#way too many side-quests and not enough main story

[burningspy]

I've playing an early access copy of the new game Starfield on my computer today.

(not bragging, because I did have to buy the game and pay for the privilege)

I only say that because playing the game much of the day seems to have melted the power cord on my computer! (as seen in the photo above)

While playing, I heard a loud pop come from the computer sitting on the small end table beside my desk. A fraction of a second later, my computer dies and I smell the very distinctive scent of fried electronics.

As soon as it happened, I began to panic, thinking my very expensive graphics card just blew up and killed my computer. Which confused me even more, because I actually have that card slightly underclocked and undervolted in order to prevent it from overheating and crashing in these kind of high quality graphics situations.

I also began to think that maybe my power supply might have been the casualty. Which, financially, would have been the better of the two options; $200 for a decent power supply is much easier to handle than $1000+ for a new video card. Especially when it's an "emergency" purchase for this kind of situation.

Then, I grabbed the cord on the back of my computer to unplug it, and only pieces of it were in my hand. The outer rubber shielding of the cord had quickly melted, hardened, and the whole cord crumbled. Pieces of it had even slightly fused to the part of the tabletop the cord was running across.

I happened to have a much thicker gauged power cord in a closet. I plugged that in, and my computer came back to life. Nothing truly important (or expensive) was damaged. Honestly, the only reason I wasn't using this higher quality power cord already is because I don't really need a 10' long power cord for my computer.

Hopefully this thicker gauged power cord is all I really need to prevent anything like that from happening again.

[sphnyspinspin]

OMG, I’VE BEEN WANTING TO SHARE THIS AU FOR A MINUTE—

Meet my Magnificence Reforged AU Connie!

Though Scorponok only ever referred to her as Experiment: A9-2416 (usually in Decepticon dialect).

Her story is that Scorponok created her as an experiment to see what would happen if an organic was able to produce a set of chemicals that are deemed somewhat powerful, yet common, by organic standards but emphasized to a certain degree with the help of Cybertronian technology. Entirely inspired by the mere Earth-Human conceptual myth known as the—

Indomitable Human Spirit.

What Scorponok was able to take away from eight years of properly caring for the experiment is that these chemicals that fuel basic organic functioning can be utilized exponentially to a degree where a full grown one of these things could even rival some of Cybertron’s strongest warriors. Maybe even the galaxy’s toughest warriors wouldn’t be able to stand a chance.

It became labeled as Adrenalineregon.

(dope naming skills I know)

It turned out to be some crazy-powerful stuff once injected into a strong enough specimen.

Now why would Scorponok need to make something like this? Power? Recognition? Fun? All of the above honestly. But it’s also because in this Alternate Universe the Decepticons won the war for Cybertron, and Megatron has already built his perfect Decepticon Army to conquer the rest of the known universe, and he and the Grand Architect thought their Army of Tarn clones needed a little more pep-in-their-step.

You heard me. TARN. CLONE. ARMY.

(this isn’t a specifically cyberverse based timeline I just took the tarn army as inspo)

But what they didn’t expect was for the Tarn clones to go insane and turn on each other when being on mere drops of Adrenalineregon. Resulting in a mass extinction of Tarn Clones, with too many bodies to count, therefore being dropped on top of Scorpnok’s planet sized lab to remind him of the consequences of his actions.

EX: A9-2416 was, at the time, forever curious about the outside world, since she’s never been above the expansive laboratory planet’s surface. It always felt as if some unseen beings were trying to lead her to her escape every day since as long as she can remember. Small sign after small sign, guiding her to even bigger signs that kept getting her closer and closer to the way out. Of course, Scorponok always stopped her from getting too close.

A9-2416 always hated the amount of gruesome tests she had to do afterwards as punishment for misbehaving.

Until on her ninth birthday, A9-2416 finally made it to the exit, and Scorponok got exceptionally pissed off so much that in self-defense A9-2416 grabbed the nearest cannon she knew how to operate and blasted it through his spark. She cried a lot that day.

BUT HEY! Her life didn’t stay too depressing for long, because soon after she committed her very first act of murder, she became good buddies with the little voices in the walls that have been apparently guiding her throughout her life!

THE LOSTBOT BOTBOTS!!

(lol I’m nowhere near finished with every Lost Bot design, I just wanted to finish these couple few and make this post for the AU)

MEET THE LOST BOTS CLAN OF THE BOTBOTS!

They’ve been trapped on Scorponok’s Lab-planet-tory (im so funny) for decades along with the other Botbots who remained in hiding. But this clan was the only one brave enough to get anywhere near Scorponok’s main stomping grounds. What they didn’t expect to find was some weird sentient purple meat-potato in a makeshift industrial cradle. Turns out it was just a baby. And that baby turned out to be A9-2416. Who soon became known as Connie.

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After A9-2416 escaped the inner dwellings of the lab and joined the Lost Bots on their little side quests up on the surface, she later changed her name to Constance, hence her more well-known nickname being Connie. The name change was suggested by her Botbot friends who knew a bit about Earth human culture and used their knowledge to help Connie have the most happy and carefree life that she could ask for.

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Also the TEG Lost Light crew is there because I’m still obsessed with that fic 👍✨

@deepfriedhopesanddreams @viewer-of-many @celestite-caroline @asmoteeth @novafire-is-thinking @dragonsgirl572 @autistic-fool-with-ideas @mysticfoxdesigns @hyp3rfixation-h3ll

[heinousactszx]

In your opinion how did the open world format work for pokemon legends of arceus? Is there anything you would have changed about it?

TLDR, i think it worked fantastically. but in order to get into why, i think i need to get into why the open world of SV (and to a lesser extent swsh) did NOT work.

It's practically one of my mantras at this point, but an open world game can have an explorable space as big as the real world itself; it's not going to be fun to play if it's not worth exploring. that means having interesting locales, secrets and new abilities to find, and exciting challenges to seek out.

Scarlet and violet... Don't really have that. the only thing you can really find in the game are, well, pokemon. Yeah yeah I know there's trainers and the treasures of ruin and maybe a raid battle, but overwhelmingly what you're finding in that big open world is pokemon. And the fun of discovering them sort of pales when really all you can do with that discovery is add them to your team or your dex. Plus, unlike classic pokemon games, the removal of random encounters means there's no real reason to even engage with the pokemon you see once you're at a high enough level and have them in the dex. seriously, once you realize how much of SV is just walking around pokemon in the open world, you'll never unsee it

you could argue that having the choice to complete the 3 stories in any order you like is one of the things you can find. But when all of those events are tied to a structured level scale that doesn't change, your "choice" comes down to either running into fights that are way too hard and then abruptly way too easy, or playing in the exact order they want you to. not exactly enticing either way. Scarlet and violet probably would have just been better off as a more linear pokemon with typical hallway routes instead of spending all this time on an open world that rarely enhances any part of the experience (though i will admit running around with a friend in union circle is really fun)

ANYWAY to get back to what you actually asked, Legends arceus sidestepped this issue by making interacting with pokemon the entire gameplay loop. it was a stroke of genius to make completing the pokedex the main goal of the game, because unlike in the regular series, catching a pokemon does not tie the bow on it. No, in order to advance in the game and truly fill out the dex, you have to complete research tasks related to that pokemon. Hitting it with certain attacks, using items, number caught, number stunned, using certain moves, and so many more. some of them even have side-quests associated with them!

all of this encourages you to do more with the entirety of the world you're exploring than SV offered. switching up your team and trying new things to fill out dex entries is encouraged and gives so much variety to the actual experience of playing the game like you usually would. While there's actually less pokemon to find than in SV or swsh, improving the way you actually engage with all of them makes legends much more exciting to run around in.

not to mention, the game feel in legends is just better, flat out. walking around feels better, the ride pokemon are more fun, pokemon running from you or attacking you feels more immersive than the way they mostly just exist waddling around in the other switch games. It helps that legends, while having some performance issues, is nowhere near as bad as SV has it.

of course, the truth of the matter is that legends arceus is not truly an open world game. It's a series of large and open but disconnected areas accessible from a main hub, rather than one large contiguous gamespace. remoraid to my head, i think i'd pick the former every time. it gives the game more focused central game design and cuts out a lot of extra transient elements that don't really add that much. Running around a true open world is fun and all, but legends arceus would not have been a better game just because you could walk directly from one area to another, much in the same way that Scarlet and violet really aren't better games for it either

as for what i'd change? honestly? nothing. the gameplay loop of legends was so addicting that i did almost nothing but play it for weeks when it first came out. it was and is the best pokemon game in over a decade. in some ways i can't believe it's actually as good as it is. i remember being so anxious with a friend that it was going to be a disaster when it ended up being a masterpiece.

no, wait, what i'd change is game freak's awful habit of adding cool new features, like this entire game, and then never touching them again. make a sequel. pokemon legends kyurem. call me mr iwao i can make this work

[betterbemeta]

re @mousebrass

[context]

Sorry for the delay, I just needed some time to simmer my answer. (for frame of reference, I'm mostly referring to fallout 3 and fallout 4. not new vegas, and I don't know enough about FO76.)

