#this feels like the sort of thing you do a bunch of playthroughs for

[rad-roche]

finished disco elysium

[vigilskeep]

i have never thought of the bg3 paths as railroaded before but oh my god... i see your vision. i think that, for all that can be picked apart in the writing of dragon age, the worldbuilding in that series is so so interested in complicating all factions that you can envision a character who /makes sense/ while bouncing through various ideologies. and the sort of fantasy writing in (most of) the forgotten realms doesn't really allow for that.

dao is particularly the light of my life because the origins mechanic is specifically intended to let you create a character who has a distinctive perspective on the world that’s grounded in the worldbuilding. one of my favourite aspects of this is several origins having completely different codex entries on their own culture as opposed to those an outsider would get. it’s really good! it’s also a reasonably grounded world (while obviously silly) because, like, the basic fundamental premise of thedas, from which they ikea flatpack built almost every feature, is “how would people react to magical and fantastical diversity? the same way they react to human diversity.” you’re meant to feel like, aside from i guess the darkspawn, people are normal and have real motivations. sure it has to fulfil certain roles in a story, and dragon age was manufactured too quickly and purposefully for everything to land feeling authentic, but evil in dragon age should feel recognisable. and in most of the origins they give you a chance to do something that is bad, but also totally makes sense, because of the context of your character belonging to this world where these things happen

in dnd/the forgotten realms it’s a bit different because capital e Evil exists, so there are people and deities and devils (and, to open another can of worms, races) whose entire goal is to Do Evil. it’s also harder to produce grounded evil because in a world where i’m being given basically no context and just told to make whatever i want, i don’t have an inch of the kind of social information i get from for example a dao origin: what my character has been taught to believe they should do to survive, who they are willing to sacrifice, whatever. bg3 also happens to have a main plot goal that is, at least for the first part of the game, broadly selfish (“i am sick, and i need a cure”) which works really well for getting a bunch of people with vastly differing moral standards to band together for the same goal, and not so good for any kind of “greater good” type blurred morality, so that’s out too

however much the worldbuilding factors into this, bg3 specifically went for quite a clear distinction between the good path and the capital e Evil Path, and i find it pretty hard to vary up the good path. when i say railroaded i mean you either do the specific thing that gets you a quest down the line or not. i was really disappointed actually in my playthrough where i totally fucked up in the druids’ grove and caused a fight to break out, because it immediately instakilled tons of characters i knew i would need down the line. the few it spared needed some of the dead ones to stay alive in later quests, so it’s like... oh. that’s just... over. for both factions. bg3 arguably lets you do basically anything you want but they are able to do that because if you fuck around it just breaks the entire quest line from coming up again, which means playing a character who fucks up is not even really going to get me consequences it’s just going to cut content from the game. does that make sense? and then the Evil Path is just straight up evil, like... there’s no way for me to complicate and empathise, here, especially playing a blank canvas character whose motivations i would have to make up from nothing, and who faces basically no consequences for not doing this. the only neutral/cowardly/self-interested option in act 1 is to do neither path, which gets me the least content because i literally don’t get to play the fucking game

i don’t know, i’m not saying it’s necessarily bad just that it’s hard for me, personally, and how i like to create characters. especially when you have my constant restart disease and you have to do this all over again a dozen times just for a handful of different dialogue. does any of that make sense

[sunshine-and-moonshine]

Cod Men in a Dating Sim

Requested: No

Warnings: Light bit of angst

A/N: Did I watch a bunch of (and by that I mean 3) dating games just so I could get inspiration for this? ……Maybe

Ghost - The Punk/Goth Guy

By far the hardest and most frustrating character to romance, Ghost’s route leaves even the most seasoned completionist in tears. People who attempt to do playthroughs of the game won’t even attempt it, and much of his route is virtually unknown. His trust is hard won and easily lost, even the tiniest of mistakes will affect your whole game with him, to the point that you could very well lose all progress with him at any point. There have been demands and petitions for the devs to change his route, calling him stupidly difficult, not worth the effort it takes. Oh but those select few who get to peek behind the curtain? Those that get to woo him and make him blush, who truly hold his heart? They’re in love, will defend him and his horrible jokes and his sad boi personality until they die.

Soap - The Himbo Jock

Soap, the cheerful and upbeat type. Always doing some sort of high energy sport in his free time, his happiness infecting you everytime you two cross paths, his smile only growing bigger every time you both talk. He always wants to be doing something with you, his arm around your waist, loud and happy and brighter than the sun. Doesn’t matter what type of activity you like doing, he wants to be doing it with you. His route is the easiest to get through and his charm draws in all kinds of people, making him almost unanimously loved through the fandom of the game. To the point that people recommending the game always say that you should start with his route first. He’s kind of the poster boy of the whole game at this point.

König - The Shy Guy

König, the sweet librarian at your local library, always so kind but painfully shy when you try and talk to him. Books almost always clutched to his chest, twiddling his thumbs and ducking his head with a blush rising under his mask if you make even the slightest attempt to get close to him, an absolute mess if you flirt with him. He’s the adorable sweetheart of the game that, even if you don’t want to romance him, is just nice and adorable in general. But when you really get into his route, he is so flirty. Granted it’s only when he thinks you can’t hear (unaware that he has literal subtitles telling you what he says). And he gets so protective, always offering to walk you everywhere and just generally tending to stick around you and show you all sorts of things he enjoys, always eager when you return the favor and show him your own favorite things.

Alejandro - The Flirt

Alejandro likely met you through your mutual friend in the game, Rudy. Coming to visit his old pal and meets you at his home, instantly all over you, suave flirtations leaving his lips every other second as he tries to get you alone every chance he can get, much to Rudy’s annoyance. At first it’s a bit of a game, just another blip in the back of his mind, nothing serious. But as time goes on, it becomes more and more serious, more genuine. His advances start to become a bit softer but now carry real feelings in them. He’s a character that many think is too sleazy at first but come to adore him and his sweet nature as you progress through his route. He’s not as loved of a character as Soap but he is in the top three, tied with Rudy.

Rudy - The Best Friend

Rudy. Sweet adorable lovable Rudy. He is the character who plays the role of the best friend with the long time crush. Very poorly hidden crush by the way. He’s never very bold with his words but his actions communicate his feelings very well. He’s always happy to talk to you, and even listens to you if you’re trying to romance another character and something goes awry. It hurts him but he puts on a good act, even if he distances a bit from you upon learning of your feelings for a different character. His sweet and supportive personality is why he ties with Alejandro in the top three favorites, and many adore him and enjoy repetitively romancing him, never seeming to get bored of finding all his secrets.

[cerastes]

Apropos the Nioh 2 rec, do you have any tips or recommendations for newcomers to it?

This is NOT a Soulsborne. Don't treat it as such. It plays similarly in some aspects, especially during the early game, but it comes with big differences: Active skills are aplenty and allow you make a "moveset" of sorts, kind of like Godhand, just not that robust (since each weapon has three different base, fixed movesets).

Your first playthrough will be radically different from every other playthrough, or "Dream Of". You play Soulsborne-like the first playthrough. You play a character action game on subsequent playthroughs.

Your first playthrough is just fucking around trying new things. You can respect relatively freely eventually, and even then, don't worry because you can't really fuck up your build, there's no such thing as building in the first playthrough, just play.

Getting like 30 Dex and 30 Magic to be able to use a myriad of Ninjutsu and Onmyo Magic is recommended. You're not a Ninja build or Onmyo build for it, any build uses this, because there's no builds until way later in the Dreams Of, there's playstyles first and foremost.

Nioh 2 is an aggressive game. Use your Burst Counter, make your openings by force when you can, go hog wild on openings if you can't, but in general, remember aggression is the name of the game.

