#otp: come bother me baby

[kaitlinj16]

Oh, hush, you do, too. Knew it the second you walked in and put your eyes on him, biting your lip the way you do. - The Choice (2016)

❤❤❤

#gabby holland #Teresa Palmer #travis shaw #Benjamin Walker #travis x gabby #otp: come bother me baby #the choice #{scene} #edit

[neeterloveschenford]

Since I'm the little old lady of the fandom, I'm going to put my two cents in and then go to bed.

Honestly, I'm not letting the picture thing bother me. The show is not exactly known for attention to details. (I mean Aaron became a P2 in like 6 months while Celina is apparently going to retire in long sleeves.) And I never would have even thought about the picture if someone hadn't pointed out there was one there. But if it bothers you, then that is completely valid and you have every right to be offended by it. It's a TV show. Everyone can enjoy it in whatever capacity they want.

As for the constant discourse over age in fandom...... who really needs to grow up? I'm a Gen X lady. I've been enjoying fandoms and flailing over blorbos and OTP's since I was 8 years old. And my generation didn't even invent fandom. Guess what? You owe that to Boomers! That's right kiddies. You owe the very concept of fangirling to a bunch of Boomer housewives who sat around their homes daydreaming about Spock and Kirk knocking boots. So simmer down with the whole "You're too old" schtick. I saw someone earlier being attacked for being 31! Seriously!? Get to be my age and you'll understand that a 31 year old is a baby! Your thirties are some of the best and most productive years of your life. That is until you get to your forties. Which are even better! Y'all need to stop buying into the cliche that life ends at 29. You would have to offer me Bezos levels of riches to get me to even think about re-living my twenties. And the good Lord willing, Congress doesn't ruin my retirement plans, guess what I plan on doing when I retire? Spending significant portions of my days watching TV, movies, reading books and generally being an obnoxious fangirl.

So the moral of this particular little rant, is let people enjoy what they enjoy. As long as they aren't hurting anyone else, it ain't none of your business. If it bothers you that bad that you just can't stand to read the opinion of someone who plans on getting the Shingles vax on her next birthday, then please, BLOCK ME! Cause trust me, if you have the guts to come after me off anon, I'll be blocking you.

#the rookie #chenford #this took on a life of it's own #thanks for coming to my ted talk #the old lady has spoken #now it's time for me to take my medicine and go to bed #fandom discourse

[sxphoraddict]

"you draw me?" "You're naming your controller with my name?"

(artist! x gamer! Prompt headcanons/for otps)

• the artist constantly sketching on their sketchbook, working on a project, and ignores the gamer who constantly bothers them.

• the gamer giving the artist a drawing idea of their favorite character from the game they've played.

• the artist climbed up to the gamer while they are playing in their gaming seat. The artist sits on them on cuddles them while they just giggles and hugs the artist while playing.

( bonus if the gamer is online with their friends and their friends was like "hey is that your bf/gf?" And they proudly "yeah, my personal koala baby" )

• the gamer loves to watch the artist draw, its oddly relaxing, sometimes climbs to them and sleeps/lay on whatever on them (personally, lap) just the watch them draw.

( bonus if the artist ignores them. OR.. they stopped drawing just to flirt or cuddle with the gamer )

• switching gifts. The gamer bought a new sketchbook/paint/stationary/etc for the artist, and the artist gave them a controller/a new ps/cute mouse and mousepad/headphones/etc.

• the artist draw while sitting on the gamers lap/between their legs comfortably while the gamer just gaming while bugging them (constant kiss everytime they win the game, or paused the game just to watch them for a bit)

( bonus if the gamer is taller, they would rest their chin on the artist top of head )

• arguing over coming to an art exhibition or gaming conference. ( Would be cool if both of them are famous because their talents/skills )

• drawing/sketching/painting date at the daytime and staying up late for gaming time, just the two of them. ( Would be very cute if the gamer is a night owl who used to stay up late while the artist slowly drifted to sleep in their arms )

• the artist draws the gamer ( as an artist myself, this is how we say 'i love you' )

• not the gamer tries to draw and competes the artist while clearly they are poor at drawing (optional)

• both of them are caffeine addict ( really need to say this. Srsly )

• the gamer being hotheaded because of their friends while playing a videogame, and the artist hugging them or just a simple kiss giving them emotional support that clearly cheers the gamer.

• the gamer teasing the artist when draws an anatomy saying "ouh you draw me? Looks sexy." And the artist just laughed.

• "how did you do that?" "Do what?" "Draw." "I dont know, it simply happens."

• "how did you do that?" "Do what?" "Winning the game! I followed all your tips and tricks!" "I dont even know, it simply did."

( - yes, a them being a golden retriever x black cat or a chaotic duo would be cool, or calm and easy x hypersensitive intovert.. dang, i feel so single )

#bookworm #writing community #writing inspiration #booktok #writing prompt #poet #aesthetic #otp prompts #imagine your otp #my otp #oc prompt #dialogue prompt #fic prompt #shipping

[jazeswhbhaven]

I just have a massive brain rot, cause, what if Minhyeok and MC have a strained relationship at the start of the game? This is due to MC's past callousness and learned helplessness that affected Minhyeok badly in the past after high school or something but years of arguments led to the estrangment of their friendship. This time instead of continuing to coddle MC to high heaven (the guy admitted to "raising" MC) and possibly ruin himself if MC doesn't come back from Hell, he somewhat moves on to focus on his life (or activate his rizz and charms at full capacity). He still cares deeply for MC of course, and he still loves them (though whether it is romantic or platonic depends), he helped them find an apartment and a stable job, sometimes helping them with money issues if they're low on cash, and even drives them to visit their parents' graves every year. However, seeing how MC not changing even after years of him letting them figure their life out and would likely let themself rot if he didn't check up on them from time to time, it is really sad and difficult to watch since Minhyeok is probably the only one MC has left. The day Gabriel killed him was also the day he planned to cut things off with MC. Also, instead of seeing Minhyeok as a brother/best friend/caretaker 2.0, MC has this guilty intense romantic attraction to him but never tells anyone about it. Like could you imagine??? How much of a asspull it could be??? For me, this would make MC's feelings somewhat more complex instead of just horny and flip-flop determination. Hell fulfilled every one of their fantasies and wants, they have everyone's love for them on the silver platter, they don't have to change and live in lavish and comfort for the rest of their life. But they love Minhyeok, and their feeling for him are more genuine than what they have with any other devils, they actually yearn and long for him, the fact that Minhyeok continues to help them when he can wash his hands off their mess, he still there for them, and they also wanted to have that perfect life with Minhyeok.

PS: Sorry for the words vomit but I need to let a bit of it out and please ignore it if it bother you (｡•́︿•̀｡)

Ahhh anon, I had to take a moment to read this a couple times (brain does a thing ┗(･ω･;)┛) so now I can fully digest it and discuss this!!! It would be so much more realistic I think to have MC harbor these feelings for Minhyeok because let's face it, they're still human and he did stick around and take care of them. In your scenario, he was close to getting exhausted, and that's reality. While he may care for MC deeply, there's a limit to everyone's capacity to take care of a grown adult, and unless you want that role for the rest of your life, you gotta have tough love and set boundaries. MC being in hell and learning that they are receiving unconditional love from entities beyond their understanding and yet still pinning for Minhyeok would ALSO be realistic. Because MC is the vast majority of folks who would be like "damn, this is nice and all but I wanna go home..." especially you know since they aren't dead, they're just in Hell doing a task under Satan's contract. Once done, they do have the option of going back. Knowing this fuels the fact that MC would miss Minhyeok and have someone who genuinely stuck it out for them, who stayed there and saw them at their worst, and had realistic reactions. The devils are nice and maybe not so nice all the time, but they aren't human. They pretty much expect MC to be lewd and do whatever it is that humans do, and they'll just brush it off because it's Hell. Minhyeok is that dose of reality. There ARE consequences, there IS such a thing as tough love, he WON'T baby them forever. In this scenario of yours, I think MC in the game would have more of "I'm just here to do this and go home, don't make my job any harder than it needs to be" kind of attitude. I'm still thinking that canon-wise Minhyeok may be MC's OTP and they will leave Hell in the end to be with him. That's just my guess, because that seems the most likely choice. MC wants that life with him, and will grow old and be with him as normal while still thinking about the devils they met as a distant memory. AH sorry to make this sorta angsty ;.;

#whb #jwhbasks❓ #whb minhyeok #ah yes MC and Minhyeok discussions #love those realistic emotional struggles tho

[shi-daisy]

Spring Beast and Silver Queen

Day 6 and here we have the second otp! Like Tamcien (or Feylincien) and Neris own my heart but Neslin has so much potential that I wouldn't mind them being endgame in a Canon. So here's a little oneshot for them with some Fairytale tropes. Hope you like!

@tamlinweek

Tamlin Week 2024- Day 6- Fairy Tale AU

Spring Beast & Silver Queen

Nesta walked onto the decayed manor, it was just as destroyed as the rest of the court.

Lucien might be the only one to come here out of genuine care, but if the mild mannered redhead couldn't do more than this that meant the High Lord was all but dead inside. She understood. Nesta felt the same way.

She found Tamlin sleeping. The male was in his beast form, like that day when he came to their cottage and took her sister. There were times she wished that hadn't happened. Now, she just wished she'd ran when she had the chance.

It didn't matter anymore. It was either Spring or a lock up on Night, and she'd take her chances with the wilted flowers.

Nesta came into the room slowly. A bird that slept on Tamlin's mane woke up, and left out the window, sparing her one last glance.

She kneeled on the floor and gently patted the man. He was alive, just deeply asleep, and he looked so very weak.

'Guess they've broken us both.' She thought.

Who had once been a monster to her now looked so very defenseless and sad Nesta felt compelled to be kind. Maybe being here wouldn't be so bad, at least Tamlin wouldn't bother her about her drinking if the empty wine bottles were any indication.

She didn't know why, but Nesta decided to plant a soft kiss on the beasts forhead, and wait for him to wake. Nesta didn't have to wait long.

Tamlin turned from beast to fae form in a flash, and when his emerald eyes fell on her their bond snapped.

***

A deep silence fell upon the room as he sat up and stared at Nesta who was equally surprised and stunned.

"I...Think you know what this means."

"Yes..."

"Wait! Why are you here, Lady Nesta? Is this another strange dream?"

"Afraid not. I'll explain."

She told him of her downward spiral, of her sister's betrayal and the choice she was given. It nearly made his magic spiral in a rage.

"Stay here I'd that's what you want. I swear I shall protect you." Tamlin managed to say.

"...What about the bond?"

"If you keep it, they cannot take you away. Once we're certain they won't hurt you, then you may do as you wish with it."

It hurt to say, to denounce something he'd once wanted, despite knowing of it worst sides thanks to his parents, and yet...he wanted to prioritize Nesta's free will. It was clear she needed it.

Especially when her frown turned into a slight smile. "I appreciate it."

Baby steps, in time they could be friends.

***

Lucien had come to visit. After she explained the situation the redhead not only returned to stay with his partners but he cut off all ties to Night.

"We will help you rebuild this court!"

That was all they needed to let the Band of Exiles become part of the Spring council.

The Spring Library was a marvel after it was cleaned and she took to devouring every book she could. It helped fix the court and bring back the population.

In a few months things were already looking up, and Tamlin wouldn't stop thanking her. "Lucien did most of the administrative work. Vassa is in charge of diplomacy and Jurian is training the sentries. Why are you thanking me too?"

"Because if you hadn't arrived that day. I wouldn't be here right now. Your silver flame is what kept me holding on and made me rebuild what I shouldn't have left crumble. Thank you."

His gentle hand on hers gave her pause. Despite the slow friendship they'd cultivated and the bond that kept her safe, sometimes Nesta doubted a man like him could want her if it wasn't because of the mating bond. Still, she didn't want to break it. Her safety was at stake but also...she didn't want to hurt Tamlin further.

Nesta felt a tear slide down her cheek, but it was soon wiped away as Tamlin kissed her forehead. "You don't have to say anything. If I have to wait forever I shall. You're worth waiting for."

Worth. She hadn't heard that from anyone.

"There's a lot I still must deal with, but when I do. I'm certain you'll be who I want to spend my time with."

"I'm honored to hear that."

***

Tamlin often thought that beyond any person music would remain his ultimate love. Perhaps that would've been right, as he played his fiddle before the Calanmai celebrations and everyone danced with joy.

Then she stepped into the scene wearing the long sleeved silver dress he'd gotten for her and the glass shoes he'd seen her eyeing at the boutique.

Nesta was a delightful dancer. He knew she loved music as much as he did when she organized all his sheets and instruments with great care, probably more than the books.

Nesta danced beautifully for him, and he didn't remember the last time he'd played that well. By the time the song ended and she stopped dancing, Tamlin had picked her up in his arms and they shared a kiss.

"I love you." Nesta said, and he couldn't help but cry.

"I love you too."

No other Calanmai had left him as breathless and full of joy

***

Eventually they came for her a little over week after their bond was sealed and their frenzy over.

Nesta nearly barbecued the entire inner circle when they tried to get close to Tamlin. He'd wrapped them in thorned vines.

"We are mated. We are happy. We won't bend to you if you're trying to get the crown. Leave!" He said.

Cassian glared at her and Nesta regarded him with indifference, she had the man of her dreams right by her side and wore a crown of roses rather than chains of stars. The only ones she'd mourn for were her sisters, but she was free and she wouldn't apologize for it. Let the. Make their choice for themselves.

And they did. Because when shadows took her to the House of Wind and she was locked in its tower, Nesta could hear a battle far away in the Velaris palace. By now she'd realized Morrigan was the traitor and that Feyre had joined her, but she couldn't wait for them to rescue her. She had to get out herself.

Rhysand had brought her back to fight for Night's side. She wouldn't and so he locked her up. But he forgot she had power and she had read enough to figure out the end of the tale.

Nesta used her power to create thin threads of silver. They grew from her hair and she made sure to tie them onto the balcony rails. It wasn't enough to reach the ground safely, but she wouldn't need to. She saw a figure of green and was aware he High Lord came to save her.

With rope of hair in hand she jumped from the balcony of the tower and safely mounted Tamlin, who was now a dragon.

"My silver flower"

"My fiddler lord."

They flew away as the Obsidian castle in the distance was swallowed up a black hole in the sky. Both of them were worried until the event passed and the castle was nothing but rubble left away.

After landing they spotted Lucien in the distance with the healers. She saw Feyre and Mor with them, out cold but alive.

Tamlin and Nesta both breathed a sigh of relief. Then they looked at eachother. Nesta smiled at the sight of her mate, her beloved and the man who'd come to her rescue.

Tamlin pulled her close, holding his savior, his queen and his beloved.

Nesta kissed him, using words he'd once said to someone else yet were never returned until now. "I love you, thorns & all."

"And love you, my queen Nesta Acheron."

Two birds flew over them as they shared a kiss, into their happily ever after.

#tamlinweek 2024 #tamlin #nesta acheron #neslin #Day 6: Fairy Tale AU

[azurelyy]

If it's not a bother can we have the best bros Kankuro and Gaara for the ask game? And thank you.

Definitely not a bother at all, thank you for the ask!

Kankuro:

1: sexuality headcanon

He sounds so fucking hot when he comes. He just makes this low, low groan that rumbles his entire chest. It's addictive. Not to mention the fact that this means he's going to hold you in his muscular arms so tightly, cradling you to him like a prized possession, as he chants "IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou."

2: otp

I am going to get so much shit for this and everyone is going to scream at me about how this is a crack ship but I don't care. One day, when I write this stupid fic idea I've had of them and finally just put it into the world, maybe you'll come around. You will understand just how PURE AND GREAT these two are... SaiKank. Watch out for them, they're coming! Haha.