When I said 'Bethesda's fallout will never say no to you', I meant in sort of a structural sense. The gameplay and the storytelling combine in Bethesda's fallout games to do nothing but affirm the player's forward motion.

They do this so well the storytelling is ONLY a function of the gameplay loop: a relay race that progresses with total blindness to what the player actually does so long as they hit the checkpoints that advance things along.

Forward motion is good, we need stories to progress and to get from one event to another, we don't want to run around in circles in a game achieving nothing. And we don't want to encounter a true dead end, or a frustrating 'sorry mario the princess is in another castle!' situation where we feel our prior actions were pointless.

BUT. Hear me out. Negativity, 'being told no', friction along the way, is important to an 'adventure' being more than just an endless gopher loop.

Lucy MacLean IS given objectives in her journey. But the narrative is not her personal facilitator; instead she can't proceed UNLESS she does these increasingly heinous uncomfortable things, okey dokey! She COULD choose not to do them, but she'd 'fail' or thinks she would. Her struggle 'drives the story' rather than styling her actions as intuitively synonymous with 'progress.'

In Bethesda Fallout games. It really doesn't matter what dialog options you choose, progress is inevitable. And blind. If you choose peaceful or guns-blazing approaches. Want to join the fascists? You won't encounter too much content that places pressure on you for doing that. Want to side with the scrappy underdogs? Done, it won't be that much of a strain on your resources. Take the evil option? Except for maybe a few NPCs that could desert you, you won't be constrained by that commitment very much.

It's 'the customer's always right', when that idiom exists basically to facilitate transactions and nothing else.

In fact, the one time in a Bethesda fallout game where meaningful pressure or negative consequences impacted you, in fallout 3, the ending was so unpopular it was retconned in a DLC. But it doesn't have to be this way; there are many times in New Vegas where you might feel conflict or constraints on your actions, a 'no' that makes what you actually choose to do feel more interesting. Like, enough times that I think anyone who's played it, could think of one (their favorite one?) right now. I don't even have to list examples, because the variety is great enough that different people can choose which one feels compelling to them.

Remember when I said we wanted to avoid scenarios where we feel futile, running around in circles, pointless, or obstructed? Well, after a while a lot of Bethesda games become that anyway even if they always take the player's side. People just... give up playing a save usually by level 30. Boundless affirmation towards forward motion, where all paths are THE path and you're the main character of reality, it sucks. it's why Lucy MacLean's wasteland experience will leave you wanting to play fallout and then sighing when you boot up the game that just got a 'remaster' and it's still mostly drudgery. When SHE hits 'quest objectives,' her world doesn't say 'yes! now go do...'

It says "oh, hell no. but you gotta... unless maybe..."

[argisthebulwark]

hi! i'm writing a fic with brynjolf in it, and i'm having trouble getting a feel for his character. you seem to know a lot about the guy, so i was just wondering: what are the three most important things you think a depiction of brynjolf should have? what three things most encompass him? (i would also appreciate if you could point me in the direction of any other brynjolf connoisseurs who could be of help)

thanks for thinking of me!! i think i write him differently depending on if he's the main love interest of the story or not. when writing him as a main character i think the most important things about him (to me) are:

attachment issues due to losing important figures like Karliah and Gallus at a young age. i feel like this gives him more depth, a reason for the 'sorry lass' line and him pulling away after the quest's complete. grief is important to the way i write him, especially during the time when the LDB is presumed dead after snow veil sanctum. he looks for them even when he thinks they've died he still looks, desperate to find them.

a deep commitment to the thieves guild. in most depictions of him it is the only family Brynjolf has ever known and i think his dedication to the guild would know no bounds. he handles the guild when the various guild masters are away, he has been Mercer's second in command for who knows how many years, and he has more duties than anyone else in the guild (recruiting, job assignment, training, client relationships, etc)

a natural charisma that he knows how to wield. he knows that his smile and accent can charm people, distracting them long enough to empty their pockets. he's suave and knows how to disarm people with it. for me it's important to always remember that he is an especially gifted thief as well as a lovesick goober.

when writing him as a side character instead of a main love interest i don't feel the need to go too in depth about his emotional issues. i mostly use him as a support to whoever the main character is - Brynjolf loves his found family even if they annoy him, and he would want the best for them. i think he'd be especially supportive and willing to nudge someone in the right direction. i like to thicken his accent too because i absolutely adore it. the three terms that would encompass how i personally write him would be something like: dedication, emotional turmoil, and cunning.

good choice picking Brynjolf, a lot of people in the tesblr/skyrim writing communities have great characterizations of him. i'll link a couple posts that helped solidify his character in my mind but you could really ask anyone! we all love him and crafted a personality together that bethesda neglected <3 this post by @otvlanga absolute banger by @incorrectskyrimquotes like every incorrect quote @nerevar-quote-and-star has about him

[daily-rayless]

Late but I'm gonna be MAXIMUM PREDICTABLE and ask about Van for the character meme.

Honestly, it's never late, not when it comes to talking about characters.

Van it is!

Favorite thing about him:

When I first played Abyss in 2008, I liked Van well enough as an antagonist but didn't pay him much attention. But as time's gone by and I've played more and more JRPGs, I've come to appreciate what a well-written villain he actually is, particularly in that he's so connected to so many of the party members. That adds a lot of emotional weight to the larger conflict about the Score, which, on its own, would feel pretty abstract and unrelatable. Having Van be Luke's and Asch's teacher, Guy's childhood friend, Anise's and Ion's colleague, Tear's brother, and a combined researcher/test subject in the field of science Jade developed and now hates, makes everything feel very personal. I feel like a lot of games don't try that hard when it comes to establishing emotional, personal stakes with the main villain, so I think that has to be my favorite thing about him. Runners up would be the piercing long-lashed blue eyes, just as a pretty design choice and to serve as an immediate visual link with Tear. And also the name -- there's a real art to creating made-up fantasy names, and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't, but the cadence of Vandesdelca Musto Fende sounds very believable to me. I think it's...trochaic tetrameter? Is that right? You could slip it anywhere into "The Song of Hiawatha" and no one would notice.

Least favorite thing about him?

This is going to sound silly, seeing as we are talking about a villain, but calling Luke a "foolish replica" is so... come on, Van. It's so mean and small-spirited. Van is a person who's able to respect his enemies (like the elderly engineers) and those who dissent from him (Asch and Ion). He reserves his scorn for people he deems weak, like Spinoza. So I guess it makes sense that he scorns Luke, because Luke is pretty weak at that point. But who helped make him that way? I see you, Van, at the start of the game, just smiling and nodding at the things Luke says. Van didn't try to make Luke strong because it wouldn't serve him for Luke to be strong, and then he denigrates Luke for it. (Granted, more people than just Van, including Guy and Natalia, were also feeding into Luke's immaturity.) Van creating Luke just to kill him? Real bad. Van creating Luke just to kill him and then calling him a really mean name? Real bad and petty, and, given Van's behavior throughout the game, I expect more from him. Though I do see how it serves the narrative, as it's such a contrast to the end of the game, where Van would be glad to have Luke assist him.