If you find a cheese, use it. Enemies are designed strong but with the game systems in mind. If an enemy is susceptible to poison, poison will FUCK it up. If an enemy is susceptible to Paralysis, which really straight up just freezes you in place, get Paralyzing.

If you inflict two Elements on an enemy at once (Burn and Saturated, Shocked and Corrupted, etc), they additionally become afflicted with Confused. Confused enemies take 50% extra damage while Confusion is active. It's insanely high damage and extremely important on subsequent Dreams of past the first one, but it'll definitely be amazing in your first playthrough as well if you can leverage it.

Swords are basic bitch weapons and good to get the feeling of the game, but really, just try anything that catches your eye.

Use Ki Pulse and stance changes. Don't complain that the game is hard if you're not willing to interact with its systems.

High stance is your offensive, high damage stance that doesn't bounce off block but it has a shit dodge. Medium stance is your all-purpose stance with good tools all around and the best defensive tools like parries and counters, with a good dodge (quickstep into roll). Low stance is your non-committal, safe, quick, very low damage, high hit amount stance that's good at building up status effects and has the best dodging tools with two quicksteps.

Straight up use your resources. Don't save stuff For Later, just use the damn things, you'll get a bunch again anyways.

[infinitebrians]

Favorite Games of 2023 Part 4: Pseudoregalia

I knew Pseudoregalia was going to be good the minute I started the game and did the input for the Mario 64 side flip jump and the game’s main character Sybil did her own version of that satisfying jump. One of my all time favorite things to do in a Mario game (or any game) is that side flip, a jump that is as practical as it is just simply satisfying to do. Sybil being able to do that jump without needing any of the power ups found in the game told me that the developers of this game knew the importance to making character feel good jumping around in a 3D world. Her movement only gets better from there with a bunch of new platforming abilities that makes her capable of getting what feels like anywhere in that game world if desired. The pure control you have over Sybil's platforming capabilities gave me so many great moments of pure curiosity to experiment with what could work. What's better is watching friends and others play the game and figure out their own solutions to the game's open ended platforming design. There are no wrong answers in the world of Pseudoregalia, just results.

This game was a complete surprise in just about every way, just the best feeling platformer I’ve played in a long while in this small, cleaned up former game jam game. I’ve followed the main dev rittzler on twitter for a few years because the gameplay clips of their work have all looked fun and impressive and they always shared other really cool indie dev work as well. So, I was excited to finally play Pseudoregalia when it was announced to be released. It's super low price (6 dollars USD) and being something I was able to finish in the span of one day alone was a huge breath of fresh air in this current gaming environment. It’s something I’ve been personally thinking a lot about recently is the appeal of a simpler, lower priced game. It’s appeal to me coming from playing something that never needs to be some sort of omnipresent, super game. Instead, Pseudoregalia presents itself in a humble statement of, ‘here, enjoy a few hours jumping around this wacky maze like castle as a goat bunny lady!’.

I'm not a person who typically ever has a desire to replay a game right after finishing it, I usually prefer to immediately move on to another game that I've been wishing to play for for a while. Pseudoregalia is a game I've played four or so times now from start to finish, I even started another playthrough in preparation for this drawing/writing and found myself wanting to play it all the way through again. Its the first time I found myself actually physically seeing the appeal of speedrunning, a hobby I always just enjoyed as a spectator. Pseudoregalia just lends itself so neatly to that part of me that loves routing out a path for stuff. How quickly can you find all the vital movement abilities for Sybil? What's unnecessary, what can be improved, what can be gathered while on the path of gathering something else. From at least my perspective of not actually investigating the proper speedrunner's routing, the options feel immense. From these handful of times replaying the game I've gotten a good handle of finding my way around the map and a good idea of how to get a lot of the really important movement abilities almost immediately. It also made the game feel quite different from how it felt to me with my first playthrough, what was once mysterious and labyrinthine was now a familiar playground.

That is one thing I will miss when doing those repeat playthroughs is that sense of discovery that occurred with that initial run. Soon before Pseudoregalia came out, I watched a lot of Videochess and spaghoner's exploration and documentation of the incredible Mario 64 hack, B3313 ( https://youtu.be/pLKB0SG0i8c ). I found that hack incredible at creating a sense of uneasiness and wonder from simply keeping you constantly guessing what was next behind each door something even those two expressed while streaming. During my first playthrough of Pseudoregalia, I was completely lost in that castle and was constantly finding paths that led to new zones or ones circled me back to old ones from hours ago. It was a pretty incredible feeling of discovery that only wore out it's welcome at the end when I just needed one more big key necessary for progression. What helped make exploration in both of these games engaging the whole time is that aspect of having a really fun character to move around as while being lost. It was okay with being completely lost because I could still just keep doing these long jumps into wall kicks that just make Sybil go fuckin' fast in an immensely satisfying way.

I think in the time it's taken me to think about this game again, and briefly revisit it in preparation for this art/writing I've come to decide that this is probably my favorite new game of 2023. In a year full of fantastic platformers to pick from, this one was just a class above in terms of movement design and movement application.

[animentality]

the fun thing about durgetash for me as far as definitely toxic ships go, is that gortash and durge, as individuals, are toxic. but the ship itself? not toxic at all in my take. because as horrible as they are as people, the love they have for each other is actually very genuine. everyone else in the world is dust under their boots except for each other. they truly respect each other and get along frighteningly well and listen to each other and support each other’s atrocities and so, if you ignore the screaming of their victims in the background, their relationship is actually kind of healthy.

to be fair: this is with my version of them in mind lol i know other people have spicer takes where they ARE actively toxic to each other and such, and those are fun too but ive gotten so into the version of them where they both just exude toxicity to everyone in their lives EXCEPT each other. it’s already a trope im very weak to but its especially crazy with them. its like they cancel each other out somehow lol

like i think it takes a while to get to that point of course, to build up actual trust enough to feel even slightly safe around each other, but once they open up to each other the affection-starvation just jumps out. and then despite everything they manage to actually be gentle with each other. and neither of them deserves gentleness of any sort, but they get it anyway, from each other.

so for me durgetash is “toxic” only by virtue of the individuals involved being horrible terrible people, and because they gleefully support each other’s evil plans, and not because of how they actually treat each other, which is actually the closest thing to “normal” either of them will ever experience (and it is still so, so far from “normal” lol)

but it’s still also nice to be in a ship where the discourse is so obvious we don’t even bother lol. yes gortash has a list of human rights abuses longer than he is tall. yes he’s gonna have an evil cuddle with his evil partner-in-crime in their evil bedroom after a long, hard day of being evil. and i’m gonna be thinking about it <3

Anon, you get me.

I think durgetash just works because...they are so blatantly evil.

Gortash tortured a bunch of people trying to figure out how tadpoles worked, and the evidence of his crimes is in the mindflayer colony beneath Moonrise and in the Steel Watch Foundry. His Steel Watch guards literally kill children and innocent families.

The Dark Urge mentions killing (eating?) a BABY. They have killed thousands. They eat human meat. They torture people.

They both started the entire plot by being total pieces of shit.

So what are you going to do?

Cancel them???

The game cancels them.

Gortash literally got cancelled so hard his brain popped.

The Dark Urge dies in most playthroughs. They only become redeemable by literally dying and becoming a new person. Plus their life is so fucking awful, that it almost cancels out how bad they are, because they're a vessel of Bhaal, who can either choose obedience or death.

They are both so outrageously evil, you can't even be outraged.

No one on the entire planet is defending either of them.

It almost defeats itself as an argument, like, you say Gortash is horrible, and I say yeah, man. You say, the Dark Urge is evil, and I say absolutely.