3: brotp

I don't really have one...sdkfhnsdkjfn. I'm sorry lol.

4: notp

I guess Hinata? I don't see that working out well for them lol.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

Kankuro is the type to go on a date with someone and literally zone out as they talk because he's too busy thinking about how cute they are. And then he gets embarrassed when he has to admit it to them...

"Uh... What? I'm really sorry, I wasn't listening because I was looking at your lips. You have a really cute smile."

6: favorite line from this character

I have no idea. I'm sorry lol.

7: one way in which I relate to this character

He's funny and I like to think I am also funny.

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

The puppets. Need I say more?

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

I don't think he's really either? I guess he is sort of problematic because he was kind of a douche during the chunin exams, so I'll go with that.

Gaara:

1: sexuality headcanon

Submissive. He is the sub and there's no arguing with me. He can take control if needed but that is definitely not his preference. He will let you do ~whatever~ you want to him, and he is very good about repaying the favor back to you ;)

2: otp

GaaLee <3. My little babies.

3: brotp

Naruto! I love how inspired by Naruto Gaara is. I think it's adorable. And then all Gaara wants is to make Naruto happy... I am MELTING AHHHHH.

4: notp

Naruto. I do think Gaara has a crush on him, but I don't ship it. Naruto was never going to reciprocate (sorry!) and so Gaara should move on to someone better... Like Lee <3.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

He's a snuggler. He does not want space between him and his partner in bed. If there is even a slight gap, he will assume they're upset with him.

6: favorite line from this character

“I think of you as a friend. I used to think “friend” was just another word… Nothing more, nothing less. But when I met you, I realized what was important was the word’s meaning.” 

7: one way in which I relate to this character

I swear I don't mean to keep making these so sad but like, I GET his loneliness. Not so much anymore, but back in the day... Yeah.

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

This picture:

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Cinnamon rollllllll~ He is a rare character that went from problematic to cinnamon roll and honestly, we LOVE the development!

#gaara #azurelyy scribbles #ask game #gaara headcanons #gaara smut #kankuro #kankuro headcanons #kankuro smut

[thesecondbatgirl]

This is not as positive as you think it is

It’s still Rosh Hashanah, and I’m going to post part of those 17 essays I swore I would never write. Starting off the year as I mean to go on? Or something. I originally had this as the first thing on my list of essays that I would never write but would absolutely get me kicked out of Star Wars fandom but I am tired and cranky and I am going to explain why tagging fics where the Jedi Order reform and start allowing attachment as *Jedi Positive* piss me off so much. 

First, let me make this clear. If you hate the Jedi Order and want to write those, go ahead. If you have issues with the Jedi and want to write those fics, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you. What I’m asking instead is to stop tagging them Pro-Jedi or Jedi positive. Use Jedi critical! Or not Jedi friendly! Please use those tags instead! Yes even if you think its Pro-Jedi! If you are saying that the Order needs to reform to be *good* then it is not Jedi friendly!

I mean, look, if you are writing those things then I have issues with the way you’re interrogating the text and will think that you’re *wrong* and also that you’re using some super problematic (and from my point of view, anti-semitic) tropes but if my 21+ years in fandom have taught me anything its that you are never going to get anyone to agree on anything, but tagging will at least allow us to have our own spaces? Like, you wouldn’t have gone into a [pairing of your choice] positive archive and post a fic where [pairing] break up because the one who isn’t your blorbo is abusive so your blorbo runs to *YOUR* OTP, because that wouldn’t fit the theme of the archive! So if your fic is saying that the old rules for the prequel Jedi are bad and need to be changed to be good, don’t put it with Jedi positive content! 

So first. Attachment. Other people have talked about it better than I have, but have some links about what attachment means in the GFFA and no it really does not mean love.

(Listen I am not going to bother to rewrite the meta when Lumi has already done the work for me)

https://gffa.tumblr.com/post/695309005156925440/this-is-every-instance-where-the-jedi-talk-about/amp

https://gffa.tumblr.com/post/680367423839485952/this-is-every-time-i-have-ever-seen-george-lucas

https://gffa.tumblr.com/post/685958601260646400/hi-totally-okay-this-ask-was-very-obviously-sent

https://gffa.tumblr.com/post/685727448042733568

https://gffa.tumblr.com/post/682990707642892288/i-never-understand-what-people-mean-when-they-say

…. Honestly just have the entire attachment tag ok:

https://gffa.tumblr.com/tagged/attachment

So. Having done your reading, for the purposes of the GFFA, attachment is greed/possession and *very very bad* for psychic space monks. It is not a thing that the Jedi can just suddenly *allow*. Letting Jedi start allowing attachments, which is the big thing I start seeing whenever people start *reforming* the Jedi is, to me, a Jew who lives in the US South, the equivalent of Jews for Jesus.

Whoa, TSB, you say. You’re going too far.

Not really. Let’s go with a central belief of Judaism. The messiah has not come, Jesus is not the messiah. For the Jedi, attachment is not allowed is one of the central core beliefs. So saying that the way the Jedi need to reform by changing one of their core beliefs hits me like the person who told me “oh honey, we don’t care how you worship, as long as you accept Christ” did. (Right after I was introduced as being Jewish!) If you’re changing the *core* of who the Jedi are, you’re making them no longer Jedi. It’s not just changing one thing, it’s changing *everything.* 

And, while the Jedi are much more Buddhist then they are Jewish, they still hit me very much in my Jewish feels. Gee, I wonder *why* I could possibly resonate with a minority religious group who were hunted down and murdered and who get accused of a bunch of anti-semitic tropes including baby stealing and secretly running the government???? There are no parallels, clearly.

So look. Every single time I get hit with a fic that’s tagged Pro-Jedi and then its “we changed our rules about attachment and that stopped us from being murdered” what I hear is “the Jews accepted Jesus so we avoided pogroms/The Holocaust.” Or, as another friend pointed out "the Sikhs cut their hair, converted, and so the Mughal Empire let them live.”

Obviously I don’t speak for every Jew, and I certainly don’t speak for any Sikhs, so not everyone is going to agree with my take. But there are people that relate to Jedi and there is a reason why people are uncomfortable with Jedi reform and allowing attachment. 

But if you’re going to write fic about the Prequel Jedi and have them reform, before you tag it pro-Jedi or Jedi-Positive, please consider if “well they have to change who they are to be good” is as positive as you think it is. Tags help people curate their fannish experience. I very much follow the philosophies of YKINMKATO and don’t like, don’t read. The backbutton is my friend! But when I think I’m getting positive fic and then it isn’t? That sucks. Please tag accurately.

…. And well, since I’ve broken my rule about not writing these essays I guess look forward to my future essays of “No the Jedi are not Catholic” and “Actually they don’t have any political power” and “please stop judging the Jedi Order by some middle grade books” and finally “Galidraan was not the Jedi’s fault oh my god Jango shot first” Shana tova, everyone. Let’s try to do better this year.

#pro-Jedi #Stop insisting the Jedi need to reform and tagging it pro-Jedi simultaneously #fandom salt #Write whatever you want but maybe think about it

[epicbuddieficrecs]

You should change the name of the blog if you're are gonna rec Buck/Tommy fics don't you think? Also why in the world would youbl

Oh wow, baby's first anon hater!

I've been pondering how to answer for a little while, because on one hand, do I really want to take the time and energy to answer such an idiotic message? But on the other hand, you've given me a great excuse to set some things straight so thank you for allowing me to make an example out of you.

This is my blog. I can blog about whatever the fuck I want. I do try to be diligent abut tagging Bucktommy content specifically so people can avoid it if they want to. I identify the Bucktommy fics in my fic recs, I tag the Bucktommy content. If you don't like Bucktommy, tumblr has great muting and blacklisting features, so use them. You can also just unfollow if you're not happy about what I blog. Didn't you think of that before coming into my ask box to bother me about this?

I do not have to justify the way I run my blog to anyone, but your suggestion that I should change the name of my blog JUST because I've recced SOME Bucktommy is ridiculous to me. If I really wanted to be petty about it, I would count the number of bucktommy fics VS buddie fics in my recs just so I could shove it in your face that it's such a fucking small number, I don't even understand how you're bothered about it.

And if I was a die hard "OTP Bucktommy endgame" stan, then yeah, I might make a separate blog about it, but anyone with more than two brain cells who spends any amount of time on my blog can clearly see that it's not the case for me.

I'm kinda glad that you managed to mistakenly (I presume) hit send before finishing your sentence because the first one already didn't make you look so good, I can only imagine how much worse the second one would have been.

So let this be a warning to all of my followers: I'm not anti Bucktommy. There will be Bucktommy content here!!! I'm pretty neutral-to-positive about Bucktommy, which means that I will rec the few Bucktommy fics that I read. I will reblog Bucktommy gifsets. Deal with it or show yourself out.

#and as the wise Oliver Stark once said: you are not required to announce your departure #asks

[nozomijoestar]

for the otp asks:

asulili: 1, 4, 6, 11, 14, 20, 30, 47, 50, and 58!

1: Who would end a heated argument by defending their actions with ‘because I love you!’ ?

Lili says it already but without actually saying the words Because I Love You, therefore it's Asuka who in her anger and frustration blurts out Because I Love You directly without thinking just pure emotional outburst surprising even herself; despite how blunt she normally is she still shrouds her real feelings about anything so being vulnerable in her anger to express genuine concern for someone instead of using it only as a weapon and blanket over having to think catches her off guard

4: Which one is more protective? Who needs to be ‘protected’?

Easiest answer on planet earth it's Lili needing Asuka's protection which we know because she said so for her SF x T characterization and Asuka just went along with it and IS STILL going along with it in 8 because of fighting together with her and approving of Shaheen saving Lili's life. Asuka acts like it's not a huge deal but inside based on her actions it's obvious she thinks of her, I feel she knows Lili could handle herself but worries about if Lili ever gets too in over her head against something she can't win against or is gonna do or get herself into something stupid, Asuka can't help but tell her off or nudge her otherwise in order to protect her- if she doesn't outright fight to defend her physically. (Also Lili calling her My Dear...hehe...hoo hoo...Faggot)

AND ALSO THIS, THIS ENTIRE EXCHANGE

AND THIS- THE

6: Who would beg the other not to leave? Who has to leave to protect the other?

LILIIIII LILI IS SUCH A BABY ABOUT PEOPLE LEAVING HER IF SHE DOESN'T WANT THEM TO, in my heart

She gets to come and leave as she chooses with some exceptions and not say anything to the other person while she's gone if she doesn't feel like it, but if you do that to her or have to go off into something serious by yourself she becomes a sensitive mess complete with petty arguing, crying, whining, depressed sulking, and wanting to squeeze in even more time with Asuka, as if it'll stall them separating. It annoys Asuka but I think she's smart enough to know or guess where the behavior is coming from, so she can't genuinely get mad because it only shows how much she'll be missed.

As for why Asuka would leave Lili behind in the first place for Lili's safety there's many scenarios but the most obvious one would be not wanting Lili to get killed if she gets in the way of Mishima's or something else threatening home or the world again. Like if there's something only Asuka can do in that kind of fight where Lili's money and skills have ran their course so anymore Lili's just in danger, then Asuka would rather do it herself and not get that ojou killed. Which is so funny because of Lili stopping Asuka from getting killed by Devil Kaz in 8 : ).

11: Do either try to hide their emotions if upset? Can the other still tell?

Both. Asuka is always angry but the puzzle is figuring out why she's actually upset underneath what she's shouting about and how she says it. I feel like most of the time she's direct about what's upsetting her but other times she's upset at something only to take her anger out on it rather than say the real thing that bothers her. Then when she gets sarcastic and so mad she'd rather argue than make a point or when her own body starts spacing out or bouncing her leg or tensing very tightly those are other signs. If you get her to confess the real reason she's upset you make her vulnerable and she doesn't know how to handle that beyond giving up the tough dog persona.

Lili is always hiding her true feelings by omission or double speak. And if she's not trying to throw you off by denying things or twisting them to sound like something else or saying nothing more about an emotion at all, then she's doing the same with her face. She's always had those expressions that to me look like she's silently acknowledging something difficult she doesn't want to comment on under this guise of seeming cool and composed, as if she isn't fazed despite her other actions saying otherwise.

Despite this after being around each other enough I think they'd quickly get used to picking up on the other's tells. They'd blame it on their "fighter's instincts" to notice the details of another person before they could finally admit with enough pressure that it's because they care.

14: How do their personalities compliment each other? How do they clash?

I covered this at length in their essays but the short answer is Asuka hides all her thoughts and real emotions under rage and antagonistic behavior she directs towards people she knows she can (by and large) get away with hurting like the delinquents. She denies everything lashing out in order to feel strong. To feel in control.

Lili also wants control and has the same blood thirst but is much clearer about expressing it. She'll hide her vulnerability by denying it yet still makes it obvious in words and actions. She's honest about the things she expects and her intentions even if she's not always emotionally honest. She also directs her anger towards specific people and if she does fight outside of that anger it's purely to sate her hunger.

Despite Asuka looking like the straightforward airhead at first glance it's actually Lili who's the naive airhead trying too hard to seem like a cool adult.

One hides their vulnerability under a blinding wrath, the other hides it by feigning distance. Both use these as a means of feeling control. But because their differing styles on feeling in control prevent them from directly expressing the vulnerability they insist on hiding, they clash in misunderstandings and lost communication. Until they both but particularly Asuka finally become more accepting in 8.

20: Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship.

Just ONE song- ok Life Is Like A Boat by Rie Fu

30: Your OTP gets to pick out each other’s outfits; what is each wearing?

Lili makes Asuka a custom Lolita fashion dress like she teased she would in the character episode fights. It's a one time occurrence and specifically made to everything Lili has noticed and thinks fits Asuka instead of a direct copy of what Lili prefers.

So while it would be Lolita style I think it's toned down and simple silhouette and cuts with elements of a gi for the top with small ruffles where the crease on a gi collar would be. It's not actually ridiculously embarrassing and flamboyant, but Asuka is still embarrassed a bit because it's Lolita style in the first place. But I think the more she gets used to it and sees the touches Lili included to still make it very Asuka, she appreciates it more.

Lili gets her own aikido gi and hakama like Asuka does, but instead of assuming the design she asks Lili directly what she might want on it including throwing in Yūzen dyeing which she doesn't tell Lili about but includes to make it fancier, which she thinks is something that'll best impress and fit on a rich girl. (Yūzenzome is also on Asuka's new gi, hakama, and headband in 8 which makes me wonder where she got the money for that if it's not a family heirloom)

Otherwise, Lili has to wear whatever random combinations of casual street wear Asuka insists make sense despite the fact the flow and silhouette is all over the place (have you seen how she dresses herself across some of the defaults lol, if it's not a uniform girl just gives up)

47: Does either of them have a secret that could potentially ruin their relationship?

No, I think everything is very what you see is what you get with them. They just keep doing the back and forth fighting and teaming up sometimes when they have a common goal, they tease and get along outside of that now, and whatever they have to resolve by talking is exactly that- things they can resolve by talking. I don't think either of them has any sinister secret because they just spend time with each other that's the goal.

50: Who’s more likely to do something out of spite?

Asuka. Lili is always clear ( especially in her own mind) about when she's fucking with Asuka and is very much playing because she never threatens Asuka or her life (like she did to Lars) nor does she go back on a promise when Asuka asks something of her (like keeping her word about reverting the dojo in 8) and she also doesn't overstay her welcome outside however long each incident lasts, but unfortunately I don't think she realizes her version of playing around can look like malicious pestering to anyone else.