Favorite line?

I will always come back to the optional Natalia fight and Van telling her "I will bury you as an offering to Asch." I feel like there's a lot to unpack in that line -- it's the first, only time we see Van display such strong emotion towards Natalia, someone he's presumably known for years. He clearly says it to hurt her. It's arguable how he means it on the Asch side -- would he make her "an offering" to spit on Asch's legacy, or would he do it as some twisted form of respect? But there's another (similar) line on the main story I really like too, right towards the end of the game where Van's body has been restored and the final fonstone has been read. Then Van turn to the party: "Step across the sea of corpses and make your way to me...Asch...and Luke." First off, we have Van acknowledging Luke as a viable player in what's about to happen. Secondly, I think it's interesting that Van sets himself up in a passive role -- he's the endpoint of the quest, he's the reward waiting around for someone else to get to him. You could say he's set himself up as a final test, as a teacher would. Thirdly, he's acknowledging it's going to be a bloodbath and he's fine with that, it just makes it a good villain moment. And fourthly, the drama of "sea of corpses". You can see why Dist likes Van, he has a good dramatic flair, not overblown, but there enough to keep things fun.

brOTP:

Probably canonically, the closest thing he has is Guy. But I feel like, given how their lives have diverged and how little time they spend together (along with the six-year age-grap, and Van probably being absent for most of Guy's most important developmental years), Van and Guy feel more like relatives than friends. Relatives in that they care about each other, they're always going to be in each others' lives. But they don't keep up too much on each others' day to day lives and interests. (Otherwise, how could Van have hidden his plans so perfectly from Guy?) And I think Asch wants that kind of closeness with Van, and possibly for a time deludes himself into thinking they have it, but I think there's too much deception and manipulation coming from Van's side to allow me to think of them as bros. I could imagine a younger Van, before he became commandant, becoming friends with another Oracle knight, maybe another man, maybe not. And this friend is on the outside of Van's plans, so Van doesn't have to exert any manipulation, and they get to be normal together, not literally planning the total upheaval of the world. I could imagine an arc where Van got close to this person, only to reach a point where he asked himself, "But what does it matter? [Friend] will have to die -- I need to get some distance." Or maybe, "If [Friend] knew the truth of what I'm doing, this would end anyway." Or maybe the youthful Van tried to recruit this person, his first God-General, and was rejected? Just adding to his bitterness. But yeah -- among the canon characters, I'm not sure Van's in a position where he can have that close, equal friendship. He cannot achieve bro-ness.

OTP:

I don't have a Van OTP. I think I've always felt he's way too focused on other things for love. I think my assumption would be that during the game, he's not romantically involved, and if he's sexually involved with someone, it's either very casual or strictly business. But if I were to pick a shipmate... I mean, Largo does make a lot of sense. Van seems to trust Largo, which implies respect, and Largo makes his own respect and admiration very clear -- I think, in fact, Largo is surprisingly dependent on Van for his sense of identity (being Largo rather than Badaq) and for any feeling of having meaning in his life after the destruction of his family. I suppose Van and Guy could also be an interesting angle of approach due to their shared history, and the way Guy parallels Van in his own relationship with Luke. And then Van and Jade also operate as foils. As for the women in the cast, none of them immediately suggests herself. I think he and Cantabile have some animosity in their past. Maybe there was something there?

nOTP:

Ah, you noticed a glaring omission in my last answer? Yeah. For some reason, VanLegretta has always put me off. I don't have any moral opposition to it, and I don't really have a reason rooted in the story or characters for why it bothers me. I don't question anyone else for liking it, I'll happily read fic that includes it, and I don't even dislike it that much. But, for as long as I've been playing Abyss, the pairing mildly but consistently irks me. It may be that having the main female antagonist be romantically involved with the main male antagonist is an overused trope in JRPGS -- I can think of Antenora in Wild Arms 2, Violetta in Grandia 3, (possibly) Sarah in Suikoden 3 just off the top of my head -- so does it just feel too tropey to me? But most of my favorite ships are extremely tropey, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't know. It doesn't work for me, though Legretta being in love with him against her will is at least an interesting element.

Random headcanon:

I don't think I have any? I like to imagine him being the one to give Tear their mother's pendant. As morally dark as Van is, I like that he's still very capable of that kind of sweetness and gentleness. It makes him feel more real.

Unpopular opinion:

I know there are lots of polarizing things to say about Van, but I'm going to be really pointless and say that something that's always bothered me are his brown fingerless gloves. I just think they look kind of bad with his gray sleeves, and they're distracting. They don't look polished and professional enough for the commandant of an army. (Oh, and the shoulder spikes do?) I would've picked something else. He looks better as an eldritch mutated half-Lorelei horror. He might have feathers coming out of his arm, but at least he doesn't have the gloves.

Song I associate with him:

Oh, this is cheating by picking someone else's, but I've always liked how this one fan took Within Temptation's "Hand of Sorrow" and connected it to Luke, Asch, and Van all together. Again, it underlines how closely tied into the heroes' backstories and the game's central themes Van himself is.

Favorite picture of him:

I like his hair-down surfer look in Rays, but for my favorite, I'll say this panel from the Asch manga. (Apologies for the curvature of the page.)

This is a scene where the manga improves on the game. It's much more intense and visceral (hello bonus violent silhouettes with Van being extra spiky), and the personal aspect of Asch's and Van's conflict is front and center. This isn't just an argument about philosophy or ethics, it's an argument between a master and a student who have worked closely together for years. I really like how Van seems not only immovable in that panel, but he's also -- still. No matter what Asch tries to do, no matter how quick and violent he can be, Van's standing at the eye of his storm -- Van is the eye of his storm, quiet, unchanging in his purpose.

Thanks for the ask, I enjoyed this one a lot!

Meme taken from here.

[m1d-45]

hello!! i’ve been lingering on your blog for a while, but i’ve been too scared to request/reach out until now jfnfksk. before i do, i wanted to say that you’re one of my favorite writing blogs. all of the works i’ve read from you are beautiful and profound and, in my opinion, you have a great way of words and storytelling. your blog was one of my introductions to sagau in general, so thank you for that, too.

i’ve been having a lot of thoughts about sagau and fontaine recently, particularly revolving around the 4.1 archon quest. lyney and freminet are both amongst some of my favorite characters, and i have pulled for/have them both, and i use them both often. i personally disagreed with many of the traveler’s (which i’m assuming was the creator’s main vessel during it all?) actions, how we dealt with lyney and wriothesley and how we seemed to be neutral with both of them after. i definitely did not, and do not, like wriothesley after everything that happened, and i wished we were a bit more hostile/cold towards him at least. he put lyney and freminet especially in states of extreme distress and had no qualms about it, even if he never intended to hurt them physically.

how the traveler went about it all just felt very wrong to me. i would not have been so docile and friendly towards wriothesley afterwards, and quite frankly, i would’ve been way more worried about lyney and freminet than we were. i, personally, am on lyney’s side 100%, and i wish we weren’t forced to be in a weird state of limbo between our “loyalties.” i have none to wriothesley, and i wish i could’ve made that known.

in the event that we’re going with the creator being more omnipotent and a third party (such as in your piece “wandering”) rather than isekai’d, do you think that the characters would be able to feel/tell/hear the creator’s frustrations? considering that the creator’s vessels are supposed to be controlled by them, how do you think that would work — the creator mostly disagreeing with the actions their vessel have chosen, but basically being helpless against them? would that align/be possible with how you view sagau and its dynamics?

this could be viewed as a more formal request or just a rambling ask, depending on if you find it interesting/agree with it/wish to write for it or not; i don’t mind! my apologies as well — this got a bit longer than i intended. (also, could i be added to the taglist if that’s not too much trouble?)

oooh this is an interesting point!

now, from a gameplay standpoint, while it makes sense to have two kinds of dialogue when interacting with npcs—sort of like a nice and rude option to give players some room—a canonical single storyline for the traveller is much simpler and far easier in the long run, especially for the kind of story mhy wants to tell. this being said, i do agree we should have more flexibility in dialogue.

i do believe that even if you don’t verbally say something, they can still feel your emotions, such as frustration. the extent changes—i think too much about this game good lord—but the point is that they could tell that you’re dissatisfied with the actions you’re taking. the end conclusion could be anything from “the device they use to connect with this world isn’t perfect. they must not have regained enough power to fully control it.” to “still being kind even through their anger…. our lord truly is gracious” depending on the situation, character, etc. that being said if you out loud disagreed with something you’re doing, it would be pretty universally accepted that the limits of your influence are a Bad Thing. this serves as motivation to find a way to restore your full power; whether that means “we gotta motivate them from afar! how far can we push these boundaries?” or “ok. we have to bring them here.” depends on your flavor of sagau.

that should cover everything i wanted to say. thank you for the compliments, and i’m glad that you liked my writing. feel free to send another ask if you want to clarify or add on, and have a good day!

