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focusontheheart · 7 months

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Meet the Team - @boobaloof

Hi! My name is Babs. I worked on Aloy’s lineart for the Erend route on FOTH! I first discovered Horizon when I purchased my first ever PS4 in 2019 (The version that came with Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, and Horizon). I had been a bit adamant on playing it at first, seeing as how I sucked major ass at managing the Ps4 controls— but when I got over myself and bravely opened the game, I got thrusted into the most beautiful, lush world that soon dragged me under in the most blissful of ways. From that day onwards, my creative side took over, drawing and writing to my heart's content. I’m a deeply creative person who didn’t quite have that something to create about back then— so when I played this game, I fell in love. I could finally let that creative side of me thrive freely.

See the Q&A with Babs below the cut!

Q: What is a favorite piece of work you've done (i.e. completed, working on, in concept)?

I personally can’t choose from my artworks because— I mean, who knows what comes next. I know I’ll always one-up myself for the next one, so just choosing one is pretty difficult. I feel a special connection to each of my pieces, each telling a different story and showcasing what techniques I knew back then.

But if I had to choose, I’ve been quite proud of my latest Ereloy piece— That one where they’re kissing in the middle of the smoke in the battlefield? Yeah. This one.

When it comes to writing it's completely different. My favorite piece, my magnum opus thus far, has been and will probably always be Allow. That was a monster of an emotional fic for me and where I pulled at my own hair the most during the process. Building that ‘something-special-between-two-people’ in writing is such a difficult process— and a frustrating one for me, too, seeing as I’m a very emotional person.

Q: What are some of your favorite tropes to write, draw, or read?

I am very corny and very bitter. I like character introspection, angst, and character studies, I like drawing/writing/watching relationships develop and create small pockets of reality where everything feels like a dream.

Friends to lovers is a must for me, and I like Modern AUs every now and then, too.

Also— I adore re-imagining characters in different styles and worlds, be it canon or AUS. It’s fun to play around with what’s been established and translating into other AUs while keeping what makes the characters them, well, them. It’s also one hell of a creative exercise. 10/10 would recommend.

Q: What is an unexpected or fun fact about you?

Marine biology student over here! I’ve always loved the planet I live in, and the life it nurtures— I used to be a rowdy kid with an unhealthy obsession with wildlife, animals, dinosaurs, and adventure. Having a limitless source of undying curiosity didn’t help, either— so, this is the life I’ve chosen for myself.

I hope to bring honor to it one day.

Q: What has been your favorite thing about working on this project so far?

Watching it all come together! It’ll be like this massive book with many different stories and special moments– who doesn’t love stories made with the utmost love and devotion? That aspect alone is what makes them special.

And this project is certainly special.

Working with the Erend team was super fun, too. Balancing life and working on the project certainly taught me many things! Especially when the outcome is just. so. good–!

#focus on the heart #foth #foth dating sim fangame #foth visual novel fangame #horizon forbidden west #meet the team: artists and writers #artist: boobaloof #aloy x erend

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malevolentmango · 11 months

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meta thoughts on Loki's role in What You've Already Buried

Yes, this is a meta post about my own fic. idk how I got here but I do in fact have a lot of thoughts about Loki and how I chose to combine the p5r persona, the actual mythology of Loki, and Goro's character arc, so here we are.

If you haven't read the whole fic and you care about spoilers, make sure to leave this for after! Also, this got... really long and sort of all over the place. I tried to organize it all but alskdjfa oops?

So, to start, I'll go through the various stories I referenced in the fic. Obviously we're playing fast and loose with the mythology here in general, but stick with me.

Chapter 2

The dream in chapter 2 was the result of me mashing together two different, unrelated stories. The poem Hyndluljóð briefly references Loki eating a woman's roasted heart, and no matter how many times I told myself I didn't need to include that imagery anywhere in my fic, you can see that it ended up there anyway because it's sexy as hell. The rest of that scene, where Goro/Loki talks about his fate and how they will always end up here, is a reference to Loki's role in the death of the god Baldr, which results in Loki being bound and eventually starting Ragnarök when he breaks free. This is the first real hint in the story that Loki is behind all of this - particularly when he refers to Akira as "the bleeding god," which is an epithet for Baldr.

Fun fact about the dream sequences, actually: originally there were only two, the very vague one in chapter 1 and the binding in chapter 3. As I was editing chapter 2, I realized that I wanted to start building up to the eventual reveal of Loki's involvement much earlier than I had while writing (and in fact, when I first started writing this, I hadn't even decided who or what created the app - I just wanted to get the concept down, and it all kind of snowballed from there).

From there though, I picked up a bit of a theme, and a progression. The dreams were meant to parallel certain scenes we get in Goro's confidant route - things like him joking about taking Akira out at the arcade, and the game of billiards that's one big metaphor about Goro's subterfuge. They act as warnings, and in the case of the dreams, rather direct ones: Goro is literally eating Akira's heart. Goro is the one who wanted to kill him, and therefore Loki, as a part of his heart, is a danger to Akira. But Akira never takes them as warnings. What he sees are cries for help, a cycle that Goro can't break out of on his own.

The parallels between Goro and Loki are pretty blatant in this one. Talking about his lies, the people he's killed, how "I can be no other than what I am." That line is actually a reference to the song No More What Ifs, which plays in Jazz Jin: "I do not / regret with my choices I'm rather proud / ooh I know I won't change anything / because I can only be me."

Chapter 3

The dream in chapter 3 was, as Goro himself explains later, the binding of Loki from the poem Lokasenna. This one is actually pretty close to the original, with the major differences being that Loki was bound with the entrails of his own son and the "poison" is actually venom dripping from a snake. I think it's neat that Loki's reaction to the venom touching him is what's thought to create earthquakes, so I wanted to include that as well.

As mentioned above, this dream was actually the first one I wrote. The idea just sort of came to me while writing and I really wanted to include it. This is why it's a bit different from the others, in that it doesn't take place anywhere that would be familiar to Akira, but rather in the Void itself. And I think the result is that it's even more pointed than the previous dream. This is Loki himself showing Akira exactly what he's getting into - that Goro, and by extension himself, comes with a whole helluva lot of baggage. That if Akira goes through with this mission, he will forever be the Sigyn who loves Loki too much to let him be hurt, and must watch him hurt anyway.

But as we know, Akira is too stubborn to let that stop him. Akira believes wholeheartedly in saving people, but especially in saving Goro Akechi. That determination is really put on display in chapter 4.

Chapter 4

The dream in chapter 4 is different in that it's not based on an actual story, but rather on the etymology of the name Loki, which is thought to originate from a Germanic root word related to loops, knots, and hooks. I'm just gonna include the direct quote from Eldar Heide that inspired this because it's pretty great: "There is quite a bit of evidence that Loki in premodern society was thought to be the causer of knots/tangles/loops, or himself a knot/tangle/loop. Hence, it is natural that Loki is the inventor of the fishnet, which consists of loops and knots, and that the word loki is a term for makers of cobwebs: spiders and the like."

It's important to note at this point, I think, that all three of these dreams take place in the story after Akira and Goro have a conversation in the previous scene about who Goro is and what he wants. In chapter 2, Akira dreams of Goro eating his heart in the interrogation room directly after Akira tells Goro what he learned in the Velvet Room and Goro tries to convince Akira that he isn't worth saving.

In chapter 3, Akira dreams of the binding of Loki after Akira tells Goro that he's worthy of Robin Hood, and then teases him about how he found Black Mask Goro, and by extension Loki, attractive. This was partially just for fun (I was imagining it a bit as Loki going "you don't have a book about me yet? well check this shit out--"), but it's also another moment of Akira reaffirming that he wants Goro around.

So chapter 4, then, takes place the same night that Akira sends the thirst trap pic of himself to Goro, and Goro responds with a last ditch attempt at intimidation - trying to insist that even if Akira cares about him, he won't be able to handle the depth of Goro's feelings for him, because they're too much. He's too selfish, too possessive. Unfortunately for him, Akira is into that.

And this dream thus breaks the pattern. The previous ones were about things happening to Akira - he couldn't even speak in them. He was a bystander, a victim. In this one, he is literally bound, a treat all tied up for Goro/Loki to enjoy. The more Akira tries to escape, the more Goro/Loki breaks down, talking about how he can't let Akira go, that everyone leaves him. And when Akira does escape and goes directly to Goro/Loki instead of leaving, he delivers on the promise he didn't even realize he was making two chapters ago: that he will pull Goro out of the cycle and set him free too.