So while Lili plays around with Asuka in the sense of doing something ridiculous it's not spiteful it's her idea of teasing and theatrical expression for what she's feeling. It's more annoying and attention seeking than it is anything specifically designed to inflict psychological torture or a personal attack without mercy or limits.

She also never fights to actually hurt or disable Asuka. You want to see angry spiteful Lili look at her relationship to Jin before 8 and even during 8 though she talks to him it's strictly business or taunting in tone when she offered her jet.

Asuka on the other hand is constantly easy to anger and provoke even at times when she wants to control it first. It's much more likely she can genuinely snap or feel like she should punish someone to try and soothe out the anger they've "earned" in her view. Which are things she's done across the games multiple times now to her own detriment.

She's very retaliatory in games prior to 8, but in 8 she seems a bit calmer now finding it easier to move on and accept situations, and more sarcastic than outright rage and simmering her temper just below the skin.

58: Who’s more likely to hold a grudge after an argument?

Lili. Every conflict Asuka has been involved in across the games so far she treats it like she's upset for a while but then eventually when she can't resolve the anger with fighting she lets it go or puts it aside to not talk or think hard about it so she can get on with her normal life back home.

Asuka acts like she compartmentalizes in order to keep order and rationalize so she doesn't go completely crazy. But that also gives the impression she has no interest in really dealing with her emotions letting them compress and compress somewhere in her by denying them.

Lili on the other hand clearly ruminates a lot on everything, be it about her father and all her plans to "help" him, her attempts to hide fighting from him as she plans out how to jet around and fight strangers. She ruminates a lot on Asuka because she thought about her in 6 with Lars then went to go see her in the endings. She's spent months of training according to her 8 character episode specializing in ways to counter Asuka's fighting style and so on.

I think she feels lingering resentment toward Jin too based on how clipped and minimally she interacted with him in 8 despite being his "ally". She does nothing to get along with him as a human being or acknowledges him at all besides being a dispenser of facts and orders. The most sympathetic expression she gives him is when telling him his mother disappeared but it barely lasts a moment. She's drastically minimal with him which would only make sense if she does still hold resentment (though it could also just be the bad writing where her only purpose was more exposition)

Where Asuka stuffs things away and dismisses it to not think about it too hard, Lili gets consumed by her thoughts, thus all her plans and schemes to "fix" every problem she sees in herself or that is relevant to her.

#tekken #asulili

[tessa-liam]

Christmas Traditions 2: A Winter Festival

Christmas Traditions 2: A Winter Festival 

Book: TRF AU  

Summary: It’s the annual holiday festival in Lythikos and Olivia is hosting members of the Royal court at her keep. New relationships are nurtured; family and friendships are celebrated. 

Main Pairing: Liam Rys x F!MC Riley Brooks-Rys, OTP LiRi 

Secondary Pairings: Drake Walker x F!OC Delaney Leigh, Leo Rys x Amalas (past pairing Leo Rys x Olivia Nevrakis) 

All characters belong to Pixelberry, except Delaney Leigh 

A/N1: This is the 4th chapter in my TRF AU Masterlist  

A/N2: My submission for @choicesflashfics Week #12, prompt #1 - “You’re lucky you’re cute.” and my submission for @choicesflashfics, Choices Flashfics Holiday prompt#83, “Well done. You just ruined Christmas,” prompt#58, ‘Lift me up so I can put the star on the tree.” 

Song Inspiration: Jingle Bell Rock Hall & Oates 

Rating: M, adult conversations 

Word Count: 1951, Read Time: 8 min

       

Winter Festival, Lythikos, Cordonia 

Wearing his aviator shades, Leo looked out across the crowd of festival goers gathering and waiting for the King’s press conference to begin. Standing near the stage, his plan was to join in with the festival celebrations later, but now he was waiting for Amalas to come down from the estate to join him. Together, they wanted to show their support for his brother’s official kick-off to the festival and then spend some time together away from court. 

Leo would have preferred to have come down as a couple, but he no longer felt comfortable in Olivia’s home, since she now knew that Amalas was ending her romantic fling with her. Leo was one of the reasons why Amalas was distracted. He decided to pack up with plans to return to the Capital with his brother later this evening. He thought it would be best to not cross Olivia’s path and not provoke an argument.  

 Earlier today, in search of a cup of coffee, Leo stood frozen outside the dining room entrance after overhearing Amalas and Olivia in a heated conversation. He did not want to eavesdrop, but when his name was mentioned, he was curious about the direction it would go. 

“Why did you bother to come here? To humiliate me?” Olivia angrily spats. 

“What would you have done if I did not? We need to talk about this. You make me feel like your dirty little secret! I need more; I am not afraid to go public.”Amalas countered. 

“So, you want to go public with Leo? What about me? What about all that we have shared?” Olivia exclaims. with frustration and hurt. 

“Will you openly have a relationship with me? In front of the court? Will you?” Amalas was intransigent. “What message would I be giving my daughter by hiding the truth of our relationship?” 

Olivia gave Amalas an angry look. “I cannot. I will not!” 

“Then, I have my answer!” Amalas turned on her heel and went upstairs to her stateroom, fuming. 

Olivia looked at the decorations in the dining room, mumbling loudly to herself, “Well done. You just ruined Christmas.” 

Sighing, Leo messaged Amalas to let her know that he would wait for her to come down and where at the festival to meet him. He waited till Olivia left the dining room and then went quickly out to an SUV waiting outside the front door of the estate. 

♥ 

After applying her lipstick and gloss, Riley turned sideways in front of the long mirror in her dressing room giving herself a last check over her appearance. Wearing a red, long sleeved midi dress, the fabric hugged her curves and she realized that her baby bump was prominent. Placing a hand on her bump, she knew that it wasn’t her imagination. She was gaining weight more quickly this time around and made a mental note to mention this to Dr. Ramirez at her upcoming 10-week prenatal check-up. 

Liam, sauntering up to wrap his arms around her waist from behind, places his hand over hers. He gazes at her reflection in the mirror, resting his chin on her shoulder. 

“You are glowing this morning, my love.” Riley leans back and nestles against his chest. 

“How are you two today? We should go down to get a bite to eat before we leave.”  

Turning towards him still in his embrace, Riley cups his cheek and kisses his lips flirtatiously, “That is a great plan – we are starving! Let me get Ellie dressed and we can go down.”  

Liam smirked, shaking his head. “And so, it begins,” he laughs when Riley swats him playfully for his teasing, turning to her daughter’s room. The pregnancy cravings had not started yet but she definitely had an appetite this morning. 

♥ 

“What are you doing to me, Laney?” Drake bent down to lace her skates, chuckling at her expression. Drake and Delaney decided to go for a skate early that morning. 

“I will wear you down Mr. Walker. You love it, just admit it.” 

Drake was coming to terms with having a girlfriend and was adamant that he would try new things for Delaney. 

He wanted to make sure that she knew how much he cared for her. Scratch that, he was infatuated with her. 

When he asked his friend for advice, Liam did not hold anything back. He knew that his friend needed honest advice on how to build a romantic relationship, especially because Drake was still in denial of what was happening. 

“Drake do not take anything for granted. Make it your mission to be open to new possibilities. Be attentive. Sweep her off her feet. Let her know; show her that you want a future with her.” 

Taking his friend’s advice to try new things, he accepted her idea to go skating, putting the plan into action.  

Delaney was delighted and honestly surprised that he would agree. Like Drake, she was falling – falling hard and fast. 

Rising, Drake took her hands in his and lifted her up to stand. He pulled her towards him, planting a heated kiss on her lips.  

“Let’s do this; I will prove to you that I can skate. We have to make this quick though, Liam will be making his opening speech for the festival soon.” Delaney could not stop the smile on her face. 

As Drake and Delaney stepped onto the ice of the festival skating rink, the beginning notes of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ blasted from the speakers. 

“Oh great; that’s just perfect.” Drake bemoaned as Delaney laughed gliding him to join the other skaters. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” Drake winked, as they skated hand in hand to the music. 

 Drake had to admit to himself that he was having fun. Laughing and talking together, Delaney regarded her handsome boyfriend. Her feelings were getting stronger the more time they spent together. 

“No way!” Drake comes to a stop, dropping her hand as he studies the face of the brunette skating towards him. “It can’t be!” 

Delaney looks up and watches his face light up. Furrowing her brows, Delaney gets his attention. 

“Drake, who are you looking at?”  

She stopped and watched as the petite woman started to recognize her friend.

“Hana, it’s so great to see you!” Drake grabs Delaney’s hand again, leading her forward to his friend. 

“Oh, my goodness, It’s really you! ...and you are skating!” Hana pulls Drake towards her for a hug, smiling up to him. 

“Yeah, get your jabs in now,” Drake laughs. 

“Hana, I would like to introduce you to Delaney. Delaney, Hana is an old friend of mine.” 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Delaney admonishes Drake for his ‘old’ comment, “Hi Hana, Merry Christmas!” 

Smiling, Hana extends her arm to shake Delaney's hand. “It is so nice to meet you. It looks like you have your work cut out for you.” 

The girls had a laugh, at Drake’s expense, as the bells rang out to signal the start of the opening ceremony. 

“Oh, would you look at that! Saved by the bell,” Drake turns to leave, shaking his head. 

Hana and Delaney giggled together as they follow him off the ice. 

♥ 

Liam and Riley watched Eleanor excitedly peer outside the window of the SUV as they arrived at the center stage of the holiday festival. 

“Look, look at all the people!” Ellie had no fear of crowds and was a social butterfly with the public. Like her parents, she captured the hearts of everyone she met. 

So much so, that the princess always was surrounded by the royal guard. That was always a given. 

Crowds of festival goers were surrounding the staging area, waiting patiently for the event to begin. Also, many journalists from neighboring countries were vying for the best location to lodge questions at the King and Queen. Broadcasting vans and equipment were set up to capture the King’s press conference with his family. 

The SUV rolled to a stop and as Bastien opened the door, members of the royal guard went into position around the SUV and stage. 

“Your majesties, please follow me.” Bastien greeted them. 

As they exited the vehicle, the crowd went wild, with loud cheering for their King and Queen, with their princess. Journalists with camera flashes and microphones, being kept at bay by the royal guard, did not bother Ellie.  

“Oh Daddy, the Christmas star fell off the tree!” Ellie pointed to a shimmering gold tree topper by the edge of the walkway. 

Liam noticed the decoration wedged in the snow and bent down to pick it up for Ellie. 

“Lift me up so I can put the star on the tree.”  

“Pleeease, Daddy?” 

The crowd went into a frenzy when Liam scooped Ellie into his arms and hoisted her up so that she was at the right height to place the star. 

Standing on the stage, Leo greeted Riley with a kiss on the cheek. Liam set Ellie down by her mother as he walked and took his place behind the lectern at center stage. 

Liam raises his hand to signal the start of the ceremony,

“Welcome everyone to the Lythikos Winter Festival.” 

After the applause subsides, he officially starts the festivities with thanking Olivia and the people of Lythikos, and all the visiting Cordonian citizens for attending the event. 

After Liam delivers his Christmas wishes, he ends with, 

“It’s the time of year to celebrate family.” 

Turning to Riley, Liam invites her to join him center stage along with Ellie. Holding hands, the queen and princess walk towards Liam and wave to the crowd. 

Upon reaching the podium, Liam once again picks up Ellie and places her on top of the lectern. 

“As this year comes to a close, I am looking toward the new year when a new adventure will begin for my family. Princess Eleanor will have new princess duties, right Ellie?” 

Giggling, she looks up to her father. 

“Daddy, I am a big sister now!” 

As realization sets in with the crowd, the crowd erupts in cheers and applause. Liam raises Riley’s hand, placing a soft kiss on her knuckles. 

Liam continues, “we are over the moon to announce that our family is growing! 

More news to come! Enjoy the Festival!” 

***************

♥ 

After finishing numerous interviews with the press, Liam and Riley walked with Ellie over to meet with their close friends to enjoy the festival and start celebrating.

Standing beside a satellite truck at the back of the crowd, a lone figure watches with interest.

@txemrn @bebepac @ao719 @peonierose @phoenixrising0308 @queenrileyrose @queenmiarys @703cowbarn @mom2000aggie @malblk21 @indiana-jr @winkyluxhumanoid @rubiwalker @harleybeaumont @kingliam2019 @marietrinmimi @imashybish @angelasscribbles @isha26 @sfb123 @cordonianredruby @hopelessromanticmonie @tinkie1973 @belencha77 @honey358luv @jared2612 @urfaveaesthetic101 @xpandass420x @kyra75 @late-to-the-fandom @sammiiieeevaaans @lsvdw-blog @blueaster-blog1 @imjusthereforliam

Leo & Amalas:

@twinkleallnight

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed from future stories.

#the royal romance #trr liam x mc #always liam and riley #liam rys #riley brooks #trf au #trr #trr fanfic #the royal romance fanfic #choicesflashfics #leo rys #drake walker #olivia nevrakis #king liam

[kaitlinj16]

The Choice (2016)

🖤🖤🖤

#monica #Alexandra Daddario #travis shaw #Benjamin Walker #gabby holland #travis x gabby #otp: come bother me baby #the choice #{scene} #edit

[radellama]

Games I played in 2023 - Part 2

Well. These certainly took longer to write than I expected them to. Who knew that I’d have a lot to say AND be incredibly picky about how I said everything?

Me. I knew.

Anyway…

Read part one if you haven’t already, and my resi part will be coming out… soon……… And once again, spoilers of varying degrees and strong opinions moving forwards.

~~~

Tomodachi Life, 3DS

I never had this game growing up, but my friend did, and they gave me a demo via DS download play. I really wanted to have it myself, but it was always so expensive that I could never justify buying it, and I prioritised getting other games that were higher on the list instead. Now that I have my cool 3DS where I can play whatever I want, I finally gave it a try!

It didn’t last long though, as there isn’t really that much to do here.

Similarly to Miitopia, this kind of game is only any fun if you have ideas for funny miis to play with, or are amused enough by using miis of you and your friends. I played for about 8 days, checking in with everyone and trying to put all the Chrono characters in. There wasn’t much to actually do, it felt like pointless unlocks and shopping just for the sake of it, instead of any intrinsic reason compelling me to do so.

Maybe I’m just too old now, and have outgrown the age where I would’ve potentially enjoyed this more, but I doubt that. It’s just boring, and once you’ve played for a day or two, you have pretty much played it all. I know that there’s more to do if you spend the time playing for a few minutes every day, like miis dating or having a baby, but I couldn’t get my otp Magland to like each other and Harland spent more time with Schala than Magus. Also I had to make Magus a girl, cause gay people don’t exist and Nintendo doesn’t allow mpreg.

This is disappointing, especially as I enjoyed Miitopia more than I thought I would. I thought there would be more to this dollhouse style game, but there isnt. There’s some funny charm in the flavour text and such, but ehhhhhh… Just play Miitopia. That vibe is there and there’s more to do in that game.

I’m not going to link any songs, as I didn’t find anything particularly stand out, and as I listen while writing this, I’ve barely made a dent in the track list, so I can’t be bothered. It all just sounds like the classic Wii-DS era Mii music. Whatever.

