#theyre horrible you see and i love to imagine them 'winning' and losing

[amatres]

do i like to think about balaerra and astar. actually managing to be lamer versions of the brairwoods for baldurs gate? yes. do i also like to imagine that they eventually get their shit wrecked? yes

[tumblunni]

What do you guys think about the names Dustin and Darcy for my protagonists in Let's Go?

Cos i really wanted to play the co op mode thing by myself, just so i can pretend this role in the plot is filled by two siblings and have a bit of fun roleplaying that. But i dunno yet how the co-op works and whether you'd be able to customize the avatar of the second player or if its just the default trainer? Or can you only play co-op if you have two separate games? Im planning to buy the other version anyway once i get more money, so it could be fun to play my first version with sibling one and then the second playthru is sibling two's turn to shine!

Oh and the whole reason i wanted to do this is cos i wanna try out the customization features to make some ocs now that there's no competitive online stuff unless you pay a subscription fee (LOL NO THANKS). Like..i always felt like i HAD to make my character me in xy/sumo/usum, otherwise its like lying online? But of course i cant actually make me because theres no nonbinary option or even remotely ambiguous outfits for either gender. And you cant have wild hair colours while i dye my hair 24/7 irl lol. Its silly cos like 95% of the gym leaders and other characters ingame have anime hair colours yet the player has to be normal? So yeah i cpuldnt really enjoy making this innacurate defanged version of myself yet i didnt feel like i was allowed to just make up a new character either. Closest i could do was give myself white hair like my old trainersona when i was 12, lol. I mean i guess thats my 'real hair colour' underneath the dye right now, if you think about it that way?

OH GOD PIKACHU CAN HAVE A LITTLE TUXEDO AND BOWLER HAT HOLY FUCK IM SORRY TO INTERRUPT THIS BUT I WAS WATCHING THE IGN REVIEW AND THEY SHOWED PIKA BOWLER HAT PLEASE GO GOOGLE THAT VIDEO JUST FOR THAT 1 SECOND OF NEW FOOTAGE OF MY BEAUTIFUL CLASSY BOYE

okay where was i

Yeah! I think sibling trainers could be a good and unique way to handle a rival! Like having them be your sibling already establishes that rivalry. But it can be a soft and nice rivalry! I wanna go with that fun version rather than the full on angry exaggerated sibling rivalries you often see in kids media. Like i know that some people legit dont get on with their siblings and some people can even have a very gary esque full on rivalry thats sorta 'love to hate' or like..tsundere pretending you hate them. But personally i never had experience with that, i can never relate to those 'tfw u hate ur sibling and theyre always an asshole but lolll u love them anyway' posts. I only got to live with my little sister for a little while due to the catastrophe of abusive parenthood that was my childhood, and i lost contact with her forever when she was very young so i doubt she'd even remember me. *sigh* But like i don't think i only love her so much because i miss her! People say newborns and toddlers are the most bratty so like you'd think if i was gonna ever find her 'annoying' i would have done it back then. I was always just mega proud of her and whenever she'd be 'bratty' i'd be cheering her on and trying to protect her from mom. And when she'd try and pull pranks on me or practise play-fighting or whatever i was just like 'lol thats legit funny' and taking play-falls so she felt better about herself. Like we didnt have much power in that household so i felt like encouraging her pretending to be a wrestler would help her feel like she had some sort of control in some part of her life i guess? And just i wished i was allowed to roughhouse and run around and be all 'unladylike' and just enjoy BEING A KID when i was a kid, yknow? I always had legit fun being with her and legit enjoyed it and was legit proud and legit never annoyed. I just dont understand 'yeah she's annoying but i love her anyway'. I was only ever her rival as a play-rival to help encourage her to like.. Enjoy the things she enjoyed. Feel like someone else cared. I only ever acted like 'ha ha baby stuff yeah sure i hate hanging out with my sister" cos i thought i was SUPPOSED TO. I always felt so guilty doing it and so dissappointed cos id rather hang out with her than be a boring stereotypical teen tbh. I dunno, maybe this isnt typical for siblings and its just a sign of how badly we were raised? I was just real fuckin lonely and absolutely loved having a family member who loved me for the first time since my grandma died. Same reason i always used to act all 'i am too cool i totally am not soft for my lil sister' around my lil sister's dad. I really wanted him to love me too! I used to say swear words at him cos i thougjt he would thibk i was Cool And Adult?? I have soooo many cringe moments from that phase of my childhood. Man it hurts to think that i never actually did get to become that positive influence that protected my sister from my mum and let her know she was loved. Cos i was sent to live with my dad when she was like 5ish? And never saw her again and now im too scared to try and reach out to her again because 1: she probably doesnt even remember me, 2: theres a chance she believes my mum saying i was some horrible asshole who abandoned the family, 3: even bigger chance that contacting her could mean my mum finding me again and big fuckin risk of further abuse. Plus the awkwardness of introducing my trans self when she'd remember me as her sister and all. Sigh! All i can do is hope that her cool dad eventually got custody of her, and that he didnt turn out to be a secret bastard like when i met my own dad. He seemed good, but then again i was just a lil kid and my dad seemed good at first. Sighhhhhh...

SO UMM YEAH WOW I MADE MYSELF SAD

Anyway the point is that whenever i write siblings i'd rather write 100% unapologetic super loving love cos its wish fullfillment for me. This is also why in/cest shipping is a massive beserk button for me, good wholesome family relationships are REAL FUCKIN IMPORTANT and how DARE you corrupt that shit! Some people would fuckin KILL to have that wholesome family!!

Anyway lol thats why i'd like a Wholesome Rivalry for these sibling ocs! Like they challenge each other to contests along the way just for fun, and they react all 'wow my sis is the BEST' when you beat them, so hard feelings at all. And you dont JUST do rival stuff but also sometimes just hang out and have fun cos you missed each other. And if anyone threatens your sibling then THAT is the only time you see the Serious Sibling Power! Rival moments: ha ha lol bet ya cant beat me ooo im a scary villain LOL I CANT KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE HAHA! Giovanni punches your brother: *stony cold death glare from hell as tricksy prank sis turns into an unstoppable vengeance engine* Oh, but also the only other time they'd be serious is in their final battle together! Like most of the 'rivalry' is just competing to make the adventure fun and to help each other get stronger. But if sis/bro ever actually legit said they really want to fight to find out who's the best, and its like..important to help their self confidence, then i think bro/sis would respect that and go all out. Taking a fall and letting them win would be the most disrespectful thing of all! Oh, but i do think there would be one kind of battle like that during the story? Like in one of the more low stakes faux-rival fights the sibling actually does try and let you win, and the challenge is to try and lose against all odds. High stakes super failure battle!!! Imagine the evil team in the background like 'wtf' as these two run the most aggressively slow race of all time! XD

Oh and i kinda thought about different personalities for the two of them based on who you pick? Like i did like that aspect about brendan/may in RSE compared to other 'unpicked option becomes rival' characters in later games that didnt even have one personality let alone two. It just sucks that the personalities they decided to give them were 'female rival is super self concious and thinks youre better than her because youre a boy' and 'male rival is super ego and thinks he's better than you because he's a boy'. Boooo!