Chapter 5

The PTs genderbending and being chased through a forest came from the Gylfaginning book of the Prose Edda, which details how Loki turned into a mare in order to lure a builder's stallion away from his work and thus cheat him out of his payment from the Æsir. This encounter results in Loki later giving birth to the horse Sleipnir.

Utgard-Loki

From the same book comes the story of Utgard-Loki (technically written Útgarða-Loki, but I chose to leave it as "Utgard" the way the Persona series does). Utgard is a giant who agreed to shelter Loki and Thor for a night in exchange for performing a feat. The reason the Thieves have to do four feats is because there are actually two children with Loki and Thor in the story, but I didn't want to get into all that here. For similar reasons, their feats are a lot more straightforward than, for example, Loki competing in an eating contest against the personification of a wildfire.

Fenrir, Sköll, and Hati

Next, in the forest, we get Fenrir and his sons Sköll and Hati. The two younger wolves are said to chase the sun and moon across the sky until the onset of Ragnarök, at which point they would be caught and swallowed. In the fic, this has already happened, as their light is visible when the wolves howl - implying that Ragnarök has already started, and the Thieves are moving closer to the final battle.

The place they lead the Thieves to, Fenrir's island, is a direct reference to the island Lyngvi (meaning "a place overgrown with heather") where the Æsir bind Fenrir with Gleipnir, as described in Gylfaginning. They do so by tricking him and questioning his courage, saying that if he truly can't break free of this simple ribbon, then he must not be a danger to them after all. In reality, Odin feared Fenrir, who the prophecies said would be the death of Odin, and the gods considered all children of Loki to be too dangerous to be free.

This is where a lot of the threads start to come together with regards to how I chose to portray Loki in this fic: as a deviant, as a trickster, as a murderer, but also as someone who (like Goro) was a victim of his role in the larger story he's part of. Ragnarök can't happen without Loki - it doesn't matter how much he aids the gods, how much he's a part of their ranks. The moment he pulls the strings of Baldr's death, he's an outcast. He is the unwanted, the persecuted, all because it's foretold that he will be. He cannot escape the cycle. No one escapes Ragnarök.

In talking about this story with a friend, I described my portrayal of Loki as being more sympathetic than a lot of other ones I've read in this fandom. I think that really comes through in this scene, even though Loki isn't in it at all. Part of that is because it's from Akira's POV and he has a massive savior complex, but really I just liked the idea of twisting the lens through which we think about Loki as a character and how we connect him to the actual stories about him.

When I was reading about Loki for this fic, the idea I kept coming back to was that he just seems... tragic. That as much as he delights in causing suffering, it comes at the cost of a deep, personal pain. Imagine having everything you've worked for, everything you've done and created, taken away from you at the whims of someone more powerful than you. A player in a game you were born to lose. That's Loki, and it is also, of course, Goro Akechi.

Loki in the Mead Hall

This piece was, of course, inspired by Lokasenna, Loki's Flyting. The Thieves hear the gods reacting angrily to Loki's insults as they approach the building, but ultimately don't understand what all that vitriol means. This was partly because there was no way in hell I was writing an actual flyting, but also because I wanted to show off a bit of Loki's power over this space. It's his realm, after all.

(Fun fact: the descriptions of the mead hall and the forest from the previous scene were loosely based on the truly batshit amount of time I spent playing Valheim.)

This encounter with Loki was actually the first thing I wrote that took place in the Void - I think it was around the same time that I wrote the dream in chapter 3. I wanted to show that Loki is someone to be feared, someone who by his very nature is crafty and powerful and terrifying... and I also wanted to show why that doesn't make him evil by more directly stating his intentions. This is the scene where the Thieves actually get an answer to why Loki is helping them and Goro - because he cares about Goro.

Which sounds like a simple answer - of course the source of Goro's persona cares about him - but it's not. One of the things that trickster figures are known for is defying expectations. The expectation for a god living separate from humans in the Void would be that they don't have particularly strong feelings for them one way or another. We see this in the previous scene when the Thieves encounter Odin, who was once Akira's persona - he acknowledges that connection, but still plans to trick them.

From the moment Loki captured Goro and then gave Akira the Crow app, he was defying his place in the cycle. Loki cannot change his own fate, but he can change theirs - that's what a trickster does. Similarly, Akira also defies expectations when he tells Loki that he wants him to be himself - Loki, who is meant to be a shapeshifter, who is meant to bring destruction by his very nature, is being told that that's okay. After all, Akira loves Goro just the way he is. Why wouldn't he do the same for Loki?

Plus, I just really wanted to make Loki sexy as hell in this scene. I mean Look At Him.

Jörmungandr

His appearance is brief and not as important as others, but there two important bits to take away from this. One, that Akira continues to empathize with Loki and his children where the Thieves are still frightened (this is more just to keep on theme). And two, that Jörmungandr is free - he's not biting his own tail and encircling the world, another sign that Ragnarök has begun.

Fimbulwinter and Ragnarök

So obviously there's a lot going on here. I wasn't pulling directly from any story here, just the general themes: Fimbulwinter is the harsh and unforgiving winter that precedes Ragnarök and puts an end to all life on Earth. Ragnarök itself is then characterized by the great battle in which many of the Æsir die, after which the world burns and is then completely submerged underwater. Only then can the world rise again and the cycle can continue.

An interesting note: While the Thieves battle Ragnarök Loki, the form that Goro's shadow takes, they never actually enter the part of this realm that is Ragnarök. They remain in Fimbulwinter because that's where Goro was being held - because Loki had to keep him far enough in to be safe, but didn't want to put him in the place where Loki himself is doomed to repeat his own death over and over again. It's another example of Loki's strange brand of kindness.

I'm actually pretty happy with how Shadow Loki turned out. The idea that Goro had to face his own shadow was one I took from P4, which a friend was streaming for me and a few others at the time I was writing this. Of course, in P4 it's about accepting a part of yourself you don't want to acknowledge or come to terms with, and that's not really the case for Goro. I think he knows exactly who he is - he's told both Yusuke and Haru outright that he doesn't regret what he's done. For him, facing his shadow is about proving that isn't all that he is - that he is more than the smiling prince and the bloodied assassin and the unwanted child.

And of course, the reason his shadow takes the form of a sort of amalgamation of Loki and his own Black Mask outfit is because Loki is the source of all that. He's the one who gave Goro the power to kill, and Goro used that power without restraint. Goro stepped willingly into the same cycle of violence that Loki has always known, and in this scene, he's finally breaking free of it.

After the fight, we finally get Loki explaining to Goro in his own words why he's done all this. It's slightly different from what he told Akira in the mead hall - to Akira, he admits that he cares for Goro, whereas to Goro himself he says he wants Goro to live because "one of us should." Both answers are correct, but I think the second one is more true to how Loki sees himself and how he sees Goro. Loki is limited by his nature as a god to never change, to always be both an agent and victim of fate, but Goro isn't. And rather than attempt to change himself using the so-called "leeway" afforded to tricksters, Loki uses that power to give Goro the life he himself can never have.

And finally, we have the moment where Goro gives the treasure he took from his shadow to Loki. As Akira learns later in the epilogue, this is a hair pin that belonged to Goro's mother, which he would use to hold a blanket in place around his shoulders when he pretended to be a hero. That he would give such an item to Loki - something he lost years ago after his mother's death, something he will never see again in reality - and thank him for lending him the power to survive as long as he did is, I think, really telling of their connection to each other. In a way, it's almost a challenge, even a threat - Goro is telling Loki not to forget him and what they stood for, no matter how many times he repeats the cycle. He's taking his own stance on the idea that Loki can never change, and that stance is "Try harder then."

And maybe he can. Or maybe he can't. One of the things that I really wanted to explore in this fic is the idea of how a persona and its user overlap with the stories that persona comes from, and Loki and Goro are a great example of this. Two characters bound by fate, doomed to die by their respective narratives. Of course they found each other. And of course Goro would never be happy with the idea of a part of his soul being controlled by outside forces. Whether or not Loki can really change, though, is up to interpretation.

In Conclusion

idk I just think he's neat. Which one of them am I talking about? Yes. If you read all of that nonsense, you're my hero.

And just for fun...

I actually did write an entire move set for Ragnarök Loki, even though it was completely unnecessary. Figured I'd include it here for anyone wondering just how tough a fight that would be!