~~~

Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns, 3DS

I know I did a mock review a few years ago for this one, but. Y’know. This game is pretty good and I like farm sims. All the good stuff I’ve said in previous years about farm sims applies here; I get addicted to them easy and it’s dangerous for me to play them, cause it makes my autism go wheeeeeeeeeeeee

This game is one that’s close to my heart- I played it a lot as a tween and just enjoyed how much I felt like it captured the reasons why I liked the SNES Harvest Moon, while also expanding and adding more fun stuff. The gist of this game is that you are on your way to your farm, when you have an accident and forget which town you were going to live in. Both mayors want you to live in their town, and as you’ll come to find out, they’re fairly competitive against one another. Once you’ve picked your town, and start getting settled in, you’ll have an encounter with the Harvest Goddess, who explains that she collapsed the tunnel between the two towns because she was sick of the arguing- but wants YOUR help repairing relations. You do this primarily by entering the cooking festivals, held four times every month- the more you win, and the closer you get with the townspeople on both sides, the more you’ll be able to access upgrades for your house and tools, along with opening up the tunnel for easy access to both towns.

In the early days, you’ll be spending most your time working on your farm, and foraging on the mountain. There’s three screens on each side of the mountain with various foragable goods, fishing spots and wild animals to befriend – which is plenty to build up your inventory and earn some cash while you wait for your crops to grow. I really appreciate the early days in this game, as it’s not only nostalgic for me, but also a really solid tutorial. The first month is like an overall guide on how to play the game, with each town giving you a gift to start you off (Konohana giving you seeds and tools to grow crops, and Bluebell giving you a cow, which is just a much better deal lmao), showing you how the cooking competition works, and showing how to use the notice board and demonstrating the goal of opening the tunnel. You get a fairly well rounded understanding of most the mechanics you’ll be using, while also getting familiar with what you as a player will personally gravitate towards as you farm, forage, and befriend the locals on either side.

It’s not a lot of story, and it’s a very simple one at that- but it’s all this game needs. I remember as a tween, thinking that if there were ever to be a Harvest Moon movie made, that they should base it on this game; as it wasn’t overly complex, but still had fun characters and an easy to follow plot that would leave a lot of room for an adaptation to do what it needed to in order to make it work. I still stand by that, and will happily write the screenplay. Hit me up.

One cute thing that I love about this game, is that you can get closer with everyone, not just the bachelors and bachelorettes. In some instances, its required, which is a good incentive to give gifts and catch up with everyone when you can. Some date-ables need you to have high friendship points with not just themselves, but friends and/or family members that are important to them, otherwise you’ll be unable to marry them. That’s not the only reason to befriend people, however, as I learnt through this replay that you can unlock special requests once you’re close with certain people. This was an awesome revelation, as it varied the request board in a much needed way- when I was a kid playing, I’d only get super close with the bachelor I wanted and his required people so I could marry him. I didn’t ignore everyone, but I didn’t put much effort into raising their points either. I did this time though, which was great.

The request board is pretty simple, when you check it, there will usually be simple fetch quests from the villagers asking for something or to deliver something to someone else. This ranges from various crops, to foragables and other rarer items you need to collect or create. At the start of each month, there will also be special quests that are much higher in their difficulty, but also reap much greater rewards. In the early game, they’re usually requests for materials to open the tunnel between the two towns, or to upgrade your tools. Once you get closer with others, you can get special timed requests, which usually entail helping out with someone’s crops or livestock before the end of the day. This is a nice, simple mechanic to incentivise collecting items and growing your farm, and isn’t inherently bad.

What does hurt this, however, is how bloated and drawn out so much of this game feels. The special requests to upgrade your farm that I mentioned? ONLY at the start of the month. And, when you’re a year or two in, you can complete these big quests by day three or four usually- definitely before the first week is over. It kinda sucks to be forced to wait around all month just for an upgrading blitz as soon as the season turns over. I just wanted to unlock the mines, but according to the online guides, you need to have your house and property FULLY upgraded... I thought I was. I have the biggest house, both the chicken and livestock paddocks are fully expanded, I got a little more fields and a maker shed to process animal products into things like yarn and cheese and shit... BUT I HAVE TO DO THE BEEHIVES INDIVIDUALLY AT THE START OF EACH MONTH. THERE'S 6 OF THEM. I'M AT YEAR 4 OR 5 I'VE BEEN PLAYING FOR SO LONG... THERE'S NOT EVEN ANY NOTES OR INDICATION IN GAME THAT THERE WILL BE A MINE I JUST HAVE TO MAX OUT MY FARM AND FIND OUT. NOT TO MENTION THAT THERE'S UPGRADES FOR BOTH FARMS TO DO, SO IT TAKES FOR FUCKING EVER… It’s really shit to have the main way to feel progression being spaced too far apart to even mean anything. A simple change, like making the big upgrades available twice a season instead of once would help IMMENSELY. Even to expand upon the request system, and be able to make requests yourself to various villagers once you’re closer to them in order to upgrade your farm. That way, there’s still that focus on the community, and incentivises you to get close to people on both sides, as there will be materials that only one town has. I’m just spit-balling, but the progression needs to be more frequent!

This elongated feeling isn’t just limited to the requests and upgrades. It’s unfortunately present across the whole game. Which is such a shame, as it’s the reason why I never played past the second or third year as a kid. Befriending villagers and getting closer to them takes ages. Progress takes ages. And the food competition takes aaaages. There’s no auto play for it, and there is no reason to drag out an ‘ooohh who’s gonna win!?’ back and forth every. Damn. Competition. You compete 4 times a month, it gets old by like, the third one lol. There’s also a lot about this game that is just vague for no real reason- my biggest gripe being that you can upgrade your livestock’s production output by feeding it treats. In game, you just have someone say that feeding your livestock their favourite treats will increase productivity. The reality? There is a set number of treats for each type of animal, and you have to feed it that set amount for every level up you want to do, for a max of 5 items from that animal. So, where I though it was something like ‘feed the animals various treats to see which is their favourite,’ or ‘feed the cow 10 grain treats,’ - it’s actually ridiculous numbers like the cow needing 7 treats, 15 grain treats, 8 vegetable treats and 1 nutra treat PER LEVEL. PER COW. AND YOU CAN ONLY FEED AN ANIMAL ONE TREAT PER DAY. And there’s no way to keep track of it in game, you have to keep track of it yourself, which, in my opinion, is fucking horrific. I don’t mind the concept of having to feed your livestock various treats to level it up, but at least give some way to know how many to feed it! Have one of the villagers who likes animals tell you this as a reward for getting close to them, and maybe they can tell you how many of each treat you have to go. Or, have it be something you can get the stats of when you examine your livestock with a stethoscope! OR JUST HAVE IT IN THE LIVESTOCK BOOK IN EACH SHED. There’s so many ways that this could be a perfectly fine mechanic, but with it being that bloated and time consuming, it’s just ass!

And while I’m getting into the nitty-gritty of nitpicking- when you do timed requests for other villagers, like picking crops or milking cows, the items automatically go into their storage through an auto animation of the player putting their crops into their pocket. I wish that was an option for me on my farm, as it got annoying having to manually place every individual thing into my pockets when collecting crops and such. It’s things like this that make me want to get back into Stardew Valley again, as simple things like the auto grabber in the livestock sheds was a GODSEND that helped minimise the mind numbing grind, so that I can focus on enjoying the much better grinds that are more enjoyable.

One thing that this game has, that I really enjoyed when I was playing as a kid, is that the date-ables not only have heart events for when you’ve levelled up in your relationship, but also, YOU CAN TAKE PEOPLE ON DATES! If you catch your particular person when they’ve got some free time, they’ll ask if you want to go somewhere with them, and you can choose the location. Picking the right locations will reward you with a little date that goes well, and an increased amount of heart points – and if you pick a place that person doesn’t like, they’ll cut the date short due to feeling uncomfortable. This is really cute and fun, and though I wish you got more than a small handful of rotating sentences to see from your date- it is a nice way to be sure that you ARE close with that person, and can enjoy some time together. What I do wish, is that this was expanded a bit more, and even being able to go on friend dates with people you can’t date. I’d love to go for a walk in the mountains with the cool carpenter lady, or have tea with the grandma who runs the tea house – they’re my friends too, and it would be nice to have them do more than act as essentially set dressing and people to put up requests for you. Due to how simple these dates are, after a few of them, they don’t really feel like dates. The charm wears off when you notice that you’re just watching the two of you stand next to each other, while your date proclaims a random fact that’s not necessarily revealing anything of note towards your relationship with them, or their character. Having these be a bit more interactable would help solve this, as it’d be fun to answer questions the date has for you, or to do something together as a little minigame might be fun. Even something as simple as finding out info from other villagers as you get closer with everyone, and asking your date about the things you hear would be really nice! And, if you’re not dating, and able to go on friend dates, this would be a cool way to get closer with other villagers and learn a bit more about them and the history of the two towns.

One funny thing I noticed with these, however, is that ALL available bachelors or bachelorettes will ask to go on dates if you’re close enough- regardless of who you’re dating or even if you’re married. There is a jealousy system in place, where you’ll get the cold shoulder if you rack up too many jealousy points, and you have the choice to apologise or make it worse when they confront you with it. It’s a bit weird that people would still ask me on dates and get jealous after I was married. Like… Dude, you were at my wedding. There’s the occasional dialogue from other villagers that comments on married life, so it’s definitely not a secret. you KNOW I’m married, but still get pissy when I go on a date with my husband? It’s so silly, and that’s another point where I feel like a friend date system (that’s implemented with care) could resolve that strange point.

Of all the mechanics in this game, one that I simultaneously love and loathe is the filth on big livestock. First of all, I love that it’s such a clear indicator of when my animal is getting dirty, and if I leave it for too long they start to get filth clouds and flies following them. On the other, goddamn they get dirty so quickly. I don’t want to keep washing them every day, its a massive time sink and can be quite frustrating- especially when you’ve got a full barn with half a dozen cows, some sheep and alpacas. If it wasn’t as frequent, that’d be better, cause I don’t really care for the upkeep if I’m being honest. I just appreciate that it’s one of the only things that is communicated very clearly in the game. And, while we’re on the topic of bothersome things regarding the animals, the frame rate goes to hell when all the livestock are outside. It shouldn’t cause the game to nearly crash just by having all the animals outside, and it’s really annoying trying to milk your cow when you’re going at 1fps with massive slowdown. It’d be helped if the dogs and cats you train to herd them don’t cling to you and follow you wherever you go. I don’t really care if it’s cute or how pets act in real life (cause I know, my cats routinely come bother me for head scratches and cuddles while I’m writing these), but it’s really frustrating when you’re trying to pet your livestock and keep picking up 3 dogs in the process. Oh, oh, and one more thing, I grew up with the original DS version of this game, but played the 3DS remake for this; and while there’s not really any changes, the one change is this petting minigame for your livestock. While the livestock is out in the fields, you can sometimes see a little petting symbol above them, and interacting with them while that symbol is playing will launch the minigame. IT SUCKS. Like, yes, you can get extra hearts quickly through this minigame, but it goes on just a little too long, and would routinely crash my game when my black sheep wanted a pet. If the game automatically ended when you reached full hearts, instead of waiting for the timer to run out, that’d improve it- but this is ultimately an unnecessary addition and there’s no way to turn it off. Blehhhhh. You get so much more bang for your buck when farming livestock, but all this faff makes the crop growing seem so much simpler in comparison. I love that you can dig a trench for your crops, which allows you to place fertiliser at one end and it will fertilise the whole row, same with watering! There’s still a massive slowdown if you try to water a particularly large trench, but it goes back to normal when the animation is finished, unlike the animals, who still exist on the screen regardless.

Onto something I genuinely love about this game – the graphics. The style of the game is very cute, with a lot of the pre-rendered backgrounds having a painterly quality to them. The sprite art on the characters is also nice, even if it’s a bit of a generic anime style. I enjoyed seeing how the landscapes changed in each season, and seeing the little decorations put up during festivals is a fun touch. Pair this with the pleasant soundtrack, and it is such a nice, calming atmosphere to lose yourself in as you forage and farm.

Looking at this game more in-depth, it seems there’s a lot about it that becomes frustrating. However, I truly love this game. Within these weird flaws is a really cute game that I enjoy immensely, I just wish it was a little better so I could get more out of it. I deliberately pushed further than I ever played as a kid; I got so far that my animals started dying of old age LMAO. I would recommend playing with the fogu guide, as that was a lifesaver and clearly spelled out some of the vague things the game doesn’t elaborate upon. If you’re someone who likes farm sims, and hasn’t played this, I think that if you take into consideration how bloated it gets, you’ll probably enjoy this one! For at least the first two to three years. Lol.

