid some issue. BG3 has hopefully already thoroughly taught you this practice, but save early, save often, and keep your old saves until you're entirely done. This is a twenty year old game, I promise you have enough storage space.

2) We are playing under something like 2e (second edition) D&D rules here, not 5e. Armour class is good when it's low, not high. You don't get a set number of ability points at character creation, you roll dice and then you keep rolling for the next ten minutes until you get a nice, high points total to distribute as you prefer. Thac0 means "to hit armour class 0". Multi classing and dual classing are not at all the same thing, and will result in very different builds (also which one a character can do is determined by their race).

3) Games came with giant manuals back then; you are gonna need to either be doing some research, or just accepting that everything is going to be very confusing for awhile.

4) Go right ahead and crank that difficulty setting down a notch or two before you get started; after the first hour or two getting to grips with it, BG3 combat was basically just a nice, gentle romp through the park for me. I'm not saying this to brag (I don't ever play above core difficulty in BG2, myself), I'm saying this because you are going to find yourself getting very, very frustrated very fast if you don't understand that games back then had much different expectations when it came to how they handled some of the things that contributed to difficulty. Don't be meaner to yourself than you have to be! Challenge is fun; beating your head against a brick wall over and over is not.

5) The game is not going to do anything to stop you from going places you are not equipped or leveled to handle yet. If you are not making progress with some new area after a few tries and different approaches, consider going away and coming back later. It is also perfectly happy to spring surprise dragons on you. Or surprise "oh hey I just opened this door in the middle of the city with a certain common item in my inventory and now I appear to be in the second hardest fight of the entire game" encounters.

6) XP is distributed to all your party if it is main quest xp, and split among your party otherwise. If a character is not in your party at the time this happens, they don't get the xp, as a general rule. One or two specific exceptions aside, the game does not play catch-up for the characters you had leave your party temporarily; I would advise deciding who you want to have in your party fairly early on, then sticking to that so you're not wasting good xp on characters you're not keeping around.

7) Unfortunately, the previous is somewhat complicated by the fact that some companions have their own personal quests they want you to do for them. Quests with hidden timers that start running when you pick them up. Quests over which they will leave your party permanently, if you don't get around to them soon enough/don't listen when they give you a "do this basically now, or else" ultimatum. Quests you are going to be in no way capable of doing at the start of the game.**

8) Not all companions get along with one another; some of them cannot be in a party together without eventually fighting to the death as you're walking down the street one day. Pay attention to their alignment and don't go mixing good and evil characters in the same run. Neutral ones are significantly more chill.

9) There's a reputation mechanic which is kind of a morality tracker; good companions can also leave you if you get too low rep, and evil if you get too high.

10) When you first get out into the city proper, go check out the shops in this starting area; you can get a gem bag and a scroll case which will make inventory management much more pleasant. There are also bags of holding in the game - you know, those things our BG3 player characters kept taunting us about not having?

11) Companions can permanently die in a way that leaves them unable to be resurrected again due to the condition of the body. Be careful! Or just reload one of your twelve billion saves you've been carefully making, that works too.

12) Sometimes certain spells can have effects that might not occur to you in advance. Like, oh, say, disintegrating a dragon and only realising thirty hours later that you also disintegrated the crafting component required for making a really powerful weapon which it had in its inventory at the time.

13) You've noticed by now in BG3 that there are enemies who are resistant or vulnerable to certain types of damage, yeah? Bludgeoning, specific elements, etc. That is also going to be a thing here, but it's not always as immediately obvious what the problem is when you're failing to damage something. But in general, magical vs non-magical damage is a much bigger concern in BG2. There are many enemies that only take damage if your weapon is an enchanted one, and they might also require a certain minimum level of enchantment; +3 weapons or better, that sort of thing. Spells can affect this, too. Certain types of damage can cut through certain spell protections. Etc.

14) Hint: Melf's Minute Meteors count as +5 weapons, if you should ever find yourself unexpectedly in need of such a thing for some unknown reason I'm sure will never come up!

15) You can turn on a great many auto-pause options in the menu to get something significantly closer to the turn based combat you're used to. I use most of them; pausing whenever one of your characters finishes casting a spell (different spells take different amounts of time to finish casting and you can be interrupted before you manage doing so) is very useful so that you can immediately start them on their next spell without wasting time in combat.

16) If there's anything you really don't like, such as constantly being told to gather your party before venturing forth, there's almost certainly a mod for that.

That should do for now, have fun, enjoy the absolutely terrifying versions of vampires and illithid which will stalk your nightmares afterwards!

**It's Keldorn, I'm talking about Keldorn. I know he's amazing, but just leave his ass right the fuck where you found it unless you are feeling about ready to fight some of the toughest enemies in the game. Or you've bought that one specific item and don't mind a little cheese, because god knows I always use it if I'm planning on recruiting him.

[gorbalsvampire]

On Building Characters

I generally hold two things in my mind when I'm putting a character together at the dots-on-sheets level. Neither is the "quick and dirty" work-your-way-around-the-sheet process in the Player's Guide, where you decide if you're a Specialist or a generalist or a Jack of All Trades and just put dots in skills. I think that's really helpful for explaining and introducing how character creation works, but it doesn't go all in on the build to the extent that I like.

I try to walk the line between having a tuned, capable character with healthy dice pools in things that will be useful (key Discipline powers and hunting rolls for their Predator Type as a priority, survivability pools like social awareness, difficulty to surprise, and at least one decent combat roll as secondary concerns), and having a concept that makes sense as someone who was a person before they were a vampire and isn't just dots in the optimal places.

