#i get killing characters without giving the players a treat for it but in this case they're already so far behind that its like

[inbarfink]

Any analysis of how Undertale deals with Pacifism and how it tries to guide the Player towards it has to take a deep look at Papyrus. Because Papyrus is the one character in the game who will never kill, the one actual ‘True Pacifist’ in the game’s main cast. 

I mean, the Player can be an even bigger Pacifist. Papyrus does still FIGHT, and the Player can get through an entire run without draining a single sliver of HP. But… they can also be the world’s biggest murderbastard and literally stab reality to death. 

Toriel would very much like to not kill, but she is also fully capable of doing so.

Same with Asgore, but he has a lot more actual blood on his hands. Undyne and Mettaton are both fully 100% willing to kill to accomplish their goals. Sans is non-violent in most runs because he’s too lazy and depressed to do anything, and when he is motivated into actions - it is in the form of a FIGHT to the death. Alphys… the timeline is a bit fuzzy cause both she and Mettaton love lying so much, but it seems like she did sincerely add deadly weapons to Mettaton cause killing humans would make him more 'useful' and then had second thoughts once she developed a parasocial relationship with the Human Child and THEN she and Mettaton started hatching their little play-acting plan. I think??

With Papyrus there is NONE of this ambiguity, we know for sure - no matter what timeline or what may come - The Great Papyrus will always choose MERCY.

And the interesting thing about that is on a Meta-Sense, Papyrus is a very rare example of the game giving MERCY towards the Player. 

Because the game starts out being really obtuse with the Sparing mechanic and how it works. If you want to be a Pacifist in Undertale from the get-go, you’re gonna have to work for it. You're gonna have to figure it out on your own and commit to it and believe that it's possible. It's basically a test of your own belief in non-violence and your moral integrity. Then, the RUINS end with the Toriel boss battle - in a way, that’s probably the hardest Sparing puzzle in the whole game. And it’s very very easy to accidentally kill her. (I’d almost say that’s the intention of the battle, to try to goad the Player into Resetting so they can see how the game remembers across RESETs)

And then we have Papyrus, and it’s not just that his ‘Sparing Puzzle’ is something as simple as outlasting him and letting him run out of dialogue - and it’s not just that he’s the only boss that will just give up and let you continue if you lose to him enough times. it’s also that, just as Papyrus is the only boss incapable of accidentally killing the Player - he’s also the only boss that the player is incapable of accidentally killing.

(Okay, fine, to be pedantic, there’s also Asgore)

I mean, the Player can certainly kill him if they want to - but draining Papyrus’s HP just makes him skip through his battle dialogue right to the end of it. It’s designed in such a way that, no matter what Route you're on and no matter what approach you take with Papyrus - you will always end up on this screen.

Unlike basically any other Monster in this game, including the major boss battle just before him - you can’t kill Papyrus accidently. You can't kill him without also having Sparing him as an option. The game kinda treats killing Papyrus as one of the Worst Things You Can Do because killing Papyrus will always be a deliberate, considered action done to a person who will not kill you and who has stopped wanting to FIGHT and has extended a hand of Mercy. With the game clearly communicating what you need to do to Spare him at that moment.

And that means that - even if you killed before, even if you don’t have the patience of a True Pacifist, even if you spent all this time in the game without even trying to engage with the Sparing mechanic… as long as you don’t want to be a Huge Rat Bastard, the game is basically gifting you with the very very easy option to not be. Being a Pacifist in Undertale is usually a challenge - a puzzle to be solved, a test to pass. But as long as you aren’t intentionally trying to be the Worst Person - the game is basically giving you Papyrus. 

If you accept his Mercy, you are accepting the game’s Mercy. That sort of benefit-of-the-doubt assumption that maybe all of the LOVE you might have accumulated so far was all due to honest mistakes or panic or an attempt in self-defense. That you still deserve this one chance to prove that you are not intentionally, maliciously cruel - or at least not like the Worst Person in the World. Even if you did kill before, you still deserve at least one friend.