Ragnarök Loki (2 actions/turn)

Call of Chaos - Boost self's attack but drop defense for 3 turns. Laevateinn - Colossal Physical damage to 1 foe. Megidolaon - Severe Almighty damage to all foes. Concentrate - Multiply user’s next magical attack damage by 2.5. Sigyn’s Burden - Inflict Despair (high odds) to 1 foe. Hel’s Retribution - Decrease ATK/DEF/AGI for all foes for 3 turns. Jörmungandr’s Venom - Medium chance of instantly killing all foes. Fenrir’s Hunger - Heavy Nuclear damage to 1 foe. Medium chance to inflict Hunger. Fimbulwinter - Severe Ice damage to all foes. Ragnarök - Severe Fire damage to all foes and inflict Fear (high odds)

#wyab #a bts of writing I guess??#this is the silliest thing I've ever done but it was pretty fun actually #to be clear no one asked me to do this I'm just like this

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mishyoona · 8 months

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Since the devs and creative minds behind the FFX -Will- have claimed they wrote the audio drama ambiguous on purpose in order for us to fill in the gaps using our imagination, I'd like to ask what your desire or vision of FFX-3 is! :D

Whether it be in fanfiction or fan art, speculations or whimsical thoughts, I'd love to hear about it!

Hi, Danko Kaji! Brace yourself lol:

I genuinely believe that the future of Spira, unless it's in a distant one, should be left alone. I think X-2 wrapped up the start of the Eternal Calm nicely, and there is no need to push it further. Continuing from where X-2 left off is an example of beating a dead horse.

Also, from what I've seen, going back to Braska's journey is a popular X-3 concept among fans, but that would be the worst, imo. I don't see how it would introduce fresh elements to the story. Essentially, it would be a rehash of X, but with no surprises. I think we should all appreciate how we learned about that time through Auron's recollections (from his personal stories and the memories we witnessed in the ruins), and I fear that a full game focusing on it would diminish that impact. It's an unpopular opinion, but I truly hope that never comes to fruition.

I have two ideas, and one of them is fairly stupid, but I'm sharing. In fact, let's start with that one:

01. Auron in Dream Zanarkand. Tidus once said that fiends were a rarity in DZ, and that it was a big deal when one showed up. It'd be incredible if we got to discover that Auron was the one responsible for keeping them at bay, and was also the one slaying them once they reached the city (a boss, even, which would indeed be a "big deal"). Not necessarily as a hero either, but specifically driven by his promise to ensure Tidus' safety. It's evident that he kept up with his combat skills during his 10 years there, since he wasn't at all rusty when the time for battle came. In fact, he was prepared. The Japanese dialogue hinted that Auron periodically checked in on Tidus. It's interesting to imagine him being away dealing with fiends during those intervals. Perhaps he even had some form of affiliation with a small group of people who learned to fight and are committed to protecting DZ and uncovering some truths. This group could have uncovered something odd that helped them understand there could be more to DZ than meets the eye. They'd be low profile to avoid being dismissed as wacko. Then comes Auron, a sensible man with a strong head on his shoulders, and his arrival in their lives would provide a sense of companionship. Yet he never says he believes them or knows something. Maybe he sees himself in these people who are driven by what they believe, and he knows their worlds would be shattered by the truth.

Since Sin was known to destroy anything/anyone who got too close to DZ, it's plausible that remnants from another world (Spira) would wash up on its shores. Maybr strange technology and trinkets, or unfamiliar clothing. Ideally something more creative than that, lol. Their group backstory would be that their discoveries presented a pattern that each of then began to notice at some point, thus rendering them "touched" by Spira. It would provide an opportunity to see how someone from a fayth's dream or summoning can transform into something more once they've been touched by Spira or Sin. Remember what Bahamut's fayth said:

"Both you and your father have been touched by Sin. Sin, the one whom all Spira—the spiral—revolves. You two are more than just dreams now. Just a little more."

Vague enough to have fun with, if you ask me. Exploring Auron's time in DZ (especially the period between his shattered beliefs and the end of his mortal life) could be awesome. It would allow for insight as to why he aged. Did he manifest it on his own, and if so, was it gradual or immediate? There's a scene in FFX where Tidus (talking to Yuna) revisits a memory that took place while he was still a kid, shortly before his mother's death. Auron was shown to have already aged by then. So, maybe the stress, heartache, fear, and grief (the immense emotional burden) manifested through his appearance, making him look as old and worn as he felt on the inside.

I can't see any of this being translated into a full-fledged game, though. Maybe a smaller game where the "big bad" is actually Auron's inner turmoil and dealing with his new reality—similar to Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6, lol. But those are my unrefined thoughts on that jumble of dumb.

#inbox #rant jfc #how do you cut on Tumblr now omg #long post warning

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malaurymalfunctional · 2 months

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15 19 20 24 25 26 29 30 38

❤️

that is a long ask! <3

15: what do you think when you see "home"?

honestly, i don't really know. maybe it's because my first language, french, doesn't have the concept of "home" itself, having that meaning ascribed to "house" or "one's place", things like that. maybe it's because i don't feel at home in my own body, and so cannot think about home. i know how important of a concept it is, the idea of home, but it feels sort of. empty to me. don't know why

19: favorite thing about the day

i'd say the bright sky. be it the color of ash, of peach, of sapphire, it is always lovely. do you like the color of the sky? opalescent, cerulean, violet; from summer-dawn orange to winter-dusk marine blue.

20: favorite thing about the night

the peace and rest. the dark, and the stars it invites; the quasi-silence, and the serenity it brings; the slow veil of the gods of sleep and dream.

which is why i hate big cities. to quote myself, " ... the city that humms the eerie tune of 'sleep is for the weak and the world shall never stop', blinded by the concrete and the cars and the streetlights that scream of 'the dark is to be conquered, and we shall kill the night itself too'."

24: one thing you're proud of about yourself

giving myself time. i don't have much to be proud of yet, and it's fine. i'm giving myself the time to heal and to grow properly, not rushing, not pushing myself, not being ashamed or angry at the fact i'm getting better very slowly. beside, i'm only 18. i'm just a baby

25: favorite season and why

i'm spring/fall team. summer is always way too hot, but the barrenness of winter isn't very fun, nor good for the spirit. spring is the best because we have flowers and trees springing to life, we have the sun but with fresh, moving air. it is the rebirth of the cycle of life. not that autumn isn't nice too

26: favorite color and why

that's the good stuff!! #9153ff. this

not purple. not violet. not perrywinkle or whatever. this. to the tee. changing the rgb values just a bit makes it worse, in every case.

i discovered it with the game "tomorrow won't come for those without ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️", made by etherane, the person who also made Hello Charlotte, which lives rent free in my head. it is the most perfect, most beautiful shade of purple. hue of the gods, truly.

29: what do you do when you're sad?

honestly, i kinda just crumble. my coping mechanisms are centered around NOT feeling the sadness (i know it's not healthy, i'm trying okay? T-T) so when i DO feel the bad emotions it's closer to a dam breaking over your head than being rained on. i just sort of get splattered on the ground for a while and then i get back to business as usual. in these moments i have zero energy and zero wants so i don't. really DO anything

30: one thing that never fails to make you happier

talking to people. it came as a surprise at first; i'm not really a people person, whole neuridivergent stuff and all. but when i talk with people with whom the communication struggles can be overcome, or people in the same situation as me, social interaction can feel nice. if i enjoy someone's presence, just exchanging a few words can turn my "everything is bad and everything hurts and i don't want anything or anyone, not even myself"s into "actually i love people and all of it is worth it and the whole world is scripture"s

38: favorite song at the moment

i don't really have any one song i listen to on repeat rn. i could say Sdorica-The Story Unfolds. less recently it's been Zoltraak, from the anime Frieren

#ask game

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rutadales · 9 months

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ooooh And the World Says looks like such a cool premise!