To understand my approach it helps to be familiar with the Stormwind Fallacy - the claim that "good roleplaying" is antithetical to "optimising character". It's nonsense, as Tempest Stormwind elegantly proved. Roleplaying is entirely a soft skill: one can play a finely tuned and powerful character to the hilt and still make in-character decisions that have entertaining, dramatic, difficult consequences.

There is a tension between optimisation and verisimilitude, though: a character who's been built entirely to be a good vampire often doesn't feel "right" or "good" because they're artificial: they weren't engineered as someone who existed before their Embrace. That's what the full process in the V5 corebook - not the two page summary spread but the chapter that follows, the full method for building a character - strives to avoid. As ever, slow and close reading of the book reveals deep truths.

In particular, the full method encourages you to break your skills down into Professional (two at three dots, two at two dots, one with a Specialty, derived from what your character's "day job" was), Life Event (one at three dots, one at two, derived from the most important thing that happened to your character) and Hobby (three at one dot, representing things your character has dabbled in).

Then you pick either one Skill to really overspecialise in (four dots, and you can move your Specialty in here too) or six more to pick up (two at two dots, four at one), and this is where you pick the "good at being a vampire" stuff that your character has learned to do post-Embrace. These are the ones that I like to keep plastic, fantastic, and somewhat elastic, selecting them to make sure the hunting, combat and survival stuff is taken care of. If you want to focus on combat, you'll need to pick a profession package that leans into it, and give yourself a reason for that focus. I'm looking ahead towards the stuff I'll pick next: Predator Type, clan Disciplines, and Coterie Type, so I know what to leave space for in my Background spend and contribute to the group fund.

The other thing that's always circulating in my mind is Flaws. In my experience veteran players kind of miss the point of Flaws in V5, expecting them to be customisation options like they were in the older game. They're more... story signals. You're telling the Storyteller this is the problem you'd like your character to have, a thing that's going to come up often during play. That means, from a "keeping the game functional and playful" perspective, you need to put some thought into what kind of obstacles, challenges, difficulties, barriers you enjoy overcoming, or don't mind being thwarted by. It's easy to pick something that ends up backfiring on you.

For example: I am really touchy about loss of agency and control. I won't touch the Weak Willed Flaw with a goddamn barge pole, because being able to throw some dice in active resistance to Dominate or Presence is important to me. I need to feel like I had a chance, however long of a shot it was. Now, one of my OCs should have this Flaw, it fits with the character and her relationships with authority, but if I'm going to play her in a chronicle I as player am going to repeatedly encounter something that discourages me from playing. It crosses a line, and setting myself up to cross that line repeatedly in play is a surefire way to make the play not playful any more.

That's what this optimisation stuff comes down to, really. Making sure your character is fun to play - that you can get stuff done in the game, and that you don't have to keep on doing things that spoil the experience for you.

[piracytheorist]

Two hours of playing the game later, I've gotta say...

They need a real "beginner" level for the minigames 😂

Like, say what you will, I wouldn't expect a game like that to have its easiest modes be something a beginner would have such trouble getting through. I had to play Yor cutting vegetables four (or was it five?) times before I got the minimum score the game was asking me for.

The controls are super clunky on the computer, like, moving the character with the WASD buttons while moving the camera with the arrow buttons is... difficult. It's like they picked the exact same controls from the Switch (which I understand why they have the character and camera move with the joysticks) and put them on the computer controls... which doesn't work. The computer has this wonderful hardware called the mouse, they should have used it more. Most people who are used to playing on a computer are used to moving the camera with the mouse. Moving it with the arrows makes no freaking sense.

And so, while I'm having trouble moving Anya around, I'm slowly getting a small gist of how to move both her and the camera. But just moving her around places is easy, since there's no time limit.

That wasn't the same when I tried the minigame of Loid sneaking into the art gallery 😂 I mean, I know I am a beginner, but sheesh. I lost half of my time just trying to get my bearings on how to even move around the place. Good thing I decided to train on it before I wasted game points.

Also, I tried snapping some pictures, and (again clunky camera controls had an impact here) and for some I just couldn't find the correct angle for a couple pictures. I could get it to focus, I could get the right expression, but it just kept saying that my angle wasn't right. Which is a pretty hard thing to judge. I think it wanted me to zoom in, and like... man they're just making it difficult. This is a feel-good game, I don't know what they're thinking. I didn't pay 50 euros to feel frustrated.

And like, I get that there are people who are much more experienced with games and want a kind of challenge with every new game. That's what difficulty levels are for! I have no trouble admitting I am beneath a beginner, I'll gladly pick a beginner level and let challenge-lovers pick harder levels. BUT YOU NEED TO GIVE ME A BEGINNER LEVEL TO START WITH!

Lmao I definitely didn't expect to feel frustrated. It's just that... it's a cute, feel-good game mostly focusing on sweet, wholesome moments. The hell do they want unforgiving challenges for? The point of playing a game is to let off steam and feel relaxed, not to feel stress moving the clunky camera around on a very small time limit, hoping you'll get whatever the hell the developers think is a "good" angle for a picture. Again. That's what difficulty levels exist for. Give the easy ones to those of us who don't want to feel stress and give the hard ones to those who like challenges.