But that's kind of why...a relationship between the two of them IS so good, though.

Sure, there have always been villainous ships, but...something about these jagged creatures having a soft spot for one another...

It just works.

It's...it's taking two wretched beasts, and giving them something human to hold between their claws.

How can you support them being together, but how could you deny them this?

They're so horrible, they don't deserve love, but at the same time, seeing profoundly evil people are still capable of love, and humanity is inescapable, no matter how inhuman you are...

Hmmmm.

Yes.

The worse Dark Urge and Enver are, the better Durgetash comes.

That's the wonderful conundrum.

It's honestly such a SHIP, anon.

THE Ship.

[shmowder]

Pathologic play where the tragedians slowly fall into love with the player. Not the healer you're controlling, but the player behind the screen.

It starts with small things like reflections giving you more information than normal. You don't think much of it. Pathologic is known for its secret dialogue options at times.

Then you noticed the supposed tutorial tragedians on the street aren't exactly leaving despite progressing through the game. Instead, you can talk to them each day and receive useful information, a valuable item, or straight-up food.

How much more of a constant they've become in your quests, taking it upon themselves to lead you to place, point you towards the fastest route and even slow down time for you when you're not looking.

Only that if you do follow his advice, you notice the executioners following in your steps the next playthrough around. Unlike the tragedians, the townsfolk can see them. Your character keeps getting questioned by others on why are orderlies follow you around so much?

They keep messing with the play, and it's making Mark Immortell clearly frustrated with the mutiny and how you're clearly a bad influence on them. During one scene in the theatre, he suggests starting over so his actors may hopefully regain their senses and stop acting like your fanclub.

Maybe they find it funny courtesy to the bird mask, but they keep leaving you nuts, marbles and other valuable trading items. They blatantly cure you of the plague that one time you couldn't outrun a certain cloud, they give you immunity pills and antibiotics the more you pay them attention and indulge their fawning.

The game practically becomes a cakewalk at this point, and no amount of resetting is fixing it.

If anything, they're more like a harmless crowd of adoring fans that watch you play and cheer from the side whenever you do something cool, fawning at your every action, asking more and more personal questions to get to know you.

Both groups keep watching over you, not so subtly behind Mark's back. Letting you slip away from some dangers for simply smiling their way, throw in a wink, and there is nothing you can't get away with.

Adoring you from the backlines, dropping some bullets and a gun in a building's ground floor furniture just when you're desperate looking for loot.

A bunch of them hanging out at your permanent lair, keeping your storage sorted and just having fun being silly around the place. Some of the tragedians try to make you laugh, and others attempt to impress you with their acrobatics.

While the birdies are surprisingly more coy with their infatuation. They still attempt to play their correct roles, especially the plague executioner. But the second you pick a mean dialogue option to them, their dialogue changes and stutters, visibly deflating in sadness as they mumble the rest of their lines. Staring at you through their intimidating apathetic bird mask like a kicked puppy, wanting your approval but also wanting to be a good actor.

A lot of the more extreme shocking scenes are skipped because they feel too bad to be that mean to you. You don't get death taunting you in the marbles nest, nor does the plegue insult you in the haruspex's route each time you make progress.

Actually- it's the other way around. The plague is congrating you on your progress with a gushing fan tone, saying how they knew you were such a good job for this and they can't believe they get to act with such a talent as yourself—Hey actually do you think you can sign their mask? Oh the others would be so jealous if they knew.

[ineedlelittlespace]

please tell me about I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, if you feel so inclined? i don't know much about it but your posts about it have been making me very curious! (direct references to Murderbot you say?)

Oh, I would LOVE to ramble about I Was A Teenage Colonist! 🥰 I'm on lunch at work, but otherwise I would break out PowerPoint and do a proper propaganda post because IWATXC fully deserves one. (*Correction: I was on lunch at work when I started writing this. I wrote way too much and had to finish when I got home, which should probably tell you what you're getting into. My deepest apologies.)

So, it's like 50% visual novel and 50% video game. The story is what really matters, but how that story goes is entirely dependent on your choices. There are 29 (I think) different endings you can uncover (I've only gotten 4 so far), multiple different characters you can romance if you're into that, and tons of different areas (e.g. skill levels, friendship points, etc.) that you can focus your energy on to unlock new pieces of story content about various characters.

As far as the video game component goes, it's a deck builder where the memories your player character collects become your deck of cards to use in challenges. However, if you don't want to bother with that, there's a setting that will let you turn off card challenges altogether.

BUT here's the actual juicy stuff:

So, the story opens with you as a 10 year-old kid on a colony ship that's landing on your new home planet. The ship has been traveling for 20 years, so you were born in space.

The colonists left Earth to escape the capitalist hellscape it's become, and they're all a bunch of hippies, so the Preservation vibes are very strong! It feels a little like how the founding of Preservation was described in the MB books.

Once you've landed, however, you run into some big problems. 1) All of the ship's hydroponics were destroyed because it was a rough entry. 2) Some of the planet's wildlife is NOT friendly (as Murderbot would say, something's always trying to eat the humans). 3) Some of the planet's seasons are hazardous in a variety of unpleasant ways. 4) There are signs that this planet had intelligent life once. And that it might still...👀

Once you're there, it's all hands on deck to survive! You're a kid, so you do need to finish your education, but you balance that with working in various parts of the colony and deciding what role you want to take on as your main career. You can become a farmer like the player character's parents, you can become a scientist and hang out with the colony's AI (who has some things in common with ART), you can join the survey teams (like PresAux my beloved!) and go out to explore and document the planet...the options are endless!

Now, the problem with landing on a semi-hostile planet is that the odds are high that the colony is going to lose people. And you do. A lot of people, if you aren't careful. Some of the deaths are pretty heart-wrenching.

BUT

There's something special about your player character. Ever since landing on the planet, they've had...dreams. Strange gut feelings. Knowledge that they shouldn't have. Premonitions about things that are going to happen, about people they're going to meet... Sometimes, it isn't enough to matter, but the more playthroughs you do, the more your character knows because they do gradually become aware that they're in a time loop of sorts. This gives them more options and better odds for saving the people they love, whether that's in the form of having clues about how to stop the colony's famine or knowing where you need to be to save the governor from being killed by hostile fauna! The game runs from age 10 until age 20, so you have ten years to save your colony and sort out your life.

My personal favorite things:

So many things are extremely customizable, especially in terms of preferred pronouns, gender presentation, dating (or not dating at all---choosing not to won't deprive you of anything in-game) preferences, etc.

The little in-jokes (including the direct Murderbot reference!)

The art style is GORGEOUS! It's so warm and inviting and beautiful. And for big moments, you get these extra detailed full-screen scene cards that show up to point out that you're reached a milestone.

There are no real-time time limits/constraints, so it's easy to play without getting stressed.

The characters! There's such a broad variety, but they're so lovable (except for Vace---I can't STAND Vace). I'm especially fond of Cal and of the player character's dad (who reminds me of Ratthi in some ways).

The time-loop elements are handled so, so well. They add such a fascinating twist to the story while also fixing the replayability issue that so many games have. It gives you an incentive to start playthrough after playthrough just to get more information about that element of the PC's story!

All in all, it's my favorite game of the ones I've played this year, and a solid second-favorite of all time, right after Stardew Valley. Especially since I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the game's content, even after four playthroughs! For anyone who enjoys gaming at all and happens to be a fan of Murderbot, of solarpunk as a concept, or of sci-fi in general, this game is a joy to play!