OHHHH thank uuuuuu!! Admittedly this is the concept I'm most excited for :'D the current summary I have for it is "In which Foolish is almost a god and Dream is the world. They meet somewhere in the middle." which. not to toot my own horn but ohhh I love the phrasing something abt it is very satisfying lol.

but yeah the whole premise came from me wanting to use Minecraft mechanics and game limitations as a core part of the story. This idea that all of the divine characters know that their world is made of code is just ugh, so juicy to me. C!Foolish essentially being a tool made to fix glitches and crashes is just a fun idea to me. fun fact: I was inspired by "How to Save the World" by talkingsoup, which is a really clever undertale fanfiction that uses game mechanics as a core plot device.

anyway anyway here's the little excerpt:

"A solution has shown up on a silver platter, a way to remember. He'd shut it down before, still so sure he could fix this. No crash is inevitable, all deaths are malleable. Things have changed though, and Foolish is running out of time and Hail Mary's. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, flicking briefly over chapped lips. If they can't save this world, they should do everything they can to remember it. Too much had happened to just sweep it aside and forget. But still, it felt too similar to giving up and— …well. Dream might not go for it anyway, but it was a chance, however thin. One he should run by him.

"Let me talk to Dream, see what he thinks, alright? I can't just make this decision for him."

"Foolish," Death sighed, voice weighter than before, "I told you the offer can't extend to him. Dream's code isn't like a player's, he needs his world."

His world. Something about that phrasing itches in the back of Foolish's head, an omen. His nails scratch at the skin on his arm, his movements quickening, slightly, "Right, I mean, I know he's an operator but-"

"No," Death's voice is hard, immovable, "the world's lifespan and his own, they're connected. Intrinsically tied together. One cannot exist without the other. Dream cannot breathe air without the server running, and the server cannot run without Dream breathing. Do you really think it was just a coincidence that the server ended at the same time Dream's last life did?"

Death shook her head, "To move him to a different save file would do more than kill him, it would erase him completely."

"That's-" He bites back his frustration, irritation blooming inside his chest, "I can't just leave him."

#c!dream #c!foolish #c!droolish #root writes #ask #wip game

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talkinpunchline · 10 months

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A review of Knight Terrors: Punchline 1 & 2

So I was going to just post a review of Knight Terrors: Punchline #2 today but then I figured why not go ahead and talk more about both issues? Before I start though I wanna just compliment Danny Lore, Lucas Meyer, & Alex Guimarães. They came together to make a REALLY great pair of comics

So the issues follow the pretty basic set up of all the Knight Terrors tie ins. The protag of the book falling asleep, being subjected to whatever they were fearing at the moment, and then eventually fighting them off. Where these two set themselves apart though is the execution. I don't really have a reason to bring it up here, but if you follow me on my main, you might know I'm a MASSIVE horror fan. A fact that has lead me to feeling pretty let down by this event as a whole. Sure, some of the stuff being shown in the other books is creepy, but scary? Nope! Which isn't a slight at the other writers at all, a lot of them are pretty good and even some of the other Knight Terrors books are fun, it's just hard to write really good horror. Danny thought? They absolutely nailed it. Working off some pretty logical and, I'd say, relatable fears to tell the story and explore Alexis's perspective as much as you can in just two issues

Another thing I think this book has over others, and again no shade, is really subtle bits of dream logic in the art. Costumes not being quite right in photos, things notably shifting to afford you a better look when you want to see something from another angle. All those little things your brain plasters over It's a smart touch!

But that all leads to the question of what Alexis fears. It's a couple things, nothing that the solicits said, the first is pretty simple- Surveillance.

I've seen a few people complain about Babsgirl's inclusion in this, myself included, but it really makes sense with how the book presents it. It's not Babs, it's the surveillance she has.

Like love her or hate her Oracle has a genuinely horrifying level of control over the internet, and when you think about that constant threat of violence that molded Alexis into what she is? OFC she'd worry about that when she finds out just what she's been living under for life.

So yeah the big Batgirl monster isn't Babs it's the concept of surveillance like we're in the middle of a Magnus Archives episode. I also like that it does, ultimately, play into her second fear: A lack of control.

(I don't wanna post too many full pages, but this one is too good not to drop in full)

But yeah control, and the fear of losing it, really does make sense for Alexis. Losing control of the narrative, the small amount of safety she's literally paid for with blood, it's perfect.

Most of the second issue is a fight, alongside what I mentioned before, but one thing I really appreciate that got lost in Gotham Game is the fact that Alexis refuses to just die despite fantasizing about it

Out of all of the clowns she is the one trying to expose a message and she's not going to stop I dunno if her using broken glass to try and fight even when she's as good as dead is an explicit reference to the Orca fight in Joker #3 or a happy accident, but either way it rules.

And that's it in a nutshell. An expertly done two issue book with some phenomenal art and coloring that handles Alexis pretty much perfectly.

Seriously DC I'd buy every variant of an ongoing with this creative team I NEED it

#dc comics #punchline #alexis kaye #Knight Terrors #Knight Terrors: Punchline

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smallest-turtle · 1 year

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I've seen you mention it before in some of your Deidre posts (which are all excellent, by the way). But what is your headcannon for the experiments Solus did on Zenos? I've actually not been able to find where their mentioned in game/side stories, so as a concept, it was pretty new to me. But I've seen other people bring it up as well.

Other people have ideas that SOMETHING was done to him based off of like. One line that Elidibus says in one of the throne rooms scenes, I think right when Zenos shows up to get his body back or around then in time, but I don't know the quote off the top of my head.

So I know canonically Zenos' echo is like. Artificial because it's the resonance but because he's had the dreams of the calamity since he was a child I feel like that's not the whole story. I think (and am writing) that he always had the echo, same as anyone else, and it's just atypical because of how garleans can't control aether, and the resonance just amplified it. So basically he's always been able to see people's souls (why he KNOWS Deidre is the ONLY person he's ever found reborn from his dreams of the calamity at Rhalgr's, which are Janus's memories of the event).

What is COMPLETELY homebrew that you're actually asking about is that Emet wanted to figure out if he could essentially commit a rejoining TO SOMEONE SPECIFICALLY. So what he did was he took the soul pieces of Janus from each remaining shard and forced them together. But it's like finding pieces of sea glass that all came from the same bottle and trying to glue them back together after they've been irrevocably changed. Even with 'proper' influxes of insane aetheric power they never actually mesh the way a true shard-wide calamity would make them.

So basically his soul looks like one of those density experiments you do as a child with all the different substances that can't mix except they're all the same color. It freaks Yshtola out whenever she looks at him too long because it's so deeply wrong. And an effect of this is that he does not have memories of this being done to him as a child and he does not have memories from before it was done either. I haven't decided what age it is exactly yet. Maybe 6 or 7. An age that your typical adult WOULD HAVE MEMORIES FROM but he doesn't even know that's weird because he doesn't have friends until shadowbringers.

Another side effect of this is through engaging with the sundered of people that Janus was close with (Azem's entire. Crew basically. So Deidre [azem], Haurchefant/Granson, Caelen, Ryne/Aymeric) he slowly gets snippets of events that Janus's soul remembers, which is why he knows Haurchefant and Deidre are exactly how they should be (siblings) and that Deidre and himself will NOT BE (lovers. Ew? Yucky!).

This will all be mostly pieced together by characters through the last weeks of 5.0 between witnessed family spats with Zenos and Emet (rip Alphinaud he was just trying to draw the cityscape) and the fact that Y'shtola can literally See the fuck up. But here's the author explanation

Thanks for the interest! It's really fun to gush about this sort of thing.

#ffxiv 5.0 #ffxiv #zenos yae galvus #my writing #writers room #text #my post #anonymous #turtle answers

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electrivolt · 1 year

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poke.mon Favourites!

FIRST GAME: yellow, it was my first console as well getting the gameboy color! fun fact i had a pikachu limited edition one that for the life of me i haven’t been able to find anywhere, it had pikachu and pichu on the sides and one of pikachu’s cheeks was overlapping with the on/off light of the gameboy, and it was semi transparent. it was cool as fuck i miss that gameboy :(

FAVOURITE SPINOFF GAME: mystery dungeons and rangers, to be even more exact explorers of sky and shadows of almia/guardian signs. mystery dungeons was my silly childhood dream of getting to play exclusively as a ‘mon and when i first played rangers it blew my mind how different it was and yet how cool it all was, both gameplay, story and the setting itself because getting to be a ranger was one of the coolest things i could think of. i still think a lot about those games they were just so good.

FAVOURITE EVIL TEAM: team galactic, always team galactic, they still seem like one of the best teams to me to this day. they feel like one of the most actually dangerous teams of the games i’ve played that actually shows it, the lake bombing still sticks in my mind with how memorable that was not to mention spear pillar!! great team 10/10 nothing will top it for me

FAVOURITE TEAM LEADER: painfully obvious but cyrus, i could go on a 1 hour yt video essay on why he’s in my humble opinion the best team leader out there. i just think he’s neat and his ideals are smth wild and yummy to explore

FAVOURITE STARTER: rowlet because i love decidueye and ghosts are some of my favorites all around, but like. i could pick one for most gens. i love totodile i love turtwig i love snivy. help.