Look, it's not that I don't like it. In fact, I'll make a post with the stuff I liked in the little I played, and I will keep playing in general. But. Maybe I do need to share a critical review on Steam, cause yeah. Asking me for fifty euros and then giving me this is... a little ridiculous 😕

[mr-president]

what is fear and hunger it looks cool

CW: gore, blood, and body horror; some spoilers for F&H 1 and Termina

It is very cool!!! Fear & Hunger is basically an indie rpg that reimagines historical “turning points” in a lovecraftian horror aesthetic. Counter to other indie rpgs (like undertale or omori), F&H revels in its ethereal, gorey beauty:

The gameplay further sells the “horror” aspect of the game by being extremely punishing—one missed line of battle text or failed coin flip, and you could be sent right back to the beginning of the game with nothing left. Not to mention, items in the game are few and far between, randomized to add that extra level of difficulty. The enemies are challenging as they are terrifying in design—everything about this game screams “horror.” If you want to learn more abt F&H’s incredible game mechanics, SuperEyepatchWolf already did a video that goes in depth abt it:

For me, other than its mechanics, what makes F&H so good are its characters, particularly in F&H: Termina. There are 14 main characters and 8 playable characters, but each are distinct from one another and even if you don’t play as all of them, all 14 are bound to make an impact in your run.

For example, one of the biggest shocks in the game is when Tanaka, the salaryman, inevitably dies in your first run. He’s not a bad dude, in fact, he’s probably one of the kindest characters in the game. He’ll put himself in danger to give Olivia, the botanist who cannot walk), a wheelchair, and he’ll help you out if you’re an idiot and get stuck in a well.

But his sudden death (be it beheaded by bonesaw, being shot by German revolver ocelot, or transforming into a lovecraftian monster after being driven to insanity) shows how the world of F&H is indifferent or even hostile to average people. Tanaka’s death is often the first wake-up call to the legitimate cruelty of F&H; very easily his fate could be yours or another character’s.

Which makes it all the more remarkable when you somehow do keep Tanaka alive and he forms a friendship with Marcoh, the boxer, and Marcoh teaches Tanaka how to fight! And if you fight Tanaka after this, he’s legitimately stronger.

If Marcoh mutates into the Monster, Tanaka will be nearby, but rather than being kind of a pathetic little bitch, his resolve is steel and he wants to avenge Marcoh for the gods’ injustice against him.

And this all happens OFF SCREEN. Without much player input (aside from keeping Marcoh and Tanaka alive).

And there are many of these interactions (Marcoh and Olivia, Marina and Levi, etc) where the player is rewarded for keeping characters alive via unique interactions keying into their personalities/philosophies. I haven’t even discovered them all, but each party talk and playthrough reveals more and more abt these characters. And in a game where knowledge is so essential, that’s beautiful.

F&H 1 doesn’t have explicit character interactions, but what is there is fucking hilarious. Cahara the Mercenary, will ask Ragnvaldr the Outlander not to “destroy my anus with those big muscles of yours” when they fuck on a ritual circle. When you get thrown into the primordial green soup, you find Enki the Dark Priest in a random hole in the ground, and instead of acknowledging that, he just spits lore at you before rejoining your party.

Moonless, a dog that looks like this

protects the little Girl in this hellscape. This game is just as committed to its gameplay as it is the characters living through this hellscape, and that’s why I love this fucking game.

You have to be a masochist to play it, but god dammit is it worth it to see these silly little characters have their silly little interactions, being human in the face of absolute terror and starvation.

This answer is probably completely deranged and nonsensical, but hope it helps? :3

[derfisch]

beginner's guide for any first time rhythm gamers:

1) before you even play a song, figure out how to sort by difficulty. usually there will be a button somewhere in the song select UI for it, or there will be a menu you can do it from. if you can't, and there's no obvious way to tell difficulty from the song select, consider picking another game to start. the one you picked isn't impossible, but it might be tedious to create a good learning curve for yourself

2) start on easy, and pick a level 1 song. if it's too easy, keep going up numbers until you find your comfort zone. when you're just starting out, the main challenge should be learning how to read the charting of your game, so take it easy until you've got that down in your visual memory

3) at this stage, stay in your comfort zone until you can read well enough to get a full combo. that's a good sign you're ready to move on to improving mechanically

4) from now on, don't stress out too much about full combos. your focus should be on challenging yourself with higher difficulties, and getting your hands used to doing more complex things. once you're starting to feel comfortable at the next difficulty, you should probably move right along to the one after that

and that should carry you pretty far!

or, if you're a streamer: disregard all this and just jump in. sucking at hard video games is good content. but maybe give it a proper go off stream to see if you like it

[baby-beelzeburger]

Oh my gosh if you’re still taking Solomon requests, I dare you to give me your favorite headcanons of him, HE’S SO CUTE AND I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. Solomon deserves so much love. I would LOVE to hear how you perceive him

Challenge accepted >:) Thank you for requesting! Coming up with these was a lot of fun.

Solomon is very fascinated by different cultures around the world. He's spent a lot of time studying them, and knows a lot of languages as a result, ancient and modern. 

He's super romantic. Like, candlelit dinner, walk in the park at sunset, rose petals on the bed kind of romantic. Probably the most romantic of the whole cast, right next to Barbatos and Satan.

He really cares about Asmo. He didn't at first, but he's had a lot of time to get to know him. Despite being total opposites, Asmo ended up growing on him a lot.

Satan is his second favorite of the brothers.

He has abandonment issues, or something similar to it. He's watched people he loved and cared about grow old and die around him for thousands of years, all while he stayed young. That's done a lot of damage to him. He's hesitant to get to know MC for this very same reason. 

He sees Luke and Simeon as a sort of pseudo-family, like they’re his own brothers. He really cares about them.

He’s fascinated by astronomy. He tried for a while to get Belphegor to teach him about the Devildom sky, but after Belphie refused so many times, he eventually gave up and read some books on the subject instead. 

Despite the leniency on MC regarding the difficulty of their classes, Solomon's are just as advanced as everyone else's at RAD. Diavolo decided that Solomon didn't need the handicap that MC had, and Solomon wouldn't have wanted it even if Dia had chosen otherwise.