If you do end up giving it a shot, you know my inbox/DMs are always open if you want to come yell about it with me! Thank you for asking and for giving me a reason to infodump about it! ❤

[aha-chuu]

It really frustrates me how HSR chose to dole out information in 1.2. Ofc, mystery is important and good! I don't need to know why Luocha is here or what he's up to, and Blade's past can remain vague rn that's fine.

My issue is Dan Heng/Dan Feng and how poorly they've explained the stakes of that situation.

Like, think about this:

Do Vidyadharas remember their past lives?

If so, how much do they remember?

If not usually, do the elders get that privelage?

If not at all, why are so many characters worried about Dan Heng being a criminal in a past life?

Does Dan Heng specifically remember his past life?

If not, how did he know how to break the seals?

If yes, can he only remember some things?

If he can remember everything, why is he lying about it?

Is he lying??

How do Vidyadhara powers work?

How does Dan Heng have high elder powers if Bailu is the new high elder?

Do the powers usually get passed down through past lives (so Feng -> Heng) or are they picked fresh every hatching rebirth (Feng -> Bailu)?

How did Feng's actions make all vidyadhara weaker?

What were the actual consequences of his actions?

How did Blade stabbing Heng give him the body & powers of Feng but not the memories/personality?

I wanna make it clear: not all of these need answers. But when it's all either poorly explained or straight up unclear, I find myself struggling to care about the dynamics at play. When JY is sad that Heng isn't Feng, should I feel sympathy that he can't let his friend go? Or, like so many characters say, are Heng and Feng much, much closer than Heng ever says? When the Xianzhou characters can't see past the rebirth thing, it implies stuff about the vidyadhara culture that should flip how we see it.

When Heng distances himself from Feng, we don't know if that's a reasonable thing (like, "guy you never met who looks like you committed a crime so ofc you're not responsible"), or if he's being insensitive ("you got blackout drunk and stabbed someone, but you don't remember now so you don't believe you should be held accountable"). There can be a middle ground in there, but what is the morality here? It might be grey, but I could form completely misguided opinions if I consider JY as rude now when Hoyo actually want us to think Heng is the problem.

It's really late but like. I think the 1.2 quest really needed a moment to explain some of the vocab (all that vidyadhara stuff gd) and to outline the characters' understanding of the context. If JY knows that vidyadhara can't remember past lives and knows that Dan Heng is no different, and that he and Feng are essentially different people, then how is any of his behaviour justified? I understand Blade not getting it (he's crazy), but JY is all over the place.

And as I think about it now, Dan Heng must remember being Feng! Like, he opens the seals for one, but he also recognises the Alchemy commission (and that it borders the vidyadhara realm) even though we know he only saw the inside of a cell during his time on the xianzhou as Dan Heng. So if he can remember then he's lying, but that would mean Hoyo really wants us to think he's not and it's like!! This is the sort of thing you kind of need an answer for.

They mention that Feng's rebirth got fucked up. Here's how you deal with confusion while maintaining mystery:

"usually vidyhadara can remember their past lives, but we fucked up this one so idk" "I don't remember" "shit"

"usually vidyhadara can't remember their past lives, but we fucked up this one so idk" "I don't remember" "cool but we can't trust that"

Like, it's also totally likely that this is answered in game. But I've watched multiple playthroughs at this point and most people I've seen don't know what's going on either.

Hoyo dumped a ton of terminology on us, introduced new factions to the enemy roster (and secret behind-the-scenes alliances between pre existing ones) and then said "here's a bunch of lore that the characters will be openly confused and contractadictory about". I'm starting to miss Paimon requiring simple summaries of every lore plot point in order for any dialogue to continue.

[mllemaenad]

Er- sorry if this is a nuisance, but I just realised that, for all I know quite a lot about Joanna Hawke, I don't actually know that much about Emily the Fallout 4 protagonist you played. Can you share a bit about her?

Being asked to talk about my characters is never a nuisance. :) The thing about Dragon Age 2 was that the way the cut scenes worked made it really easy to get interesting pictures of the dialogue and reactions to talk about. I never even had quite the same success with Inquisition, and I don't seem to have the knack of taking good screenshots in Fallout 4. It's always "An NPC walked into my character and pushed her out of alignment, so now she's having a profound conversation with the back of Piper's head".

But I love my Fallout characters as much as my Dragon Age ones, and I've got a bunch of head canons about all of them.

However – I do know you are in the middle of a first playthrough. It's very difficult to talk about Emily without spoilers, and because it's possible to wander around the Commonwealth in a very non-linear manner it's hard to be sure if I'm ruining something for you. So POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW.

Emily practiced briefly as a civil rights lawyer once she finished school – but honestly she burned out hard and fast as the political situation in America deteriorated. You just didn't win those sorts of fights, certainly not as a starry-eyed young graduate who thought that being in the right (morally or factually – take your pick) counted for something.

After a couple of years of misery, she went back to school for her Masters and went into teaching (her Railroad codename is Professor because of this). She didn't really like teaching, but ... it was better than feeling like she was failing both her individual clients and society as a whole every damn day.

Shaun was very much an accident, and she and Nate were married because of him; the pre-war world was not a kind place to be a single mother.

To be clear, she liked Nate. She'd met him when she was still struggling to be a real, proper lawyer, and had been working with a group of activists on a case dealing with discrimination against soldiers of Asian heritage attempting to access medical care after being discharged. He'd had friends who were affected, and had been present on the periphery of the whole thing – and sympathetic to the cause (no, the case did not go well).

They'd been sort of seeing each other on and off for years when it happened. It was more that she had not intended a pregnancy, or a marriage, and it felt sometimes as though the world was frog marching her toward a role as a quiet suburban housewife, one screw up at a time.

The other defining experience of her pre-war life was that she lost her best friend in the annexation of Canada – and I do mean "lost". She'd been at college with Melissa (although Mel had not been studying law), and they'd remained close in the years afterwards, even when Mel went home. The last she heard, Melissa had been planning to attend a rally protesting the brutal deforestation being undertaken by American-owned corporations in her home province ... and then nothing. Nothing at all. Emily has no idea if she was killed, or arrested and imprisoned, or if she just fled and went underground. She did poke around a bit, trying to find out ... but there was just nothing. So many people were killed, or just hauled away, that the records were a useless mess.

She was never important, in any political sense. She never successfully struck a blow against injustice. But she was also ... well, dodgy. She was an academic; she'd been on the wrong side of several court cases; she'd had a hurried wedding that suggested a licentious lifestyle; she kicked up a fuss over a probable traitor in Canada. These are all the sorts of things that get a person labelled a communist, even though they obviously have bugger all to do with communism.

Even now, she kind of wonders if she was pushed into that vault as a punishment. But she also knows she'll probably never be able to answer that for sure.

Post-war? Well, there are pros and cons. Straight out of the vault, she nearly starved to death because she was physically incapable of keeping grilled radroach down, and I've played on survival mode (modded, so I can save whenever I like and still see enemies on the compass – I enjoy the immersion of needing to eat and sleep, and the disease system, but I have zero interest in making the game harder) since it came out, so she caught every disease known to man immediately. She owes the survivors of Concord her life just as much as they owe her theirs: sure, she looked really impressive in that power armour on day one, but by day three she was feverish and vomiting, and would not have survived without their care.

But mostly she regards this as a chance at redemption. She knows she let the pre-war world scare her out of doing anything important, and she's not going to let this world do the same.

She's a staunch member of the Minutemen and the Railroad – although she wishes Preston hadn't made her General. It's not that she doesn't believe in the cause, she's just not really a soldier by nature.