Bluebell Town

Konohoana Town

Winter Theme

~~~

Story of Seasons, 3DS

Oh boy. I got addicted.

I really should stay away from farm sims, huh?

This game is the spiritual successor to the Harvest Moon series- or, more accurately, what Harvest Moon rebranded to after the split from Natsume. Look into it if you’re interested, I don’t particularly feel like rehashing the history for this write up… These take long enough to write as it is, and I’m just sharing my opinions!

Anyway, this is such a fun and pleasant game!

I’ve been struggling with general life and health issues this year, and I can say that playing this was a great distraction for a few months. It was genuinely refreshing to play a farm sim that was new to me while still feeling like I knew what in store for me. What I found funny about this, was that the sound design is the same as Tale of Two Towns. That was very strange to hear after just giving up on ToTT for being too much of a slog – at least the sound design is pretty good lmao.

The intro to this game is straight to the point, which I appreciated. You’ve been chosen to move to this small farming town and start working on your own lot to help boost the local economy. For your first week, you stay with your neighbour- an elderly woman who knows everything there is to know about farming -and she teaches you the basics. It’s a great safety net to slowly get introduced to the mechanics you’ll need to know, and allow you the time to get acquainted with everyone in town.

The big change for this game is that you will exclusively be selling your goods in the market, which will grow to have a rotating list of vendors to buy and sell from. This is an interesting idea, and is certainly one way to get a basic understanding of a supply and demand economy; but I’m not sure how I feel about it. Because of the focus placed on this market, there’s no shipping bin for you to just sell items at a base price. A few years into the game, you can unlock a personal stall at the market, which I suppose is the replacement for the shipping bin; but you don’t get that until you’ve been well and truly playing for a while. In the beginning, it’s a little rough when you only have one or two vendors- if you miss them and then hit a dry spell, you’ll just have to deal with a bulging inventory until you can sell everything! It gets better once you unlock more vendors, and I assumed as such when playing, but it doesn’t stop it from feeling a bit off-putting initially. Once you start unlocking more vendors, though, it becomes surprisingly in-depth. There’s a strategy to the market, especially when a particular vendor is paying extra for select items or when completing requests. If you sell an abundance of one type of thing, the price for it will drop- which I thought was an interesting application of supply and demand. I’m unsure how easily understandable this all is to a younger audience, as despite my math and business skills being subpar, I am still an adult with a lived understanding of the concepts at play here, and not the intended younger demographic.

I can say that once you get a grasp on all the mechanics at play, this game was a blast! I think my hyperfixation on this game lasted until about halfway through winter of the first year – which is pretty good mileage! The addiction lasted much longer than that, as I genuinely enjoyed playing this game over a couple of real life months. In the first two years, I didn’t really feel bored or at a loss for things to do. There’s a decent pace to the events held within each season- and with limited stamina and particular days to meet with vendors and actually earn money, there’s loads to cram into each day! Will I spend the day working on my farm, will I head to town to talk with my friends, forage for much needed materials and supplies, go bug catching or fishing, even swim in the river to dive for fish or rarer items like gemstones? There’s a lot to do, and it often reminded me of Animal Crossing. The diving when you swim in the river functions the same way, and with the ability to decorate and rearrange furniture in your house and certain areas of town; I couldn’t help but feel it was an interesting mish-mash of Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon.

To help demonstrate progress, there are tourist NPCs that wander the village square and comment on the town and it’s reputation. Once you start to attract more vendors and build on it’s popularity, there will be more of these tourists wandering around, which makes the town noticeably more lively. In the beginning when the town is pretty sparse, they just complain about it being a small country town- but with just one or two more stalls, you not only see a handful more tourists wandering about, but a shift to a more optimistic mindset towards the town too. Dialogue for local villagers will change depending on the reputation of town also, commenting on the popularity of the place and the kinds of wares available in new vendor’s stalls. This is a subtle thing, but I really appreciated it, as it did make it feel like there was a tangible difference happening to the town as I put effort into it. Villagers will comment if you haven’t said hello in a while, and sometimes I came across little events with certain characters, which adds to that local community feeling. I also found it quite amusing that the villagers will tell you in varying ways to leave them alone if you try to talk to them while they are eating. I was also surprised that once the town became more popular, more villager NPCs moved to town- ones you could date! AND, TWO OF THEM HAPPENED TO BE FROM TOTT!? You have no idea how surprising it was to see my husband Cam rock up to town, but his name was Kamil now. And Reina moved to town as well, though her name is… Licorice. I’m so sorry they did you dirty like that Reina... That is a fucking dogs name, not a name for a cute girl...

The visuals of the game are pretty nice, too. I think the watercolour inspired look to the character portraits is nice, though I think the in game 3D models creep me out a bit… There are plenty of QOL additions to this game that I really appreciated; my favourite being the crop fields having a little text bubble pop up labelling what crop it is, and crops automatically went into my pockets when I harvested them!! However, I’m not keen on the UI of the inventory, if I’m being honest. I understand that a scrolling list menu is pretty utilitarian, and keeps the UI clean and simple, but I think I’d prefer to have a more visual inventory so that it’s super clear what I am selecting. There are pictures and more details on the top screen when you select something from the list menu on the bottom screen, but ehhh… It didn’t hit for me, and I often felt a little lost when scrolling through the monotonous design. Nitpicky, I know, but I feel this is a slight downgrade.

There were other little things that became apparent the more I played, and unfortunately culminated into a mindless and sometimes frustrating grind. In the animal sheds, there is a feed dispenser and a treat dispenser, but they are so close together that often when I was trying to grab a treat, I’d end up with a handful of feed, and vice versa. Treats also had to be pulled out one by one, which is just silly when you have a lot of animals to give treats to. My solution to that was to just keep treats in my pocket at all times and map them to a quick select menu; but I would’ve preferred the treats be held somewhere else in the shed so that they’re not accidentally picked instead of feed, and that the treats automatically pulled out the amount corresponding to the number of animals in the shed (ie, if you have 6 cows, you go to the treat dispenser and it will pull 6 out for you in one go- instead of you having to pull out six individual treats).

When feeding animals outside, small animals like chickens and rabbits need to have food placed on a crafted feeder plate, but big animals like cows, sheep, llamas, alpacas and camels can eat directly from grass you’ve planted within their paddocks. This is great in theory, as you can fence off a paddock of your own choosing, and place grass and feeders within so that the animals can eat outside. What sucks about this is that I found the big animals would all crowd around one tile of grass, despite me growing 2-4 for them at any given time. Animals would get stuck on each other, and when I’ve got 16 big animals in the paddock all trying to eat from one tile of grass (which I believe is only 9 servings) it’s just a huge mess. Especially when I’m trying to go around and milk all my cows or shear the sheep and such. In the early days of the game, you’ll need to manually put each animal outside, and bring them inside at night, otherwise you risk stressing out the animal, making them sick, or skipping their produce the next day. When you’ve got a lot of animals, this takes up a lot of time, so its handy to buy dogs when they become available and let them herd the animals! This was present in ToTT, which I loved, but I often found that my dogs would glitch and get stuck in a default pose, or sometimes they’d seem fine and just never herd the animals back inside for bedtime. I had no problems when I only had a few animals in the sheds to herd, but when each shed can hold up to 8 animals, and you can have two small and two big animal sheds on each screen for a total of 32 in each half of your farm (not counting the dogs and cats!) there’s a lot of animals to take care of, and that’s when I noticed the most glitching out. Training the dogs isn’t so bad though, as you can use your whistle to train them for the actual herding, and playing with them by throwing a bone will increase friendship points with them quicker, which will allow them to herd more animals. What sucks a bit about this, is that you cannot play with the pets inside their kennel. Their huge kennels that are perfect for playing fetch. Especially on a rainy day when you have the extra time to play with them cause you’re not watering crops. C’mon. I want to play with the dogs. Another thing that was a bit upsetting was that the cats are next to useless here. You can’t train them to do anything, they’ll just laze around your farm (which is fair enough), but unlike in ToTT, they don’t herd small animals. No, they just randomly collect items here and there. Maybe they’ll give you a stick. Or some stones. If you build up your relationship with them, they may get gems and other valuables, but I found this to be quite basic and unnecessary when getting more dogs to help herd my animals was more immediately useful.

I wish the livestock animals had the same visibly dirty system that ToTT had, it’s one of the only things that was a genuine downgrade compared to that game for me. The animals don’t look dirty, the only visual indicators you get are for when shearable animals are ready to be shorn, as you can see the fluff. If the animal is filthy, you just get a little cranky symbol from them every now and then, or you’ll find out that they’re stinky when you pet them. This isn’t great, as you can miss that when you’ve got a lot of animals to keep track of, but letting them be too dirty for too long will increase their stress and risk them running away or getting sick. When you’ve got 30+ animals to take care of, you don’t want to waste your whole day, every day, brushing them all when there’s other important things to get done. Another thing I miss is the trench digging you could do for your crops. In this game, each tile you till will result in 9 of that crop (ie, plant one potato, you’ll reap 9) – which is awesome! I just think it would’ve been nice to have some trenches or sprinklers to assist with watering, as despite the process not being too bad, especially when you’ve upgraded your watering can, I was pretty tired of it by the end of the third year.

The worst part of this game is the bloated requirements to unlock stuff. This issue is still here, and I’d argue that it’s worse than ToTT! Not only are the requirements vague and hidden, they’re also outrageously stupid. To unlock more vendors, you need to ship a certain amount of particular items- which on it’s own makes sense. I appreciated that some of the villagers encouraged this idea too, but they don’t give any indication for how much of each thing you’ll need to ship. Looking at online guides to help, I was outraged with the numbers. I just think that if the NPCs are already hinting at it to me, there could also be a note book or quest log tab where the player has something like "maybe shipping X amount of Y will work?" so that it's clearer. If I, as an adult, looking up guides to assist, found this confusing and convoluted- I don't think there's much hope for the intended younger audience to see the whole game... Like, saying I should try selling various items is one thing- but trying to figure out with no further clues that what it actually wants is 500 seeds, 10,000 processed goods and 15,000 cooked recipes as just SOME of the criteria for ONE of the two remaining vendors to unlock.... Jesus. I was already very lost at why I unlocked cats but no dogs yet- turns out I needed to fulfill certain requirements, one of which is 30 seperate offerings to the goddess… Just to unlock dogs.

I don't have a problem with the game wanting and encouraging you to use it's systems to unlock more things, it's the fact that it's so vague and bloated I have an issue with. This year’s replay of ToTT was the furthest I’ve ever gotten, and I still ended up giving up before I could unlock everything because it became a slog to get through. Even in this game, where it’s paced much better, it’s still awful! At the beginning, you have the option to play on easy or normal mode, and I chose normal thinking that the differences would be things like managing the animals and crops being made easier, so I didn’t need that. Nope, as I understand it, the only real difference is the number of things to export. And even then, the numbers are still ridiculously high! This is the main gripe I have with this game, its a real dampener on the experience and it makes the time sunk into it with the cost vs reward pitiful. I made it to partway through year 5 or 6 before I gave up, because I was no longer having fun and the grind felt awful. That far into it, I should have unlocked all the basics, like EVERY VENDOR. There will be more cosmetics and recipes and blueprints to buy with new vendors, and when you get close with each vendor, they’ll give you an animal that will either live in the wild areas outside of town, or on the safari once you’ve unlocked it. This is nice! But why do I need to export arbitrarily large amounts of things without any clear indication of how I’m doing!? When a new vendor comes to town, they have a little cutscene introducing themselves with the mayor- why not have them come to town to investigate, or send a letter, or just the mayor suggesting it clearly to you; and say that they’re only interested if certain requirements are fulfilled. That way, it gives a clearer goal, something tangible to refer back to (either have the goal in the same tabs as the requests, or go ask the mayor at town hall) and a much easier time achieving it. There’s potential here, just executed poorly.

I don’t really know how to link this, but there were some other strange things I noticed about this game. The start button does nothing… you have to tap a button on the touch screen to pause the game. I don’t understand why the start button wasn’t good enough, especially when it’s not used for anything else? Also, I don’t know if it’s a quirk of the game, or just my copy, but when planting tress, the softwood and hardwood seeds are swapped. I plant softwood, and I’ll get hardwood, vice versa. Was very weird, so I just planted both to make sure I got some of the tree I wanted, as I’d inevitably forget and confuse myself lmao. There was also never enough fertiliser sold at the shop, and never enough weeds and twigs to find while foraging to turn into fertiliser. I wish it was easier to get a hold of more, as I seemed to have an excess of literally everything else at that point.

But, enough bitching- there’s an auto text mode during festivals and you can skip certain cutscenes! YIPPEE!! A lot of the gripes that I had with ToTT feel like they’ve been directly addressed and renovated in a nice way for this game. There are more things to do throughout the month- there are festivals and competitions regularly enough that it gives you a chance to work on your animals, crops, and fashion sense. The characters feel generally nice to get to know, and cutscenes aren’t just limited to the date-ables you’re romancing- there are farm rivals that will trigger cutscenes as well, and I played a little with one of the kids and she had a little social special event too. The town really felt so much like a small community when you know that getting closer with people can trigger cutscenes and events that show you more about them or your relationships with each other!

The maker sheds are not only easier to unlock, but more varied- there’s plenty of things you can do to the items you grow and gather, like creating more things for your farm, decorations for your house and the town, or even cool outfits and accessories. Did you know that if you equip certain combinations of accessories, you’ll get stat boosts? I didn’t until I read through the guides, and I equiped a combination that regenerated stamina periodically – it was SUPER helpful! Decorating your house, farm and town is fun too. I put it off for a bit because I was focused on the grind to try unlock all the vendors, but when that was seeming pointless, I built a bunch of cool furniture and made some lovely little settings with cute plants and nice decorations. Tourists will sometimes stand close to the decorations and comment on them too, which was a pleasant surprise. And, earlier I mentioned the safari- you can travel to it to forage for rarer items, or whack the mining point to get gems and minerals for upgrading tools and crafting cool furniture and accessories. I really meant it when I said that it didn’t feel like I was running out of things to do!

The music is generally nice too! I really loved that each season has both a day and night theme, I appreciated that after playing so many farming games that just have nighttime ambience when it gets dark. The summer theme for this game is also my favourite, its so pretty and I’d play it on my phone over other themes I didn’t like as much lmao. I was sad to hear the autumn theme was a bit strange and I didn’t like it as much, cause usually the autumn themes are some of my favourites from farming games- and although the winter theme was better, it got repetitive in a negative way real fast. Thats not so bad though, considering there are so many cute songs in this game (I think it’s gotta be double what ToTT had soundtrack wise!) I know for certain that when I hear the spring and summer themes from this game, I’ll have that fun nostalgic feeling when I listen. There is also a music festival held once a year, and in it they’ll play little medleys of songs from older Harvest Moon games – which was such a cute easter egg for older players!

In closing, I’m not sure what else to say, really. I love farming games, and this was a nice reminder as to why. I’m very glad to have played it, and although I still have a lot of gripes with it, I had a lot of fun. Which, that’s the point of a farming game, right?

Summer Theme

Flower Event 1

Competitive Festival

~~~

Nintendogs, DS

I wasn’t originally going to write this the following entry, as these were short playthroughs compared to what I normally self impose for these lists. But, well, here we are. This and the next entry are kind of a call and response to each other too, btw, as I played them both at the same time to compare for the sake of my own curiosity.

Nintendogs was the very first game that I had for my little ice blue DS lite back in the day. I had just turned nine, and this was the very first console that was mine. I had a childlike obsessions with dogs, and this was before I found out how cool cats were! I would ask all the time if my parents could get a big dalmatian with a red leather collar so I could name him spotty. It was a dream I’d held onto since I was two, and my parents were definitely sick of me asking, so it was VERY exciting that I got a dog game, and not only that, but the dalmatian version!

Initially, I just started playing this as a half hearted nostalgia trip- it’s hard when you’re inbetween fixations and NOTHING is fulfilling any entertainment or stimulation needs. It was cute to revisit this game, and I got pretty far, considering I fudged stuff a bit to make it a little more interesting. After all, I’m not 9 with endless time after school and homework was finished!

There’s plenty of things to do with your virtual dogs, you can feed and bathe them, dress them up and play, take them on walks or train them to win competitions! The only ways to make money in this game are to win competitions, or sell items. Good thing you can both find items and train your dogs for 2/3 of the competitions while out walking! While on a walk, if you head to an empty park and have a frisbee, you can practice throwing with your dog until they get better at catching and returning to you. You can also head to the gym where you can train your dog to go through various agility equipment, unlocking more as you progress through the agility trials. Both of these are free to visit, only relying on your dog having enough stamina to make it to these locations and back home again- and like the training at these locations, your dogs stamina will build over time the more you spend time with them.

The other competition is the obedience trials, which is best practiced at home. Training your dog to do tricks utilises the built in microphone, requiring you to direct your dog to the trick you want it to do and then calling out the command. I quite liked these when I was a kid, and while I didn’t get as far this time around, I really appreciate that this game will teach you how to train your dog for everything required to win the trails, but also lets you create new and unique tricks for your dogs. I so vividly remember sneaking onto the computer (I wasn’t allowed to use it without permission, and especially not to use the internet unattended lol) and looking up forums on how to teach my dog particular tricks. If you manage to find and buy a keyboard, you can teach your dog to bark short melodies on command, or even teach it to stand or do flips if you and your dog are particularly close! Some tricks are much harder to teach, obviously, but I enjoy that the game literally gives you an easy guide on how to take care of and train your dog in all aspects, while also giving you the freedom to play around and see what else you can get up to while you play.

As the competitions are so integral to the game, you’ll quickly meet the commentators Ted Rumsworth and Archie Hubbs, who were gay married in my head before I knew what gay marriage really meant. While the commentators can drag on, they’re actually pretty funny and certainly have a charisma about them, working perfectly as a silly jokester who feels more down to earth, and a more straight laced professional who takes those jokes seriously. You can even run into Archie on walks, with his friendly Shiba Inu. He often has nice or silly things to say to you, and sometimes other neighbours will gossip about him, talking about that time he apparently ate a dog biscuit.

There’s also a plethora of items and accessories to find while you play, including but not limited to weird and interesting toys, a Mario Kart RC toy collection, musical records, lost shoes to chew on and funny hats. The musical records were particularly fun for me, and though I didn’t play enough this time around to collect them all, I have great memories with these. You start off with just one white record, and this is one that you can record your own sounds on and replay, with half and double speeds available. I remember mucking around with it as a kid and finding out you can layer recordings on top of each other, and if you record at half speed, it’ll sound like a chipmunk when played at normal speed- so of course I had to make an elaborate record about an alien landing on Earth and telling everyone to go away. Some records, like the nap time and marching band one will have effects on your dogs, such as getting them all sleepy or marching around the room together. There are also four ‘secret’ records you can find that are produced by our very own Archie Hubbs, and these would incorporate snippets of your own record as a kind of remix. You would not believe how funny it was when I showed my sister my version of Giant Socks ft. Fart Noises, you just had to be there…

The visuals are about as sharp and crunchy as you’d expect from a DS game, but I love them. This low poly look with pixelated edges is quite charming to me, and although it’s not the most spectacular graphics ever made, there is a lot of care and detail put into the dog models and all the items and environments you come across. When you save up enough to buy new looks for your house, there are so many gorgeous interiors to choose from once you unlock them all! The soundtrack is similarly iconic, I pretty sure everyone likes the bath time track! There’s also plenty of Mario references throughout the toys and accessories, so it can be quite fun to see what you can collect when you get closer with your dogs.