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond!: The Game!

Hey, all! As part of an effort to further potential with my Tumblr project, I have a huge announcement to make for you all. Introducing...

An official game adaptation of Sonic: Into, Across and Beyond!, and boy, will it be a treat to behold, huh?

The game has started development today, and you'll be able to look forward to:

Each of the stories in gameplay form

Over 20 playable characters

Plenty of cutscenes to enjoy

Interactive environments to explore

Epic boss encounters with many rogues from the Sonic multiverse

And so much more!

I really hope you're all looking forward to-!

OMT!Tails: Woah woah woah! Hang on a moment.

Huh?

OMT!Tails walks into frame.

OMT!Tails: The story's barely 6 months old yet, and you're seriously pitching a game for it?

Ah, right. I forgot.

CR!Sonic and CR!Sally show up.

CR!Sonic: You okay, Tails?

OMT!Tails: You guys might want to look at this.

CR!Sally: A video game of all our endeavours? Seriously?

CR!Sonic: Looks like it. How would it even work out, though?

OMT!Tails: I doubt it'd ever see completion, though. I mean, over 6 quests to fill out into gameplay form? That'd take AGES, and it's likely going to risk cancellation partway through the process.

CR!Sonic: Yeah, you got a good point there, kid. I mean, can't people just enjoy the stories as they are? They're not meant to be "played".

OMT!Tails: Yeah, exactly. Especially after what I've been through...

CR!Sally: I get you, Tails...

CR!Sonic: Into, Across and Beyond! is meant to be a story project for free and for fun! Pico doesn't have the time or energy to dedicate part of his life to making a game. I bet those children and hate band-wagoners on Twitter would just jump at any opportunity to hate on it for petty reasons. And that's why they have so much-!

D-Sides Mighty enters.

D-Sides Mighty: What's going on here?

OMT!Tails: Oh! Hey, Mighty.

D-Sides Mighty: A game, huh? Don't people have enough Sonic fan-games to play?

CR!Sonic: That's what I've been trying to get at, bud. I mean, the story here on Tumblr's satisfactory enough.

OMT!Tails: Wait, "Tumblr"?

CR!Sonic: Hmm?

OMT!Tails: I thought it was called "Tumblelogs".

CR!Sonic: It was! Well, used to, anyway. I'm guessing it's still called that in your dimension?

OMT!Tails: Mhm.

D-Sides Mighty: Yeah, we don't need to go for a game of this, considering the Spider-Verse IP is copyrighted.

OMT!Tails: Hmm... Give me just a moment!

OMT!Tails spins around the lower text, tweaking it a bit.

OMT!Tails: There! Better?

CR!Sally: Much better! Well done, Tails!

D-Sides Mighty: Well, that's one situation we can finally close the book on, wouldn't you say?

CR!Sonic: Yep. Come on, Sal. Let's head back now.

CR!Sally: Good idea, Sonic.

The couple headed off.

D-Sides Mighty: Wanna go grab a bite at Burger Monarchy, Tails?

OMT!Tails: Sure thing!

They left too.

Well, that's that, then. You're NOT getting that game. In the end, it was a cleverly-veiled April Fools' gag!

Happy April Fools' Day, folks! You've got all there is so far of the story to enjoy here from the comfort of Tumblr. Plus, I've been generous enough with each post to compile links to every post for this project on a Master Post that you're more than welcome to view on my profile. Well, see you around in the next post!

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...

???: It's all the same for your heroic delusions. That is, until you finally meet ME. I already won because I was two steps ahead and found a way to tap into what I desire most. You think a hero of Mobius, let alone a type of Sonic, always has a chance against Dr. Eggman? HA! Don't make me laugh. I ripped that hope to pieces for my Sonic long ago. And soon, with the power of MY Chaos Emeralds, all other universes will follow... Now, you'll all see how big a man I can be. It's time to say goodbye to humanity, heroes...

???: And hello... to the NEW NORM! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The reveal of the final main antagonist... coming soon.

[adobodemon]

👋 Heyy I know you play Star Rail too so I wanted to know what quests you prioritised? I recently started playing again and I thought finishing the main quests before getting to the side quests but now I'm not so sure the way my ass is getting beat by these enemies especially those swarm bugs in Ruan Mei's quest💀 so maybe i should finish them off b4 the world level gets too high? What do you think?

Took a while to get to this but yeah:

You should get up to date in the main quests, as the events as of late are requiring you to finish the latest main story mission in order to play through them

It's really important for the current event if you don't have that many characters, since there's a free 4* selector not applicable anymore lol

If you're having trouble with main quests, try and focus on getting a good core team: One DPS, one support, and 2 sustainers or a sustainer and a support if your team is tanky enough (the main sustainer should be a healer cuz free preservation options are kinda not great)

Good DPS that you can get without pulling rn are Dr. Ratio, Herta, Qingque, and Dan Heng

Good free Supports are Asta and Yukong

Good free Sustains are Fire MC and Lynx (though for Lynx you need to unlock Pure Fiction and clear at least two stages), if you don't have Lynx then Natasha works just fine

Focus on leveling in this priority: Character Level > Traces > Light Cone Level > Relics (Good Main Stats) > Relics (Good Main and Sub stats)

Don't grind relics until you're AR45 though, you should get by with free relics from treasure chests or quests until then

[lrdvyke]

class. warrior, mage ( apostate ) details. spirit warrior, storm mage, later a frenzied mage nationality. technically ferelden languages. common, high draconic weapons. war spear, gravel stone crystal atop it.

story.

From the south of Ferelden, within the uncharted territories of the Frostback Basin, there lies the Badlands where Vyke is said to be from. Part of the Nightfolk, a subsection within the tribe headed by Hoarah Loux, he is guided by the stars to head northward into Thedas. Being a lone adventurer, yet notable in his full suit of armor and tall spear that he is never seen without, he often poses as hired muscle for select jobs which he finds to be worthy enough to take on. There is no telling what the criteria entails to have him agree, but there seems to be something guiding him further on to the point where he is never truly in one place for too long. From what people can say who have met him, Vyke is known as a spirit warrior and does not quite hide the fact that he is also a mage ( much to the annoyance of many a templar who have not caught him yet )—however where he learned most of his spells is the one thing he often hides for the simple desire of protecting that which gave him the trust in the first place: a dragon. From his bond, he was able to learn the power of the storm, and wield electricity magic alongside his prowess with the spear. Now, the spear doubles as a staff, with its foci on the butt-end with a gifted crystal from the dragon itself. ( Off the coast in Storm Coast, there lies Dragon Island where a Vinsomer High Dragon by the name of Lansseax resides. Vyke can also be seen here, if one knows how to get there, that is. ) Yet, all journeys often come to an end, but no one knows what exactly that end was. Only one thing is certain: Vyke disappeared without a trace. Some say he traveled east, others say he went further north, while a small, select few say they saw him descend below ground, past the dwarven thaigs, past even the Deep Roads, to go where no man in centuries has been able to go. They said he is as good as dead, counting him among the corpses that litter the way, thus when he finally dragged himself up to the surface, less of a man he once used to be, no one truly believed it. In now melted armor, and an odd sensation surrounding him, he staggered and pulled himself to a rest at a small town just on the outskirts of Orlais. There, stories began to circulate. The town had gone mad with a mysterious flame burning them from within. Screams are often heard in the night, a proclamation to one of the lost Forgotten Ones to take them all, make them all equal within the chaos that is bound to come. It got to the point where Templars from a nearby city were then dispatched to control the area, only to be met with Vyke. Stories were added: was he dead or locked up, one does not know for certain. But all tell of Vyke vanishing once again.

interaction notes.

events not set in any particular game, can span across all three mirroring the protagonists from each as he does his own things. can be met here and there, but will never be a full companion, and can actually be a boss / enemy depending!

most interactions will be based before he descends. plotting otherwise is the only way I will write frenzied Vyke with anyone. some of these plots can be breaking him out of jail inside of a Circle if there is any interest.

easiest mode of interaction is Inquisition based: he is on Dragon Island which the Inquisitor can get to by way of a side quest. but he will either try to stop them or fight them off from attacking the dragon there. if the Inquisitor backs off from killing the dragon, Vyke can be recruited temporarily before he disappears by the end of the main game events.