He secretly knows that no one likes his cooking. He's not really offended, but he is annoyed that no one will tell him straight up, so to mess with them he offers to make food at any and every given opportunity until someone finally has the guts to just tell him it sucks. 

Solomon absolutely hates lying to others, but he finds it necessary sometimes. When he can, he tries telling half-truths over full lies.

He’s so touch starved that even gently brushing hands with MC while they walk beside each other is enough to get his heart fluttering.

His main love languages are quality time and acts of service

He’s one of those people who you can just exist in the same room doing your own separate things, and he’ll consider it valuable hang out time. He’ll cherish that time spent with you, even if neither of you are talking.

He's the best at keeping level-headed in a crisis, even when he's freaking out on the inside.

He gives the best advice. Somehow always knows exactly what to say. 

If Simeon is the mom friend of the group then Solomon is the dad friend. 

I like to think he really enjoys making bad puns. He thinks they're funny, and other's annoyed reactions to them is like candy to him.

He's got a major sweet tooth. He considers himself very lucky that he is friends with Luke because of it.

He's a puzzle guy. Luckily, so are Luke and Simeon. They spend a lot of time around Purgatory Hall drinking tea, eating sweets, and putting together puzzles. 

[lanternkiwi]

what i personally think would happen if the bllk characters were in alice in borderland

cause i love bllk and aib season two just came out and i love aib!! i was gonna make this earlier like before 2022 ended but i didn’t have enough time.

possible bllk manga spoilers & aib spoilers! read at your discretion D:

THE FIRST STAGE — REGULAR PLAYING CARDS

isagi yoichi, chigiri hyouma, bachira meguru, & kunigami rensuke !! — excels in club & spade games. and they’re a little group! just like arisu, chota, kurabe, and shibuki <;3 if you know what’s coming, sorry (i’m not)

isagi might not be physically strong but he has good endurance and is one of the more intelligent characters. actually, he might even pull off a low-mid difficulty diamond level game but he sticks to his strengths of clubs & spades. i feel like he’d lean closer to club games so he can work w others and form bonds w them if they all manage to survive! he’s trying his best and he really wanted to get back to the real world so he can tell his parents he’s okay, he thinks they’re worried sick about him and they are.

chigiri is just like isagi. he, isagi, kunigami, & bachira met in a club game and they made the fateful decision to team up! they’ve been together ever since. it was isagi’s first game- the others were still relatively new, but not a beginner like him. chigiri is still paranoid about his acl injury because the club & spade games are very physically demanding for him. but once he discovered how much he wanted to live, for his sister and his mother, he was able to overcome that mental block. i also think chigiri is able to pull off a low level diamond game if he’s lucky

bachira’s the one that keeps everyone’s spirits high! he’s agile and fast so spade games are right up his alley. he has no problem working w his three buddies so club games are also a personal preference of his. he likes to make light of every dark situation they might find themselves in; give them hope in hopeless times. the anchor of the group :( bachira once confessed he’s never negative and never gives up cause his mom would kick his ass if she found out he did. he wants to go back for her.

kunigami secretly finds spade games fun. they challenge him and he’s able to get stronger the more spade games he participates in. he also has no problem with the occasional diamond game either. he’s got a good head on him, why not use it? he, much like bachi, tries to keep the groups spirits up. but, unfortunately, kunigami got himself in a bit of a bind. he was a bit too selfless. he made the decision to sacrifice himself for isagi, chigiri, and bachira if it meant they could live. it was a hearts game. their visas were running out and they almost had no choice. isagi, chigiri, and bachira were the only survivors of their 13 person game.

who know what else this world has in store..

rin and sae itoshi — diamond and spade games galore!! these smart asses love a good diamond game and their physical strength shines in spade games.

despite the two of them never ever getting along, their new circumstance called, no, demanded for teamwork. they still had their arguments and disagreements, that’ll never change. but at least they cooperated during games. it was all they asked for each other.

sometimes they split to do other games alone and had a designated meetup spot. sae would try his hand at low level heart games and would be surprised to see how well he’d perform. rin attempted a club game on his own, he knew damn well working w his brother would be difficult but his visa was counting down the days.

he ended up meeting aryu and toki in this game and to his surprise, he didn’t completely hate it. and he didn’t die either, which was also nice. the three of them formed a nice alliance that rin could rely on, he asked them to stick around for a while until it was time to meet with sae again. they agreed.

sae, in one of his diamond games, met a trio of players named oliver, kazuma, & sendou. he found all three of them to be rather annoying, but when one of their friends kazuma died in the game, he felt … bad? sae hated the idea of working together, he had no idea who was going to betray him- even rin. but he figured some temporary company wouldn’t hurt anyone.

THE BEACH — EVERYONE IS HERE CAUSE PLOT!!

our little trio- isagi, chigiri, and bachira- had heard of a paradise called the beach during one of their games. chigiri talked to one player named aryu who might’ve accidentally let the name slip. he was immediately infatuated with chigiri because how in the world was his hair so shiny and smooth in a post apocalyptic world like this? a miracle. aryu had no problems answering chirigi’s questions, even the location of the beach was so easily given away.

chigiri had no idea how long aryu was a member of the beach, but his answers were good enough. now, after that game, all three of them had a least a week each to search for the beach. it was perfect. they were going to be safe! have a nice place to rest, maybe even a good meal! at least, that’s what bachira always said. isagi was still in a strange slump because of what happened with kunigami, but he was still focused on the task at hand.

finding the beach.

they found themselves outside of a resort, with spray paint over the name- BEACH. they found it. they were here! when suddenly- everything went dark.

isagi was the last to wake up between him and his friends. the three of them were tied to chairs and in a dining hall that was emptied out. there were people in the room with them as well.

