#I added something at the end

[2x4plank]

Ooh, oh no... The hospital act of TLOU. I'm gonna be upfront: least favorite part of the game.

I really wanted to like it (of course I did; I paid $70 dollars for this game), but it never hit me as hard as all the other acts. With the acts that came before this one, I looked at all the little nuances in interactions between the characters, reading notes, looking at whatever's in Joel & Ellie's backpacks--just loving what this game fed to me.

But the hospital act felt rushed to me.

Let me start with my first, ongoing grievance: the Fireflies.

I get where they were going with this, the moral dilemma they were trying to set up: should Joel save his daughter at the cost of the world? But the Fireflies don't seem very smart. I won't even talk about the viability of them creating a vaccine (or cure, rather) with the fungus on Ellie's brain. For the purposes of this piece, the vaccine will 100% work. So where does that leave us now?

The Fireflies seem to have a streak of malpractice. At the University of Colorado, players will pick up recordings from a dead Firefly. Long story short, that Firefly released infected monkeys just...into the world. This same Firefly also talks about the long stretch of time (5 years) that passed between the last scientific breakthrough. This does not inspire confidence.

Fast forward to the hospital act. Two Fireflies encounter a man doing CPR on a child and they...knock him out with the butt of their guns? I'll clarify I have a personal vendetta against people that are particularly a part of an organization hitting people with the butt of their guns, but outside of that, this is stupid. Joel is clearly trying to resuscitate Ellie, so even if they "didn't know who [he] was", knocking him unconscious doesn't make sense.

And then Joel wakes up and Marlene drops the bomb that they're currently taking Ellie's brain out. Okay. That was very quick. I'm sure they had time to run several complete tests and cross their t's and dot their i's. It makes complete sense that in the time between Joel being brought to the hospital and regaining consciousness, they figured out that removing her brain was the best way to create that vaccine. I'm sure keeping Ellie alive would have absolutely no benefits and going straight to killing her is the best option.

Additionally, that one Firefly that eggs Joel on? What is with these guys and abusing their power? They can't compete with FEDRA on that front, but it's still bad.

Finally, I always wondered how they were going to distribute that cure to the greater public. They're quite ostracized by FEDRA, if I remember correctly, and creating a cure is only a part of a problem. It's not like the current government hasn't displayed a tendency to hog resources, so working with them seems like a no-go.

None of what we've seen of the Fireflies makes me think they're competent.

My second grievance is Marlene. I liked her at the start, but what we see in the last part soured me on her. She isn't very compassionate to Joel's situation, but he's grown and a murderer (of both baddies and innocents in his hunter days), so I don't have a problem with that. He's not the most compassionate either. It's moreover her claiming to have monopoly over caring about Ellie. Girl, what?

Of course, we saw little of Ellie and Marlene's relationship as a function of the game. It was about Joel and Ellie sticking together when their loved ones either died or, in the case of Bill, simply refused to come with them. Marlene passed her along, and we just kind of hear how Ellie cares about Marlene. We also receive letters and recordings about Anna and Marlene's relationship in the late game. I get why it is this way, as it sets up the player to care about Ellie just as Joel did, but I do wish we got to see some more of Marlene's relationship with Ellie.

My third grievance is this idea of choice. Ellie did not choose to die. We might have some idea of if she would (she's really happy to think of herself as the cure to all mankind), but she didn't and all throughout the game, there is this emphasis on continuing to survive. Finding a reason to keep going. I would not say that Joel took this choice away from her, because never was this dilemma presented to her. Joel woke up, found out they were going to murder Ellie, and intervened so that did not happen. You can't choose to do anything if you're dead.

And then Joel takes her to get some McDonald's...

The problem I see people take with Joel that I can actually understand is him lying to her. Him lying has the potential to completely blow up in his face, and this concerns not only the cure, but Marlene as well. I wholeheartedly agree with him saving her, but this is a bit more dubious.