She gets on well with most companions (I mean, with Strong it's all a bit "Well, if he's following me around he's not actively eating people so ... that's a win, right?") and after she's grieved for Nate she usually romances Hancock. I keep trying to mod it to slow the affinity gain down enough to add some realism there, but results are mixed, honestly. Hancock's backstory really resonates with her – falling short of doing the right thing until you think you're going to explode – and they get along like a house on fire. Sometimes they have, in fact, set a house on fire. She's also tremendously close with Nick and Deacon – her high-charisma, I'm-taking-this-red-persuasion-check-to-dazzle-everyone style is fantastic for both persuading witnesses in complex detective cases, and distracting people from whatever fantastic bullshit her Railroad partner is about to pull.

I generally play with Tales from the Commonwealth installed, and she also gets on really well with R4-04/Mara. I won't go into that too much, in case you ever want to play the mod, but Mara is a Railroad colleague she can experience culture shock with on a daily basis, and being able to stand in a corner with someone and go "What the hell?" really helps sometimes, and even Nicky has had some time to acclimatise, so this is an important relationship.

I tend to play with some kind of multi-companion mod installed. This game is ten years old and I am not in it for the challenge. I'm here to haul everyone and my dog around together, so I can hear what everyone has to say all the time. I also hate leaving people behind. It makes them sad! We are a small army, stomping across the Commonwealth snarking and righting wrongs (I do this in Fallout 3, too, and it is especially funny to hear Three Dog talk about the Lone Wanderer as Hope and her team book up every damn room in Rivet City).

I'm also trying out Sim Settlements 2. I haven't finished the mod yet, so it's going to depend on where it goes, but so far I enjoy the concept. It feels as though its protagonist, Jake, is aiming to rebuild the CPG as Preston aims to rebuild the Minutemen – and the logistics of that might be a better fit for her than the military stuff. Not that I mean she'd ignore Preston's quests just ... mentally shift the focus on what she's doing. If this works out, and it doesn't blatantly contradict canon anywhere, it might slot into my personal canon.

She acquires an interesting new scar after every boss fight that leads to finding the Institute: one for the deathclaw, one for Kellogg, one for the Courser. I do wish I could find a decent body scar overlay, as putting all of them on her face feels a tad improbable, but it's not a big priority.

I tend to play the game as pushing fairly relentlessly forward until we find Kellogg, and then backing off. Early delays are around the fact that she's genuinely often sick or injured, so I can pause and build settlements while she recovers. Once you've gone through Kellogg's memories ... it's not that she doesn't still desperately want to find her son, but a) she can say with reasonable certainty that the Institute doesn't mean to eat him at that point, so one kind of pressure has been relieved and b) at that point she kind of needs a minute to adjust to the fact that her Shaun is no longer the infant she remembers.

And thus she tends to leave ... versions of Shaun, or at least of his bedroom, behind her as she progresses through the story.

As soon as she's well enough to function she patches up the nursery in her old house. This is a real rough job: they haven't got the power working yet so there's a damn oil lamp in there, and she's just shoving plywood over holes in the walls. Anything to make the place reasonably warm and safe for a baby. After Kellogg, she closes the door on that one. She still uses the house when they're in Sanctuary, but she never goes in that room.

A corner of her home in Diamond City is dedicated to ten-year-old Shaun. Goodneighbor would be preferable, but I've never found a house mod that quite gave me the space I needed – so Diamond City it is. It's got walls and a door; he's ten so he won't want his mother hovering over him all the time. And it's cluttered. He's ten! And she doesn't know him. What does he like? Books? Comic books? Robots? Teddy bears? Sports? Clothes for playing pretend? What? She just picks up anything that looks appropriate for a kid and stows it in there. She imagines that when she's got him back, and explained a few things, she can take him in there and say "We don't know each other yet. But if you show me what you like, that will be a start." When she goes to the Institute, she closes that door too.

Then there's a room in a settlement far from Diamond City. Spectacle Island is a good choice, but it does depend a bit on what order I've got the Minutemen quests in. Somewhere it won't be ... easy for the kind of people who might reasonably want vengeance to get to. This is a comfortable room for an older gentleman, with space for him to do it up as he likes. There's a brief period, after she learns who he is, where Emily still thinks she can fix this. She can reach him. She can show him that what the Institute is doing is wrong. She can convince him to leave with her. They can try to make amends, to both the synths and the people of the Commonwealth, together. The day she meets him on the surface, she closes that door and there are no more rooms.

I've done both the Minutemen and Railroad endings with her, and have never had to commit on one. Given that the television show seems to be suggesting that only the Minutemen or Brotherhood of Steel endings could be canon, I guess I'm going with the Minutemen!

At the end of it all, she's lost everything from her pre-war life, but she's also got pride in this life that she never had in the old one. She's brought the settlements of the Commonwealth back to life; she's escorted escaped synths to safety; she brought down the Institute, before it could finish wrecking everything. She has a new love and many friends ... and if the Shaun she gets isn't quite her Shaun, and maybe she could never bring herself to take him to that room in Diamond City ... well, he's still a person who deserves a shot at a life, and she's still responsible for him. They'll figure out the rest as they go.

And that is more than you ever wanted to know about someone else's character! Any cool stories you wanted to share about Georgia?

[yakuzacanons]

Hi, sorry for my bad English, I'm still learning to write in English. So I was playing The Sims 4 and I automatically remembered posts about what it would be like if the boys played Minecraft and Roblox, so I asked myself: How would each of them feel and react playing The Sims 4? I'm a new follower and I love your posts!

YES this is so cute omg, also to anyone else sending asks I SEE THEM I will get to them, I got like 35 of y'all in my inbox and I LOVE YOU ALL just be patient, thank you mwah. Anyways, the headcanons below da cut, here we go.

Kazuma Kiryu

Fascinated by The Sims. Mostly watches the kids play it, but they end up roping him into playing eventually. Needs some help at first, it takes time to learn the ropes, but he's pretty good at picking up on it. Says things like "Ah... I see." a lot. Out of all the games the kids have shown him, The Sims seems to stick the quickest.

Majima Goro

Takes a million years in character creation alone. Like decorating things or dressing the people up. Total chaos lord, if something catches on fire in game he just gets confused. A lot of saying "What do I do, c'mon, tell me!" really quickly and loudly. Talks to his Sims, says things like "Darn it, I told ya to go HERE."

Akiyama Shun

Makes his Sims hit on everyone. Actually a bit of a chaos gremlin but only in games like The Sims specifically. Once he realizes that game is basically him making a bunch of tiny people do funny stuff, he will proceed to do exactly that. Will always pick THE most styling outfits for his Sims.

Saejima Taiga

Squints a LOT, especially when trying to read options in the charater creation menu or when a Sim has choice bubble pop up. When he sees a Sim isn't happy, he says things like "Huh? Didn't I just feed ya?". His first playthrough is super messy and the house he builds is totally not functional so it'll take him a few attempts to actually get going in the game.

Tanimura Masayoshi

Honestly the most basic of all the boys at Sims. Plays it straight, pours in exactly a reasonable amount of hours, struggles an average amount. It's not his most favorite type of game to play and he prefers to watch others play it as he finds their choices more interesting than his own.

Ryuji Goda

He's all about that house building, babey. Probably ends up building himself some monstrosity of a tower and is like "Look what I made!". He actually kind of likes The Sims a lot once he realizes it's supposed to be a little chaotic. This makes him actually relax more, whereas with other games he can get a little frustrated when something unusual happens.

Nishikiyama Akira

Probably the most likely to make his Sims look like himself and/or people he knows. If not people he knows directly, then something like a celebrity or famous character. Pretty good at matching his Sims to people's appearances, although he mostly cares about the character creation than anything else. Might not even play the game beyond making characters honestly.

Daigo Dojima

Very precise gamer. House has to be spick and span, all the Sims have to be happy before he turns the game off. Fond of the decorating or dress up aspects and likes to see his Sims make friends or start relationships. Treats it more like a dating sim than anything.