Origins / DA2 centric characters, he will be part of one of the dragon cults within the area. however, he will want to go down into Orzammar / the Deep Roads ( da2: can be either of the three acts where the party goes back into the Deep Roads ), but will then disappear from the party once there if taken. if not taken, he will no longer be around.

[greenmagic-oilspill]

Spoiler-Free FFXVI review

Going to keep it under a Read More because it’s pretty long...

FFXVI is a really ambitious game, and from beginning to end I was invested in the plot and characters -- but it's missing just a couple of things that would really make it great. It’s a beautiful game, no doubt about it, with an amazing score and environments, rich lore and deep worldbuilding, fun gameplay, and some really compelling characters. When it excels, it really excels. But where it falters, I really felt it. I’ve got some recency bias here, working for and against the game (since I only beat it yesterday), so I’m not really sure how my thoughts will change over time. I’ve definitely changed my opinions of many FF games after revisiting them a second time, so this one could benefit from the same.

I’m going to start with the characters and plot, because those are the most important parts of a FF game to me, but I’ll also delve into the worldbuilding, gameplay, and music of the game.

Characters

With as many cutscenes as this game has, the characters really find their time to shine. It’s primarily Clive’s story, and over the course of the game we really see him change. His development is a bit cyclical in some ways, but there are definitely events that shape him and who he becomes over the story, and he really feels different from every other FF protagonist. I like him well enough – I think he’s among some of the better FF protagonists for sure. Clive shows such a wide range of emotions and his VA did a stellar job of capturing them.

My favorite character in this game is a spoiler, so I’m not going to go into that in this review.

One character I really wanted to like more was Jill. She’s got all the makings of a compelling character and a compelling story, but a lot of the time it just felt like she was there. The other day @faerantstory and I were discussing how they’d heard that every female character in this story fell under the umbrella of “Pure,” “Sexy,” or “Evil,” and at the time, I had just finished a sequence of the story where Jill most certainly veered away from “Pure,” but after that she fell right back into it. And then she was just an ever-present support to Clive who did little else. I liked the part of the story that focused on her a lot, but it felt so brief and they could have done a LOT more with her past that they didn’t do – she just felt so underutilized. To be honest, she feels a lot like Tifa 2.0, for better or for worse.

Benedikta and Hugo were both extremely disappointing. I expected more from them. Without going into spoilers that is all I am going to say. Barnabas too, to a lesser extent – they went in a direction with him that I didn’t really expect and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Dion, however, was pretty great, and Joshua’s story at the beginning of the game made for a really compelling start. Continuing with the umbrellas that female characters fall under, Benedikta fell under both “Evil” and “Sexy” and not much else.

The villains in general (including the main villain) didn’t really do it for me. The main villain didn’t really do anything new that past FF villains had already done before, and better. Their motivations were interesting and followed the overall theme of the story, and there were some twists, but as a character they kind of fell flat. One of the other villains even felt cartoonishly evil.

Honestly, where this game REALLY shines with its characters is primarily in the supporting cast. This genuinely might be one of my favorite parts of the game. You meet a TON of characters over the course of this game (some might even say too many) and I found some of them more compelling than the characters who got more screentime. The world feels so alive with all of their stories, many of which play out over both the main scenario and also through side quests. Many of these characters live in the Hideaway, the main hub of the game, but just as many appear in the various towns and settlements you visit. They all felt like they had a purpose, and many of them had a surprising amount of depth. I definitely encourage doing all of the side quests and taking the time to talk to them after many of the story beats. Also, none of these really fall under a bland Pure, Evil, Sexy umbrella! That was great! But maybe that’s why they’re side characters. :/

The Plot

It’s hard to really go into it without spoilers, but overall I really liked the plot itself and the structure of it really worked to help tell the story they needed to tell. They had clearly defined goals and the characters never felt like they were simply reacting to everything happening around them. I’ve seen some criticism for the “MMO style storytelling” this game has, and that makes sense coming from the team who made XIV, but if you like the story progression in XIV I feel pretty confident in saying you’d like it in XVI. It feels really similar and follows the same pattern of go to new area -> help people with their problems -> gain the trust of the populace. It worked for me. At times there are parts that may feel like “filler” (I’ve always hated this term because people tend to use it wrong), but all of it helps further the characters or worldbuilding. My biggest problem with it is that at times it felt predictable.

At times things felt really bleak, but it never got too bleak for me, and overall the story has a hopeful message so that really helped.

Worldbuilding

Stellar. The Active Time Lore system is a huge help to understanding and conveying the lore and politics of this game – I can’t stress enough how much I loved that system and the dedicated characters in the Hideaway who discuss these things and tell you more about them. The lore in this world is rich and it feels so alive, as I mentioned earlier with the side characters, who are perhaps the primary reason for it. Everything and everywhere really has such a great atmosphere. The marketing stressed that things would change a lot over the game’s time skips, but I didn’t really feel it to be honest – things changed more after big plot events regardless of how much time passed.

Three of the six nations of this story felt extremely underutilized, though, which was a huge shame. Two of those in particular were being really built up but due to story events nothing really happened.

I don’t know how to describe this criticism, and this is more personal preference than anything, but XVI didn’t really feel like it offered anything “new” or original to the overall series to make it feel like it has its own identity distinct from the others. Every FF game offers some new summon that doesn’t appear in other games, maybe a new marketable/cute/iconic monster, a unique airship or something, a unique race, etc. I don’t know if that makes sense, but every concept introduced in XVI felt like a reference to a previous game in the series (even, to some extent, the main villain, whose very name is a name used before). Because of that it almost feels like it doesn’t stand on its own, in a way.

Gameplay

Battles were a ton of fun once I got the hang of it. Loved how smooth it felt, loved the gameplay changes for certain boss battles. I played with one of the accessories to help with evasion – with it, at times the game felt a little too easy, but that’s not a criticism from me. I like easy. I knew if I took it off I’d have died a lot more often. The battle system itself was the best part of the gameplay.

Customization could have been better – sometimes I felt like I had a lot of options for different Eikon abilities to equip and not a lot of space to equip them, leaving some abilities completely unused despite how I wanted to equip them. Weapons and armor were pretty much always straight upgrades that increased your stats and did nothing else. Accessories had the potential to switch things up a bit and offer some variety, but with only three accessory slots you couldn’t really do much (especially if you have one of the accessibility options equipped, like I did). Character progression was mostly achieved through story events, because leveling up is just a straight stat increase, which I can understand is very boring for some people.

I loved that this game was not open world, and instead used four separate and very large maps. Of those four, one felt considerably smaller than the others though. Open world games tend to be really overwhelming for me, and too easy to get lost, so I typically don’t care for the exploration aspect of a lot of those games. But with these four separate areas, I did actually want to explore them – the problem is, aside from finding beautiful vistas or the locations of certain hunt marks, there was not a whole lot to do. Any treasures to find were mostly just filled with useless crafting materials or gil. Not the highest priority for me, but I can see why people would count the exploration against this game. Speaking of gil, once I got past the early game I almost never had to spend any, so it just kept building up and felt pointless.