But here's the thing: beyond his selfish reasons for doing so (such as absolving himself of guilt), Joel has some legitimate reasons to lie to her. First and firstmost, Ellie has been through a lot at an extremely young age. Seen a lot of loved one's die, carries some survivor's guilt along with that. She does not need or deserve to have "I could have saved the world, if only I died" hanging over her head. Ellie deserves a happy childhood--or a happy remainder of her childhood, because she lost quite a bit and had to deal with David, among other things. The damage this truth has the potential to do to her is reason enough to lie.

Second of all, she does not need to know that the same woman she probably came to see as a second mother was willing to put her to death on a doctor's word. I believe in science and medicine, but maybe get a second opinion on that?

So yeah... When it comes to Joel vs. the Fireflies, it's no contest to me.

I should add: I would've loved if at least one named POC character survived. Kind of crazy all of them died, and as a non-white player, it didn't escape my notice. It also made me sad when Henry wasn't mentioned among the people they lost. I mean, Henry did protect/look after Ellie during that short part in the sewer. I think he should've been mentioned.

#And also I'm not playing TLOU 2 #I just don't feel like it #tlou part 1 #tlou spoilers #tlou fireflies #tlou ellie #tlou joel #tlou marlene #2x4plank essay post #I'll probably have to edit this soon #I added something at the end #tlou critical #tlou hospital #tlou commentary

[umbrvx]

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscient readers viewpoint #orv #yoo joonghyuk #yjh #im artblocked but i had to squeeze something in before the end of the year so help me god #edit: i just realized the figures can be construed as kdj. to be clear my intent was for it to all be yjh #BUT i think since its a bit ambiguous anyways u can interpret it as ud like/prefer #i dont really like telling ppl how to interpret my work but.... im adding this note in case

[hypogryffin]

Thoughts on Akesumi?

not my cup of tea romantically but i do love their platonic dynamic

#its mostly i only see akechi dating men and imagine sumire heavily prefers women #i can deffo see the appeal its just not something that clicks fo me #asks & requests #akesumi #persona 5 #p5 #p5r #goro akechi #sumire yoshizawa #kasumi yoshizawa #ive done akesumi [metaverse] outfit swaps before but as a royal trio thing and im pretty sure before? i really solidified my #black mask redesign. also: i put akechi in sumis casual clothes for the outfit swap bc sumi doesnt modify her uniform except for the shoes #so id just be drawing akechi in the girls uniform for shuujin which is less recognisable as an ''outfit swap'' #but i put sumi in akechis uniform/coat bc its MORE immediately recognisable as an outfit swap #sumire would wear akechi's casual clothing 100% its just an argyle vest and slacks #i also added a waist tie in a bow bc i put her hair down so she was missing her ribbon :> end notes

[pucaantaibhse]

“Mama, I’m tired.”

“Please take care of Lila and Jaysohn”

ALARM BELLS ALARM BELLS ALARM BELLS

#wasn’t something wrong with Tula’s blue last episode? #and she related to the bear??? #I hope I’m adding 2+2 and getting 5 #burrow’s end #dimension 20 #d20 #d20 Tula #em watches burrow’s end #burrow’s end spoilers

[catastrxblues]

EVERMORE by taylor swift (feat. bon iver) — “and i was catching my breath, floors of a cabin creaking under my step. and i couldn’t be sure, i had a feeling so peculiar, this pain wouldn’t be forevermore.”

my #swiftiegiftexchange2024 for @lovesickallovermybed!!!! 🫶🏽🫶🏽

#HIII HII HII how are you <3333 SO sorry for being slightly to the party but HII #i saw that you are currently recovering from surgery and i‘m wishing you all the best and =a faster recovery 💗💗 i hope you’re okay and #are feeling and getting much better every day 💗💗💗 #i’m your anon swiftie and it was really nice to get to know you!! 🫶🏽 you’re super super talented and your gifs are so so STUNNING #it was such an honor to be your anon for this event and i had such a fun time making this ! #i was SO excited when i saw that some of your favorite ts songs are evermore and idsb. really really sorry i didn’t have the time to make #something for both because my laptop went dead for sometime and i ended up only having the time to make this 😭 #evermore the song is something i hold and cherish deeply in my heart too and it was something that has seen some of the worst of my days #and so i decided to do this song for your gift instead! #i can’t really gif much and couldn’t even try #because my laptop in which i had installed ps in went rip so i decided to make you this #(slightly messy sorryy) scrapbook of my view of the song! i tried to incorporate some of the descriptive lyrics and the objects mentioned i #the song and i hope you like it 😁! #and because i think evermore is also something that IS meant to be incredibly personal to the people that listen to it #i decided to include some photos (+added highlights on every lyric that has ever touched me which is almost everything as you can see 😭) #of some of my journal pages on which i rewrote the entire lyrics (except bon iver’s addition 😅) in ‘21 when the song meant to me the most! #i hope you're having a great dayy love 🫶🏽🫶🏽 #SwiftieGiftExchange2024 #taylor swift #tswiftedit #evermore #*my edits #nadine.mp3