So instead of that the personalities i was thinking for these two would be less sexist lol. Male sibling Dustin is basically Wally so far? I need to develop him a bit more to make him a bit distinct, i mean its not like every single shy dude is identical. I'm thinking maybe mix him with all the wasted potential in Brendan? Like in the game they slightly hint at him having the ONE non stereotypical trait of liking cute teddy bears, and that made me think about how much better his whole plot would have been if it actually criticized his sexism and said that he only behaves that way cos he's overcompensating for being bullied for being 'feminine', yknow? And then in the manga they actually DO write him as super feminine, and even as a contest star who loves fashion and dressing up his pokemon! But then GAHHH they present it as some sort of fuckin 'character flaw', like he's shown to be selfish and superficial because of it. And the backstory is that him and the female protagonist used to be 'normal' until a traumatic event. Brendan was a Natural Fighting Prodigy until he saved his female friend from a wild pokemon and was so traumatized that he never wanted to fight again, while she wanted to learn to fight so she'd never need to be protected again. But this is not only presented as Wrong Ways To Be Gender but also like.. Fighting their natural instinct which still comes through?? Like male protag hasnt fought in YEARS yet whenever he's forced to fight he's just magically better at it than female protag who's been practising all these years to become his equal. Ha ha silly girl you can never achieve that! All you get is this patronizing 'well if you just tryyyyy girly things im sure you'll like it' plot and then you get rescued by him in the end because OF COURSE you do. Sigh! I cant believe they made me hate that pairing even more than the games did! So yeah i dont really wanna write Dustin as a jerkass who's secretly got synpathetic motives of internalized homophobia/sexism, cos i feel thats a plot very specific to my perceptuons of Brendan and id basically just have to make Dustin a clone of him and he wouldnt be able to shine on his own merits. Instead i'm just thinking of writing him as a 100% sensitive soul, and he still faces predjudice for not being that bigoted idea of an 'ideal man' but really the fact he doesnt bow down to their demands proves that he's the bravest person here.

And then I'm thinking maybe the female sibling Darcy is the older one and is a bit "gary ish"? Like eitjer way you still have a friendly and loving siblingness, but she's a bit more of a sass who is tsundere about admitting she loves her bro. But i dont think she's the cold or grumpy sort of tsundere, more like a trickstery tomboy? Bombastic loki jock sis! She can only be a bit abrasive with her bro cos she wants to teach him to be tough even when she's not there to protect him. But sometimes she can mess it up and make him feel like he has to change his personality in order to be tough, rather than letting him know she supports him in being "unmasculine" and just wants to help him find the confidence to stand up to people who bully him for it. Like she feels like she is 'weaker' than him in the sense that she worries too much about what people will think if she expresses her real emotions, yknow? Like theyre both suffering from toxic masculinity! He's suffering from the standard form where men who are too 'soft' are beaten down into that mould. Ans she's suffering from the problem where 'masculine' girls feel like they have to be '100% masculine' in order to be allowed to be themselves at all. Like back when i was a kid and before i came out as trans i always used to try and pretend to like sports ans like..cliche macho shit where you Cant Admit You Care About Your Friends and also i wasnt allowed to like ANY feminine things at all. I had to either follow the stereotype of femininity entirely or follow the opposite stereotype, i wasnt allowed to just reject stereotypes and like what i actually like. So yeah me realizing i wasnt really a girl has led to me embracing more 'girly' things than back when i thought i was one! So i think Darcy would have a similar arc but like..the cis equivelant? Just finds people who arent such judgmental pricks and stops having to conform to either of those stereotypes in order to keep fake friends who dont really give a shit about her. She can have a plot about both forced feminine and masculine stereotypes being equally limiting, rather than that shitty 'being masculine is a prison uwu every woman will be happier embracing her love of makeup' shit. That dominant narrative just made me feel like i was somehow wrong about myself whenever i didnt like 100% Of Sports All The Time, i must be somehow girly if i liked even ONE girly thing yet i needed hundreds of proofs if i wanted to be masculine. And like i wasnt just allowed to be neither! I wasnt allowed to like parts of both! I wasnt allowed to BE GODDAMN TRANS!!! So yeah i dunno if i'd go whole hog and make this character a trans man or a nonbinary person tho? I think she's just actually a cis girl who happens to be sporty and brash and likes a lot of 'masculine' fashion and hobbies. And she's just been made to feel self concious about it, as if she cant possibly REALLY be that unless she likes Every Single Boy Thing and wins at Every Single Challenge. Does anyone else remember that shit too? The girls have to win Every sports game against the boys in order to be 'one of the boys' but if you lose even one of them it somehow proves that you're inferior. Even though the boys lost 50 billion games to you and that doesnt prove theyre inferior! Like man she has sooooo many 'gary rivals' in her school life, thats why she loves going on this adventure with a kind brother rival who actually respects her! So her resolution would just be her staying the same but being more confident about it and saying fuk u to those fake friends. Same as her brother's plot, just they both face different specifics to the way this sexism affects them, yknow?