Unfortunately, as I played on my own for a few weeks, I couldn’t partake in street pass, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was pretty good back in the day. You can choose a pup, maybe choose something from your inventory to give as a gift, and close your DS as you went out. I’d often exchange gifts with my sister as we compared trainer level scores, and it was fun meeting with other kids at church on the weekend and showing off all the cool tricks and items we had.

The only real downside to this game is that it takes place in real time, but I don’t find that too detrimental. This is definitely a game meant to be played in short bursts, and as a pet sim, if you’re not all that interested in just hanging out with your dogs after you’ve maxed out the amount of competitions and tricks to teach in a day, I don’t think you’ll get much more out of it. What you see is pretty much what you get, there aren’t really any hidden mechanics that’ll drastically shake up the game, you just buy dogs and hang out with them.

I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a quintessential DS game to play, or just like dogs. It’s cute, has it’s own charm, and is quite frankly iconic. And it has middle-aged man yaoi

Bath Time

Walking the Dog

Friendly Whiff Record

~~~

Nintendogs + Cats, 3DS

I never owned this game growing up, but my sister did. She never played it, so sometimes I’d borrow it and try to play, forgetting each time why I’d put it down previously. This game is a pitiful attempt at recapturing the magic of the first Nintendogs, adding features that no one asked for, and changing or even removing the elements that made the first game work so well.

Lets start with the biggest and worst change, in my opinion. You can’t physically pet your pets. Now, I know what you’re thinking, it’s a pet sim, surely you can pet it? And while, yes, technically, you can, all physical interactions with your pet are via a silhouetted shadow of your pet on the touch screen, while your actual pet is on the top screen. WHY!?

Well, I know why. They wanted to utilise the oh so epic 3D visuals and to do that, they have to keep the pets on the top screen. BOOOOOOOOOO

This design philosophy that prioritises the tech over the actual gameplay is the poison that killed this game, in my opinion. I do not even play with the 3DS slider on because it strains my eyes real quick lol, yet everything important is placed on the top screen to utilise this feature. The bottom screen is delegated to being a permanent menu screen or just a silhouette of your pet. By segregating this tactile element, it’s not only making it difficult to interact intuitively with your pets, but it just plain ol’ feels crap. In real life, when I want to pet my cats, I read out and pet them. In the first Nintendogs, when I want to pet my dogs, it’s really easy to figure out that petting them with your stylus while they’re on the touch screen is how you do it. I just don’t think there’s any reason in defence of making this a hand-eye coordination thing with the silhouette dogs, like. It’s yucky.

Because of these changes, the trails have changed a lot too. The agility trial is now a lure course, where you turn a crank wheel and lead your dog down a race track with lure lines. This is… painfully simple; despite there being elevations to the trails as you progress- like cross-crossing lines and hurdles to jump -it lacks any sort of direction or skill between you and your dog. You just… turn a crank, and honk the horn if you need to recapture your dog’s attention. Turn it just fast enough that they run at their fastest, but not so fast that your dog will lose interest and not so slow enough that your dog will pounce and play with the lure. It’s not complex or even interesting, if I’m being honest, and you just make sure to take your dog to the gym a few times and buy good lures that can go fast and it’s almost a guaranteed win. The disc trials, by comparison, are much more complex. In the previous Nintendogs, the only thing that really changed was the minimum required points needed to qualify for rankings. Here, the further you get, the more things get introduced. There will be sand patches that slow down your dog, and highlighted point zones that give an additional boost to your score. In theory, I get how this is upping the stakes and making it more challenging to win, but it all feels like a moot point as the disc feels so floaty and garbage to throw. It needs a certain weight and spin to it so that you can guess how hard and far to throw for certain points, but nothing I did seemed to work. Why did they change the physics here? The disc was perfectly fine previously, and these new challenges might even be interesting if you could actually direct and throw the disc. The other big gripe with these competitions is that your competitors are on the same screen as you. Previously, you competed by yourself, meaning that if you fucked up, it was on you and your dog, no one else. Now? Other dogs can get in the way on the agility course or disc range. I get that it feels more like a competition, but aren’t we here for the skill demonstration? The most egregious is the obedience trial, as you can’t even compete if you don’t have the AR Cards that came with the 3DS. Like… HELLO!? It’s lucky that it worked by just opening a PDF scan of them on my phone, but a core part of the game like this shouldn’t be tied to something external like that, just for a gimmick. They don’t actually do anything to enhance the competition, they aren’t a core mechanic in how you train your dog, it’s just an awkward thing you have to sit in front of your 3DS while you play! They don’t even do much when you play with your pets at home, the only thing you can do with them is scan them in and then your pet will wear an accessory based on whatever card you scan… but only while you’re in the scanning mode. IF you are going to implement something like this, I think it’s only fair if you get a rare collectable in game thats a fun reward for scanning it in, something more tangible for the effort, yknow? Not this dumb gimmicky shit that’s forced in cause they have to. (I don’t even think there should be stuff like what I just suggested if I’m being honest, the LoZ:SSHD Zelda amiibo is the perfect example of.. wtf why?)

Also, the prize money is not that much, especially for coming first in the championship. I have a feeling that this is due to the fact that you can enter each competition three times a day, per dog, for a total of nine potential competitions - unlike the previous which was three entries total per dog, regardless of competition. While Ted is back to narrate the competitions, it’s clear that they got the feedback of there being too much text to get through, so he’s barely a presence at the start and end, doing nothing more than the formalities of it. I definitely get that it could get tiresome to tap through all the text, but the text was flavourful at least, and if they had more banter between Ted and Archie here, it could’ve helped. Even just having something like… press and hold A to skip. That would literally fix it. And… ARCHIE ISN’T HERE. ITS JUST TED ALONE ITS SO SAD. AND I DON’T LIKE THAT EVERYONE IS MIIS NOW, IT WAS FUN THAT THE ONLY FACES YOU SEE IN THE FIRST NINTENDOGS WERE THE PIXELATED FACES OF TED AND ARCHIE, AND NOW ITS JUST MIIS EVERYWHERE. YOU DIDN’T NEED TO SEE THE PHYSICAL NPC PERSON AS YOU WALKED THE DOG IN THE FIRST GAME, IT KINDA IMPLIED THAT THEY ARE ALSO PLAYING ON THEIR DS JUST LIKE YOU CAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE AN IN-GAME MODEL EITHER. WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKK.

MIIS ARE COOL AND ALL, BUT THIS FELT LIKE IT WAS TRYING WAY TOO HARD! The Wii/3DS era is rightfully iconic, but this just missed the mark. I dunno how else to describe it, but there isn’t that much charm in walking through town and coming across miis- it was fine the way it was in the first nintendogs! The music as well… it just feels like it’s trying too hard to have baked in nostalgia by using the classic wii/mii sounds we all like without bringing anything to the table. Archie technically appears as one of the cashiers of a store you can enter on walks, but I didn’t recognise him cause he’s a mii and he got a bit whitewashed :/

The walks as well… UGH. There was something very nice and deliberate about planning out the walk beforehand and then going out. You can pick where you wanna go, if you wanna try to get the ? Icons that will either be a present or a neighbourhood dog, it was nice. I also liked that it was 2D sidescroller style walking in that game, here it is point of view behind the dog as it runs forward for the EPIQUE 3D GRAFICKS. You don’t get to plan the route, and I disliked how certain spaces were only in certain areas. The more you walk your dog, the more you’ll unlock places like the town streets, mountain streets, beach streets, ect. In town, there is a gym, in the mountain and beach there are public parks, but to get to them you have to catch a sign asking if you wanna go to that section while you’re on the walk. It’s more spontaneous, and I found myself frustrated. If I wanted to go to the gym, I had to make sure I went straight to town and after that, it’s straight home. If I want to go to the park, I have to make sure to get through at least two areas every time and not accidentally run past the park sign- and even then, you don’t know until you get there if there’s going to be another dog there who will muck up your training session. I don’t care, and its annoying for no reason, what was wrong with picking your path beforehand? If they insist on having these segregated areas, why not at least let me pick where I want to start? The only thing that is kinda ok, I guess, is that when you talk to neighbours and your dogs get along, they might invite you to come to the cafe or park with them to let the dogs play for longer. That’s cute, but most the time I don’t wanna do that cause the gym is right behind you and I won’t be able to access it if I go out with you now. UGH. At least there are little cones lines up that if you manage to get your dog to zig zag through them without touching any, you’ll get a gift- but the gifts are always recyclable materials to craft items later and it feels like salt in the wound for getting rid of the agility trails while reminding us that the dogs don’t control very well so its annoying doing the cones anyway!

The interiors you can buy are weird too- theres some nice looking ones to unlock but they all cost a certain amount. That on it’s own is fine, but theres the basic one you start off with that’s free, and then every time you change to one you have to pay. So if I bought the Japanese style interior for $1,000, then bought a different one but wanted to go back to the Japanese one, I’d have to pay $1,000 again. The build is instant, but like? Bruh? This is a bruh moment because in Nintendogs, once you bought a design, it was free to change back to it at any time- it just took a day or two irl to install. WHY WAS THIS CHANGED?

Even something as iconic as bath time isn’t that fun here. I dunno. This game just sucks. If washing the dog isn’t fun, what’s the point. There’s so many stupid changes that just says to me that they didn’t understand why the first one worked, and forced too many new gimmicks without testing to make sure that they were integrated well. Oh and the cats? Literally useless. You can’t take them on walks, and you can’t enter them in competitions. But Rads, I hear you say, real life cats are like that too! And to that I say: THERE ARE ALSO CAT COMPETITIONS IN REAL LIFE! The lure coursing feels much more like a cat thing than a dog one to me, and cats could be trained to go through obstacle courses or do a little dance like obedience trials. The competitions are an integral way to interact with your pet, they help to set goals for how you want to train them and measure your progress, and it is rewarding to win something with them after you put all the effort in. If you have a cat here, I want to play with it, not just throw a toy at it and have it look at me. I have cats in real life that will just stare at me blankly when I try to play and throw toys at them, cmon.

I can’t even be bothered to talk about the other stuff in depth, you get the idea.

This shit sucks.

Lets Go For A Walk [Daytime]

BARC

Cafe Petrov

~~~

Katana Zero, PC

Katana Zero is a relatively unique game; it’s a 2D sidescroller, but not quite a platformer- it has stealth elements, but is more focused on the mowing down of enemies to be a true stealth game. Either way, what you’ve got here is fun, especially once you start to understand the game and how it works.

One massive thing I appreciate is how the narrative elements are so entangled with the gameplay elements. The story revolves around Zero, a bathrobe-wearing, katana-weilding, samurai-film-loving swordsman who is tasked with killing certain individuals, leaving no survivors behind. To assist with these missions, he’s given a dose of chronos- a drug that alters the user’s perception of time, allowing them to slow down and rewind time through precognition. The more missions you go on, the more you slowly find out about the drug and circumstances surrounding it, along with revealing more hints towards Zero and his past.

As he is an amnesica, the only things we know about him is that he fought in the war, as evidenced by his service medal- and that he is a highly skilled, if socially withdrawn, killer. In between missions, he must attend therapy sessions, where he will be briefed on his next target and given a new dose of chronos. There are also little sequences where he befriends a young neighbour girl, and various other one-off sections with colourful characters around town. These all function like interactive cutscenes, meaning that there isn’t much time spent idly holding the controller and waiting for things to happen. You will be playing and making choices, even in quieter moments.

A real stand out factor of what makes this short game so memorable is the delivery. Not only in the gameplay and other details, which I will get to in a moment, but in the text itself! The text boxes have a timed delivery- with colours, animations and some sound effects for emphasis. This is AWESOME and really helps to demonstrate the tone of each conversation, accentuating the flavourful writing. Each character feels distinct in their presentation due to the way their text is literally presented, and when prompted, you get timed responses to choose from when in conversation. You’re given options for how you want to interact with others, from serious to humorous- even given the chance to interrupt people and really piss them off. The writing itself is quite enjoyable, as it knows when to be serious, and when to not take itself so seriously. In certain sections, you can even watch the conversations of certain enemies before they’re aware of your presence, which are quite entertaining to snoop on.

Into the gameplay itself, there is certainly a rhythm to it that takes a moment to fully understand- but once you do, it’s really satisfying. The big gimmick that ties into the narrative is the slo-mo - of which you have a limited amount of time to work in slow motion, which can be incredibly helpful when bum-rushing particularly tricky groups of enemies. The main skills you can utilise are a quick roll, which is practical and fun; melee items, which can be found and thrown across the levels; and your katana, which is a one hit kill for enemies, and can also help with extending jumps and dashes across the levels while you slash away. There’s also a crouch you can use to sneak around levels, but I did not use this often enough to really comment on. For the things I did use, however, I am quite pleased with the deceptive depth built into them. Melee objects seem simple, just pick up and throw; but depending on which item you’ve picked up, you can obscure yourself in a cloud of smoke, throw molotov cocktails or grenades at enemies- or at oil barrels, which was a personal favourite of mine -or simply rely on the tried and true reliability of throwing knives or other blunt impact objects to kill enemies or otherwise interact with the level. Sometimes, you’ll even come across melee that’s more special, like a flame thrower or remote detonation mine that can be used with more tactic.

The main method of killing will be via your katana, it is the name of the game, after all. Most enemies are one-hit kills, only requiring you be in range and slash at the right time to take them down. Some enemies will parry attacks with shields or melee weapons of their own, requiring two or more hits OR for a tactical roll to slash from behind. You can also parry the bullets shot at you if you time it right, flinging them back in the shooter’s direction for a nasty surprise. It’s simple, yet there are options for how you want to approach your enemies- meaning that you can’t blitz through with button mashing alone. You’ll want to pay attention while you learn through trial and error- as once you gain a bit of confidence in your understanding, you may want to experiment with baiting groups of enemies to your advantage- I sure liked playing with this! If an enemy shoots their gun upon seeing you, it’ll alert all the enemies in the immediately surrounding areas to flock to where they heard the gunshot. This can be a pain in the ass if you’re caught off guard, BUT, if you can adapt, or even plan to have this happen, you can wait for enemies right by the door they’ll appear from and slice them straight away. This is the kind of thing I think will seperate a lot of players’ experiences with this game, as the game gives this incentive to get good while being quick and nimble- so if you’re up to the challenge of bettering yourself through the way you behave and interact with the levels, it’ll definitely change the way you feel about the combat! I can tell you personally, just from playing through roughly 3-4 times, my first play that was largely brute force based vs my most recent where I prioritised efficiency and dexterity felt so different- AND BOTH FUN!