[nonuggetshere]

CRAWLS OUT OF THE TRENCHES COVERED IN BLOOD

IT'S DONE

Somehow they took longer than PK's reference did. Here's to hoping I don't change their design again so I don't have make a 4th reference sheet for them 🥂

I forgot to add the fact that they start growing leaves and flowers in their fur after they recover and aren't stressed 24/7 onto the ref, AH WELL- I might just make a version for when they are older and not a complete wreck

Some notes;

They now have pernament wings that are usually tucked under an elytra, identical to Pale King's (monarch) wings but black and white instead. My friends also voted the pubic fur out ✌️😔 probably for the better, I couldn't come up with a way to NOT make it look awkward as hell.

Their adolescent stage is around 13-14 years of age and around Pale King's height, outgrowing him ever so slightly.

The hatchling stage is EXTRA potato shaped and EXTRA fluffy now, instead of the fur being mostly on the back of their neck and lower back they have a full mane that runs down their back, much like their dad. The hatchling and child stages also have much dimmer light, it gets brighter with age.

But most important addition; they have ✨️HEELS✨️

Not sure if the white bits behind the ridges on their feet and forearms wi stay but they are here for now, I'll see how I feel about them as I draw them

They mostly take after their father in all but height but they do have some traits from their mother, which will be more obvious once I will make a proper reference for her

#hollow knight fanart #hollow knight art #hollow knight #the hollow knight #hk thk #hk pure vessel #hk pv #the pure vessel #pure vessel #spooky arts #faaf au #i tried to add alt text but i never really did it before so lmk if it sounds alright #i want to start adding alt text to ally art and screenshots in the future but it might not always be right away as i post something because #i might not always have the spoons to do it straight away. but i'll be trying 👍 #I WAS GOING TO QUEUE THIS FOR 12 PM BUT I ENDED UP WRITING THE DESCRIPTION AND ALT TEXT FOR OVER HALF AN HOUR LMAO OOPS

[remmicreates]

I’ve been so busy recently I haven’t had time to finish any drawings, but here’s a kagami and marinette fashion sketch I did in my moment of free time :)

#remmicreates #miraculous fanart #miraculousladybug #miraculous ladybug fanart #mlb fanart #miraculous #fanart #miraculous ladybug #kagaminette #marigami #miraculous kagami #kagami tsurugi #marinette fanart #mlb marinette #marinette dupain cheng #hopefully I’ll be able to finish something bigger soon #or maybe I’ll end up coloring or adding to these #who knows #certainly not I #my art #wips/sketches #RemmiCreatesArt #RemmiCreatesSketches

[kagoutiss]

oot zelda doodle i liked :’-)))

#tloz #ocarina of time #oot #zelda #my handwriting is very very bad so i actually added alt text/image description #which i should already be doing with everything anyway. i wanna go thru and update some old stuff with that too #but yeah anyway. all the stuff this series presents about being Fated To Be Something or Fated To End Up Somewhere #even if that thing or place is ultimately Horrible and the consequences primarily occur off camera or post-canon after the Happy Ending #characters who end the story with pretty much nothing and also you find out later they inadvertently cause a far worse disaster #than even the one they gave up everything to prevent #oot zelda’s infinite number of issues and almost guaranteed lack of happiness or normality for the rest of her life #even after ‘fixing everything’ in literally the best possible way she could figure out how. given everything she knew #and then blaming herself for accidentally allowing everything to go wrong in the first place. by trying to fix it #and she was literally just a kid going insane from prophetic visions while simultaneously being disbelieved by everyone around her #except impa but she’s a whole other situation entirely. with a whole other set of baggage on the other end of the spectrum #i just rambled sos so much oops. anyway yea oot zelda #its fine. i throw up when i think about her. its fine

[hesokuri-wars]

Hesokuri Wars Archive Masterpost:

Hi, guys! Hope you've had a good, or at least somewhat decent, 2023. I can't believe it's been well over a year since Hesokuri Wars officially shut down. Time really flies, doesn't it?