Oh but yeah when i did finally learn about LGBT stuff and realize i was trans it was Big Amazing cos even in the rare stories about Its Okay To Be Yourself it still left me feeling weirdly empty when the girl decides that yes she does wanna be a girl in the end. So i get that these plots might come off as queerbaiting if i write them badly? I need to make sure to make it clear that these characters 100% want to be seen as this gender and its just other people being fuckfaces and trying to define what their gender has to mean. I think maybe i'll try and mitigate this potential misunderstanding by adding different sorts of lgbt content. And, well, also cos i just want lgbt content in all of my stories because i am lgbt, of course! I'm 100% sure that Darcy is gay, and i think also maybe possibly Dustin is trans? Like, his plot is about being mocked for being a 'feminine' boy, but its also even more personal for him because he's a trans boy and he feels like he needs to change his personality in order to pass/he isnt really real because his personality doesnt fit the stereotypical image of a man. Like if you'd looked at the two of them back when they were identical twins, you probably would have expected Darcy to end up being trans if you were the sort of person who believes those basic ass stereotypes about 'boys who play with barbies and girls who play with trucks'. Or i mean maybe its the other way around and Darcy is a trans girl who still has a 'masculine' personality according to stereotypes? Or even both of them are trans and both face being told that they arent real because they dont fit the perfect stereotype of a trans person according to cis perceptions? Or maybe i'm overcomplicating things with all of this and it'd just muddy the message i guess. I might just keep it to them both being cis but also both of them like girls. And i can always apply my trans and other LGBT headcanons to other characters along their adventure.

Anyway LOL im rambling too much!

[musubiki]

Got any hcs for white? Her starter, her journey, etc? And like. Fws hcs?? 👀👀👀

K HERE WE GO MY SECOND FAVORITE GIRL EVER(this is gonna be long bc. i like them too)

➞

white chose tepig as her starter. this is actually a GREAT match because Gus is really rash and hasty and stubborn fist fighter just like her

white has never lost a battle. that was her goal it was never really to become champion or anything (she didnt care for all the responsibility that came with it) her goal was to be undefeated. which did not bode well for cheren, who wanted to be champion, and lost every battle against her

“well this is discouraging”

she really loves bianca!!! and cheren!!!!! she has the least patience and sense out of the three. cheren has to keep her grounded so she doesnt do weird shit

white is physically the strongest out of the protags. its mysterious. she als o has the best hair 

when she first meets N he is. a creep. im sorry. even i see it like that when you first meet him hes weird. when she first hears the team plasma speech in the first town, shes like boiling already. why would anyone listen to the knights of the round table?! this is weird. she kicks N’s ass first battle.

her problem from here on out and throughout the journey is that. she was the opposite of N. she thought that everyone treated their pokemon nicely and no one could ever hurt a pokemon. she learned she was wrong fairly quickly, and tried to fix and embrace reality instead of N, who tried to change the world all at once.

this is why shes the hero of truth and hes the hero of ideals. 

i dont have a lot of solid hc interactions between them (mostly bc i havent played in a while jfklas i abandoned my boy) but throughout their journey they. actually talk. and argue. and they both equally learn things from each other. and despite him being kinda weird (she thinks) shes actually kinda concerned for him

he makes her think about things she wouldnt otherwise. not just the fate of pokemon but about the future and the whole world. because of him she actually has this moment, where she has all of her current team out. and she realises that she is, like what he says and just makes her pokemon fight. of course and loves and cares for them, and she just. asks them real solemly like. “Do you guys even want to fight? Like do you even like being here?” 

and she already decided that if any of them didn’t want to be there, she would let them go.

luckily, her whole team is full of pokemon just like her and they enjoy the fights, and the adventure, and spending time with her, and shes thrilled. after this she asks pokemon she catches that she wants to keep if they wanna stay with her

i love N a lot ok. whenever N talks to white she always says something that surprises him and makes him look at the world differently. eventually he finds himself actually seeking her out and deliberatly looking for chances to run into her. he gains a lot of respect for her. whenever he talks to her he takes his hat off and nervoulsy kinda. holds it in his hands and shes kinda “?”

when she first finds out hes king. of team plasma. shes pissed. shes ready to TIP TH DAMN CART THING IN THE FERRISHWEEL AND HAVE A FIGHT RIGHT THERE. HES TELLING HER TO CALM DOWN AND SHES LIKE HOW DID YOU EXPECT ME TO REACT??????????????

shes angry bc hes the king of this. horrible orginization. and as far as shes seen all they do is steal and abuse pokemon. the next few times she talks to him he tells her that theyre nothing like that, and that they only look after pokemon

this is actually true. some of the grunts fully believe in the true cause. but most of them follow ghetsis. and N has no idea that his grunts are actually abusing and stealing (i keep thinking about the dreamyard because that scene was what the fuck????a re you doing????)

she begins to realize this. that he has no idea. and that he actually believes in this cause. and as she gets to know him she realises he is. the purest person. and he has no idea. and she feels kinda bad bc she was kinda mean to him before, but hes still plasma so shes confused about how she should treat him because he always treats her and her pokemon pretty nicely. 

N is actually a very nice and gentle soul. he’ll put up a fight for sure, but especially towards white hes the sgtwytwytws weetest thing im sorry i have a soft spot for him. lowkey he wants her approval.

if youve ever seen miraculous ladybug, i imagine N to be kind of like adrien(without the chat side to him) like hes just. nice. and gentle and. cute.

i hc that they have way more interactions than the game gives you

the best thing theyve ever had together was this celebration in Iccirus city (similar to like…the 4th of july kinda thing..) and whites pretty alone. cherena and bianca are off doing Arceus knows what and shes like. alone. and she finds N outside the city with some pokemon. 

so she goes and talks to him. questions why hes out here all alone in like, the cold. shouldnt you be with your family or something? its a holiday. and she caught him off gaurd and he immedatly like stands up and hes kinda happy to see her. he doesnt question why but hes. happy. when shes around. 

he tells her his father never really cared for these kinds of celebrations anyway, and that he usually spends these kinds of days alone. he doesnt think this is a big deal but whites kinda,.. lonely too. so she proposes “Listen, no one should be alone today. And I don’t really have anyone to hang out with either, so what do you say we just, forget about the sworn enemies thing for the night and go have some fun or something” 

and hes. surprised. here she goes again. always saying something new and pleasent and hes. like beaming hes so cutnhejfje so he agrees. 

and this turns into. a pretty great night for them both actually. like they actually get along great when theyre not arguing about the future of unova. they play a lot of booth games and. 

hdj white loses at one of those ball tossing games(she usually loses and then harasses the booth guy with “Booo its rigged” but she just likes to have fun) and N. is determined. he fuckin. calculates wind direction and all this weird shit and gets. a record high score and shes like how the fuck did you do that. he smiles and answers its all in the wrist. 