Mine Yoshitaka

Sort of like Daigo but he treats it like a business management Sim. His Sim is going to be the very best like no one ever was. Won't really tell anyone he plays the Sims as it's kind of his guilty pleasure game. Prefers having as few Sims as possible in one game so it's easier to manage them all.

Tatsuo Shinada

Best Sims player to watch in a livestream of all the boys. Total goofball, tons of "What's this option do?" and general fucking around and finding out with his gameplay style. Makes the most random looking Sims. Naturally comedic when he plays it. Tries super hard to romance other Sims though.

[2030kamenriders]

Update on the Persona 5 playthrough:

Finally defeated the boss of the space station level.

Uh.

Something bad is happening I think

Spoilers below? I think. These feel like major story beats.

So context: Joker and his gang of phantom thieves are pretty consistent about making sure not to kill people

Granted, all of their fights are in that cognitive dimension. So all they really have to do is defeat that version of the boss without killing them, and the real version of the boss will survive.

But there's also been mentions of some other unrelated guy in a black mask, up until this point

And said guy decided to show up?!

And decided to shoot the cognitive version of the boss bad guy for this level. And right after the Phantom Thieves left too

And to make matters worse: said boss guy is Haru's dad. This is her first big boss battle as part of the Phantom Thief crew.

Dude's gonna die

But there's more!

The very. Next. Day. After the big boss fight, Dan Lastname (Joker) finds Kasumi's good-luck charm and finds her to return it.

Context: Kasumi is this excelling first-year highschool student at the same place most of the other phantom thieves study at. And apparently that day, the vice-principal* was making her feel bad for only getting 3rd place at a big gymnastics competition.

(*I think. Could've been a substitute principal. The regular principal died before the whole space station arc. Long story)

This guy. This absolute jerk. He is threatening to take away Kasumi's scholarship just because she didn't get 1st place. What's wrong with 3rd place?! Was there only 3 participants at the competition, or are you trying to give her anxiety?

This guy also makes it very clear that all of this is only in an attempt to make the highschool look good to the public. (Well maybe you shouldn't have kept that one creepy guy from the start of the game hired after the constant allegations!)

Anyway, shout-out to Dr. Maruki for trying to call out the vice-principal. Unfortunately it was ineffective, but the attempt was appreciated. (This guy is just trying his best, but I think this job might unfortunately be more than he can chew)

So anyway, after school, Joker (and Morgana) find Kasumi at her usual thinking spot: the arena/stadium.

Except the arena is a cognitive Palace. Meaning it's one of the bad-guy levels in the Persona 5 congnitive dimension. So they get transported to said dimension's version of the place. And for some reason, despite not looking even slightly particularly "evil", it looks very eerie.

You know how in Kuuga, part of Daguva's scariness is how much of a normal well-dressed guy he looks like? It's like that, but with setting. This looks like some sort of fancy brightly-lit futuristic castle-type thing. Like some sort of place you would expect in a Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy type of setting. (Sounds like it too, in terms of background music).

Now the good news is that Kasumi finally gets Phantom Thief powers and that's pretty cool

But the bad news is. I'm kinda concerned about who this Palace belongs to.

Typically, to travel to a cognitive Palace in this game, the character needs a fancy navigation app, and must give the app 3 keywords while standing close to the real equivalent of the location. One keyword is the actual location, another is the name of the person who's the boss of the Palace, and the last word is how that person thinks of the location in their mind.

The fake version of the arena had a bunch of boards with academic posters and stuff (they were arranged in that way that science posters are arranged at certain research-related events, on arrays of move-able wall things). And the teleportation happened right after Kasumi overheard some passing-by people assume the place was a lab, causing Kasumi to say "this isn't a lab, it's a stadium". So that's 2 keywords ("lab" and "stadium").

But whose Palace is it?!

I didn't pay attention to every single detail of what Kasumi said before the teleportation, but I remember her saying 2 names.

One of those names is the name you give the character. But Joker wouldn't think of such a place as a lab, regardless of how the player decides to portray them.

The other name was Dr. Maruki.

There's no way it can be him, though, right? Right?? There's gotta be some other person! Maybe Kasumi said someone else's name and I couldn't catch it. Maybe one of those passing-by bystanders said some other name. Or maybe Maruki has some sort of estranged relative or something—

[irradiatedsnakes]

I've ran out of current vods from my favourite streamer, do you have any recommendations for fun rtvs vods to watch? I've really been meaning to check some out

oh yes absolutely!!

i don't watch every rtvs member stream, so if anybody wants to chime in with vods from other folks, please feel free! i pretty much just watch wayne, holly, and scorpy's streams, so:

from wayneradiotv:

looking through wayne's catalogue i'm running into the problem that most of my favorites (like the among us, jackbox, & 420 streams) are best enjoyed when you're already pretty familiar with the crew, so maybe save those for later if you end up enjoying rtvs' stuff. all of the proximity chat among us videos are fantastic (and i like watching the same one from multiple peoples perspectives, holly's in particular are great). RTVS congress, a stream by baaulp, is also great and worth watching once familiar with the crew

i think my best wayne (well, on wayne's channel, all of these feature multiple members of the crew) recommendation though is gonna be I.M. MEEN, which is a completely normal playthrough of a regular copy of 90's kids' edutainment game i.m. meen, which has nothing wrong with it. for some of the other "rtvs brand of weirdness" sort of streams, check out waynekenstein's lab (fun with ai generated faces) and chex quest hd (just.. watch this one)

wayne does a lot of "grand tour" streams (technically the im meen one is one of these but), where he goes through older/weirder/obscurer games. fin fin on teo the magic planet is a FANTASTIC one (fin fin needs no introduction, but in case he does, odd 90's virtual pet with a great theme song), plus the echs bachs catalogue (a bizarre collection of pretty awful games made by one dude called Echs Bachs), and club penguin rewritten (it's club penguin, bro).

if you like seeing a game played over many hours and multiple streams, i'd check out chulip, lisa: the painful, minecraft 24 hour charity stream, and moon rpg: remix. lisa and moon remain unfortunately unfinished, but the streams are still absolutely worth checking out.

from hollowtones:

most of my favorite holly vods are biiiig long streams of a playthrough of a whole game. her stuff tends to be pretty chill and i find them nice and relaxing. sometimes there's friends joining her, sometimes it's just her. of these, i really like bugsnax (adore these ones. idk how to succinctly explain bugsnaz. is bugs, is snax, are you a jokester?), hypnospace outlaw (PLEASE watch these ones especially if you havent played/watched hypnospace before), and moonglow bay (really sweet fishing game).

holly also does a number of wikipedia streams, where she (and friends) read and discuss wikipedia articles about food for upwards of 6 hours a piece. it's really good. it's really good. i like the soup one.

another favorite holly stream is GO-FISH DELUXE FOR SUPER PLAYERS, where holly and a friend play a custom game of go fish for 7 and a half hours. i love this one.

and i would be remiss to leave out, of course, the pigmas in july peppa pig stream. which is where holly, joined by her sister if i remember correctly it's been a minute since i watched, plays the peppa pig video game for nintendo switch. this one is very worth watching to the very end.

from socpens:

my #1 recommendation from scorpy's catalogue is going to be every single one of the VHS VIEWINGZ streams. scorpy obtains and plays a bunch of vhs tapes on stream with friends, it's always always always a good time. my favorite of all of them is probably this one, which among other things, includes a tape about learning to be a clown. make sure to watch to the end for a t-bone tickler! this one, featuring Escalator Safety and VOLTON THE ELECTRITY DEMON is also great. i'm having a hard time choosing just a few, they're all really good, so i'm just gonna link the eye palming one and be done with it.