FAVOURITE BOX LEGENDARY: giratina. that’s my favorite legendary all around it’s never gonna be topped really

FAVOURITE POKEMON: can’t pick just one and go but i can narrow it down to very few ones actually excluding legendaries- luxray for sure, the whole line really but like. i love lux isn’t that obvious. big electric cat my beloved. mimikyu is another BIG one, i love mimikyu to death it’s just a lil guy that wants to be loved just a cute lil ghost that did nothing wrong AND THEN there’s gengar i love that mf it was actually my fave ghost type before mimikyu came along. espeon particularly is also a big fave though i don’t? really know why somehow?? but it’s my favorite eevolution all around. AND hisuian form zoroark i love that bastard ( to volkner’s dismey :) ) it’s such a cool regional variant concept ok-

if i had to mention legendaries ( other than gira ) there’s the obvious zappy bird and i’ll admit the galarian version is also p cool, the dogs are also pretty cool and lugia is one of my big favorites as well. there’s probably a few more but between technicalities of legendary vs mythical and all i can’t just sit here naming everyone

FAVOURITE PROFESSOR: admittedly i don’t really pay too much attention to the professors usually, but i think it’s rowan, i’d like him to be my grandpa

FAVOURITE RIVAL: barry my dear adhd crackhead child. i do remember using to like hugh a whole lot too as a kid when i first played bw2 but i cannot for the life of me remember why. i have to replay those games

FAVOURITE CHAMPION: cynthia! she’s always been great and so memorable, i just can’t help but be attached to her especially as my first “real” elite 4 challenge. steven is pretty close too for being weird

FAVOURITE CHARACTER (if not already covered): for obvious reasons it’s volk here but roark is neat too :) ( also for obvious reasons ). grusha and allister too though i got attached to these weird lil guys and i rlly want to go back to writing them if the mental illness allows me

FAVOURITE STORY: MMMMH WELL. i love the original dppt a whole lot, bw is also something i’m attached to a lot for many reasons, so i’d say those two are tied. i do have to add legends though because that fucked so hard

FAVOURITE MUSIC: i don’t. really pay attention a lot to the music but i guess the gym leader theme in galar is neat. some other stuff like the poke.mas remix kinda count too honestly and i really like some of the stuff in the og gen4

FAVOURITE REGION OVERALL: sinnoh all around. by extention hisui as well, like sinnoh already held a special place for me because it felt so alive and special with that care put into what is its own culture and the dedication to legendaries, and i love to have gotten hisui and to get to see the origins of so much of current sinnoh. unova is also a big favorite nearly as close to sinnoh with how much character it has and i have a lot of good memories of those games

#〔 ooc . 〕 ϟ power off .#// i robbed this from the dash. forgot about it #saw it again and it was half done so i might as wel finish

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asking-paradise · 2 years

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What is your process for coming up with ocs, whether it be for the blog or in general?

[Admittedly, there isn’t much of a process? Or at least it’s hard to explain, haha.

Well, I say that, but then this got really long, so my explanation will be under the cut! But tldr; there isn’t much of a process my brain just comes up with things and I follow through those base ideas.]

[For this blog and other ocs I make that are based on a pre-existing media, I have the fun of having to interpret characters that are already there, but may not have been written with all the details fully put together. GtI is especially good at having characters that feel like fully fleshed out characters, but also leave a lot to interpretation. Or, a lot to interpret from memory, because sometimes, admittedly, I forget something about a character (like Munna helping you at the end of the game) but then it turns into something more interesting for me anyway (just because Munna helps you doesn’t mean it changes everything for you and her). For example, GtI!Partner is generally optimistic and friendly, has big dreams, but is also missing a bio family. Meeko thus gets all those traits, but I get to add more to flesh him out some more. He love giving hugs, he doesn’t really know his exact birthday, he’s a little bit claustrophobic (there’s your fun Meeko fact of the day), he loves the world and people in it so much despite how little he had to base that love off of for so long. Of course, I have some ocs that exist in this blog but do not have any explicit in-game counterparts, namely the five other humans I mentioned. Rather than expanding on pre-existing characters in this case, I’ve expanded on pre-existing concepts. We know there were other humans. We don’t know how many there were (even within the lore of this blog, the five mentioned ones, six including Linn, are not the only ones), nor do we really know what they were like. As Hydreigon goes over in this ask, each of the human characters I came up with were sort of selected for some core traits that I, and therefor Hydreigon, would think to be possibly good heroic traits. For their pokemon species, Jason, Steven, and Audrey defaulted to tepig, snivy, and axew as a nod to the other GtI hero and partner options. As for Becca and York, Becca got machop because it’s an old pmd hero option that I feel like everyone forgets about, and York got poochyena because I wanted to pick a pokemon that was not in gen 1 or 5, to shake things up a bit, and poochyena came to mind. It’s a pokemon I am fond of, and makes sense to be a pmd hero despite never having been one. The five of them have more to their characters that might get time to address in-universe, but we’ll have to see when we get there.

In general for making ocs through, I don’t have a better way to phrase it than just the vibes sometimes? If they’re for a story, I often think of the role I want them to play, or the concept, and expand from there, which is often where the vibe checking comes in. Answering questions like what are their goals? How do they interact with other characters? Are good to figure out early, in my experience, and then you start answering the “why’s?” and after that, the “then what’s?” For example, why does character A treat character B poorly? Depending on that answer, it could lead to what would make character A treat character B better? Does character B treat everyone poorly, or just character A? It’s a lot of asking yourself questions and figuring out the questions, whether that’s something your brain comes up with on your own, or whether you have to crack down and do some research.

It may just be another me being weird thing, since I know the way I do a lot of creative works is often an odd, roundabout way, so it’s hard to know what makes sense to others and what doesn’t, but I tend to let my passion for whatever my project is fuel me and just listen to what my instinctual ideas are for ocs. There are some things that will never get addressed in-universe in some of my stories, but just having them in mind helps me to figure out how those ocs may act in other situations (fun fact! Junior, i.e Kangaskhan’s kid in Galaxies Above, his father was an awful person and him and Kangaskhan are like the closest to divorced you can get in that setting, but it never comes up in the actual story!). To avoid making this post too much longer, I suppose, if you were looking for advice, just remember what role the characters serve in the story or in relation to other characters, but never just stop there, always have other ideas in the back of your pocket for them.]

#pokemon #pokemon mystery dungeon #pmd #pokemon ask blog #ooc #not plot #answered #munday #asking-nelvana #mod post #peachykeendeer #asking-paradise #[I am not tagging every character I mentioned here lol]

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psychemenin-blog · 1 year

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PT II (Is that right?) A flight interrupted this writing process and with it came a flurry of things I find fun and fascinating around deliberate art. And of all things, "living with yourself" arrives on my suggested netflix, and not just for the infallable paul rudd, but the concept is exactly of my concern.

I'm going to name my things out loud I think have been holding me back. I am watching people left and right get married and experience that "pick me" energy. And I start to story tell that I am not experiencing that because I'm unworthy of it, or that my standards are too accepting that I don't expect that to happen for me, but then snidely, I do. I want everything both ways, I want to be able to complain about everything. I want the "dream" to distract me from myself which is my self; my own mirror and shadow issues which include the fact that I'm not playing every day at work. I'm not playing every day in life. The dread of work, avoiding the mundanity of work, it's all so exhausting. All work and no play makes me not energetic enough to plunge holes through beautiful historic building doors.

I am so loved, I felt so loved today coming home to my family. That's totally enough for me because that's living the literal dream I'd always think about. I get doubts because I want again that "pick me" energy but I have my whole life to live regardless of my marital status.

Shadows What am I doing to tell the stories I want to tell? I want to be a paid , working director. I want to be in a position where I can purchase script rights and make the damn thing with a backing army of people who have skin in the game with me.

So much of myself has grown and healed. And yet, so much of me has a habit of standing on my own neck, limiting my dreams, and compromising myself. Telling myself that's the expectation.

I get so stir crazy when I'm not learning and growing.