he gets her some stuffed animal thing. shes like this is the best day ever shes thrilled. they go and get food and like by the end of the night theyre actually. like friends. and she didnt think this would happen but she actually likes hanging out with him. at some point she wins a seashell necklace that she wears for the timeskip outfit

so theyre sitting there at the edge of the festival whatever eating caramel popcorn and ice cream and hot dogs laughing and telling stories about weird people theyve met and crazy things theyve done.

and they talk about his family. and why hes with plasma in the first place. and where her parents are. and why they believe in the things that they say and do. it turns out theyre both orphans. the only difference between them is that hes alone

at some point (i forget how this comes up) he asks white if theyre friends. she pauses for a while because she doesnt know how to answer it. yes, she thinks, when she’s with him like this. when she forgets that hes leading a region-wide organization aiming to seperate people and pokemon. but she settles with a yes, and jokingly adds that if they were destined to be mortal enemies they could hang out more, and he smiles

she spots a pair of plasma grunts, looks like theyre doing some shady things, but her head flashes back to the conversations shes had with N. he doesnt know what his grunts do. so she tells him to stay there and she’ll be back. hes kind of confused and worried, so he follows her from a distance.

she follows the grunts into a cave/grotto/area. yep, here they are abusing some poor purrloins or something, trying to get something that ghetsis claims he needs. she has her stountland right beside her and angrily questions what they think theyre doing. 

when they snarkily and confidently answer that they do whatever they want, she asks why theyre even a part of team plasma at all if theyre gonna treat pokemon like this. she tells them to go join team rocket if theyre looking for business like that. N is outside listening to all of this

they say something like “You think this about money?” and she asks what else and they answer “This is about power. We don’t give a damn about freeing pokemon for justice! When all the pokemon are gone plasma will reign supreme!!” 

she clutches her pokeball. shes pissed. not just because, these fuckers got issues, but because they are deliberatly. disobeying N, and everything he stands for. so she tells them to get out of there before they end up regretting it. they laugh and tell her they dont even listen to their own King, why would they listen to her.

(white is a huge badass by the way. shes the more hardcore and probably coolest protag)

then N steps in and they. fall silent. and they are terrified. the stutter and stammer about how it was all a misunderstanding, and it wasnt their fault, and they didnt mean it, and every excuse they could come up with but N. is kind of like leaf in this sense because he is. angry. but his anger comes off cold and heartless and man he is cool.

so they, because they know theyre screwed already, decide that they wont take this shit anymore and challenge them to a fight. figure if they manage to beat N, maybe they could rule plasma instead. (this is my excuse to get N and White to double battle) and they rock. theyre the perfect tag team. truely the two sides of the same coin

when theyre defeated. N forces them to release their pokemon and they run away, never to show their faces to plasma again. They stand there in silence for a while, and N asks “Why did you tell me not to stay there?”

shes quiet for a while before answering “Because…you believe in what you do” and “I didn’t want you to see the worst of what was going on.” 

he thanks her for her concern, and tells her not to think like that, because now he finally sees what shes been trying to tell him about plasma, and maybe he can do something about it now that he knows. ignorance is never bliss, he adds, and she knows hes right. she just didnt want him to be hurt, she thinks

she asks what hes going to do, and he answers he’d try to weed out whatever corruption was in plasma. he hopes what the grunts say wasnt true, and that this was just a small mutiny, not rooting from the very top.

FYI SHES NOT SUPPORTING PLASMA at this point she still hates plasmas ass for doing what they do, but shes seen now the way some trainers treat their pokemon (in and out of plasma) and she thinks that if this cause was done right, it would help the world a lot

unfortunaly N is a fool lol and wants to liberate ALLLL THE DAMN POKEMON. 

ofc after this. ghetsis goes and. poisons his mind again with how shes a fool and shes trying to manipulate you and why would you doubt your own father. and right after this N. becomes the hero of ideals and they become worse enemies than theyve ever been. she becomes the hero of truth and he smiles because suddenly. everything makes sense. why hes always so happy to be around her. why it feels like she completes him despite all their differences and he. loves her he just doesnt know it 

and she knows for a fact that ghetsis is behind all of this but because N is the king, she has to go through him first. 

and she really cares for N. she actually ends up realising after he leaves that yeah, she pretty much loved him. and she hates his ass for leaving. so she goes to chase him down because cheesy as it is, these two are literally soulmates. they both acknowledge that meeting and growing with the other has made them better and stronger people and white refuses to let that go.

(i love their story and dynamic)

i dont have a set reuniting scene for them yet, the only one i have is.,.,. a part of that other story im lowkey working on..,.,. but she slaps him thats for sure LOL. hes like a puppy hes so happy to see her again hes like “White!!” and shes. PISSED. she has tears in her eyes and CATCH THESE HANDS. leaf and green are probably there and theyre like WHOA WHAT

green actually relates to white bc of this bc yeah, i waited for like 3 years for the love of my life too

[incorrectmyfriendquotes]

Who should you fight: Our friends edition

Eli: You can look at this one of two ways. Either Eli will straight up just kick your ass and you'll have a bad time. He knows more about fighting than you and probably has some pent up emotions he needs to get out. On the other hand, if you catch him in a good mood he'll fight fair and you'll probably learn a thing or two. So it's really your call on this one.

Sarah: Absolutely Not. Sarah can and will kick your ass. She's very strong and not afraid of you. Also once Sarah kicks your ass Eli will also kick your ass so its a lose lose. Everybody will remember you as the dumbass who thought they could fight Sarah and live.

Shelby: No doubt you could take her in a fight. She's weak as fuck, even if she does have a little muscle definition in her arms at any given moment, she has no power to back it up. Although you might make her cry which is hard for some people to deal with. She'll ultimately thank you for humbling her so I'd say go for it if you think you can take the emotional toll.

Ethan: I'm not saying you should fight ethan. He's pretty strong and I don't see him taking it easy on you if you start a fight. Especially don't start something about Lydia or his family. I haven't seen Ethan actually mad but I think it'd be pretty scary. So maybe just steer clear of this one all together.

Lydia: NO. Do you want to die. You god damn idiot. If you pick a fight with Lydia you are now automatically fighting Ethan And Shelby and probably everyone else. You Will Lose. Just don't do it. Why would you even want to? You monster.

Chloe: This is very similar to Lydia. Don't be stupid. Everyone would willingly die for Chloe much less ruin your shitty day. They'd love to destroy you for so much assaying something rude to Chloe so good fucking luck. Also Chloe may be small but I think she could do some damage herself before anyone else even enters the picture.