My biggest gameplay criticism is the enemy variety. All of the enemies in all of the maps were the same, just in different colors. Every map had crabs, or scorpions, or antelopes, or bandits, or chocobos, or goblins, or spiders, or plant monsters, or a couple different species of dragon, maybe an adamantoise or coeurl. Again, there was nothing new – no fantastical creature that the FF series never introduced before, and many of the series staples (like tonberries and cactuars) were missing altogether. It got particularly egregious when they went as far as to double up on some bosses.

Music

Fantastic, as expected of Soken. Not much to say there. I like his work better overall in XIV, but that’s unfair with the sheer amount of songs XIV has. He was allowed to experiment a bit more in XIV, but in XVI he took some opportunities to use different genres here and there.

Overall - 7/10

I can honestly say I really liked it overall – it’s a beautiful game with really rich characters and lore, and where it excels it really excels. I’m not a big fan of the way it ended but I think that is mostly due to personal preference. There were several unanswered questions and I don’t know if they have plans to go into DLC or even a sequel, and I don’t think there’s enough for that anyway – it ended pretty neatly. I will let this game sit with me and I’ll read up on some discussions from other people to see if my thoughts will change, but I don’t know if I’ll end up liking it more or less.

Thanks for reading this really long review!! I will write up a more spoilery one in a couple of days.

[daydreamtofiction]

Hello! Firstly, I wanted to say just how much I adore your writing style. There's just something ever so beautiful about the way it flows. And speaking of flow... I wondered if had any tips for making a story flow better, I've so many ideas but I just can't seem to figure out how to put them all together in a coherent way. Thank you!

Firstly, thank you so much.

This is such a good question but it’s one I’m having a really hard time coming up with practical advice for! I’ll try my best, but I’m sorry in advance if this isn’t helpful.

As always, I like to start with the disclaimer that I’m 29, I’ve been writing since I was a child, went to university at 18 for an undergrad in creative writing and got my masters in creative writing at 23. I’ve also had another 6 years since graduating in which I’ve been incredibly privileged to be mentored and supported by some amazing people and organisations in the literary space. So I’ve got a lot of years worth of practice and development under my belt. I’m not saying anyone needs degrees or training or anything to become a good writer, because you don’t, I’m just trying to emphasise how time is truly the best aid for anyone looking to hone their craft. And there’s never a set formula you can follow when it comes to improving your writing.

Funnily enough, I enjoy creating fics so much on this platform because it allows me to be a little more lax with my writing. Some things I’ve published under this alias would never fly with an editor and would probably be torn apart in developmental feedback. I don’t edit and redraft as much as I do with my irl work, I’m not as economical with my words and I try not to overthink things too much. So first and foremost, I’d say go easy on yourself. You write your fics for you, and you write them for free! Fanfic readers, on a whole, consume works that range drastically in author skill level. And for the most part, they will still enjoy and appreciate a fic despite its flaws.

That being said, let me try and actually answer your question lol.

When you say ‘flow’, I’m not sure if you mean the narrative or the actual writing itself. So I’ll give separate advice for both.

The narrative

Some good ways to make a narrative flow better is to think about pace, character and storyline.

Think about a TV show, I’ll use Fleabag season 2 as an example since it’s fresh in my mind from my priest fic. The basic premise is Fleabag meets a priest, fancies him, they hook up, but in the end he chooses God. If that’s all the story was, the show would be an episode long. What makes it so much more compelling is all the little ‘side quests’ she takes, the exploration of herself and other relationships, the time they take to allow that tension to build, little scenes that have no bearing on the main plot but add meat onto the bones of the story.

This helps control the pace; makes it feel more substantial and gives the readers time to bond with your characters and become invested in the story. It also stops you and your readers becoming fatigued by the main plot. Think about your day; you got up, went to school/work/wherever, came home and went to bed. But that wasn’t the extent of your day. You also might have noticed some new freckles while washing your face that morning, had an interesting interaction with a shopkeeper while buying your lunch, you might have found yourself dwelling on something that happened years ago which affected your mood, it might have rained when you weren’t expecting it to. All those little things are what make the journey from A to B truly flow.

So don’t be scared to divert from the main storyline with extra scenes, or create secondary plots that run alongside the main narrative. Not only will it help with the pace, but it will also force you to create more well-rounded characters. A well-rounded character is another great way to make a story flow, because they feel more real and less like a device.

Having lots of ideas and no idea how to make them flow is a problem I think many writers have. My advice for that is to not attempt to squeeze everything into one story just because you’re overwhelmed with a plethora of ideas. I know it can be hard when you’ve thought of a great plot point or scene but you just can’t make it fit, or you can’t figure out where in the story all of your ideas should go. That’s why it’s good to create a rough outline of your story in advance (either mentally or written out), piece together where all of these ideas might go before you start to write your story.

You can keep a note of your ideas in a separate folder/journal/document, that way you won’t feel as compelled to fit everything in one fic, because you’ll have this great selection of ideas you didn’t use that can be utilised in other projects.

If you’re still struggling to make your ideas flow into one coherent narrative, then it could be a sign that the story you’re wanting to write isn’t a fully developed concept yet. It might be worth taking some time to read other books/fics you like, watch tv/films and take note of how they’re structured, even daydreaming about your ideas can be useful, as the more you play them out, the more you may begin to notice how your mind naturally puts them together.

The writing itself

Read 👏 your 👏 work 👏 aloud 👏. It’s easier to detect issues in the flow of your writing when you speak it out loud - if you trip over your sentences, then you can almost guarantee a reader will. Pay attention to where you naturally take pause, that’s usually indicative of a comma being required or a sentence running on too long.

Be mindful of your story reading like ‘and then they did this, then they did that, then they went here’. Not everyone writes in a flowery way, but it should still have texture, some light and shade. Similarly, make sure you’re not repeating yourself. Nothing interrupts the flow of a paragraph like seeing the same words or descriptions over and over again.

Also, I know I said I’m less economical with language here than I am in my real life work. But I still advise trying to lessen unnecessary words/sentences. Give readers credit that they can fill in blanks themselves. Do you need to tell them the character is holding the phone in their left hand specifically, or can you just say they’re holding their phone? Do you really need to describe a characters appearance top to bottom, or can you just pick out a few defining features? Do they need to be described at all? Could you take a sentence like ‘I walked over to the table and picked up the camera, then I turned around and took a picture of the flowers in the vase.’ And turn it into ‘I took the camera off the table and snapped a picture of the flowers.’ It’s only a small difference, but in terms of flow, the key is making it require as little effort as possible to absorb.

I also just realised you could be asking about dialogue, which is its own challenge entirely. But I did give this advice to another person asking how to make dialogue sound more natural.

I really hope this helps! Sorry I went on a bit lmao.

[tinyjordan]

so I actually finally finished my first playthrough of bg3 last night (except it was actually this morning because I beat the final boss at like 3 am) and I just wanted to share my experience. obviously there will be spoilers

so yes. it did take me like 2 months to finish the game, a lot longer than the average player. this was mostly because I was just really busy with school and shit and I've been playing on my parents tv, so I obviously didn't get too much time to myself to binge the game. but honestly, when I did get time to play through the game, I was honestly so overjoyed to just explore the world and do quests with my silly little guys.

imo my favorite act in the game is the first act, which from what I read, many people agree with me on this sentiment. that doesn't mean that I think that the other two acts weren't great, but I just think that act 1 had something special going on there. i loved how huge the first act was and just how much I could do in this act. i thought I finished this act having completed every quest (except those in the mountain pass because I didn't know that I could just go through both paths, which I don't know how I came to that conclusion in hindsight) but when reading and watching videos about bg3, I learned that there was a ton of stuff that I missed. I can't wait for my second playthrough (which will probably be my durge run) to experience more that I missed.

i don't know where to put this point in this essay thing, but the party after defeating the goblin camp. love it! this is where fanfictions are born. although you don't really get much when romancing gale in this party except the fact that he proclaims that he likes your stank in the most socially awkward but well meaning way. i thought this was funny.

oh yeah! also Lae'zel tried to have sex with me. we didn't, but I thought I might as well share that.