If my role isn't growing or there's mundanity I get uninspired to give my best or I'm dissatisfied or unhappy. I can say that in my 1x1 with my boss tomorrow, and I can add that which I do not want anymore.

Imagining I got a chance to review a fellow coworker, the person "his subtext is sexist, condescending, and arrogant. He's not a pleasure to work with. I will still pull my best from workign relationships with him, but I do not aspire for more of it." If I'm so lucky to be asked my own opinion about my codouchebagworkers perfofrmance. I'm so curious.

Soi I'm tired and I'm looking for a conclusion I likely can't find. This will take an ecit to make anything meaningful or - I don't think it should be a place forthe corey no delete blue pages strategy. I think I made a few stakes in the ground aimlessly, like, starting a course, which I still would love to do I just have a hard time feeling inspired to. Do I have an excuse for everything? That's old negative self talk. It's legitimate that the world gets so exhausting when you ahve your wings buckled in together by your own doing.

This is just like my spread this moon cycle. I have myself blindfolded but my hands aren't untied. I ahve options, I have strength, I am powerful. I am just tired because this job feels meaningless to me and gradually gets worse the longer douche is a part of the team and spends time talking about himself. If I get an exit interview I'm definitely mentioning how that hire swap left a good thing bad and a bad taste in my mouth. exhibited character unlike what I signed up for, and invited in a teammate I disapprove of.

GIF by sophi-aubrey

That's it for today. National write your story day. Ironic. I'll see how we do here consistantly. It feels good to thought vom. Thanks for stopping by.

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rhyske · 1 year

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the only horror game I've ever played was Alien Isolation and I got so scared I cried hahah. but yeah, I can watch some playthroughs on youtube because it feels like it's a bit more of a distance to it. sometimes even that is too scary for me and I just look up explained or theory videos haha. zombies, however, are something that I have little interest in, partly because of a phobia I struggled with for some years. a phobia of decaying things and zombies are kinda close to that! even playing Halo (which I love) has some zombie-ish elements and I just remember feeling really nauseous while playing those levels. 😅

yeah, Ikemen Sengoku was a mobile game, while monetization was egregious, I liked the concept with the story and the romance.

people should be able to enjoy what they want without shame IMO. My brother often makes fun of me for my hyper fixations so I've learned not to care what others think.

what are your top 5 otome games? ^^ 💜

Oh man I remember when Alien Isolation came out. I can't even imagine playing it. The stress alone would kill me! 😆 A lot of horror games have really interesting lore. Have you heard of Outlast? That was a wild one.

Oh no! D: That sucks you have a phobia like that, but it's also kinda a healthy one? At least you won't be exposing yourself to bad stuff, y'know? I used to have a lot of zombie dreams as a kid, and in almost every one I'd kill myself before the zombies could get to me. If I ever did face zombies in real life, I feel that phobia. I wouldn't want them anywhere near me.

I will never forget the utter terror and confusion the Flood had to little middle school me playing Halo for the first time.

Yeah mobile games are notorious for their absolutely terrible monetization practices, which does suck cause some have really good ideas.

I always get self aware of my hyper fixations. At the very least I try to not drown other people in it, since that has to get annoying for others. I'm glad you decided to not care 💕 Learning how to just let people be mean and not take it personally is such a life changer.

Oh gosh. Okay, uh. Code:Realize and Hakuoki I will always sing praises for. Hakuoki was my first ever otome, and was also the first officially localized Japanese otome to ever be brought to the west, so it has a very near and dear place in my heart. Code:Realize has the best MC I've ever seen in the genre. Her character development, the fact that she isn't some helpless girl and in fact saves herself and others is such a breath of fresh air. Her horologium is actually one of my tattoos! Code:Realize also has a great steampunk medieval London setting going too, and it actually was the first time I was introduced to steampunk!

Let's see... Aloners by @sonnet009games is a game I come back to at least every year. There's such a charm to it, and Trash is such a deep, fascinating character. The personality options are amazing, and Trash actually responds to those personalities. This is one of the few games where no choice except one very obvious one changes what ending you get, so there's no stress on choosing a "correct" option.

A more recent one that gripped my mind for weeks is Gilded Shadows by @steamberrystudio. New routes are still being released as free DLC, but my gods is the world building alone just absolutely fascinating. Like, I was that one meme of the guy in front of a wall trying to connect everything together 😆 Each route would add something to the lore and I'd be that other meme of the guy pointing. Each route too has such a distinct love interest, and the banter. The banter.

I have one more to finish the list. Hmmm... I dunno if I'll ever actually play this game again, but Cafe Enchanté is one I will absolutely never forget. It had such a sharp genre change that still to this day has me shaken. It makes you think it's all happy and light and it'll be like, a cute cafe slice of life with supernaturals involved but everything about that game is fucked up. Each love interest comes from a world that has something so intrinsically wrong with it, and piecing the overall mystery and history together blew my mind. Every new route I started had me anxious to see just how dark and messed up it was going to go, and I was never left disappointed. The final, unlockable route had me sobbing so hard that I had to put my Switch down for a little bit because I couldn't see past my tears.

This ended up being kinda more of a review of my top 5, like a "you should play these and this is why." Oops 😅

(adding on that Animal Lover is also really good and recently got a port for all consoles and is also one I highly enjoy)

#asks #i answer #i talk #purple heart anon #sweetheart anon

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ifmywishescametrue · 2 years

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I know I’m late but can I ask for 5 for Just For Now, dust off your highest hopes, and you can call me babe for the weekend, and also 23 from the writing asks? You’re one of my favourite Stevetony fic writers ❤️❤️❤️

thank you so much! you're never too late for an ask game ☺️

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!

i... can't think of a single possible question lol. let's just go with some behind the scenes fun facts? my favorite things about them? idk here's a mix of both and i'm sorry they ended up so long winded haha

Just For Now – this one is easily the most on the fly, no plans fic i've ever written. it was written pretty quickly in 2020, when i had just graduated college but was still unemployed because of things with the pandemic, so i had a lot of time to basically write a chapter a day. i posted as i went and almost never had a plan for where the next chapter was coming from before the current one was finished. there was only one later chapter i knew would exist from the beginning, which was them getting together at the sam and nat's wedding. everything else, even character background details, came at the exact moment they were written with pretty much zero forethought. all in all i'm pretty proud of how well it turned out without any real planning, but also i would never do that again lol

dust off your highest hopes – my absolute favorite moment in this one is the scene with them discussing the hyacinth tattoo steve almost got and the one tony has. i had the dialogue written fairly early on for tony asking steve to tell him something about himself that tony doesn't know yet, and i knew i wanted steve to tell him about a tattoo he almost got, but didn't. the only problem i had was that i had no clue at all what it would be, or why he wouldn't do it in the end.

sometimes i view scenes in terms of vibes and colors rather than plot, if that makes sense? so, this scene needed to feel like it was midnight blue with soft, hazy stars. that lead me to thinking that steve's almost tattoo should come from mythology, so i ended up googling something like 'gay love stories in greek mythology' just to see if one would fit. the very first one i read was the story of Apollo and Hyacinthus, and it just felt so right for steve to be sort of enthralled by that story, but also have a longing to experience something like it for himself first before getting a tattoo to represent it. personally, i've always been so intrigued by flower language, so i googled what hyacinths represent and that also felt very right for tony, given all the backstory i'd already established for him.

just generally, i love moments in writing where it feels like i've somehow stumbled upon the exact right thing to fit in the moment. there was no plan initially for tony to have any tattoos, let alone one that fit with steve's almost tattoo, but i love that it worked out that way. this particular moment felt almost fated to exist.

you can call me babe for the weekend – speaking of viewing scenes in terms of colors, this entire fic is maroon to me. i can't explain why, but that's what my mind sees.

now an actual fun fact! i think i've said this somewhere before, but i started writing this fic the same night evermore was released and started picturing it after my very first listen to tis the damn season. everything about that song screamed steve and tony to me. the longing, the idea of leaving someone you love to pursue a dream that you also love, the self-sacrificial nature of it. that was all just so tony. he would want to leave his small town, he wouldn't ask steve to come with him when he knew steve wouldn't be happy there, but he'd also never be able to move on and let him go in his own heart.

i've always just generally loved the concept of two people being so meant for each other that there's literally no one else they could fit quite right with. they always find their way back to each other, because they have to. tis the damn season came out and was basically like here's the blueprint, go write it. so i did

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

soulmate au! i love reading them, but i haven't had a solid enough idea to write it myself just yet. i do, however, know the exact song lyric i'd use to title it lol

#answered asks #thanks for sending these!#i did not know i had so much to say about these fics before i started answering this but apparently i do lol

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anarchopuppy · 2 years

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It's time for another one of my long-ass Zelda posts that no one actually reads but that's okay because I'm just posting it for myself. The topic today:

The Zelda Timeline Actually Makes Perfect Sense If You Just Think About It For A Minute

Casual fans and non-fans will take any opportunity to mock the Zelda timeline, with their criticism often starting and ending with "Look, there are three whole branches! Three!" followed by not inspecting it any further. Even big Zelda fans who know the lore extensively will still claim (without giving evidence) that the developers never intended for there to be a timeline or shared story at all while they were writing the games, and just made it up post-hoc to put in Hyrule Historia. But is that true?