Isaac C: I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand I think a good fight could really help Isaac get his life together. He's always talking about wanting to beat the shit out of people. But losing a fight would be a real blow to his self esteem. So maybe fight Isaac and let him win? Don't make it obvious that you let him win. And don't fight him if you're just going to ruin his day.

Destry: Please don't fight Destry. Destry is my baby boy and also has some pent up shit theyre dealing with that i think they would take out on you. Even if they didn't win the fight you'd feel worse about yourself for being the placeholder for shitty parents. Just. Don't.

Grace: Grace is tall which is good for her in a fight but shes skinny and not as healthy as she could be. So maybe you could take her in a physical fight but why would you want to. Sit down and have a civil discussion with her instead, I assure you that you'll both enjoy that much more.

Bailey: Bailey is a bad ass and I wouldn't cross her. She seems nice and she wears pink a lot but there's something intimidating there and I just wouldn't recommend trying to start something.She might imagine your someone she has a real problem with and then Look Out. Stay away from Bailey unless you're looking to provide a good friendship to her, it's what she deserves.

Ollie: Ollie may want you to fight her. If she says this, go ahead. I can't stop her from making these decisions and maybe a single fight would be good for you both. Be careful, she too is very strong and harbors a hatred for a parent that could easily be unleashed on you. You can fight her but carefully!

Patrick (Atlas): Patrick may say they want you to beat them up but like. Don't. Aren't they going through enough already? Don't fight Atlas. Listen to their songs and give them a blanket and go to steak n shake with them. It's so much easier that way. Everyone wins.

Isaac B: What the FUCK is wrong with you. Why would you do this? Fuck you. First off, wise guy, Isaac B is in Pennsylvania so Im not sure how you think you're gonna pull this fight off anyway. Secondly, what has he ever done wrong in his life to warrant you fighting him? Hint: Nothing. Leave this Front Bottom loving bird boy alone!

Rai: No no no! Rai is an angel! Anyone on this list would have your head for even suggesting a fight with Rai. Are you prepared to fight everyone else on this list, Scott Pilgrim seven evil exes style? I know you aren't so just go home buddy. It's not worth it.

Jesse: Please fight Jesse! He's a horrible little goblin man and should just be fought on principal. All he does is terrorize and bully me after all I've done for him. Kick his twink looking ass!! He's scrawny! It will be an easy fight, although he does get an attack bonus if radiohead is playing, so make sure to prepare for that.

Heather: You know what? Go ahead. Fight Heather. She wants to fuck bowser AND donkey kong and so I really can't defend her actions any longer. Just go for it my guy. She is still good so don't be too hard on her but definitely go for it.

Chr*st*an P*tts: He's not really a 'friend' but fight this guy. He deserves it more than anyone. You won't win. He's often close to death as it is and the closer he is to death the less he has to lose. e fears no gods and certainly doesn't fear a mortal like yourself. But I urge you to fight him anyway. Please. Someones got to.

All in all... Maybe don't fight our friends? It just doesn't seem like it would work out for you /:

[tumblunni]

Speaking of my dumb story ideas, I’ve been thinking some stuff to flesh out the Cathedral Game’s setting! RANDOM IDEAS AHOY LONG POST AHOY

* I’m thinking I need to make some concrete ideas for the villains maybe. When I first had the dream that inspired this all, it was just some sort of ambiguous ‘demon army’, kinda like a mindless zombie plague or i dunno, maybe the demons were sentient but they were all evil except for florin anyway? It was a more boring cliche kind of enemy than I usually write, with no moral grey area. Just an endless wave of foes that would justify the setting where everyone is stuck living inside a church and you have to defend it and try and turn it into a little town. And I guess if we had to have a 100% evil enemy with very little character development then it makes me less uncomfortable if theyre some sort of supernatural nonsentient plague instead of a bunch of people born evil. But then Florin existing as your sidekick was like the first part of the dream and it was never explained why he was the only non evil, completely sentient demon. Plus now I have a different zombie-themed story so mindless plagues would be samey. PLUS... welll... I need to stop being all ‘because I saw it in a dream it is somehow a cosmic message that it has to be in the story and can never be changed’. Kinda the point of being awake is that i can look at things more rationally and plug the ol plotholes, yo!

* So anyway, the idea I had was that it would... just simply be an actual army of actual villains with actual motivations and moral ambiguity. I was thinking maybe the setting could be like the perspective of civilians trapped in-between a civil war between two countries, just trying to survive and hoping that the promise of reincforcements coming to evacuate is actually true. The gamneplay of holding the fort and constantly gunning down enemies could be even more depressing when you know that not all of them are necessarily evil, they’re just soldiers doing their job. Maybe its ambiguous whether your country or their country shot first, maybe its like their country is suffering from some form of recession or illness or lack of resources and they’re only trying to conquer this other country because their families are dying at home? Maybe its some form of religious conflict, or maybe its even something with a very villainous dictator running the show but the people working underneath them are just normal citizens forcibly drafted into a war they dont believe in. There’s a whole pile of different possibilities for moral ambiguity, yo! Not sure yet which would work best, hmm...

* Might possibly be an opportunity to use a character I’ve been sitting on for a while but couldnt find a story that suited her. After I played Fe: Awakening I felt really uncomfortable about how the game treated Excellus as if he was hateable only because he was ugly and ambiguously gay/transgender. like.. he’s a horrible jerk of a villain yet the plot really overfocuses on insulting his appearance and gender rather than retaliating against the things he actually does. Made me feel sympathy for a jerk I never wanted to feel sympathy for! So I kinda ended up being inspired by the wasted potential and thinking up an idea for a similar character who actually IS sympathetic, and has the ambiguous LGBTQ aspect properly explored as a plotline. I think it could actually be powerfully sympathetic to see this villain who’s constantly degraded and misgendered by her teammates, and has a lot of reason to believe the worst of humanity. Someone who could switch sides if shown some basic decency by our heroes, maybe? And I felt it could be good if she did have a very similar personality to Excellus, just like a good version of it. She could still be a comic relief egotistical person, but not a murderous monster. And the ego could be like... sad, because she’s purposely trying to act unaffected and secure and like she loves herself, when really she’s being treated like shit and doesnt know if she deserves it or not. And I was thinking also possibly she could be a greedy merchant type character, like Anna? (also from Fe: Awakening) That could be the role she takes in the town once you recruit her, she could be a savvy businesswoman badass! Playing rune factory 4 makes me appreciate how cool a trader character can be, Arthur is so neato~! He talks about it like its the most amazing job ever, I just feel like it could be even cooler if we had that passion along with a more goofy greedy personality. Like ‘hahaha im only in it for the money’, but no, she really has this kinda cheesy cute reason why she does the job, she just really enjoys meeting new people and being able to change the world a little piece at a time. It reaffirms her faith in humanity after all she’s been through. (Tho also she’s still a total badass, since she was a former general of the villain country, after all!)