speaking of Lae'zel: the most underrated character in the game. i don't care. she is extremely wholesome despite our first introduction to her. in my playthrough, she was the one that got kidnapped by orin in act three. when I rescued her from orin, she was extremely sweet and thankful about it. she said something about the githyanki language not having a word for "thank you", and she tells the player the closest thing to it in her language. but even then she thought that wasn't a good enough way to express gratitude, so she said "thank you, sincerely." she's not my favorite companion, but my heart did swell in this moment

speaking of favorite companions-

astarion

ASTARION

yes I know that everyone reading this probably heard this a million times, but Astarion is such an amazing and well written character. this man is blorbo himself. i want to be his best friend. during my playthrough, my tav and Astarion had a sort of sibling like relationship: being on near opposite sides of the character archetype spectrum and disagreeing on a lot of things, but also being super protective over each other (we dislike Araj in this house). his whole story arc made me want to cry several times. i wish this game had a hug option for every companion so that I could hug everyone, ESPECIALLY Astarion. omg. OMG. when we defeated Cazador and Astarion stabbed him repeatedly, i cheered. i got him to not ascend and I cheered. like Karlach (who i also love and got me the closest to actually crying), i was so fucking proud of Astarion. i could talk about him all day but I think I would just stop there and resort to reblogging post about him for my own sanity.

when thinking of my opinion on Shadowheart, I remember that I didn't like her at all at first. it didn't help that she was racist against the githyanki. but after act 2 and pretty much always having her in my party as the main healer, she REALLY grew on me as a character. imo, I think she has one of the best character arcs and she really meshes well with the other companions. she's not a comic relief character at all, but every joke and sarcastic comment she makes is always a banger. she's my Tav's official best friend. also her act three glow up. that is all

oh also during Shadowheart's quest in act three, I met Viconia DeVir (who i killed) and I laughed my ass off because I ended up naming my Tav Viconia who when playing as her, she was like the EXACT opposite of the evil cult leader. there was definitely a "there can only be one" moment when killing her

I also feel that Wyll is pretty underrated character, which is disappointing since he is actually super interesting as a character. I mean he made a deal with a devil. like. c'mon. now I did sometimes get annoyed with his whole being a hero schtick, but also he's like the most sane character companion imo. i felt bad about him sulking alone at the after goblin killing party and I was tempted to ask him to dance to maybe cheer him up, but I also knew that this would probably lead to a romance with him, which I didn't really want. so I just let him be. i remember the impossible choice we had to make in act three (save Wyll's dad and sacrifice his freedom, or break the contract Wyll made with Mizora and let his dad die). This was actually a really difficult decision to make because like. it's either your dad or your freedom. it's literally an impossible choice to make. i decided to have Wyll be free of his contract with Mizora because I had hope that we could maybe find a loophole to this whole deal. WHICH THERE WAS. I had to undo a 5 whole hours of progress because of a bug with Duke Ravengard not spawning in the iron throne if you progress too much in the lower city before watching Gortash's coronation (which is entirely my fault for being awful at directions and not understanding very obvious instructions), BUT I DID IT. I saved Wyll's dad and had him free from Mizora's servitude! his friendship with Karlach is also extremely sweet. I love just how nice Wyll is. I think he's neat.

KARLACH! My favorite female companion! I was so excited when I was finally able to give her a hug. she's just so sweet and fun and as i said before she got me the closest to crying while playing the game. she almost made me cry not once, not twice, but THREE whole times. first time was of course when she was finally able to touch people. second was when we killed Gortash and she had a crisis about dying soon. third was when I thought she was actually going to die before Wyll offered that she come with him back avernus to kill all the devils (bless Wyll). she's also the number one funniest character in the game which juxtaposes the fact that she almost made ms cry the most amount of times.

speaking of crying, this game made me want to cry three separate times in one day. i made the mistake of playing through Shadowheart's and Astarion's quest on the same day then proceeding to kill Gortash, which you already know what happens after that.

After playing through the game, I agree that camp dad(dy) is the official term to describe Halsin. I'm not attracted to him in any since, so to me he is just dad, but I do agree with this sentiment. also goddamn he tall

Jaheira is the fun aunt of the group and I love her for that. she's a queen.

Minsc is himbo. I also realized that he always has something to say about everything we do, and I didn't realize that until when I talked to him one time and he was speaking of something we did like three quests ago and I had to keep talking to him until he was finally caught up with the current events. it was super hilarious

Also I love Boo! when Minsc introduced me to this space hamster I immediately feel in love with his tiny wittle paw awnd hwis wittle whiskews- also Boo had so much personality and I love him for that.

now. it is time to be down bad. Gale. my beloved. if you have seen the amount of posts and art that I reblog about him, you could probably tell that I am absolutely down bad for this man. I don't know when it started, but holy shit. this man got me kicking my legs and squealing like a little school girl. every romance scene with him got me down bad. he says just the sweetest things and I am on the floor dead from a heart attack. he proposed to me at the end of the game. i was happy :)

other points about Gale: he is super funny. every joke with him is hilarious. Mystra is a bitch. he gives dedicated history professor vibes. his camp outfit looks so comfy. he hates sneaking because his knees hate sneaking. he is best friends with his tressym named Tara, who he summoned NOT because of tressyms being known for being a great familiar, but because he wanted a friend. pleasure domes lol

i guess this is all to say that I love every companion in bg3

i believe I got the best ending (in terms of good or bad endings) in the game, and my hot take is that I actually love the ending of the game! i don't know what other people were talking about when they said it wasn't satisfying. the only critique I can give about the ending is that if you don't romance either Shadowheart or Astarion, you don't really know what happens to them after the events of the game other than they probably have a happy ending. other than that, great ending!

i will say that I do agree with most other people when they say that act 3 is maybe the weakest act in the game. not that it isn't a bad act. i just think it's unnecessary difficult even in explorer difficulty, which I did had to set it to because balanced wasn't cutting it for my smooth brain. i also had difficulty with trying to figure out what to do or where to go for a huge chunk of the act. and if it wasn't for a few helpful guides, I might have accidentally skipped a huge chunk of the quests and gotten a worse ending for a lot of my companions. also yeah. act 3 is extremely buggy. not unplayable buggy, but it did cause a lot of problems with my playthrough including me having to redo 5 hours of progress because of a bug

also fighting the githyanki at any point in the game starting from the end of act 2 is an absolute nightmare. how are a group of githyanki monks a more difficult fight than the literal god of death?

speaking of death, i love the dead three. i think they are amazing antagonists. my favorite with being Thorm. he is just so intimidating and he gave an amazing first impression. it helps that he is voiced by J.K. Simmons.

OH AND RAPHAEL! he is so theatre kid evil and that is amazing! best fight theme in the game. i saved the song on my Spotify before I even got to his fight because I heard it for the first time when I was kind of watching my brother play and I fell in love with the song.

i wish there was more to do in act 2, but in terms of story, it is extremely strong and the act is extremely spooky, which I love. i got scarred for life in the house of healing. though I think the biggest strength with act 2 is Shadowheart. she stole the show in act 2.

also Gale's act 2 romance scene hehe <3

Scratch best boy

Owl bear cub so adorable

oh! also when exploring the szarr palace, I found an owl bear plush and I immediately wanted it to be real. i immediately stole it because it is the best thing ever

i love this game so much! there is so much more I want to speak about, but then this would turn into a novel if I mentioned everything. I might make a post about my Tav later on, but that's for later. i already made a google doc about her profile, but there is so much more that I want to discuss about her outside that doc, so...maybe I can share the doc whenever and maybe let people send asks about the character and I can discuss more in detail stuff that wasn't mentioned

I'm probably gonna take a short break from playing bg3 since I still just want to think about the finale and I spent maybe 80 hours of gameplay on this one run (i say this one run because I have been playing a bit with my brother and friend)

afterwards I want to do a redeemed dark urge run. i might romance Astarion not because I see him in a romantic light, but because I really ship him with the durge thanks to all of the art I have seen

tldr; bg3 is amazing

[fanimecastle]

Welcome to the third wave of Fanime Castle's character recruitment! 🏰

The game is going to be a small, story-focused retro role-playing game (PC only) heavily inspired by Fanime Quest, which was also another fanime game published in 2017. Your character can appear in-game as a potentially recruitable side character! How cool is that?