While this may sound a little overwhelming, especially when I tell you that you WILL be dying often, the game isn’t discouraging as it allows a quick respawn at the start of the room you’re in- meaning you can try again almost instantly without ruining the flow of gameplay. One of my biggest critiques of the game is, due to how fast paced everything is, I often found myself losing Zero amongst the flurry of guns and katanas, which mucks me up a lot. The only detriment to it being so fast, especially upon respawning, is this. Sometimes I’d get stuck for a second and keep dying on loop at the beginning of a level because my human brain and eyes were lagging behind and unable to physically process the rush of everything going on. This user error was the only thing stopping the experience from otherwise being seamless, so make of that what you will. I can say that I DID get better the longer I played, but I seemingly reset after putting down the game each time. It’s a great indicator for when I was getting too tired to play properly, as it was incredibly quick at pointing out through the rapid fire of stupid deaths when I’d just lost the knack for the session. One thing to counteract this is that there is a plethora of customisable setting within the menu. I had my friend Nika help me adjust everything so that I could play with minimal strain to my eyes, and it was greatly appreciated! I even joked that the tell of a great game is when the settings menus were as robust as the game itself- I’m not kidding when I say there’s a lot to customise! That is definitely the kind of accessibility within gaming I’m after; and I feel so perplexed that an indie game such as this can provide these options, while a large majority of AAA games barely let you remap buttons where you want.

Anyway, aside from the gameplay, the visuals and soundtrack are fantastic. There’s a distinct retro-dystopian-cyberpunk feel here, taking advantage of that tactile analogue feel of late 90s tech. There’s a branded focus on the cyan and magenta colours, which is super fun- but all the environments feel vibrant and detailed, even when they’re not pushing the saturation limits of your screen. You’re really able to see and appreciate the beauty of modern pixel art graphics here; the fluid animations make sprites feel so lively and full of character, there’s so many details in each level to appreciate, the dynamic lighting within levels is fucking gorgeous, and the level design was visually clear without being so in-your-face that it detracts from itself. Like, I noticed that during the levels as you walk through, theres a subtle glow around interactable elements, like floors and doors you can burst through. It’s not calling attention to itself in an obnoxious way, and honestly I find it hard to notice when you’re focusing on the action- but, if you’re ever feeling a little lost, the tiny glow as you get closer can really help steer players in the right direction- in a way that may even be subconscious when you’re not looking directly for it. In fact, I could say something similar for the early levels that teach you the foundations of this game as well. The tutorial sections do a great job of demonstrating the way it wants you to play; once you’re on your own- playing the real deal -I often felt as though there was an open dialogue between myself and the developers, the common tongue being this game. I love when games feel like a conversation in this manner, a back a forth between player and creator in a way that’s memorable- no matter how short the game is.

Pair this with an amazing soundtrack and some brilliant sound design, and you have yourself a winner! Seriously, you don’t know how conflicted I’ve been trying to pick my top 3 tracks here. Everything has a nice cohesion to it, while also being quite broad in sound. There’s a nice, almost vapourwave-esque style to most of the main level’s tracks- something fun and upbeat that showcases the beauty in synth music, and all without being too distracting from gameplay. There’s subtle changes in vibe depending on where you are in the game as well, so it’s not like you’ll ever get bored! And the light jazz sound in the quieter tracks brings a more subdued feeling without taking away any of that charm. I’m glad that the composers had the skill and confidence to pull these various moods together in the game through the music, as it allows for various emotional beats to play without feeling cheesy or abrupt. I already mentioned the sound effects that play during speech text; but the rest of the sound design is greatly appreciated in creating that atmosphere, along with auditory cues to help with gameplay. Even something as simple as the end of every level- where your objective has been completed and you have to walk back through the rooms with the carnage you left behind with nothing but the sound of your feet as you make your leave -is incredibly impactful.

For a game that is so fast paced, I was pleasantly surprised that it let moments just breathe. Walking back through levels, the sessions with the therapist, the nightly routines of watching the news and drinking tea before bed… Moments of reflection, forcing you to just sit and BE with the characters. You can’t avoid it, at least, not in the main story mode. It’s great. For those that don’t care as much about seeing the story in replays, or just want to challenge themselves, there’s a dedicated speedrun mode; and for those that bought the game on steam, theres an April Fool’s patch called Katana HERO, which is a frankly hilarious story of a spirit hunter who is trying to slay all the evil spirits. For something that’s notthedlcbro, there was a lot of effort put into the reskins and new dialogue that was very fun. I found Katana ZERO quite funny in certain moments already, HERO was just an enjoyable step further in that aspect.

I’ve been putting it off until now, but my other major critique is, in fact, with the story of this game. And it’s more of a half-hearted critique, as we are left with a vague twist and a lot of dangling threads that are setting itself up for a continuation. We know from the dev team that they are steadily working on a free DLC update, which is great to hear. However, I can’t help but feel that there could have been a way to keep this short story more self contained instead of relying on this update to tell all. There’s a billion and one examples of games that set themselves up to have a grand conclusion in the DLC or sequel, and end up falling short due to any number of factors- often the worst of which being the time between releases and the stagnating interest from fans as they wait. What we have here story-wise is special, don’t get me wrong, but I find myself being very cautious towards a DLC being able to truly clear up any questions and satisfactorily wrap up the narrative. I want to trust them, as they’ve delivered a great base game and April Fool’s patch, but I’ve experienced all too many games that fall short from things like this, and it’d be a massive shame if the overall experience is soured by leaving players on a puzzling ‘huh???’ for years before getting a conclusion that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. I think it is important to note that their progress on the DLC was likely interrupted due to the pandemic, and for an indie team I’m more than willing to wait as long as they need to get it out- these are just concerns I have, ones that more often than not can hit indie studios harder. I will say, that up until the very last chunk, the game had a fantastic pacing that I vibed with, great escalation and tangible stakes to drive the story, and very charismatic writing that I appreciated. The reveals and rapid fire of new perspectives upon the credits ARE interesting, and I’ve been thinking and talking about them for a while after playing- and that is something I’d like to give credit to. Despite the minor gripes I have, I was left with a great experience, one I’ll gladly replay through the years as I patiently await the continuation. The impact it’s imparted is already enough, as that’s what I’m usually looking for to validate the time sunk into any game that I play.

Lastly, I have no idea how to transition into this, but this game often reminded me of Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3. This game is not at all like DKC 2&3, and if you play either game expecting elements of the other, you will not find them- yet I consistently felt a distinctly DKC sense of familiarity. The way Zero yells when he dies sounds similar to the kremlings when you jump on them, the 2D level progression that’s not quite focused on platforming in a traditional sense yet still has undeniable platforming elements, the minecart section, the reticle aimed at you in the meat packing facility, the banging music and attention to detail… I DUNNO. IT JUST KEPT REMINDING ME OF DKC!? I want to stress that this is a good comparison, as I thoroughly enjoy both games- a lot of effort clearly went into both. ALSO I would enjoy more time with the minecart, it was really fun and way too short. I am a minecart level apologist for both DKC and KZ idc.

To wrap up, I absolutely see why Nika fell in love so hard with this game, and I’m glad I finally got the opportunity to try for myself. It was great to run my first playthrough with her watching, and I have enjoyed poking around and experimenting with the game myself. I feel like there’s plenty more I could say, but you get the picture, so I wont. I’ll just leave you with the only thing left to say-

R.I.P. Strong Terry, you’re lifting with Baby Jesus now...