* Oh and I was thinking of a really tragic alternative route for her if you don’t recruit her. You could fight her multiple times throughout the game and then when you get to the final one and she realizes there’s no escape she suddenly drops the comic relief act and it gets really somber. I was thinking maybe she could have a mentor type character or a friend or a love interest or something? Or some other something she was trying to keep safe all along, some reason why she still had hope, some reason why she was fighting for an army she didnt believe in, just to save up enough money for... some sort of life goal? I dunno, maybe she has a sibling who’s in the hospital and she’s trying to save up for treatment, and then on the day of the final battle she gets a telegram hearing that they died and she wasnt even there to say goodbye. (And the death would somehow be directly caused by the player’s actions, thus determining whether you recruit her or not) So even though every time before she always flaked out like a coward with a comedic quip as soon as it looked like she was losing, now she just doesnt have anything else left to lose. This time she WILL NOT LET YOU redeem her, she will not let you SPARE her, she doesnt even speak a single word in the entire battle. Her difficulty spikes immensely in this fight to the death, and she only cracks a smile and gives a parting quip once you’ve dealt the final blow. And I was just imagining it could be EXTRA depressing combined with her plot of facing predjudice for being transgender! She’s spent most of this time being treated by the other commanders as ‘sir [name]’, gritting her teeth and bearing all this degredation, trying not to stand out too much. But in the end now nobody else is here to put her down, all those other ‘brave knights’ are the ones who ran away like cowards and left the ‘coward’ to take the last stand. And she doesnt care if she dies anymore. So she hangs up her armour for this fight and instead decides to go out in all her finery, wearing the dress she’s kept locked away in her trunk the whole time. Walking onto the battlefield like a bloody bride, and being one hell of a monster boss battle despite missing all of her platemail. A whirling dance of death! To go out smiling! To maybe make her family proud, and if she can meet them on the other side she could do it with the face she always wanted to wear.

* ....basically make it super depressing so you regret your actions and go back and see what the other option leads to. But also so badass that people wouldnt regret seeing the scene, yknow? And this might be the height of her character arc, kinda, but she’d be able to have whole new character arcs if you choose to recruit her. And you can make your own badass battles with her now! * Not sure tho whether maybe the family member/mentor/whoever might die either way though? That could fit the bittersweet found-family themes of the game, pretty much everybody’s someone who’s lost their biological relations and found new people to love in this new community. It could just be like... the choice between this person dying tragically and causing merchant-general-lady to commit suicide, or them passing away naturally due to their illness after saying goodbye to her, leading to her joining the heroes to try and prevent tragedies like this. * A possible other EVEN MORE tragic idea I had- an alternative where this person has already been dead for a long time before the start of the story, and the villain leader has been lying to merchant-general in order to keep her working as their minion. So the player choice would be like... you can reveal it to her and purposely send her into a suicidal spiral as an attempt to destabilize the enemy forces and win an important battle. Its a complete dick move, yes, but it could save the lives of all your family and friends! But then if you believe that this merchant-general is actually redeemable you could like... do the same thing but with different motives, in a different way. Reveal it in less of a sadistic, tactically-planned way, and more of a ‘no seriously this is why you cant trust your boss’ way. And she’d be likely to actually believe you if you’d been befriending her before now. * Or perhaps maybe her sibling died years ago and she heard about it but was unable to accept it, since it was her only reason to keep on going. Maybe she feels guilt that she was too busy making money to try and save them, and that meant she wasnt there to hold their hand when they passed away. So now she keeps on hoarding money for no purpose at all, except because this routine keeps her going. And she keeps writing letters to someone who’s already dead. * buuuut that might be too similar to Malachi’s plot, since he has memory problems regarding a tragic event in his past. Though it was his own death rather than a family member’s! ....actually I dunno, maybe a twist could be that he’s actually her lost sibling? That’d kinda be wrapping things up too coincidentally though. But on the other hand it could be an interesting plot to explore his relationship with his newly returned biological sibling, compared to the adoptive relationship he’s been developing with Florin. RIVALS FOR TINY BABBU’S LOVE! Buuuuuut I also liked the idea of Florin’s death being very far back in the timeline, and he’s been sleeping underneath those ruins for over a century. It could be cool to have him experiencing a lot of things for the first time, and to get a perspective on the past before the war...