Keep reading this post for the rules.

Rules, Notes & Permissions

Same as last time, the character you submit through the form listed below must be yours in ownership. If you'd like to enter a character made by a different creator, permission is required (+ screenshot as proof when asked for).

The main story has been set in stone, and we're only looking for cameos. Please don't request any of your characters to become central to the plot!

Only send us 3 characters at maximum. The people who can edit this form have the right to delete your newer entries if you spam more than that!

Your character must have appeared in at least 1 published preview of a fanime episode. Works in progress are also acceptable, but do have sufficient proof on hand that you are currently working on said project (scripts, final character designs, storyboards, etc. are good enough).

You retain the rights and ownership of your character. The reason why there's so many questions in the form is that we want to portray their traits in-game as best we can!

Our current team is small and the final game will be FREE so please be patient with us if work takes way too long!

Any applicant who is rude or disrespectful to our staff, have forged false proof of content, or have submitted someone else's character without their permission will be blacklisted.

Please fill up this form to sign your character up!

Applications close at March 1st, 2024 (EST). We will choose over 10 entries.

(Note: Anyone who has sent a character in previous waves may submit new OCs again! This is exclusive to the third wave.)

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us!

[darkfictionjude]

Etymology nonnie here!

I knew planning an IF was going to be hard. But I didn't imagine how easily it can go into a chaotic disaster.

The thing is, a part of me wants to go to have as many choices as possible. But that's not possible nor responsible. So, I have to impose myself a limit. The problem is that even if you do, some choices do allow for a lot of further branching. Some of it very complex, in comparison with the rest.

And there is also the fact you have to try to keep in mind your branching has to, sometimes, still arrive at the same common plot point. It may arrive differently, of course, but it has to get there nonetheless.

Worse, you also have to consider that certain choices may not have direct and immediate consequences. So you have to plan how it will show after. Keeping it in mind while writing and planning.

I'm not surprised I began to plan and write my first IF the worst possible moment for me to do so. As I plan to write my master's thesis this year. So, it's not like I have all the time in the world for this. And as fun as it is, it's also a bit mentally demanding to the point I'm not sure I can justify doing it as hobbie/recreation time.

What is your way of handling planning your IF, dear Jude? I know there is some flexibility, as you have added things to WWC that came from things discussed here in the blog that otherwise may have not been included. But I also suspect there are things that are set hard in stone. Do you have plans before hand for each episode? Or do you have more of a set of goals for the story and write in a way that simply fills the space between these plot points in a way that makes sense?

Also, why did you decided to do the side quests for WWC? Was it for practicing how to plan branching and all of that for the main story? Or was it more for a writing need (as in: creating a break for the pace's sake; exposing the player to the worldbuilding, both for the supernatural and the human aspects; allow character growth for the MC on their own, without the meddling of the RO's and the Crown family)? Do you plan to include side quests in your future IFs too?

(Hopefully the second set of questions is related enough to the first. I did think they were, but I would understand if you didn't. In which case I could write a second ask if you deem it necessary, that fully focuses on them).

Yeah I also started writing this game at the worst possible moment 😭 write before my semester began

So the way I write is that I write the entire story outline, all the episodes and what they will contain before I begin writing the story proper. Then I go and make another document where I flesh out each given episode I'm on as I cut it up into scenes. Each episode has around 7-8 "scenes." It makes it cleaner and easier to write as to not forget anything vital.

The side quests came to me out of nowhere, which is contradictory to the way I fully plan things out. I'm a contradictory writer as I go back and add things to the individual episode outlines that while don't overall change the form do add something to character. The side quests were to show more of the world as Croun is a very interesting place but as I was writing it I realized that "hey this is good for MC, dangerously stupid at times but good." That's why I began adding this like the first kiss in the fake dating side quest so as to affect MC and as way to make the side quests feel more canon, sometimes side quests feel like non-canon fun routes that MC never acknowledges again.

I don't know if other IFs will include side quests simply because side quests fit in WWC but because it is a small strange town, other IFs take place in a broader world that isn't as a slow paced as it can be living in a town like this.

[eurofox]

Yakuza Ishin! review

Finished as much of this as I'm bothered with. Spoilers btw

Ok story wise this has to be one of weakest. I get that it's meant to be somewhat rooted in historical fact so it was limited in that way but it's just not great IMO. It takes forever to get going and when it finally does get interesting it's too near the end and a lot of shite is just dumped in the final cutscene. At least they didn't make us fight Jingu The whole 2 Ryoma thing got confusing and the reason behind it all felt flimsy. The great fire of Kyoto ended up being no big deal with most minimal damage ever? like wtf. I liked the historical setting but it felt undercooked overall tbh. Also I can buy bare knuckle Kiryu somehow never killing people, but Ryoma is straight up canonically using a sword, so it started feeling silly. I honestly appreciated the fact that he did just start killing near the end.

It was nice to see Mine again, but he felt underused. I don't care for Baba so I'm alright with Zhao. Having Ryoma's bro played by a former villain was pretty much a spoiler from the get go, could see betrayal coming a mile off. They did Daigo so dirty, making him the bald Shogun that gets almost no screentime :( . Also kinda disappointed Andre Richardson/Glover didn't do his asshole move of refusing to speak Japanese despite understanding but he did get his cool theme. Ryoma was interesting and felt different enough from Kiryu personality wise. I'm glad they kept Haruka as a side character so it wasn't retreading the same old stuff

Combat is stiffer than what I was expecting, but this is an old game I guess and I last played lost judgement which is very smooth so that didn't help. Brawler did so little damage and every enemy is armed so I stopped using it early on. Gunplay was a nice change, and so was wild dancer but both didn't really do much damage either. Stuck with sword most of the time but it got old after awhile, again it felt very stiff. Avoiding combat was a nightmare in this game, enemies were always waiting in that same narrow street The long battles are usually my favourite part of any game but they were rare and not done well here. Aside from storming Daigo's castle, which was ok. Way too many boss fights and most of them felt spongy as hell, like, if I'm setting a TIGER on you why is it doing so little damage? I actually didn't mind the trooper cards though overall, added a bit of variety. The blacksmith requires far too much grinding in an already grindy game so I made one ok gun and never looked back. Most weapons you find seem to be better anyway.

There was a few interesting substories, like the bathhouse and Sumo brothel but way less than other games. And fucking hell the amount of friendship bonds was out of control and boring as all fuck, just repetitive fetch quests and sob stories. One or two were funny but the rest I could not give less of a shit about.

Karaoke and dancing are fine, I just suck at them but it was cool seeing it in the historical setting. The brothel games got dull fast and chicken racing sucks. Never liked gambling anyway. The Farm simulator was an ok distraction and so was the cooking but very simple and I didn't find myself going back to them much. Fuck those prize ticket machines though, turning a wheel over and over to win like 40 scraps of paper.

Graphics wise it was ok, especially main cutscenes which are actually pretty good. You can see every stitch in the haoris But still looks very dated otherwise and the amount of pop in was crazy. I could be halfway down the street before textures loaded.

Soundtrack is ok. Nothing really stood out aside from the remixed themes though.

Everything feels so sloooow. Scrolling menus especially. And talking to people. And going into fights or entering buildings. other yakuza games are like this but only older ones.

I did enjoy it and played til the end, but far from my favourite Yakuza title. I'll admit a lot of the issues are probably because it's a remake of a 10 year old game so of course it's going to feel clunky, so I'm glad I didn't pay full price for this.

Stuff I liked:

Historical setting

Guns and trooper cards could be fun

Some of the sidequests

Mine getting some time to shine (even if it's only a little)

Ryoma himself is pretty cool

Story cutscenes look great

Stuff I didn't like:

Awful pop in and slow menus

friendship bonds with every other clown in the streets of Kyo

Meh story

Poor damage output making battles way too long, with brawler being straight up useless

Too much steam in bathhouse fight

Bald Daigo

Blacksmithing