Even as early as 2003 (around Wind Waker's release), Miyamoto and Aonuma confirmed that they had an official document with the entire timeline laid out in it, and that claim was reiterated in several other interviews following that. So, there's that idea put to rest right away. Straight from the horse's mouth, there has always been an official timeline

Fun fact: Did you know that back when Ocarina of Time was still called Zelda 64, around the same time that the very first ingame footage was being shown to the public, before the time travel concept was even decided on - we're talking very early development - Nintendo reportedly told IGN that its story took place after Adventure of Link? Now, you may say that that proves that they don't care much about the timeline if they're changing it up partway through production, but to me it says the opposite. Even in the experimentation phase, before they had even come up with the central concept of the game, they were already considering where it would fit into the timeline

But the claim I made at the top wasn't that the timeline was considered beforehand, but that it makes "perfect sense"

The Official Timeline Is The Only One That Works

Let's consider the games in the Zelda series in release order and see how they fit with each other

First was Zelda 1. After that came Zelda 2, an obvious direct sequel with the same Link. Then LttP, which the devs clearly stated was a prequel to Z1 - and it couldn't really have been anything else, since Z1 ends with Ganon being killed and AoL ends with his resurrection being prevented. Link's Awakening is just a dream and could go anywhere on the timeline. Ocarina of Time is a clear prequel to LttP, exploring the origins of Ganon and the beginning of his life as a man, as established in LttP's manual (I'll talk more about OoT and the Downfall Timeline further down). Majora's Mask is a direct sequel to OoT

After that comes Wind Waker, the first seemingly ambiguous placement. The game begins with a legend of the Hero of Time, the player character from OoT, sealing Ganon and then disappearing forever. It's clear that this is referring to the timeline that Link left in OoT. And since in LttP Hyrule hasn't been flooded and abandoned along with the Triforce and Master Sword and Ganon's corpse (which is how WW leaves it), we can be pretty certain that this doesn't come before any of the previously released games. Nor does it come after, since it makes clear reference to the events of OoT and explicitly states that no hero like the Hero of Time has appeared since. So it must be a new timeline split from all that time travel stuff. Cool

Then is Twilight Princess, which also doesn't fit with any of the other games we've seen. In its backstory, Ganondorf was stopped before taking over Hyrule or even touching the Triforce, which doesn't match with either of the two histories that have been established. It does match perfectly with the timeline the Hero of Time returned to at the end of OoT, though, and there's other evidence (such as the Hero's Shade, which is heavily hinted in-game to be the Hero of Time) that supports that. Again, can't come before anything else we've seen since Ganon dies, and can't come after since Ganon never got the Triforce. So the only option that makes sense is for this to be another timeline branch following from OoT

After Twilight Princess comes Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, both of which are explicitly sequels to WW. Then Skyward Sword, which is heavily established as the first game in the series chronologically and came with an official timeline to prove it. Then Link Between Worlds, a sequel to LttP (in Japanese it's even a numbered sequel), and finally Breath of the Wild which has its own nonsense going on and effectively soft reboots the timeline

Ok, so where's that famous ambiguity and arbitrariness? Everything locks in pretty solidly, there's just no other option that makes sense. This is supported by the fact that the Zelda fanbase came to the exact same conclusions before there was ever an official timeline. There were some people who were so attached to a unified timeline that they came up with wild and varied theories to fit it all together, but among the people who recognized that there was a timeline split, they effectively all put the games in the exact same order that would later be revealed as official. But with one major difference - everyone agreed on the order of the 2D games, but no one could figure out whether they belonged at the end of the Adult Timeline or the end of the Child Timeline, with some even arguing that the split timeline "merged" somehow before the 2D games. No one had even considered the Downfall Timeline as an option

What's Up With The Downfall Timeline Anyway

The DT is the most controversial part of the official timeline. There are two timelines that are clearly explained by the events of OoT, and then a third that splits off at the same point that just exists for seemingly no reason. Before the official timeline was released, the fanbase couldn't make sense of the 2D games and how they fit into everything. So what gives?

As I said above, OoT was conceived of and established as a prequel to LttP. But even before the timeline split nonsense, that didn't really make sense. In the backstory of LttP, Ganondorf acquires the entire Triforce before being sealed by the sages - and in-game we do see Ganon in possession of the completed Triforce, even able to wish on it - but in the events of OoT Link and Zelda retain their pieces at all times. OoT is clearly intended to be the events of LttP's backstory, but the ending is changed, like a "what if" scenario where Ganon loses instead of winning

And I argue that's exactly what it is. The Zelda team wanted to flesh out the stuff from LttP's manual, but a game where you lose at the end no matter what you do isn't fun, so they had to make it so you can win. The DT doesn't make a lot of sense when you think of it in timeline order, in terms of how it came to be in-universe, but it becomes a lot more clear when you think of it in development order, in terms of why the developers made the decisions they did. Ocarina was a reboot, a "what if we won instead" story in the same vein as Age of Calamity

In other words, the Downfall Timeline split isn't something that mechanically exists in-universe like the Child/Adult split, and it becomes very confusing if you try to think of it in those terms. Instead, it's another story being told by Nintendo where a different version of events happened, like an alternate history. And when you realize that, the entire timeline starts to make perfect sense

Hold On You Left Out Like Half A Dozen Games

Yeah, you caught me

The other most controversial part of the Zelda timeline is the placement of third-party games. This is the source of the only retcon in the official timeline, which was moving Link's Awakening from after the Oracle games to before them. It also results in the "Vaati trilogy", which was clearly meant to be one continuous story, being split up by thousands of years across multiple timelines. Surely, you say, I can agree that that's confusing and arbitrary?

And I would respond, yeah. Trying to fit games and stories from third-party devs into a timeline with the mainline games post-hoc was a bad idea, and the Vaati trilogy, the Oracle games, and Tri Force Heroes fit into the history about as well as the CD-i games and the Nelsonic Game Watch do. They're great games, by and large, but they're spinoffs and should've been treated as such - trying to include them is the only thing that screws with the timeline. Throw them out, and everything makes sense

#zelda #loz #legend of zelda #the legend of zelda #tloz #i finally did it like i promised i would all those months ago #pops talks zelda

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solena2 · 3 years

Text

So.

Tommy isn’t Theseus. Every time I see Techno’s analogy about Tommy being Theseus brought up I’m filled with endless rage and I’ve DECIDED!

That it’s about time I explained just why it’s so objectively incorrect.

First: a bit of backstory on Theseus, because I doubt many of you actually know much about him beyond what Techno said in his “so you want to be a hero” speech, which left out a lot of relevant details.

Theseus was a demigod with two fathers and one mother. His fathers were king Aegeus of Athens and the sea god Poseidon, and his mother was Aethra, Aegeus’ wife. Aethra raised Theseus on her own, far from Athens to avoid him being assassinated.

Aegeus left him nothing but a sword with the Athenian crest and a pair of sandals, buried under a rock so no one else could get them.

When Theseus came of age, he took the sword and sandals and headed up to Athens, slaying various monsters along the way. (It pains me to abbreviate it that much, but Techno left out everything before the Minotaur so it won’t help me much in debunking his analogy.)

Once he got to Athens, he met up with his dad, chased out his stepmom Medea, (yes, that Medea) and killed some people. Then comes the relevant part.

Crete had won a war against Athens a while back, and because of this, every seven years Athens was forced to send 14 tributes to be killed by the Minotaur. (Yes, this inspired the Hunger Games)

Theseus decided he’d volunteer and kill the Minotaur, thus ending the tribute system for good and getting one over on Athens. He promised his dad that if he won, he’d come back in a ship with white sails, as opposed to the standard mourning black that signified the death of the tributes.