Despite how long it's been, I've been feeling a little nostalgic for this franchise lately. As much as this blog ended up neglecting its duties during the year leading up to the game's shutdown, I kind of want to make up for that by helping with its preservation. Others have already committed to doing so, but I think it'll help a few people if there was a single post consolidating everyone's efforts, so here we go:

Basic / General:

The Osomatsu-san AU Fandom Wiki has a page dedicated to listing the various Hesokuri Wars AUs, all of which have their own wiki pages with images

Tumblr user @/denkimystery has a pretty extensive catalog of information related to the Denki Mystery AU in Hesokuri Wars, including but not limited to a basic run-down of the characters, translations of the character descriptions / event stories / attraction buildings, and a timeline of the overarching story

Added 12/3/2023: Another good wiki to use is the Hesokuri Wars Wiki on Gamerch, though it's (possibly?) incomplete and in Japanese (credit to @/snowimatsu for providing!)

Sprites / Assets:

A comprehensive, albeit incomplete, catalog of assets (character sprites, backgrounds, resumes, etc.) courtesy of Tumblr user @/osmt-hkw (original post)

Added 12/3/2023: Another rather comprehensive (unsure if complete) catalog of character sprite assets uploaded to The Spriters Resource by user Biggest_Chungus (credit to @/snowimatsu for providing!)

Event Stories:

A playlist featuring a variety of stories from the game (untranslated) courtesy of Tumblr user @/mallowkey (original post)

Added 12/4/2023: Tumblr user @/ngmatsu has translations of some of the older events (2016 - 2019), as well as some miscellaneous information on other sets provided via asks

BGM / Music:

A playlist of most(?) of the songs on the Hesokuri Wars Original Soundtrack courtesy of Tumblr user @/snowimatsu (original post)

Another playlist of most(?) of the songs courtesy of Tumblr user @/doctorjoshua64 (original post)

Added 12/3/2023: The downloadable soundtrack to the 2019 Hesokuri Wars CD soundtrack uploaded to KHInsider by user @/Stanky_Cat (credit to @/snowimatsu for providing!)

If anyone else knows of any other links that serve as a catalog and/or archive of anything Heso-related, please let me know!

🐾 Mod Ichi

#hesokuri wars #osomatsu san #ososan #osmt #mod ichi #i'm gonna try to do something myself...... i have an idea of what that could be but i also don't want to say anything #i don't want to say i'll do something and end up not #y'know? #memorial and legacy #MOST RECENT EDIT: added a section for event stories (had accidentally put those under bgm lol) and added the ngmatsu link

[radiance1]

Hi. I just had an idea about temporally misplaced Danyal Al Ghul.

Clockwork yoinked him after he was seriously injured and patched him up. Basically saved him. And then yeeted him to the past to be adopted by the Fentons.

So by the time Danny and Damian have a reunion Danny is in his late 20s at most, early 20s at the very least. And he is most definitely a shapeshifting magical eastern dragon with a cult and all that.

I do not make anything having to do with Danny being related to the Al Ghuls.

However

This gives me the foundation to do such a thing.

Alright, so we would need to find a reason why Clockwork would even want to help Danny in any sort of capacity since he wasn't being pushed to kill him because of the observants.

But what if the reason was because he needed someone to beat some sense into (and I am both sorry and not at all sorry for this) his husband turned tyrant turned sleeper soon into the future. Since in a few timelines Danny does beat Pariah Dark he just, decided to push him onto that path.

The perfect opportunity presented itself when Danny was heavily injured in a battle between brothers to decide the true heir, to which both was heavily injured actually, and yoinked him away, patched him up, and left it to the LoA to assume he was just dead after his body disappeared.