the guy directly in front of them introduced himself as oliver aiku, but they were to call him hatter. to his left was sendou shuto and sae itoshi. turns out sae’s chosen company was good company after all. there was a tall player, styled hair and round frame glasses as well. another had black spiky hair with purple ends and a sly smile plastered on his face. in between them was a guy with white hair, an awkward green stripe of hair going down the center of his bangs. those three guys were armed. on the other side of the room, there was a duo. one with purple hair and one with white. these guys weren’t armed, for some reason. what they all had in common though, was their clothing. beach clothes. weird, on theme, but weird.

isagi, chigiri, and bachira were allowed to join the beach as official members! they had to wear beach attire, oliver says it’s harder to hide weapons that way.

isagi was approached by the duo from the room. they introduced themselves as reo mikage and nagi seishiro. reo explained the hierarchy of the beach. he and nagi were oliver’s executives, along with sendou and sae. sae had taken kazuma’s spot after his death in the diamond game. but the beach was split. oliver’s half- and karasu’s half. the mercenaries were allowed to have weapons on the beach, and they were the ones most likely to participate in games. karasu’s executives were yukimiya kenyu, tokimitsu toolazytolookuphisfirstname, otoya eita, and rin itoshi.

aryu and toki took rin back to the beach after their game and karasu was impressed by rin’s talents. he knew right then and there he would be an excellent executive.

modified the beach’s hierarchy a little to suit the story idc IM IN CONTROL HERE

THE TEN OF HEARTS GAME.

unfortunately, as i’m in control, i need to kill some people off. our group is a tad bit too big to send into the final stages so i’ll try to keep their deaths canon to their aib counterparts (save for bachi- he has the power of my personal bias)

also if it’s not totally clear yet, the bllk’s counterparts to aib are

isagi = arisu, chigiri = usagi, reo = chishiya, nagi = kuina, bachira = chota (he’s supposed to be dead but again, power of my personal bias), kunigami = kurabe, oliver = hatter/takeru, karasu = aguni (random asf i know 💀 ran outta players), yukimiya = kuzuryu (but the king of diamonds will be someone else wink wink), sae n rin = ann- miss me w that “two people can’t be one person” THIS IS MY AU. I AM THE GOD HERE. i guess that makes toki that tattoo guy and aryu niragi huh 😭😭😭 promise aryu won’t commit any atrocities like niragi did. also don’t worry about mira. just don’t. trust me. i got a plan for her.

reo, nagi, sae, rin, isagi, chigiri, and bachira all survived the massacre at the beach. the ten of heart games had brought them closer together and they formed an unlikely alliance.

and finally, they had all the playing cards in the deck. now the face cards were surfacing.

THE FINAL STAGE — THE FACE CARDS

reo, sae, and rin were separated from the group when they were ambushed by the king of spades! sae and rin ended up together, as a duo once again, while reo was off on his own.

so that just leaves isagi, chigiri, bachira, and nagi to fend for themselves. nagi is worried about reo, he’s never really been apart from him. but he knows reo’s smart so he has faith.

they try their hand at a king of club game where they reconnect with aryu to their surprise. they thought he had died in the fire at the beach! they were worried cause they were one player short to play the game but with aryu, they could participate.

this is where they met the king of clubs, michael kaiser. he had a team of four behind him as well- alexis ness, annndd think of two other players from bastard cause i’m too lazy to look up their names 💀 but you get the gist.

also yea i was thinking about making kaiser the king of spades but again… i got plans. wink.

michael and isagi were rivals in this game, it was no secret. and michael’s game was tough. an obstacle course that required both incredible physique and teamwork. michael might as well have been a heart as well because his shit talking nearly drove a wedge between isagi’s group. ness’ taunts and condescending words affected chigiri and nagi. they were able to pull themselves together at the last moment, and claim their victory.

michael and his group were killed by their group, but not before he explained that every face card game was a battle to the death. they might have won, but the couldn’t have done it without bachira’s sacrifice (sorry my personal bias is now in a committed relationship with reo) isagi was crushed. he had known bachira the longest, but his death was not in vain. isagi and chigiri stayed together after the game while nagi went to search for reo, and maybe even sae and rin if he got lucky. and aryu decided to separate from the group as well. just pretend like i have a good reason as to why he left.

reo, sae, and rin met up in an unlikely place. the king of diamonds. the man didn’t look like he’d be able to put up much of a fight. but he was lanky, tall, and had a bowl cut. he also had that creepy look in his eyes that freaked reo out lowkey.

his name was ego jinpachi.

his puzzles and riddles had the three of them stumped at times. the questioned seemed simple, they were “who is most likely to” and they had a hypothetical scenario with three different answer options. they were all sat in front of older screens with messed up font, it was hard to understand at first but they got the hang of it. and of course, those who answered wrong would die. at first, they provided tons of background information to help them answer the question. but as the game went on, the stories got shorter and shorter. but at least one of them had to know the answer.

they doted off of each other to answer the riddles and solve the puzzles. then at the last moment, ego had asked them “who is most likely to die” and presented them with four options instead. and, they weren’t allowed to talk at all.

option one- A liTTle girL WitH a BaD hEarT and NO DoNor

option two- a GuY wAlkInG oNto inComIng trAFFic

option three- tHe SMoKER wItH stAgE FOUR lUng CanCer

option four- thE GOod Jumper wIthiN his PAraCHute stIngs

reo, sae, and rin were the only three left alive, the other two players had died. it was just them and the game master, ego jinpachi.

the other three answers were obvious. but a jumper within his parachute strings? was he tangled in his parachute and that’s why he was going to die? or-

no. it wasn’t that. reo saw it. right there in the answer. the fourth option, the capital letters spelt out the game masters name.