Sneaky Driver

Breath of a Serpent

Delusive Bunker

Come and See

~~~

Marvel’s Spider-Man, PS4

This is a game that I’ve had on my shelf for a few years now, and I finally decided to give it a go. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t really have an interest in playing, as I am so completely burnt out on the Marvel-ification of superheroes and also don’t really play these kinds of games much. I bought it because it was $18 on sale and it is one of my best friend’s favourite games. (The same friend who likes Odyssey… He should play better games, I am for reeeeeeeaaaaaaaal)

While the game isn’t that bad, I found myself incredibly bored and under stimulated with the repetitive nature of the gameplay. It does have it’s perks, (which is a massive one-up on Odyssey), and the saving grace of this game is it’s story. It took me a while to get into it, but once you’ve started to get a feel for everything and play past the tutorial sections, you start to see why people enjoy it. There’s a richness to it that has definitely been absent from the most recent entries in the MCU, and it was great to see a Spidey story that wasn’t the same ol’ Uncle Ben With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility spiel. We all know it, regardless of how much you know about Spider Man, and instead I would say it’s a genuine treat to see a Spidey (and Peter!) who have been at this for a while. There’s a lot of flavour text to help support this, through things like the in-game twitter parody, and collectables you find across the map, of which Peter will nostalgically comment on as you inspect them- I found that this did help to make the city feel like something that’s already been lived in, and not just starting up for the events of this game. The best demonstration of this, however, is the relationship between Peter and MJ. They’re exes who are just starting to rekindle their friendship as they cross paths and decide to team up and try to work together as events unfold.

You start the game by putting away Kingpin, and starting a domino effect that starts to put the city at risk. Without his mafia-style grip on the underbelly of New York, smaller criminal gangs are attempting to take over in the absence, which leads to trouble for our hero. There are three main stages to the story campaign, of which I felt the best was the first. While you swing around fighting crime and helping people, you’ll be able to tune into the JJJ livestreams which give an interesting, if vindictive, view of how the people view Spidey and related events- even if he seems a bit too fixated on him and comes up with some wild conspiracies.

I think most fans would say that swinging around as Spidey is the biggest draw to the game- though I’d argue that I found more fulfilment doing friendly neighbourhood activities. There are also various battles and boss battles along with select missions to be had around the map, so there is a lot to do. During the main story campaign, you will take part in scripted events AND play sections where you play as other characters- MJ and Miles. Playing these short sections, which are usually stealth oriented, was overall a nice change in perspective. It helped make the world feel just that little bit bigger and connect various main NPCs to Spidey and what you get up to. In between the three main phases of the campaign missions, there are various side missions and objectives to fulfil- such as various crime related missions where you infiltrate and take down baddies with the help of a local police chief, more environmentally focused missions provided by your friend Harry (who is absent for this game), and little quests given by NPCs in the world who need help from their friendly neighbourhood Spider Man.

There’s a lot going on here, and that is both to it’s benefit AND detriment. I enjoyed doing most of Harry’s eco missions; it not only varied things up with little, but provided a further reminder that Peter IS a scientist, and quite a clever one at that. Plus, you can’t be kicking butt allllllll day! It was also nice to help NPCs out when you could- but there were a lot of missions and quests that felt like copy paste jobs and I got tired of them real fast. In the overworld, while you swing around, you can come across crimes to stop, enemy bases to expose, and later on various little puzzles or skill challenges as you progress. These encounters were grindy and repetitive, and I found that once you’d gained an understanding of both how to enemies behaved and how the combat worked, it’s not actually that in depth! It kinda sucks, actually, because even if you only did encounters that were radioed in, there’s so many that even if you’re not aiming for 100%, you’d still spend a lot of time idly swinging around and doing the same old fights over and over. Encounters don’t feel challenging, they’re just hard because there’s six waves to fight through. Anyone who isn’t a boss is a copy paste from one of four variants of the same enemy. Guy. Guy with weapon. Guy with shield. Big guy. Sometimes you’d get a guy with a rocket launcher or a jetpack, but it’s nothing more than a garnish. I’d have hoped that it at least felt different to fight the different syndicates- the first third has you fighting a Chinese Mafia group, very organised crime based enemies. The second third is mainly escaped convicts after a break out, which is much messier with in-fighting and lack of organisation. And the final third has you fighting Sable Agents, a form of private military/mercenaries for hire who’ve run amuck, and have brute force and numbers on their side. If there were more variation in the feel of these different stages in the story shown through the way you needed to fight and take down these groups, I feel it would’ve helped immensely! But no, all three stages of the story have battles and enemies that are quite literally the same, but just reskins depending on which syndicate, with the Sable agents just ever so slightly different because they have jetpacks and armour. OoooOOoOOoooooh. So gaming. I think that if they were aiming for more of an organic feel with enemy encounters and the like, they should aim higher than for them to be set dressing to eventually ignore, and instead put effort into making battles not only varied and challenging, but enjoyable, too.

Even the most fundamental part of the game- the web slinging -felt fatiguing and tiresome early on. I guess it’s nice, but it didn’t feel too impressive to me. I found the controls rather sticky- pun intended -and felt like I had barely any control over the movement and direction. When I’d run up a building, Spidey felt like he was going all over the place instead of where I’m trying to get him to go. And don’t get me started on trying to get off a building once you start crawling or running across it- he’s stuck and I couldn’t find any way to get him off in a timely manner without resorting to button mashing! It sucked the most when I was in the middle of a car chase or other time sensitive manoeuvring and I’d get stuck on the corner of some dumb building – goodbye momentum! Fighting was also ass, as I’d often get stuck in corners when wall crawling or attempting some of the fancier move sets you unlock later on. I don’t really think it’s that great when so much of a AAA game made me feel like I had to resort to button mashing just to get out of the way…

If that wasn’t bad enough, during the more stealth oriented sections where you play as MJ or Miles, you don’t have access to much, if any, move sets; and have to get by with something much more limited. The stealth sections are ass, and I think people who genuinely praise these sections haven’t played other stealth games. I’m a relatively new appreciator of the stealth genre myself, but cmon, the stealth here is bare bones at best, and is infinitely better when you’re playing as Spidey compared to the mandatory sections with MJ or Miles! Crawling around, finding info and trying to escape unnoticed is so much more fun with Spidey, and although I understand the point of these sections is to demonstrate not only how powerful and skilled Spider Man is, but also how dangerous the enemies are- I just plain ol’ didn’t enjoy them! Some stealth scenes were more interesting than others- I mostly enjoyed creeping around Mayor Osbourne’s apartment – but as a whole, it is just so bare bones and not good enough to have made it to the final cut in my opinion. I don’t know what else they could do to make these more interesting, making more stealth based objectives for MJ and Miles to do during these sequences might be a start. Another thing might be to have more time playing as these characters in a non stealth context, but I don’t feel too solidly on either suggestion.

I’m clearly quite frustrated over these sections, but that’s because, to me, they concisely describe an issue that I have with this game. It’s trying too hard to be a jack of all trades, while being a master of none. So much of this game felt like obligatory game design choices, the safe ones you make because they’re popular and work and can be easily replicated in most AAA games. The very first note that I wrote down for this game was that the map reminded me of the botw map- bad. I don’t enjoy these pseudo open world games that try to put so much busy work in the overworld that doesn't actually amount to much, and it’s boasting points are mainly on the technical specs and not the experience of the game imparted on players. For a hero that’s defining characteristic that sets him apart from other heroes is the fact that he is a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, so much of this game felt about the big picture instead of the little guy. By having so much crap in the world over saturating Spidey’s downtime, it detracted from the feeling of helping the people of New York, and just felt like he was helping the city as a vague concept. Yes, fighting crimes and keeping the city in check is important, but let us spend more time at the FEAST Shelter so we can help out when we want, instead of limiting it to scripted story moments. Even if Peter can’t always get to the shelter, show us more of how Miles is doing once he starts volunteering his time there. And show us more of MJ please, she’s a very clever and interesting character, and to have most of her screen time being limited to shitty stealth sections or cutscenes was a bummer, especially because, although what we get of her is decent, it would’ve been a bit nicer to see more about how the actions of Spider-Man were affecting her work and personal life as well. I feel there plainly wasn’t enough time to get to know these characters, and that they were all severely lacking in those ‘filler’ moments – y’know, the ones that let us know more about these characters and their world when they’re not faced with life or death. Some comments here and there from Peter and MJ wasn’t enough, and in this department, even though I do think the story is solid and the best part about this game, it is too refined when it could’ve afforded to go a lot more in depth. Even things such as important moments regarding Aunt May or Doc Oc didn’t hit very hard for me because we barely spend any time with them- and what little time we DO spend with them is through whatever Peter is directly involved in. Having some time to cut away and SEE how the work Peter and Doc Oc are doing is DIRECTLY impacting the people they’re trying to help, and not just having some random guy show up when the product is nearly finished and the funding is cut. Let us KNOW how hard Aunt May is working in the FEAST Shelter without the director there, and what kind of a toll it’s taking, not only on herself but on the people she’s trying to help. I feel that it was in desperate need of more humanising moments for everyone, and not just Peter. It’s a video game, not a movie! Lean into the fact that there are so many more ways to demonstrate characters and settings through this interactive medium, a comic book character should be one of the easier things to adapt!

The visuals were fine, it’s a pretty standard PS4 game- but I noticed a lot of issues when playing, and some that would’ve been game breaking if not for auto saves. There were instances where enemies got stuck in walls or behind fences and were literally inaccessible to me, meaning that I couldn’t complete battle objectives because the battle was never won. There were also a few times where the camera puzzles set up by Black Cat just didn’t load correctly. The location had everything there to start the puzzle, except for the camera, so I couldn’t start anything until I swung around for a bit and came back, hoping it spawned in correctly this time. The worst example of this though, was that during one of the eco missions, I was supposed to redirect satellite dishes to relink them during a storm. Very simple mission, however, I was swinging around for over 40 minutes trying to figure out what the hell I was missing, because even though I’d linked up everything, the final part of the mission didn’t load in or whatever and I couldn’t complete the mission. It was so frustrating that it marked the end of that play session for me, and when I eventually went to restart the mission, it worked fine and was solved in under 5 minutes. For a game native to the PS4, it wasn’t optimised that well, which is a shame.

The audio was generally pretty nice as well, there’s a few nice tracks, but I don’t really feel that anything was stand out to me; other than the fact that there is a dynamic soundtrack thing going on. This means that when you’re just walking around, you’ll hear the city ambience in all it’s glory (including this cool easter egg). However, as soon as you start swinging, the bombastic track for epic cool spider guy starts playing, and can feel quite awkward when you abruptly jump into a song, especially when you didn’t intend to. The soundtrack has an overall orchestral feel, one that feels on a similar caliber to blockbuster movies, so while I didn’t personally connect with many of the songs, there’s not really anything bad to say about this soundtrack either.

In my final nitpicking, I’m going to get a bit more spoilery than I aim for these write ups. The final third and ending of this game sucked balls. Sable as the main antagonist for the endgame felt bland, and she had a rather abrupt change of heart at the end. I feel she would’ve been a stronger threat if she, and her men, were better not only narratively, but morally too. Having a private military for hire should’ve felt like a threat, and I can’t help but feel if they proved that they ARE better at Spidey’s job and really shaped public perception of him into being an amatuer and a menace, that would’ve been a morbillion times more interesting. By having them just be an oppressive, fascist-lite, military brute force that is just as corrupt and uncontrollable as you’d think it would be, it devalued all level of threat for me. Shouldn’t the main issue here be that Mayor Osborne hiring these guys is not only a smear campaign against Spidey, but something so effective after the main fuck ups at the start of the game that the people of New York are WELCOMING of this protection? I just found it cartoonishly over the top and too simple that the big military guys were arresting and locking up civilians for no real reason, looting them and kicking them out of their building, and otherwise wasting all their resources by focusing on Spidey and not, yknow, resolving crimes and other disputes. Fuck cops, but the very least they could’ve done is make it more obvious that the police can’t do anything anymore, as these guys are stepping in and taking over ALL aspects of life in the city. Having them stated to be crazy oppressive and whatever felt pretty watered down when they functioned exactly the same as the amateur but organised crime of the Masks in the first third, and exactly the same as the chaotic and brutish crimes of escaped convicts. The only tangible difference is that theres more physical layers to peel off Sable Agents when in combat: there’s more towers to pull down and armour to smack off – THATS IT. Part of what should’ve made Sable so much more of a commanding force is that they’re acting in direct response to a viral epidemic started by Doc Oc. Not only do I find it unrealistic that everyone was actually wearing masks during the pandemic, but this whole section just felt like a complete mess, gameplay wise. I found myself most annoyed by the crime system in the overworld, as there will be both escaped cons AND Sable agents shooting you down as you swing through the map. While this is an effective display of how fucked the city has become, I was quite disappointed to find that of all the enemies you can fight in the overworld at this stage, the ONLY ones that count towards map completions are the ones that are radioed in. There’s no other incentive to make it worth my time to fight all these people, no extra things to trade for to gadget upgrades or new suits. Nothing. On top of all this, the actual end of the narrative was rather abrupt and crap tbh. I know with the foresight of having played this years after release that it got it’s own sequels and spin offs, but I’m a firm believer in narratives being able to hold on their own internally without relying on the MCU-ification to make them retroactively better.

In closing, it’s clear that this game was not for me. It’s fine if you like superheros, and don’t care about how thin the genre cocktail of gameplay styles are in actuality - but I think my standards are too high and I wasn’t impressed, especially due to this being a fucking Sony game. I know they have the budget to do better, c’mon. And although I didn’t care for it, there were a lot of options for customising your play experience, like choosing suits, power-ups and gadgets to aid in battle, and the freedom to leisurely explore the map if you’re so inclined. I did 100% the story and all collectables and challenges on the map, but not to a gold-star degree or with the aims of platinum trophy. Fuck that.

At the end of the day, I want to praise the parts of this game that should be standard within games of this budget, but weren’t, and sometimes still aren’t. This is a completely single player game with a large campaign filled with variety and interesting things to do. There is still a demand for games like this, and I’m glad that this aspect was something that not only helped it to sell well, but also show to developers and stake holders that there IS a demand for enriching single player games. There were also a great amount of accessibility features that were fairly easy to access and understand, so those that may need a bit of extra help and adjustments to get through the game are able to enjoy the same experience. These are things that should be encouraged, and for that, I commend it.

But, play a different game if you care about the fighting or the stealth. Neither are done well here lol.

The Golden Age

Anything For A Story

Renewed Rivalries

#rads reviews #goty #hooray thats last years gaming done!!!!

[plaguethewaters]

how about ctommy for the ask game?

ctommy.my beloved little man ofc hes the first

fav thing: the way He Talks, mostly because hes a mood. my man gas the most train of thought dialogue that i have ever seen i luv him. And also the gentleness he uses with animals and plants and how hes still a little shot thorough it. And also how hes scared as shit of dream but stood in front of tubbo when hed threatened them. and also how he tried to stay optimistic and light during pogtopia. And also-

least favorite thing: it. is hard for me not going to lie. it is unfortunately probably the Loudness because it makes it super duper easy to be over stimulated lol. Also the random poop talk. i know it contradicts the first point but i have Limits.

fav line: either "i never used to be this angry" or the butterfly metaphor, for more serious ones. But also very jockingly there is a little moment in the disc war where he goes "what are you gonna do about it?" to dream, and dream stabs him, and tommy very quietly goes "touche". thats my favorite ever.

brotp: do i even have to say it. but beside the obvious bench i have a very soft spot for tommy+fundy. they are so dsar to me

otp: if i have to ship him romantically, and tbh i strongly headcanon him as aro, id say allium. mostly because the cucking jokes would be immaculate

notp: i saw him shipped with niki once and lets say i am Not a Fan lol

random headcanon: he and tubbo both are actually pretty good at cooking on their own they just dont ever bother at all. Like once in their lives they are forced to do something More than cook steak and Eat, and tommy comes out with this intricate ass vegetable and fruit soups that anyone would die for. He would like to try being vegetarian but after his revival he is too dependant on beef for quick regen to ever give it up.

song i associate him with: i tend to go for duo songs rather fhan singular characters but like. Verdura by PTN is totally a callium song, and for tommy alone i reckon itd be Poison from hazbin hotel. Also the dj is crying for help by ajr.

fave picture of them:

this one shitty doodle i made rewatching the disc wars.hes so baby

#void answers #k3yreviewer25 #ill probably do one of these a day bc they are So much longer than i thought daimn #but anyway yes tommy chommy my beloved ctommy i love you

[sandalaris]

Back on Bridgerton-based AUs with my OTPs from other fandoms; Seth and Kate!

It took me a minute to see it, but Simon and Daphane! I think what tripped me up is the Gecko's don't strike me as "of the ton" type but if I completely nix the whole wanted criminal aspect all together (except possibly now and again for the thrill?) then they fit.

Seth and Simon are surprisingly similar, in no small part because Daddy Issues.

Seth has decided he will never marry and pass on the family name to spite his old man. If the Gecko name is going to go on, than it'll be through Richie, whom dear old dad always claimed was a bastard anyways, so double whammy. It's probably not true, although Seth wouldn't blame his mom for sleeping around on her drunken, abusive, sad excuse of a husband, and Seth looks nothing like the former Lord Gecko himself (and quite a bit like one of the old stable masters,) but its the principal of the thing. Seth also had one disastrous marriage to a commoner, which was dissolved before the ink dried, because while they slept together plenty before and after getting married they didn't actually share a bed during the extremely short time they were legally bound. It was really more of an f-you to his father mixed with the thrill of the chase, but either way, Seth's sworn off the whole marriage and kids thing. But his reputation only does so much against a handsome pedigy and a promise of a wealthy life, and he's getting increasingly tired of the ton's mothers throwing their daughters at him. Or even the occasional daughter's dirty tricks to catch herself a husband.

Its Kate's debut season. (Side note: I don't know enough about titles and such outside of novels set in those times, but I see Jacob as a Vicar. I think that would make Kate eligible for the ton...at the very least she would be considered the daughter of a gentleman.) Kate is lovely and polite and well-bred, but her friendly nature and girl-next-door vibes have left her seen by most of the ton's eligible bachelors as just a friend. It's not that she doesn't have any suitors, but the ones who see her as more than just a friend or little sister type are rather... mature (Lord Oculto), inappropriate (Lord Madrigal's blatant offer to make her his mistress coupled with a scathing insult to her lower station and Lord Brasa's downright creepy comparisons of her to his dead wife Amaru), or the gentleman's reputation proceeds him (everyone knows Lord Malvado lusts after Lady Kisa and is prone violent tempers and ungentlemanly actions towards women, and Lord Tanner has made it clear he only likes the barely of age girls and sees no reason to honor his vows, plus he's a horrible gambler and there's a certain question to his remaining funds.) Her childhood friend Kyle has made his offer to her clear, and if the worst should happen she will consider him, but what she wants above all else is options.

It doesn't take long for her and Seth come to an agreement; he will be seen courting her, thus making her appear more eligible to the younger men of the ton, and he will get a reprieve from the meddling match-making mothers for one damn season! Possibly two if he can nurse the broken heart look the following year.

I'm 100% skipping the whole consent-issue, baby making bit and leaving all the drama in the "pretend courtship starts to seem all to real" mixed with her father not exactly approving of Seth due to his crass language that he didn't bother to hide when he fist called on her and his rather tarnished reputation. Things still grow complicated though, when Seth and Kate do finally confess to the other that there are real feelings behind their actions, stumbling through the "what to do now," Seth having a rather drunken conversation with Richie about the vow he made to their father followed by Richard's oh so helpful "if you don't marry her I will" with a pointed look. Richie is perfectly happy living in sin with his own lover, so he probably wouldn't go through with it.... then again, he can be an annoyingly stubborn little shit, and Seth decides he can't risk it. Now to win over her father.

Kate may threaten to be caught in a compromising position with Seth if Jacob doesn't budge.

#SethKate #bridgerton au #i'm gonna keep making these aren't I? #i already have a Jeff x Annie one in mind #fdtd

[mebiselfandi]

Hii my love🫶🏽

1, 2, 16, 45, 50 (I’ll ask you more privately, it’s so hard to choose just a few!!)

1. Favourite TV show otp

I’m so happy you asked cause I changed my mind from the previous ask. It’s super basic. Nick and Charlie. Picking an otp that doesn’t come with 10 tons of angst dragging behind.

2. Favourite colour

Baby pink. It’s so sweet. I wear it all the time….not like head to toe though.

16. Favourite quote from a book

“Whatever our souls are made of, his(hers) and mine are the same”

Withering Heights by Emily Brontë

My best friend always says it me randomly and yeah it’s my fave.

45. Favourite time of the day

Definitely sunset. When the sun is super warm and I can just take a nap with the sun warming up my whole room. It’s a whole vibe. Plus usually nobody bothers me that time.

50. I love you so much Kevah🫂🫂❤️

And feel free to ask as many as you like bby

#my darling sunshine<3 #sunshine asks<3 #ask games

[ariel-seagull-wings]

FICTIONAL CHARACTER ASK: PEPE THE KING PRAWN

Asked by @nuggetaubrey

@silverfoxstole @professorlehnsherr-almashy

@princesssarisa @amalthea9 @faintingheroine @angelixgutz @thealmightyemprex @goodanswerfoxmonster @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @softlytowardthesun @janeb984 @bixiebeet @spengnitzed @gravedangerahead @sabugabr

Favorite Thing About Them: He could be just an one note joke about a prawn living out of water, but his performer Bill Barretta managed to create a very complex, energetic, fun and interesting character who has a sarcastic and witty sense of humour who also shares the dream of making people happy trough his desire to perform on stage, film and TV, enjoys things like wearing pretty dresses and performing ballet without being bothered with other people's binary view of gender, sprinkles some touches of spicy adult jokes and is proudly corny when it comes to romantic dreams.

Least Favorite Thing About Them: His portrayal in A Very Merry Muppet Christmas, where only at the very end he showed any caring for his friends in the Muppet Theater, because for most of the movie he was mainly a selfish, materialistic character who only cared about partying with shalow rich people and easily trew himself to be a lover of the main villain even tough she wasn't particularly charming or seducing.

Three Things I Have In Common With Them:

*I sometimes enjoy sappy romantic music and movie fiction;

*I like writing comedy;

*I performed stage plays and ballet when I was younger;

Three Things I Don't Have In Common With Them:

*I'm not a spaniard;

*I'm not a king prawn;

*I never worked as an elevator operator or as a cafeteria cook;

Favorite line:

From the Muppets Tonight episode guest staring Garth Brooks:

"Yes, I especially love the song about the low places, okay."

This exchange with Seymour the Elephant from the Muppets Tonight episode guest staring Sandra Bullock:

"Say Seymour! What do you get when you cross and elephant with a rhino?"

Gee, I don't know. What?"

Ela-if-I-know!"

From the Muppets Tonight episode guest staring Rick Moranis:

"Yes, Seymour. From now on, it's you and me calling the shots, and as God is my witness, we'll never have to cook again!"

"Tonight, we are going to make a delicacy enjoyed in many of the finest restaurants in the world, that gourmet treat - bread!"

From the Muppets on the Internet Youtube videos:

"Hola, I am Pepe the King Prawn, okay. And I know you can see me, but I cannot see you. So, if you're the pretties, stick around, baby. If not, go click your mouse somewhere else, okay."

From the 2015 ABC series episode Bear Left Then Bear Write:

"You leave her a note saying you love her... But you're ashamed. Then... Drink poison."

brOTP: His cousin Manolo, Rizzo the Rat, Yolanda the Rat, Clifford, Seymour the Elephant, Johnny Fiama, Sal Minella, Big Mean Carl, Bobo the Bear, Gonzo, Scooter.

OTP: Seymour the Elephant, Spamela Hamderson, Rizzo the Rat, Yolanda the Rat.

nOTP: Constance Hatchaway from Muppets Haunted Mansion.

Random Headcanon: Before coming to the United States, the first place in the American Continent that he lived after imigrating from Spain was Mexico.

Unpopular Opinion: I feel that he has better chemistry to form a comedic duo with Seymour the Elephant and Rizzo the Rat, but not strong enough chemistry to be a dual foil to Gonzo.

Songs I Associate With Them:

1, 2, 3, 4

Brick House

Favorite Picture of Them:

#the muppets #pepe the prawn king #bill barretta #muppets tonight #the muppets abc #the muppets 2015 #muppets from space