So then, following the timeline he foresees where he fought against Pariah, gently and carefully guided him along the timestream (For which to prevent the notice of other Masters of times) to a few years prior and landed him in the care of the Fentons.

Over the years he did gently nudge things here and there to have the Fenton's views on ghosts changing slowly, but surely, as thanks to the boy for unknowingly helping him.

Oh, and avoiding a disastrous future, he guesses.

Everything followed along with his plan, slowly coming to fruition until the boy knocked some sense into his husband, to which made him the new king of the Ghost Zone after the Observants deemed Pariah unfit to rule beyond this point anymore, and as a boon because he was unable to have the Crown and ring in Pariah's possession (given to Clockwork to watch over, so as to not have a repeat of Pariah Dark), he was granted the ability to turn into an eastern dragon at will.

Occasionally he sent the boy back into the past to right some wrongs, avoid disaster, and to occasionally collect the soon-to-be Duke after he found himself in the past. Though he does find himself (and his husband) amused at seeing the boy slowly having a cult built in his name.

Danny's honestly been living the good life, no longer being expected to succeed the League of Assassins and leaving it up to his twin, he was adopted by a new family who, while a bit eccentric was amusing nonetheless, and they did become a true, proper family after his reveal went exceedingly well!

He was 25 now, and decided to take a break from both his kingly duties, and Amity Park, his parents pushed him to take this as a well-deserved vacation and, since Jazz was also in Gotham, he could drop by and say hi to her!

Danny was a bit miffed about leaving the inner-workings of the Ghost Zone to Vlad, more so that it's him than anything. But he did at the very least trust the Duke's skill in making everything go as smoothly as possible and having him consumed in paperwork would stop his brooding over being unable to find that guy, he had a one-nighter with.

(He's honestly surprised anyone would do that, but he guesses people have... interesting tastes. Also, a brooding phoenix, to his displeasure, was far worse than a phoenix trying to woo his mother.)

So he stopped by Gotham, said hi to sister and decided to crash at her place for a while. Wandered around Gotham, seeing the sights, tasting the food, talking to people.

A very good vacation, in his books.

So now what was he supposed to do, when he found his vacation interrupted by what was undoubtedly his twin along with the goddamn Wayne's showing up in his sister's apartment.

They gave him a jumpscare of a lifetime, honestly. But also couldn't they do this somewhere else? Like, a coffee shop, perhaps?

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc #dcxdp #danny and damian are twins #au #ghost king danny #You all better be happy with me adding in this tag because I literally never do something like this #It most probably won't happen again. #Or it would idk #Also you know how to get to another man's heart with that Eastern Dragon and Cult addition huh? #Of course I'm going to slide in Phoenix and Duke Vlad as well #Also the man Vlad had a one-nighter with was Constantine #And Vlad is insufferable while brooding #How did Vlad end up in the past? #Well #He wanted to use it to find the guy he had a one-nighter with #But since he has no control over time #Yea #You get the picture

[beanzdoodlez]

Saluting the man who helped me understand and become a part of the fnaf fandom

#SCREAMING CRYING SOBBING THROWING UP AAUGGGHHHH #i had to draw something so sorry for how rushed this is #i HAD TO PAY MY RESPECTS #....I hate to say it folks #but I think this is the beginning of the end #matpat #matthew patrick #fnaf ness #fnaf #five nights at freddy's #game theory #the game theorists #im just adding all the tags for the fandoms hes made an impact on #earthbound #earthbound ness #undertale #sans undertale #deltarune #HOW DO I TAG THIS #beanzdoodlez

[imthegayone]

Lovely Tattoos (Drabble)

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x Tattooed!Reader (GN)

Summary: Tara loves your tattoos and all that comes with them.

Warrnings: None i think

Author's Note: Damn it feels like a lifetime since I've posted a fic, but heres a little drabble if you can even call it that. I promise I'm writing so hopefully you'll see some longer fics coming soon. October just kicked my ass (none of you told me turning 21 was gonna hit me so hard) and I'm just now finishing my recovery (with a big fuck you to my sciatic nerve and broken foot 🖕). There is a specific tattoo mentioned, just let me have a litte self indulgence k? 🩵

Word Count: 316 (she's tiny)

___________

Tara loves your tattoos, from the bigger ones on your back to the many patchwork tattoos across your arms and thighs. She loves them, they’re a part of you, and it’s you that she loves the most. 