EGO JINPACHI.

reo had his answer. he then had to wait for sae and rin to hopefully notice the same things he did.

and he was right (personal bias sorry i couldn’t bring myself to kill the toshi bros). all three of them had survived that last game, killing the king of diamonds.

players that were still left were able to defeat the other games and meanwhile, isagi and chigiri joined the queen of spades game, defeating her as well

sorry to speed through the queen of spades cause i loved her game but dawg there aren’t enough girls in bllk to give them a queen okay 😭 unless i make like idk julian loki the queen of spades LMFAOOO

moving onto the final arcss. the way this was just supposed to be a fun little rant and then turned into a whole ass au. god. it’s also so obvious when i decided to start turning it into an au 😭

the king of spades are going on killing people without mercy. isagi and co had reunited and they were ready to try to defeat the king. after someone had crashed their car into him, and he had gotten out without a scratch, isagi and co knew they needed a good ass plan and a lot of strength to beat him. before they could come up with a real plan tho, the king of spades removed his hood and mask. and he was—

kunigami?! 😱 (act surprised)

isagi couldn’t believe it. he thought kunigami had died a long time ago… but here he was. standing in front of him with a neighborhood body count the bad kind, an assault rifle, and a dream with the intent on killing him.

well, canon to episode seven, kunigami packed everyone else up except isagi 😭🙏 nagi? shot trying to protect reo (to bllk’s canon it would be the opposite but i refuse to critically injure reo so bite the bullet nagi! literally) chigiri? stabbed multiple times. reo? beaten up while trying to avenge nagi (he was not shot or stabbed, again i refuse to hurt my boy) sae and rin? shot and shot (and probably shot again) it was brutal. unfair, even.

kunigami then tracks down isagi who was busy building a bomb in a nearby connivence store (oh these aren’t homemade they were made in a factory… a bomb factory. they’re bombs!) and the two are forced to have a heartbreaking confrontation :(( isagi wonders why kunigami was doing this, how he could easily kill so many people. kunigami was met with a cruel world after his “death” they had saved him and made him a citizen because his abilities were spectacular. unlike anything they had seen before. isagi was heartbroken, distraught, and angry. kunigami was one of the first friends he had made here, and now he was his worst enemy…

anyways kunigami blows the fuck up, with the help of best boy reo of course.

isagi goes to check on the rest of his buddies and finds chigiri is the only one left that can really move around. if isagi was smart he’d just leave chigiri w reo but hey! arisu took usagi so isagi is taking chigiri. rin and sae are beside each other, and reo chooses to stay with nagi.

chigiri and isagi move onto the final game. the queen of hearts.

she was beautiful. short red hair and a well put together business look. she had a tablet in her hands and puts it down when she greets the only two players there with a smile.

she’s the final game.

and her name is anri teieri.

anri would never hurt these boys in bllk’s canon but again this is my au and what i say goes

y’all know how the queen of hearts game goes shits too elaborate to type out here just go watch episode eight 💀💀

meanwhile, reo is tending to everyone else’s wounds, trying to keep them all alive. especially nagi. rin and sae were having their little ann & kuina heart to heart while reo was focused on nagi.

it’s a shame that they were only able to get along in death. sae couldn’t begin to express how sorry he was that he allowed their relationship to end like this. rin returned the same sentiment. they were both hurt and continued hurting each other to make themselves feel better, or to at least forget the pain. overcoming the other meant overcoming their own personal pain.

“when we meet in the real world… let’s be brothers again…”

sae’s last words— as his wounds were more fatal than rin’s. he was losing blood at a much faster rate than rin was. it was the first time reo had ever seen rin cry. no matter what the games had put him through, no matter what injury he might’ve gotten, rin never faltered. never cried. never showed any weakness like that. until now, as he watched his brother die before his tear filled eyes.

THE REAL WORLD — COLLECTIVE AMNESIA

tw for overdose for chigiri’s explanation!!

after the defeat of girl queen pussy boss anri, isagi and chigiri chose to go back to the real world!! they survived the borderlands. they got another chance to live. reo and nagi went back as well. rin was the last to say his decision, but he accepted to go back to the real world, grabbing his brothers hand before saying it.

rin woke up in the hospital, where his sleep deprived and saddened mother was sitting beside him. she rejoiced at his awakening. apparently, sae and rin had gotten into a car crash after practice. sae was in surgery and it wasn’t looking good for him at first but by some miracle, he was going to be okay. dad-toshi was waiting for his surgery to be over while mom-toshi stayed with rin.

down the hall, chigiri was being embraced by his sobbing mother and bawling sister. chigiri almost overdosed on medications for his knee because of the pain during practice.

in the room across from his, isagi was hugging his mother. he had devoted himself to soccer so much that he neglected his own health. it caused him to pass out during practice but because he had ignored his bodies needs for while, it raised even more issues.

but that wasn’t the important part, the important part was the boarderlands were over. they could finally rest.