So he went to Crete, met king Minos and his daughters Ariadne and Phaedra, and got sent into the labyrinth. Ariadne gave him a magic ball of string that kept him from getting lost, allowing him to find the Minotaur and then safely get out afterwards, providing he could kill it.

He killed it, led his other 13 tributes out, and sailed back home. On the way, Athena told him to leave Ariadne stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, so he immediately did so, because Theseus was an asshole.

He got home, his dad committed suicide because Theseus forgot the white sails and his dad assumed he’d died, Theseus became king and married Phaedra, and then the fun began, because again, Theseus was an asshole.

First, he cheated on Phaedra with Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, so she left and took the kids. Next, he and his other asshole friend Pirithous decided to kidnap themselves some new wives. Theseus decided on Helen of Troy, who was a child at the time, and Pirithous decided on Persephone, which resulted in both him and Theseus getting stuck in the Underworld for a while due to pissing off Hades.

Once he got back up, he killed his son for fucking his wife, which is messed up on many levels, and then left Athens because his people were rightfully not super okay with that.

Then he goes and meets Lycomedes, who throws him off a cliff.

Next, let’s talk about Techno’s speech a bit.

He starts off by accusing Tommy of being a power hungry dictator (paraphrased), before asking him if he wants to be a hero.

Then, he provides what is apparently the archetypal example of heroism, something often associated with selflessness, kindness, and generally giving at least one singular solitary fuck about other people.

Theseus! Heroic hero who does heroic things, like, uhhh *checks notes* cheating on his wife, kidnapping children with plans to forcefully marry them, leaving people alone on tiny islands with no supplies, killing his kid, etc. etc...

So we’re off to a great start.

Then, he gives a short summary of Theseus’ life and times! He skips the first part of his life completely, which is hilarious to me because it’s the only time Theseus ever did anything actually heroic or selfless, and gets straight to the meat!

“Let me tell you a story, Tommy. A story of a man called Theseus. His country was in danger, he sent himself forward! Into enemy lines. He slayed the Minotaur! And saved his city. You know what they did to him, Tommy? They exiled him. He died in disgrace, despised by his people. That’s what happens to heroes, Tommy.”

-Technoblade

So first off, he doesn’t mention... really anything other than the Minotaur and the exile, which is leaving out a lot of relevant details, like why Theseus was exiled. (You know, killing his son in cold blood?)

Second, he doesn’t give details in general. Not that he should’ve given a full telling, or anything, but I’m always surprised by the shortness of this speech when I go back and listen to it. He pretty much just gives the barest bones of an argument and expects his audience to take it at face value. (Which they do, but it’s still bad practice)

From the more accurate (if still brief) summary if Theseus’ life I’ve just given, I’m sure you can see why this might be more than a bit dubious, as an analogy. Given cc!Technoblade is literally an English major, and doubtless knows significantly more about the myth than I do, I’d imagine this was never intended to be taken at face value.

Over and over again, c!Techno proves himself to be an unreliable narrator, and over and over again, the fandom at large takes his word as gospel.

Now, as far as a more in depth argument for Tommy as Theseus goes, I will attempt to debunk that as well, because there are some genuinely good points to be made.

First of all, most people make Dream out to be the Minotaur. Given the time this speech was made, I imagine Schlatt was the intended target of that, but with latter events in mind, Dream does make much more sense.

I’d say this is honestly pretty fair, but I don’t think Tommy takes the role of Theseus in that narrative. I’d argue he’s much more analogous to the role of Ariadne, giving the tools required to defeat Dream but ultimately not doing so through his own power, but because someone chose to take those tools and make use of them. This also provides the very interesting characterization of Punz as Theseus, which is an incredibly unique take that I hope some a Punz enthusiast does something with, because I don’t know enough about his lore to make a good analysis on that.

The idea of Schlatt as the Minotaur, as was probably intended by Techno at the time, makes much more sense, though I still think other characters fit the role better. Firstly, Schlatt wasn’t killed, he died of a heart attack, and if someone had killed him I think it’s more likely to have been Wilbur or Techno who did it than Tommy, as Tommy was still very hopeful and idealistic at the time, at least compared to his character now. You could posit Tommy as Ariadne again in this situation, given he was the one to mastermind the final charge, and though I think Tommy as Ariadne is an idea that’s worth further exploration, I’d say Fundy futs the Ariadne role here much better, with him giving the spy’s diary before being effectively shunned and left out in the cold by both Pogtopia and Manburg, much like Ariadne was abandoned in the original myth.

I’d posit the Theseus in this scenario as Techno, Wilbur, or possibly Philza, as they were the ones to actually kill things in the 16th, though Techno and Wilbur’s killings were more in the metaphorical sense, taking the second life of L’manburg.

As for the exile, Tommy exile was alike to that of Theseus only in concept. Both were sent from their kingdoms for a crime, resulting in a falling out with someone close to them, and had a precarious relationship with heights while they were gone, but that’s about where the similarities end and even then they’re superficial.

First of all, Tommy’s exile was far more because Dream was looking for an excuse to do it than because briefing actually means anything on the SMP, given how Dream had been griefing bases and blaming Tommy for it for a while before it went down. (Fun fact, Bad and Skeppy were going to burn one of his discs over this, but one of them got sick so they had to cancel the stream.)

Theseus’ exile, on the other hand, was entirely deserved, especially when you consider how serious a crime killing family was in Ancient Greek culture. It was pretty much the biggest no-no in existence, and I’m almost surprised he wasn’t just straight up executed for it.

Second, Tommy’s falling out with Tubbo was almost entirely due to outside forces, (Dream) rather than because anything Tommy had done. Though Tommy’s cavalierness towards the trial and attempts to threaten Dream with Spirit doubtless didn’t help things, Dream surrounding L’manburg in obsidian walls and threatening them to exile Tommy was entirely his own choice, and not something that can be pinned on Tommy, no matter what the apologists may say.

Meanwhile, Theseus’ falling out with Phaedra had begun long before his exile with him cheating on her. Him killing his son was merely the last in a long line of dominos to completely destroy their relationship.

Last, Tommy nearly killing himself is very different from Theseus being pushed off a cliff. Tommy’s near suicide was the direct result of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of c!Dream for what was canonically, I believe, several months? (Correct me if I’m wrong on that one.) Tommy almost jumping off a pillar because he was deliberately isolated from his support systems is nothing like Theseus being killed because he was a cocky asshole who thought he was god.

So that’s why I don’t think Tommy is anything like Theseus, and why I’m filled with endless rage by the completely uncritical acceptance of this parallel, but it’s not the whole reason it pisses me off.

It also pisses me off because, as stated earlier, cc!Techno is an English major. He knew what he was doing with this. The fandom’s insistence on refusing to acknowledge his character as an unreliable narrator is, in my opinion, acting as a massive kneecap to what could be a great analysis of how he thinks.

Specifically: why does c!Technoblade think Tommy is like Theseus?

Of all the Greek heroes to pick, why that one? Was it just the tantalizing opportunity to parallel Schlatt with a horned monster, or was it because c!Techno has some genuine in-character reason to think this myth specifically applies to Tommy.

Now, we all know people in the SMP have a habit of analogizing Wilbur and Tommy. The assumption Tommy wanted to be president, the belief that Tommy nominated Tubbo directly, the belief that he was intentionally deceiving Techno about Pogtopia’s intentions regarding Manburg... all of these stem from Wilbur. There are more cases of this, of course, but several analyses have been done in the subject already, and this is long enough without more padding.

So why does Techno think Tommy is Theseus? Well, it’s simple, isn’t it?

Wilbur is Theseus.

To be continued, because this is already too long and my brain hurts.

#original post #dream smp #dream smp analysis #technoblade #tommyinnit #technoblade critical #(i guess. honestly I didn’t say much about techno himself in this but just to be safe)#dsmp #dsmp analysis #dream smp meta #dsmp meta #my writing #can you tell i don’t like Theseus much #hated to leave out his early life stuff because it’s genuinely super interesting but it wasn’t really relevant so I had to cut it :(#if you want a more detailed description of Theseus I’d recommend the rick riordan book on Greek heroes #it’s not the most scholarly work but it gives the bare bones of the myths in an accessible way that doesn’t take an English degree to read #call me a fake nerd if you want but I like the humor and digestibility #there are typos in this post and I Do Not Care

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