She loves the way you’ll stay in bed a few hours longer if she traces the ones on your back. She loves that you both calm down when she traces the Miles Morales spider on your inner wrist. 

She loves that you’ve been packing markers in your bag for her and Mindy to color them in during any classes that didn’t solely focus on film making. She loves how excited you get when you see a child is interested in some of the more colorful ones. Always willing to take the time to let them inspect the vibrant art. 

She loves, though this one she’s a little more hesitant to admit, but she loves the matching tattoo you have with Chad. She rolls her eyes but she loves when the pair of you make it your mission to get the tattoos in every photo you take together.

She loves the many tattoos that didn’t have any meaning to them until you had the experience of getting them. Remembering the time you drunkenly let Anika tattoo a doodle of Tara’s on the side of your rib. She loved when Sam got her first tattoo, you not only packed a bag for her during the tattoo with snacks but you also made a little care package for after. 

She loves that when she got her own tattoo on her wrist, you held her other hand throughout the process. She loves that you’ve started a new routine of rubbing sunscreen on her wrist to protect it. She loves how excited you get when she says you should get a matching tattoo with her. 

She loves you, your tattoos and everything that entails.

#tara carpenter x reader #tara carpenter #jenna ortega #the ending is meh #but i really just wanted to add to the thought of tara really loving a tattooed partner #you can't tell me she wouldn't find comfort in tracing tattoos dude #theres some things i just added right before posting this so if some is off well... #fics by the gay #it feels like every time I post something I wanna just say idk man #and send it

[quaranmine]

collapses on the floor and Dies

#lmao like a 13 hour day for me with added effect of some. borderline hostile community interactions #their concern was highly valid it just still didnt feel nice to be on the opposite end of that (from a personal standpoint not professional #knowing that i literally can't provide the resources they want/need. both as a systematic legal barrier and a 'i dont have millions of $$' #and that i wasnt even born yet when the thing in question happened.... #my much more experienced coworker diffused the situation and we had a more constructive conversation going forward #where i think everybody left the event feeling like we could do something #but it was uhhh wild there for a little bit #im tired. i gotta go do it all again tomorrow and thursday.

[starry-bi-sky]

how do you clone a fey? that's trick question; and fey love those!

@the-navistar-carol (<333) brought up a good point while I was talking about my changeling danny au with her -- Dani! How would she exist in this au? Danny's a changeling - a fae. How would Dani, a clone of him, be created? How do you make a fey? Not through any means that Vlad is doing; you can't make a fey through unnatural means, considering the Fair Folk are nature. And Vlad's not a fey himself -- he's a halfa, even if he could make a fey, it's not in his best interest too. He's a powerful ghost, but even the weakest fae can overpower the strongest ghost. He won't want a clone of Daniel to be more powerful than him.

(In a three tier hierarchy it goes Ancients -> Fae/Mythos -> Ghosts. They all live in the Infinite Realms, but on different Planes. The fae live above the Ghost Zone in the Fey Wild, while the Mythos live beside the Wilds or down in the ghost zone depending on where they are. Places like the Frozone, the Athens Acropolis, and other such large islands climb throughout all three Planes.)

(While Ghosts can travel into the Fey Wild, its generally advised against as the ectoplasm tends to manifest differently there due to close contact magic. It can make it rather disorientating for a ghost, and as human spirits, the Fae living there would jump them faster than they could blink. So unless you're willing to play mind games with 'steal thy name eat thy face' fae, most ghosts keep out of the way of the Wilds. Fey can travel down into the Ghost Zone, they just don't bother.)

That's of course, not taking into account if Vlad even knows Danny's a fae himself. Vlad doesn't ring me as someone who really cares much about ghost culture or the going ons of the GZ. He might be aware that fae exist, but the moment he realizes he can't use them for personal gain he just doesn't bother with them. The risk is greater than the reward, and he'd rather not get eaten. But lets assume he's aware by now that Danny is fey, and has to take that into account while cloning him.