CONCLUSION.

this… this was supposed to be short 🧍‍♀️well, shorter than this at least, it was only supposed to be like oooooo which bllk characters would be good at which games ooooo but then it turned into a whole ass au 😭😭😭 if you made it this far congrats. if your fave died along the way sorry 💀

didn’t know how to kill off the players in the borderlands in their real world so i just skipped it 🧍‍♀️ uhh idk bachi was possessed by his monster and had a failed exorcism and kunigami dropped weights on himself mid workout /j

also don’t ask about barou. i was in the middle of writing out kunigami’s reveal as the king of spades and then suddenly remembered him. barou could’ve had another i’m wasnt the king moment but i wasn’t in the mood to rewrite the majority of it already and i thought kunigami being the king of spade would kinda be like what happened with him and the wild card program. i couldve made barou take aryu’s place as “niragi” and also made him aguni at the same time but again too lazy to go back and change it in case i missed a detail and it’s just confusing. but if i did automatically include barou he would’ve been a mercenary and been the niragi/aguni of the group without any like… major atrocities.

and finally kira died in his first game, end of story <3

edit: OH MY GOD I FORGOT ABOUT SHIDOU HE WOULD BE THE TATTOO GUY 😭😭😭

[deusexlachina]

Wannabe Warden Part 1: Idolize the worst woman in Thedas because she's unkillable

In which I set the most dubious transition goals anyone in Thedas has ever had, and am repeatedly TPKed in the tutorial for my hubris.

Before I even touch Dragon Age 2, I drown it in mods, like a kid who soaks most rice dishes in soy sauce. Or a fully grown adult who still soaks most of her rice dishes in soy sauce. In the interests of getting right into things, I'll bring these up gradually rather than all at once.

The real start of the game is the character creator. I'm tempted to make yet another horrible goth girl, but I stop myself. This is a character creator. I can be whoever I want (provided whoever I want to be is an abled, straight-haired, thin human noble with a gender-role-appropriate voice who can and will solve most problems with violence).

Following my better instincts, I go for a fresh look I make up on the spot instead of edgy goth stuff. This isn't a goth girl. This is an ordinary, upstanding citizen of Ferelden. Okay I did give her white hair and orange eyes and a mod that gives Aveline her hair in the Trespasser epilogue slides that I put into the character creator, BUT. At least she is not goth. That took incredible restraint. While I'm copying Aveline's hair, I decide I might as well copy her name as well.

This Hawke really looked up to Aveline, because she bravely fought by their side against the darkspawn at Ostagar, which makes her sort of like a Grey Warden. "Aveline is transition goals," I think to myself while planning this out, a statement that could only possibly be uttered in-character. Aveline probably died horribly like most of the army, but I will carry her flame. As I run away from the darkspawn.

Speaking of running away from the darkspawn, let me introduce a second mod: Nightmare Ultra difficulty, for people arrogant enough to think that Nightmare isn't enough of a challenge. It makes enemies tougher and more dangerous, which is surely welcome, because a mid-level understanding of the mechanics makes Dragon Age 2 a cakewalk.

Anyway, here's how the very first fight goes:

The Dragon Age 2 UI is a little different from Origins, so let me explain a few features. The minimap on the top right shows several red circles, each of which are darkspawn, any two of which are more than a match for me. Towards the bottom left, you'll see two red squares. Those are my brother and sister, who are collapsed and bleeding out on the ground. The dog symbol on the bottom middle is my dog, which is treated in this game as a summon. That grey segment is its cooldown, because the dog keeps getting beaten too badly to keep fighting.

I run for my life from one end of this area to the other, inches away from slavering darkspawn. My mom is there, too, but she's content to stand back and let her children take the heat. Which is just as well, because if she did fight she'd just be another red square.

After several minutes of this gruelling fight, which to reiterate is the very first fight in the game, it's time to move on. To another gruelling fight. Thankfully, the first one lets Aveline level up and grab Mighty Blow, a powerful attack that knocks enemies down in a (very very small) AOE. I switch to my greatsword and smack the darkspawn to the ground, in a catharsis that lasts about two minutes before the next fight. And then I see a dreadful sight.

AVELINE.

FUCK. SHE IS STILL ALIVE AND SHE'S RIGHT HERE.

Oh, also, there's a small army of darkspawn to massacre my family again. But that's just par for the course at this point.

There are far more darkspawn than my party can take on alone, but now we get to see why I idolize Other Aveline so much: When she's protecting her husband, she is invincible.

So...she won't mind if she handles most of the darkspawn for me, right? I mean, we'd die horribly. But she can take hits forever. Thanks, Other Aveline!

The rest of my family avoided my orange eyes and white hair - no, no, that's all you, Aveline. Unfortunately, their hair is a lot less cool because they're based on the presets you started character creation with and I forgot I was on the preset with a bob. Sorry Bethany. There was a mod that gives her a really edgy death-metal look with a shaved head, but that's a full morph, so it makes her the token white girl in the Hawke family. Not that I know that from experience and had to reset the game. As a consolation prize for her bad hair, I let her be slightly rounder and a lot better at hiding that she's a fucking wizard like she says she's doing. (Like Dalish in DAI, she's wielding a "bow"). This helps her look more like a person and less like Generic NPC #32, but honestly I'm still butthurt about no Dethany.

To help me pretend that Dragon Age 2 has replay value, I've modded every single member of the party. Well. Everyone who makes it to Kirkwall. Sorry Carver.

An ogre kills Carver in a cutscene, and then kills the rest of us in the actual gameplay. Actually, it's not so much the ogre, who is designed to be kited - unlike the numerous other darkspawn I've been kiting so far. It's his buddies, the little guys. There's a lot of them, and more than three of them at once is a death sentence. You know the intro, where Hawke can mow down darkspawn by the dozen because Varric's exaggerating? That's what the base game is like compared to this. I die again and again, in what the framing device would suggest represents Varric telling lots of versions in which Hawke could've died while Cassandra represses the urge to rip this dwarf's head off his little hairy body.

I look for a guide, and the guides all reassure me that this fight is easy and does not require any special build. High-fiving drowning woman.jpeg. I am forced to come up with my own strategy for this fight, which isn't even the end of the prologue. I keep up the Hawke tradition of running for my miserable life from the darkspawn horde. It turns out that if you immediately book it from the ogre, only the initial enemies will follow you - he won't get reinforcements until the fight's underway and you're on the usual platform. This makes a much more manageable fight of one ogre and two minions, which I beat with no trouble at all.