* ALSO ANOTHER POTENTIAL CHARACTER IDEA * Another enemy recruit maybe! I seem to be going in twos, I made two demon characters and now two redeemy people XD The idea I had was that this could be just a random soldier that you keep as a prisoner, and have to decide whether to execute him or not. It can be hard to keep prisoners of war when you’re stuck in this seige situation and you barely even have enough food to keep your own teammates alive! Tensions could run high because you’re choosing to keep this guy alive when its making things worse for us all, plus we cant really trust him, seriously?? He surrendered but maybe its just a trap to infiltrate us! He claims a sob story of his country being forced to invade us because of famine, and being drafted against his will, but can we trust anything that comes from the mouth of one of those scum?? And then there’s the question of what exactly you’ll do with him if you think he cant be trusted! Are you able to execute him in cold blood? Do you set him free and hope this decision doesnt come back to bite you in the ass? Do you try and execute him while pretending you didnt- setting him loose in the forest to die of exposure or at the hands of his own former comrades...?? And its very annoying because the entire time he’s insistantly begging you to kill him, and generally being a huge downer! :P This is what convinces you to spare him, if you pick that option. It starts off as just ‘I’m gonna spite you, I won’t let you die if its what you want’, but eventually you realise he really never wanted to be part of this war, and he’s weighed down so much by his sins that his pleading for suicide was completely genuine. There’s no spy plots, he was just a simple farmer thrown into battle with nothing more than the clothes on his back and the sharpest pitchfork he could salvage from the wreckage of his old farm before it was torn down. The famine ruined his business and he had no way of surviving unless he sold his land to the army, to be bulldozed and turned into the site of a new weapons factory. And even after that he ended up forcibly drafted when things got even worse, losing what little livelihood he’d managed to scrape together again. He doesnt have a home to go back to, he just wanted to die on the battlefield, and by all odds he SHOULD HAVE! This is the condition of this latest round of ‘soldiers’, nobody even wastes armour on them, theyre just disposeable fodder to be mowed down as a distraction. What shitty luck, that he just happened to get captured by some bleeding-heart fools who refuse to chop his damn head off! So basically I’m imagining him like a Nanu-esque depressed grandpa who’s kinda sassy sometimes but also really really needs a hug. And like... model prisoner, to a comical degree. When he comes to terms with the fact he aint gonna get killed no matter how much he begs, he’s just like ‘dammit i cant help but help’. He’s just a normal good guy at heart, he’s not really on your side so to speak, he loved his country but he didnt agree with them wanting to wipe out your country either. he misses how his country used to be, and he doesnt know anything about your country or whether its any better, he doesnt have much hope. But when he’s stuck with nothing to do all day, he just cant help subconciously falling into kindly grandpa behaviours! Gotta clean up this cell! Hey, do you want some cookery tips, mr guard? Oh whoops, mr guard you dropped the cell keys, here have them back! Hey this bar over here has poor structural integrity, I tried to rope it back together with a braid of my own back hair! All the time he’s trying to trick you into agreeing to execute him, and being a total sycophant agreeing with everyone who says he’s evil. CMON IM TOTALLY EVIL, PLEASE STAB ME, I’LL BAKE YOU COOKIES! And then as time goes on he just becomes less of a prisoner and ends up making friends with everyone, winning the trust of even those who opposed him the most at the start. All entirely unwillingly! Agreeing with all their oppositions so hard that they stop opposing XD He ends up just pottering around doing odd jobs as a janitor/groundskeeper type guy, even ends up being the one in charge of keeping the keys to the jail he started off in. Somehow the most trustworthy man in the whole town, cos he’s the one person who will never say he’s trustworthy! His humble goodness just shines through~! And he could help out a lot cos he has inside info on the enemy army, and is able to give a sympathetic perspective of the everyday citizens’s life, and just how much dissent there is, how few people are willingly cooperating with the war and how they can find allies and destabilize this regime based entirely on fear instead of loyalty. He’s like a ray of hope that changes everyone’s perspective on this big seemingly-inpeneterable all-evil army! A grumpy suicidal ray of hope, who never shuts up about how hopeless it is! XD of course, eventually he’d be able to find new reason to live in this own, and make friends, and have hugs and joy~! But it’d be a hard journey! And a journey filled with a lot of ‘geez grandpa stop joking about suicide holy shit’ *disciplinary hugs* * Tho actually I dunno if a farmer would be a good career choice for him, I just picked it cos its the easiest to imagine him losing his livelihood in the war. His career in the town would be being this janitor kindly advice man/treasurer sort of guy, but i dunno... if he was a banker before then that makes him too similar to general lady :P ...maybe he was a janitor on someone else’s farm...? Honestly I would love an excuse to have a badass sympathetic janitor man and go on a bit of a small rant about how service work is very physically demanding and deserves a higher minimum wage yknow. RESPECT JANIGRAMP ... actually the name Jani is a good name his name is now jani it is law Jani the groundskeeper, because jani the janitor sounds dumb. SYNONYMS!

* Thinking of ideas for the fictional religion I’m gonna create for this world! Its more fun if we have a completely fictional set of traditions that’re just a general metaphor for topical questions about real life religion n stuff. And it would sidestep the problem of plots accidentally seeming like theyre ‘oh this one religion is evil and false’, when really the point i want to make is about how people of all religions are capable of perverting their faith’s peaceful teachings and using it as an excuse to wage wars. hell, athiests have done the same thing! ‘this religion is inherantly evil bwaaaah’ stuff IS athiests using their own beliefs as an excuse to hurt others. Thats the kind of athiest I never want to be! I completely respect religion and I think that we can never have an answer as to what’s true about creation or an afterlife, we can never know until we die. I don’t believe in heaven, but I dont think I have absolute proof it’s wrong, and I dont care about proving myself right or converting people. I feel inspired when I see people draw strength from their religion, even if I don’t believe in it! Lots of great things have been done in the name of different religions, just like lots of terrible things have. Human beings are great and terrible things, human beings make choices. This doesnt tar everyone with the same brush of whoever made the wrong decision, just because they believe in the same gods! ....man, sorry, I went off on a mini rant there. But yeah, what I hope to do is to have religion as a framing device and discuss some problems with certain so-called religious people, but also show the positive side of it via the protagonists. I mean, the whole point is that you’re living in a church, after all! The idea is that you’d hear a lot of horror stories of other people acting very ungodly in the name of god, both in the enemy army and in the hidden secrets of people in your own country’s government. But the goal is that you see all this hellish stuff and you still choose to be a bastion of what you believe is good and true, you learn from these mistakes and try and make the true sanctuary that everyone was seeking when they fell into the traps of those other monsters. And also I was thinking it;d be like the protagonist’s exploration of being agnostic, after her faith was shaken from her original church being destroyed in this war. She was the only survivor, maliciously left alive by [currently unnamed main villain rival guy], who wanted her to suffer the grief of knowing she’d failed her role as protector. But instead she travelled onwards and found this other church full of defenseless people that need a new guardian, and she is FUCKING DETERMINED to never fail again! It started as just seeking revenge against that evil overlord, but instead its become about protecting these new people and regaining her faith in humanity. And that doesnt necessarily mean regaining her faith, that’s up to the player. She has a journey of realizing that some things about her former church may have actually been corrupt, and that she was just blindly following instead of making her own decisions, She has her hero worship of her dead comrades dismantled, and has to come to her own conclusions about what’s right and wrong in the scriptures she’d learned, and what she’ll do as she goes forward. Its up to the player to decide whether she regains her faith or decides to become an athiest in the end, or even remains agnostic and decides she isnt able to find an answer yet, but either way she will still be forged into a true blue hero, no matter the reasons behind it! I wanna make all options an equally good ending, its just a personal choice that changes some scenes but not necessarily the course of the story.

* Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah! Religion ideas! I was considering possibly the legend could involve something about ‘an absent god’. The traditions say that humanity failed the creator long ago, and they left us behind because of it. The direction of all religion is based around this idea that we are inherantly born sinful, and have to do certain things in order to appease our ancestors’s sins and bring the gods back. I’m thinking it would be a good idea to create multiple sects of religion that’re variants on the same original holy text, that’s something that fictional religions dont tend to do for some reason. In this case it could be different perspectives on how exactly god dissappeared, and what exactly god saw as our sin, what on earth we have to do to make up for it. And I was thinking that the idea could be that god shattered into a million pieces that were scattered across the world. This leads to territory wars over places that’ve been determined to contain remains of god buried beneath the earth, and people invading indigenous civilizations in the name of holy tasks to dig for these relics. Power struggles over how many god burial grounds your country owns at any given time, controversy every time a digging operation fails to find a crystal. Pieces of god being used practically as currency, used to power magical weaponry in these wars... lies and deceit over fake godstones that no-one can prove you don’t own... * And this way even though magic does clearly exist in this world, it leaves it ambiguous whether religion is true, and whether any of the different sects is more accurate about the true will of god. It would seem reasonable that athiests exist here even when magic exists, thats usually a problem in fictional settings, you have gods right out here in the open yet some people still dont believe in them? XD It’d be like... yes maybe all these crystals that grant magical powers are actually fragments of an absent god. Maybe they grant those magical powers because of the reasons scripture tells us. Maybe if you bring them all together you can meet god and be granted one wish, maybe you could end the war. Buuuuuuuut.... maybe there’s just a natural crystal that grows underground and grants magical powers. Maybe nothing happens when you put it all together. Maybe it’s just like how people considered electricity to be unpredictable divine punishment before we learned how to harness it for ourselves.

* And there could be like... sects of the religion who believe god chose to leave us out of shame for our sinfulness, sects who believe a certain group of humans betrayed god and shattered them, thus holy war is justified against that country. Perhaps even sects that believe that god being shattered was a positive thing, that god chose to give fragments of their power to humans so they could choose their own destiny. (This is considered as scandalous as satan-worship in-universe) And there’s a related sect that believes that humans only even came into existance after the shattering event, that shattering into pieces was how god granted sentience and free will to the angelic servants we used to be. And this has permenantly corrupted us, thus the sin that we need to undo in order to retun god is... individuality, in all its forms. I think these are the ones who had the very extreme fanatical members who ran Malachi’s former church, and committed various atrocities including his murder. (Though, again, this doesnt mean that the viewpoint is inherantly evil. Just the people who took it from ‘tranquility, enlightenment and fealty to fellow man’ to ‘LITERALLY NO INDIVIDUALITY EVER’) ....hmmm, actually the morality system could be even more complex if I nail down a set of different factions of the religion and let you choose between all of them in the end. (or choosing none of them, or choosing your own interpretation) And there’d sorta be a fanatical/critical morality bar too, which determines whether you get the good or bad ending. In this case ‘critical’ would be the good option, I mean it more like... ‘I’ve analyzed everything about this scripture and come to my own conclusions, I won’t do anything immoral out of blind belief unless I actually have reasons to agree that it’s the right choice’. Aka how any normal good person decides on a religion to follow. And the fanatical side would be leaning towards never questioning. So sometimes you would have to like... take options that would seem like ‘the bad option’. Dont just blindly agree with everything that points to a particular faction viewpoint, that’ll lead to badness! Sometimes you have to question things, take it from the perspective of a character who is discovering their own faith, rather than a player who already knows from the beginning what option they want to pick.

* Man this has got complicated lol, I’m starting to ramble!

* Anyway, i was thinking this would explain what the ‘demons’ are, in this world. Normally humans can only use magic by using godstone as a power source, demon is a universal term for all creatures that are made of magic and can use it infinately as part of their very being. They’re considered unholy and must be destroyed, because they’re ‘imprisoning’ a shard of god inside them. And its really unfair because its a complete and utter random chance if someone becomes a demon when they die, you can live your entire life thinking you’re a normal human until the godstone in your heart activates and saves your life. Your life which is now ressurected in a monsterous form and can never return to your old family. The traditions say that it only happens to people who are sinful, thus they totally deserve to be slain, of course! Oh, and I think the main evil army guys would be using demons as weapons, which is part of why the anti-demon sentiment is like... even worse than usual in the protagonist’s country. Its incredibly depressing because demons are completely sentient, and the only way they become mindless battle monsters is if they’re tortured beyond breaking point. The same way you’d reduce a human to that state. But the protagonist starts off not even knowing that demons can talk until she meets Florin, she’s only ever seen these demonic ‘soldiers’ that’re really just whipped and beaten prisoners chained together and thrown towards the enemy in the hope both parties kill each other. “Yeah but why do so many demons ally with the empire?” *florin looks into the camera like he’s on the office* And I was thinking maybe a more positive religious interpretation of the existance of demons could be that they’re actually angels instead. (Yeah, even if this religion is very different its gonna probably have a lot of similarities to protestant christianity since that’s what I was raised in. i dont feel comfortable critcising someone else’s religion that I’m not personally experienced with, yknow?) ANYWAY SORRY FOR THAT ASIDE Yeah, there could be some very rare pro-demon religious folk who believe that those who are reborn after death are actually chosen ones rather than sinful. These fragments of god blessed certain people who were pure enough in heart to earn the power to be able to enact god’s love to the world. Because even though god is in pieces, god very much wants to forgive us. These magical beings are sent as god’s messengers to help guide us on the right path to redemption. That’s why they have such great powers of creation! (though others would say its destruction...) A single plant demon like Florin could watch over and sustain an entire forest, revive it from drought and become a cornerstone to build a whole city around! Though even this faction isnt 100% correct or incorruptable, there are those who’d interpret this as demons having a DUTY to do that. There are rogue members of this faction who enslave demons just as much as the people who use them as weapons. I was thinking a plot could be that Florin almost gets suckered in by a band of these guys, he’s just so overwhelmed to find anyone who doesnt hate demons! But they want to imprison him and force him to grow their crops forever until he dies of exhaustion, because that’ll mean he’s ~happily fullfilled his purpose and rejoined god~. I mean, if he says he doesnt want to, thats just so sad! That means this pure angel has been corrupted by humanity’s sin, he doesnt know what he’s saying! * man i have so many ideas aaaaa