So, how does Dani exist? Good question! Honestly; i'm not sure. She might not exist at all, or if she does, she's more halfa than fey. Vlad would need a lot of human dna and ectoplasm to balance out all that fae magic. He manages to steal DNA from Jack and Maddie to do it, and since Jack's fey ancestry is very dormant its much easier to use alongside Danny's DNA.

In turn, it results in a little girl whose more human-ghost hybrid than clone. With that little extra boost in fey magic making her not a fey, but still relatively powerful. Dani is less of a clone and more of a lab-grown little sister. It's a rather tedious, complex process that has Vlad tearing his hair out trying to figure out. But he does eventually figure it out.

#dpxdc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc crossover #changeling danny au #danielle fenton #danny phantom #still no mention of DPXDC yet so i'm adding the DP tags if thats alright lmao #how do you clone a fey? trick question! you can't. you can only make something that's not-quite fey but has ties to them. #dani's fey ancestry is an ounce of water compared to the bucket of everything else. which is more than the drop in the pond compared to jac #but not quite as powerful as changeling daniel. whose more fey than human at this rate. which is very fun to think about in terms of #his rogues haha. imagine going into the human realm about to cause chaos only to come face to face with a baby fey. a changeling. #i'd simply pass away a second time. where is your parent. human raised or otherwise?? are they nearby??? shit i thought fey hated urban #cities. what are YOU doing here baby man. im going to get eaten holy fuck. that's so many teeth. #. oh. oh you think you're a ghost. hm. hmhm. i can work with that. lets just. make sure you keep thinking that okay :) great :)) #like jumpscare dude. i just saw my afterlife flash before my eyes. hello unsupervised fey child. holy fuck are you teeny tiny. #vlad probably uses some of his own dna to get the halfa effect so really dani's more of a lab grown *half* sister. Danny's gonna end up #stealing her anyways in the end. his sister now :). non-human danny my beloved #catch me using fey and fae interchangeably. my bad #some food for thought sorry if its hard to understand. #steal thy name. eat thy face fey

[sasaranurude]

Okay. I've been playing Tokyo Debunker today, since the release happened to catch me on a day when all I'd planned to do was write fanfiction. I just finished reading the game story prologue (it was longer than expected!), so here's a review type post. If you're reading this post not having seen a single thing about this game: it's a story-based joseimuke gacha mobile game that just released globally today. It's about a girl who suddenly finds herself attending a magic school and mingling with elite, superhuman students known as ghouls. If you look in the tumblr tag for the game you'll see what appears to be a completely different game from 2019 or so: they retooled it completely midway through development, changing just about everything about it due to "escalating competition within the gaming industry."

I'll talk about how this looks like a blatant twst clone at the end.

Starting with the positive: The story is charming. I enjoyed it thoroughly the entire time and am excited to read more. The mix between visual novel segments and motion comics was really nice--it broke things up and added a lot of oomph to the action or atmospheric scenes that visual novels generally lack. I like the art in the comic parts a lot. the live2d in the visual novel parts is... passable. Tone-wise, I think the story was a little bit all over the place and would like to see more of the horror that it opened on, but I didn't mind the comedic direction it went in either. The translation is completely seamless. The characters so far all have unique voices and are just super fun and cute. Of the ones who've had larger roles in the story so far, there's not a single one I dislike. It's all fully voiced in Japanese and the acting is solid. (I don't recognize any voices, and can't seem to find any seiyuu credits, so it seems they're not big names, but they deliver nonetheless.) Kaito in particular I found I was laughing at his lines a ton, both the voicing and the writing.

He's looking for a girlfriend btw. Spreading the word.

The problem is like. The gameplay is the worst dark-pattern microtransaction-riddled bullshit I've ever seen. Hundred passive timers going at all times. Fifty different item-currencies. Trying to get you to spend absurd amounts of real world money at every turn. There's like five different indicators that take you to various real-money shop items that I don't know how to dismiss the indicator, I guess you just have to spend money, wtaf. Bajillion different interlocking systems mean you have zero sense of relative value of all the different item-currencies. I did over the course of the day get enough diamonds for one ten-pull, which I haven't used yet. Buying enough diamonds for a ten-pull costs a bit under $60 (presumably USD, but there's a chance the interface is automatically making that CAD for me--not gonna spend the money to check lmfao), with an SSR rate of 1%. BULLSHIIIIIT.