for gameplay with scorpy, i really like a way out with wayne (unintentionally hilarious 2 player narrative game about escaping from jail), any of the david cage game vods but here's detroit become human, and not for broadcast (a FMV game about running a tv station- censoring stuff, monitoring broadcasts, that sort of thing. has a very interesting narrative)

and a couple other things

ok so these aren't like, the typical stream vods, while they are technically livestreamed stuff they're not quite in the same category. but they're all really fucking good.

of course, half life VR but the ai is self aware. there's full stream vods available for these, but if you haven't watched before i highly recommend watching the edited versions on wayne's main channel linked above. in case you haven't heard of hlvrai before, basic concept is that it's an in-character playthrough (wayne roleplaying as gordon freeman) of half life 1 in VR with a cast of self-aware ai NPCs (played by other members of the rtvs crew) accompanying him through the game. no prior knowledge of half life necessary. just fantastic.

next up, GAMECLAM. a yearly e3-style gaming conference about the best video games console that doesn't exist. here's the first one, there's currently 3 in total. there's also a commentary video on scorpy's vod channel. PLEASE experience the gameclam. PLEASE experience the gameclam

lastly, half life: alyx but the gnome is TOO AWARE. wayne does a gnome run challenge of HL:A with a mod that gives the gnome a biiiit more personality. (due to some references, best watched after hlvrai, but they're not part of the same series/continuity). not all the way finished at the moment- the finale's been streamed (and you can find a 3rd party upload of the finale stream on youtube (thank you youtube user sawsily for everything you do)) but the edited version of the finale should be coming out pretty soon.

[burning-academia-if]

Hi! I just finished playing the update, and I loved it!

I had my highly coveted Lars content, and I couldn't be happier about it. I just ADORE the interactions with him! And I must admit I laughed out loud about the interaction during lunch, where he took some food from MC's plate, and the MC could do the same. It's funny how I didn't even interpret it as annoying him, but just as some sort of... well, exchange. Somehoe, that scene was surprisingly cute to me. And Nevio's reaction was so priceless!

I'm also very intrigued by that customer who left my MC her card at the end of the chapter... so mysterious!

The only character I have a hard time "dealing with" (sort of) is ??? because they make me pretty uneasy because of the whole "stuck in MC's head" thing. At least, I'm glad we can actually have a very reluctant MC who just doesn't want to interact with them!

Now, because I liked Nevio a lot, and because I'm on a Lars romance playthrough, I NEED to ask... Will we get to see Nevio's reaction to when MC and Lars actually enter a relationship? And if we don't or if it isn't too spoilery to share, just WHAT will the reaction (or his thoughts) be? I'm so curious!

That aside, I had... well to be fair a bunch of coding errors. I'll list them all here!

This one isn't an error, but when going with Rhea to the library in chapter 1, would you consider making it so picking the option "You'd be fine. You'd go in" would add to the courage stat? I've noticed it doesn't while the second option does. But that one doesn't fit my MC since it's too hostile.

In chapter 2 when going to the first class and Scout asks "Mind if I sit here?", the answers feel as if she asked if the seat is empty or something rather than what she did ask, which makes it so the answers don't really fit the question.

In the same scene, some stray code: "The haze had rendered your memory of the place almost dreamlike, a moment suspended. It had to have been The $hname."

On the page where we meet Nevio, he calls the MC "infamous" and uses their full name, but on the next page (at least if MC is optimistic about the whole thing), Nevio asks them their name and the game considers he doesn't know it.

If agreeing to lunch when Nevio asks and being honest when Lars asks why (my MC accepted because he thought it would be nice to get some answers), I get a strange error where it seems there is an interaction missing at the start of the page, and a bunch of weird stuff after (and the whole exchange is disjointed):

If refusing to entertain ??? by the end of the chapter, and if they are set to male, I get this: "It would be nice to know why the two of you are connected, and what his deal is with wraiths, and just who he are. But you're not sure if it's worth whatever he want." - both with "who he are" and "whatever he want", the verbs are not properly accorded. Same a few lines lower: "With that, he vanish again"

During the closing scene with Lars and Zoe, I have this: "He hadn't been surprised when they'd refused to take hold of one of the death-touch items. Survival instincts overtook anything else. He'd gone through so many ghosts and wraiths, he no longer felt anything. He knew that wasn't the case for everyone. It was the fear of a new world. It meant he hadn't really had to deal with them. It also showed they had a brain, at least." I believe this is about MC? But not only my MC is male (in regards to the first sentence), but also my MC didn't show reluctance in picking one of the objects - he just did without any fuss (picked the "sure, fine" option during that segment) because he had to. And well, my MC has been very brave overall, so it seems a bit strange in general for Lars to be thinking about his fear and all of that.

Hope that helps!

Fixed all of them!

I'm glad you liked the Lars scene, I really enjoyed the friend/romance options with him lol they were a lot of fun. I also rather like Nevio! I don't think him and Lars are too close for him to comment on it.

And you'll see more of the mysterious customer in chapter 4!

[damnation-if]

so, i’ve been putting off writing this post for a while, telling myself that i didn’t really need to do it and everything would turn out fine but honestly. some of the asks i’ve been getting recently have been very upsetting to me personally and they’re sort of mounting up in my inbox and making it feel not very pleasant so i thought i’d just. get this post out of the way...

since the demo was released i’ve been getting an increasing number of asks that seem as though they’re designed to try and push me away from including polyam options in the game or attempt to try and goad me into admitting that the ROs prefer monogamy and consider any polyam relationships “lesser” than “proper” monogamous relationships.

this has ranged from direct criticism of my characters (”don’t you think it’s unfair that Lithiana won’t give up sleeping around and become monogamous if mc is romancing her”) to what i’m sure are intended to be subtle attempts at manipulation (”don’t you think it would be Healthier for [RO] if they were monogamous so that they could Know that mc Truly loves them and Only them and they’d be so much happier in that kind of relationship”) to attempting to shame other players for being happy about polyam options being included.

that last bunch really, really hurt me. i get a not insignificant amount of asks from people being happy that polyam options are included or that they simply won’t be shamed for being promiscuous but i’ve gradually. stopped answering these because i almost always get an ask shortly afterwards that reads something like “i do [rephrasing of something that was mentioned in the original ask] ONLY with [their favourite RO who i won’t drag into this], because i’m a GOOD LOVER ;)” and it feels like absolute crap, every time. (and of course tumblr being tumblr blocking this anon ask sender simply doesn’t work, because Webbed Site  🙄)

i’ve seen authors get backlash for including (and especially Adding) polyam routes and readers getting possessive over “their” ROs but i never realised people were just as mad about the. idea that other players could be doing non-monogamous things elsewhere and not being shamed for it. and that... really boggles my mind and saddens me a lot.

to the what i assume to be minority of people for whom stuff other players are doing is apparently a problem, i hope you can understand that other players being polyamorous doesn’t affect your playthrough of the game in any way, and there’s no need to just. be mean to them about it. and if you’re actually mad simply because people aren’t ashamed of being polyamorous well... that’s pretty cruel, i have to say, and we probably wouldn’t get along if we knew each other, because i’m also polyamorous. i’d appreciate it if you’d stop trying to use me as a platform to shame other polyam people, and maybe just unfollow if it bothers you so much.

to the people who have sent asks that mention or talk about monogamy in a sensible non-judgy way who may have noticed me not answering them - i’m sorry, i haven’t felt like answering these for a bit due to the other batch of asks and me feeling icky at the idea of galvanising the other group despite there being nothing wrong with your asks in particular. i’ll probably keep them in my inbox and maybe answer them in a while if this dies down.