Mom yells at Carver to wake up, which makes sense because he recovered the last dozen or so times he was pounded into the dirt. Tragically, this time he's dead for real. The darkspawn have taken not only my home and my pride, but my brother. I must have vengeance!

At the sight of this heartwrenching cutscene, I exult in triumph and am then immediately killed, because this cutscene leads straight into another darkspawn encounter that's even bigger and nastier. I have to do the whole thing over again.

On a subsequent try, I find a very small window where - if you pause right as the ogre dies - you're out of combat but the cutscene hasn't started yet. You can save there. You're not meant to, because the devs didn't anticipate this part being at all difficult, because it is the prologue. It saves me a lot of stress, and eventually I...nearly die again. But Flemeth swoops in to save me! She's too late to save Carver, though. Worse, Other Aveline's husband is dying of the taint, a disease Flemeth says can only be cured by becoming a Grey Warden.

HELL YES IS THIS MILF WITH THE WARDENS??

Regrettably, she is not with the Wardens and in any case doesn't have archdemon blood. I will have to wait to seek my vengeance on the darkspawn. Worse, there's no available cure, so we must immediately euthanize Other Aveline's husband. It's a cultural norm in Ferelden that anything worse than a tummyache that doesn't immediately kill you can only be solved with euthanasia.

Flemeth is intrigued by me because I somehow felled an ogre. How did a humble babytrans with horrible transition goals and worse stats manage such a feat? Was it fate, or chance?

I'm wondering that too, lady.

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-pokemon-fan]

Ice-Cold Take: Cynthia is a Fantastic Champion

Yeah, I know that practically everyone already agrees with me. But I want to go on about her anyway. Let's talk about it.

The Background

Cynthia introduces herself to you as "A Pokémon trainer, just like you," and as being an amateur historian. So we already have a kinda interesting background. Then she appears a few times across your journey, even being a central character in the climax of Platinum. She jumped right into the Distortion World right alongside you. So we know she's brave and strong of heart.

It might not be total surprise to everyone on their first run that Cynthia is the champion. She is a recurring adult character who appears to be a strong trainer; Wallace and Lance have a similar setup. But even if you saw it coming from a mile away, who expected the piano?

Have another ice-cold take: her intro music is phenomenal. It also has separate effects depending on how you're playing the game. On your first run, you hear the music and know shit is about to go down. No one else in the game has had and introduction like this. But if this is a Nuzlocke, a battle you've prepared for, the last challenge of the run, the song is downright bone-chilling. In my first Nuzlocke, as I approached her with just a Porygon-Z, Electivire, and Hippowdon, my heart was pounding.

What I don't hear a lot of talk about is her actual battle theme. I'm going to dissect it in another post.

The Buildup

I've complained about the stupidly high level cap jump from Volkner to Cynthia in Nuzlockes: 17 levels in DP/BDSP and 12 in Platinum. It's an atrocious grind if you want to be at her level cap. But if you're playing vanilla, the jump is actually kind of genius. How much leveling can your team of favorites really do between Volkner and the Elite Four? Even Barry's ace at the Pokémon League is his Lv 55/51 starter.

Then you start the Elite Four challenge. Aaron leads with a Lv 53 Dustox/Lv 49 Yanmega, and the difficulty keeps ramping up and up. Last spring, I completed my first run of Platinum as an adult. My team seemed up to snuff at first. Take a look.

Alpha the Luxray, Lv 54

Shine the Gardevoir, Lv 52

T. C. the Empoleon, Lv 52

Rayda the Rapidash, Lv 50

Kongu the Staraptor, Lv 47

Montero the Giratina, Lv 49

I wasn't prepared for what came next.

The Battle

I knew when I saw Cynthia send out her Lv 58 Spiritomb that I was in for a rough battle. The difficulty of her battle doesn't just come from the leveling, though.

I don't believe for a second that Cynthia's lead is a Spiritomb just because it's a strong Pokémon. Its encounter requirement is so random and hard to fulfill that it's likely a first-time player will never have seen a Spiritomb before this battle. Its typing is phenomenal: it has no weaknesses (only one in BDSP), three immunities, and one resistance. It has powerful coverage moves too, making it hard to guess the typing. And that's just how she starts the battle.

There are great coverage moves across the board, too. Togekiss would eat shit to a Rock type that both resists its STAB moves and is super effective. So Cynthia gave it Aura Sphere. If you were going to use an Electric type to take Togekiss out, Garchomp's immunity and Earthquake will have something to say about it. Garchomp is quad-weak to Ice, so it has Flamethrower. Lucario is weak to Fire, so it has Stone Edge. Maybe you were planning on taking it out with a Ground type, but she has a Roserade and Milotic ready to counter it. Milotic has Ice Beam to deal with any Grass type challenger.

Let's also not forget that her ace is a Lv 66/62 cracked-out pseudo-legendary with only 2 (3 in BDSP) weaknesses--which are rare types anyway. I'm certainly not the first person to say that her Garchomp is a menace. I should know, it was 8 levels higher than my own Electric type ace. As a side note, it's neat that she gives you a Togepi egg early in the game and uses a Togekiss herself. Point is, you need non-STAB coverage moves or an otherwise well-composed team to take Cynthia on.

Between her story significance, musical accompaniment, and excellent team, Cynthia is a fantastic champion. A perfect conclusion to the flawed but wonderful experience that is... er, Platinum Version. I have certain feelings towards DP/BDSP. That's for another rant, though.