There's like a goddamn thousand-word essay explaining the dozen different types of character upgrades and equippables and equippables for the equippables!! Bad! Bad game design! That's just overcomplicating bullshit to trick people into thinking they're doing something other than clicking button to make number go up! That is not gameplay!

In terms of the actual gameplay, there is none. The battle system is full auto. There might be teambuilding, but from what I've seen so far, most of that consists of hoping you pull good cards from gacha and then clicking button to make number go up. There's occasional rhythm segments but there's no original music, it's just remixes of public domain classical music lmao. I'd describe the rhythm gameplay as "at least more engaging than twisted wonderland's," which is not a high bar

At least there's a cat in the rhythm bit.

And like, ok, I gotta remark on how derivative it is. Like I mentioned in my post earlier, this game is unabashedly aping twisted wonderland's setting and aesthetic. (That said, most of the stuff it steals from twst is magic school stuff that twst also basically stole from Harry Potter, so...?) However, it isn't exactly like twst: in this one, the characters say fuck a lot and bleed all over the place and do violence. Basically, the tone is a fair bit more adult than twst's kid-friendly vibe. (Not, like, adult adult, and I probably wouldn't even call it dark--it's still rated Teen lol. Just more adult than twst.)

Rather than just being students at magic school, the ghouls also go out into the mundane world to go on missions where they fight and investigate monsters and cryptids. Honestly, the magic school setting feels pretty tacked-on. The things that are enjoyable about this would've been just as enjoyable in about any other setting--you can tell this whole aspect was a late trend-chasing addition, lmao. So, yeah, it's blatantly copying twst to try to steal some players, but... Eh, I found myself not caring that much. Someone more (or less) into twst than me may find it grating.

Character-wise, eh, sure, yeah, they're a bit derivative in that aspect too, but it's a joseimuke game, the characters are always derivative. Thus far the writing & execution has been solid enough that I didn't care if they were tropey. If I were to compare it to something else, I'd say the relationship between the protagonist and the ghouls feels more like that of the sage and wizards in mahoyaku than anything from twst. There's some mystery in exactly what "ghouls" are and their place in this world that has me intrigued and wanting to know more about this setting and how each of the characters feels about it. I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for stories that put big ideas on the table and then being disappointed when they don't follow through in a way that lives up to my expectations, though.

So, my final verdict: I kind of just hope someone uploads all the story segments right onto youtube so nobody has to deal with the dogshit predatory game to get the genuinely decent story lol. Give it a play just for the story if you have faith in your ability to resist dark patterns. Avoid at all costs if you know you're vulnerable to gacha, microtransactions, or timesinks.

#suchobabbles #Tokyo Debunker #it's a global simultaneous release so I'm curious to see how it ends up doing in Japan #it's gonna be competing directly with stellarium of the fragile star which releases in a few days lmao. and is about a magic alchemy school #looks like the two games twt accounts have a similar number of followers #and then theyre competing with bremai releasing in may... #also adding this at the very end since i cant confirm anything: #but i found out abt this game bc it was rt'd by the former localization director/translator of A3en #i dont know if she worked on it or maybe her friend or maybe shes just hype! who knows! but i think her word (or rt) is worth something

[mariajamel]

A farewell and a reunion or perhaps just two farewells

#fitz and the fool #the Fool #Fitzchivalry Farseer #Realm of the Elderlings #rote #rote fanart #my art #btw I'm still reading The Mad Ship but I really wanted to draw older Fitz #also something a tad bit tragic #and then I added blood #because blood always goes nicely with a tragedy #and this is basically how I ended up with these #so I suppose they are purely vibes #however #if the first one is the kiss from AQ then the blood actually makes sense because I imagine Fitz would be quite bloodied at the time #the second one can be happening whenever you want it to #they both can of course but the second one especially #just please no major spoilers regarding that