to everyone else, thank you for supporting me and i’m sorry to have to talk about this but it’s really been bugging me recently lmao. i appreciate each and every one of you that Isn’t sending me these asks lmfao<3

[ponett]

here's another slarpg Q&A roundup from my retrospring! this contains light spoilers for the game

in the past you've gone over how tall each of the main party are, so lemme ask you this instead: How tall are Beverly and Faith?

faith is 6'6". she is very tall. beverly's sprite is probably larger, but that's more a matter of NPC sprites generally being big rather than an indication of her actual height. i'd say she's only supposed to be around 6', give or take

What cartoons does pepper like

bartholomew only lets her watch ones that will be a bad influence on her like invader zim

We know Claire drinks, what about the rest of the Novas?

jodie and allison will drink some at social gatherings. melody tends not to, though, so if they're out together allison will usually limit herself so melody doesn't feel out of place

How do you feel about fanworks of slarpg? Specifically, which mediums would you be okay with fanworks existing in, and how do you feel about people using assets from the game?

fanworks of basically all kinds are encouraged! there's already a (very small) fangame about melody's cat in the works and i think that rules. considering my own roots as a fanartist and fangame creator i think it would be lame of me to discourage that

that being said, a few simple stipulations:

1) i ask people hold off on any sort of mass-produced merch like t-shirts or pins. custom items, commissioning someone to draw the cast, a small run of prints sold at a con table, etc. are fine by me, but i may end up making merch myself and bee and i need to make a living off of this game. when we're an operation this small, putting up a bunch of slarpg designs on redbubble could be a problem for me

2) please do not use visual assets from slarpg (including edits of my sprites) in a commercial product. using them in a mod or a freeware fangame is fine, though

3) if you do make a fangame or mod or whatever, please make sure it's clearly stated that it's unofficial, and also please don't just publicly distribute the entire game for free (modded or otherwise)

Between the 3 types of paladin Melody can become what one is the one that you pick for her?

i do a different one every playthrough >:)

From a story perspective, not a mechanical one: was polyamory ever a consideration for the party members in SLARPG? Can you see any polyamorous relationships working well between main-cast members, even if only for a little while?

i would be lying if i said this was a thing i had never considered, at least a little. it was never a serious plan for the game, but as the story and the character dynamics beyond the main couples evolved there were definitely scenes where i looked at what i'd written and went "oh people are gonna ship this, huh." i definitely see it in my own writing, believe me

the main thing is just that i don't entirely know how i would go about writing poly relationships in a satisfying way. for one i've never been part of a poly relationship, so i can't write from my own experiences there. but also i feel my strongest writing tends to focus on pairs of characters (hence all the one-on-one scenes in slarpg), so it becomes trickier when, for example, a character has two partners. i'd worry about making one more important than the other in terms of narrative focus just because of how i write. i could easily see a version of events where certain characters start dating certain other characters on top of their canon partners, though. i just don't know if it's something that i'd ever really explore myself

but i guess that's what fanfic is for

what's your favorite joke in SLARPG that got left on the cutting room floor?

i really wanted to find a way to make "irony poisoning" a status ailment but could never figure out a good way to do so

how long has claire been on hrt?

i actually couldn't say if claire is on hormones. if she is it hasn't been for as long as melody (who's been on hrt for several years by the start of the game)

I noticed your game seems very deliberate on exactly how it approaches the topic of sex and suggestive content. Obviously it wanted to avoid being "horny furry bait game." But, it also avoided being aggressively chaste as well. It struck a careful balance, where it gives the impression that it's something characters do and think about, but isn't the focus of the story so it stays incidental. Was there ever much consideration on the exact tone in this regard? Or did you just do what felt like a good fit?

this was absolutely something i thought about a LOT. perhaps more than people realize!

i mean for one, yes, the problem of people assuming the game was just furry porn based on the title was always an issue. (not that there's anything wrong with furry porn games, this just isn't one.) the game's origins as a successor to an old fangame also presented an issue, because i was worried that people who knew about the old project but hadn't actually played it might, like, assume that it was extremely horny if i pushed things in slarpg too far? which could, in turn, color peoples' perception of slarpg. they're very distinct projects to me, but i'll never escape the reductive perception of them being Literally The Same Game

at the same time, i started work on the game at age 21 and finished it almost age 29, and in that period my feelings about what i wanted to make and also the attitudes in the wider queer community shifted a lot. there's been pushback against the idea that queer media always needs to be "wholesome" and "pure," with conflicting attitudes about the "wholesome games" marketing label in the indie scene mixing with very valid fears about puritanism growing in the queer community online - stuff like the perpetual "kink at pride" fearmongering. and i didn't want to be seen as being part of some push to erase the sex from sexuality or whatever. even beyond that, i've always kind of rankled at the "cute aesthetic = wholesome" thing. i worried about the idea that the game was "wholesome" and all fluff leading to people getting upset at the more intense parts of the story. and also, just, you know. the characters are all in their 20s. i think it would be weird if they didn't know what sex or alcohol or swear words or whatever were. i think they'd become less relatable and real if it was too sanitized

but of course the flipside is that it's a 16-bit jrpg throwback game and i was absolutely overthinking how much people expected adult themes to be touched upon, queer subject matter or no. i think i struck a good balance in the end where it's lightly acknowledged without disrupting the expected tone of the genre. i'm glad it's speaking to people

(why yes i struggle with RSD how can you tell)

How seriously does Allison take caring for her sword(s)? As an unabashed ADHD sword lesbian myself I gotta say it's a not insignificant amount of (very fulfilling) work.

i think her natural inclination would be to be a little careless with them, but countless lectures from jodie have instilled a sense of responsibility in her when it comes to taking proper care of her weapons

I ask this with no weird intentions - characters like Melody and Jodie have no paw pads on their hands, but do they have them on their feet?

you know what? sure. why not

how did faith get such a big job at 24? did she know someone... is there nepotism in this world. I demand accountability.

faith was always an overachiever and was basically training throughout her teens and early 20s to become guardian. when she put herself out there as a candidate she was already generally popular with the community for her skill with magic and her work ethic, so it wasn't hard for her to win the election in a small town like greenridge

Were there any plans during development for Allison or the other two to meet or confront Harmony in the Astral Plane? Or was she always just meant to be exclusive to Melody's character arc?

the entirety of what was planned for harmony is there in the game

is the city shown in the intro supposed to be brightport?

not necessarily! the identity of the city in the intro is unspecified, although brightport definitely looks something like that

Jodie’s theme from when she was gonna be a dog (apparently?) has a very different feel to it. Was her puppysona a very different character than the danger kitten? Or was her intro in the story simply different?

i was still just figuring out jodie as a character at the time - both her design AND her personality - so bee didn't have the most complete information to work off of when trying to write the fourth character theme

i think initially she was going to perhaps be somewhat more brash, being the one Actually Qualified Adventurer on the team who's surprised that her friends made it so far without her, and she would've been exasperated with claire's shenanigans instead of enabling them. she was also intended to be more of a foil to melody, seeming to be (from melody's perspective) the person everyone compares her to. which might be why i thought to make her a canid? this juxtaposition between the two is still an element in the game, but it's more subtle and i rarely draw direct attention to it. and she was intended to be much more bullheaded, with her arc revolving around her running off and picking a fight that really didn't need to be picked off-screen to set up a side quest that was completely cut

obviously a lot of this doesn't sound very much like jodie at all! she was the character i struggled to nail down the most. if she was too brash and critical of claire's decisions then she'd have way too much overlap with allison, so instead she became claire's best friend who's supportive and trusting to a fault, and who's also the most earnest and straightforward member of the team