And Sparing Papyrus leads you to his wonderful Hangout/Dating Sequence and to his Phone Calls and they all add so much wholesome charm to the Undertale experience and no matter what happens Papyrus will always think the best of the Player and he will always trust them and it also makes Sans also kinda your buddy by default. And more than just adding a little bit of wholesome charm into even the more LOVE-filled Playthroughs, I think this is meant to try and incentivize these players into trying out the Mercy mechanic a bit more.

Whatever it’s, like, for future playthroughs or Resetting the game right there to try a True Pacifist Run right there and then or just trying to be a little kinder for the rest of this current playthrough - especially since there’s an emphasis about the close friendship Papyrus has with the upcoming boss Undyne, and to a lesser extent with his idol and next-next boss battle Mettaton. It’s like “well, if you didn’t figure out how to spare before, this is how you do it? And isn’t it nice to have a friend? Isn’t it nice to not have to kill this lovable skeleton man? You should do this more often wink wink nudge nudge!”

And it’s like… all of Papyrus’ loved ones care about him so much but they also look down on his pacifism. They see his inability to kill and desire to make friends as simple naivete and that’s why all tend to hide the truth from him all the time. About what will happen to the Human he will capture, about what his new Human friend might’ve done, about the fact that they view him as so naïve. 

They admire it on some level, that’s why they want to protect it, but they also see it as a weakness which is why they want to protect it by lying to him all the time. But, you know, Undyne says that if Papyrus goes into battle he’ll be ‘ripped into little smiling shreds’ and that is certainly what happens every time a Player chooses to refuse Papyrus’ Mercy and the game’s Mercy and press that FIGHT button…

But have you thought about all the times that doesn’t happen? All the careless or violent players who were offered that skeletal hand of friendship, accepted it and then carried that offered kindness forward for the rest of the game? All the players motivated to do good for the sake of their buddy Papyrus? All the Murder Routes stopped because the player just didn’t have it in them to kill someone who believes in them so earnestly?

Like, no, it’s not a surefire thing - especially since Papyrus has so much less narrative power than the Actual Unkillable Time God that is the Player. But it happened, and it happened many many times to many players. Papyrus offered Mercy, the game offered Mercy. And much like Frisk’s Pacifism, it comes from a place of seeing the honest goodness in your ‘enemy’ and can inspire them to become a better person - this little sparkle of goodness being passed forwards. 

And I think that’s beautiful, even if it didn’t happen in every timeline. Any potential future where Papyrus’ kindness can have such an effect on the Player and thus the entire trajectory of the Underground validates his kindness and pacifism on some level - even if there are also always the potential worlds that it backfires completely. 

And there’s also one other way in which the Great Papyrus Proves Pacifism Pays. One that is a bit more practical, perhaps. And one that Papyrus himself is not even aware of. 

Papyrus’ boss battle can be a surprisingly challenging one specifically because he is the only one who doesn’t kill the Player.

Like there is a reason why Papyrus will just offer you to skip his Fight after you lose to him three times, because if he didn’t do that - there’s an honest risk that the Player can get stuck in a much stuckier way than anywhere else in the game. 

Because, like, for basically any other character in the game, being killed is the Worst Thing that could ever happen to them. For everyone except the actual Player Character because we are an Actual Unkillable Time God and dying is nothing more than a minor annoyance that sets you back to your last SAVE Point. So, leaving aside Papyrus’ admirably kind intentions - there is not much material difference from the Player’s perspective between getting Captured and getting a more traditional GAME OVER. Except…

Except getting Captured does not undo everything that happened in your inventory during the battle. In every other Undertale battle, if you use all of your items but still lose - the GAME OVER at least means you get your stuff back. But because Papyrus doesn’t kill you, any healing item you’ve used during the battle is still used. I have watched so many Undertale Let’s Players waste all of their valuable items on their first Papyrus battle and then have to face him again without them and thus do even worse in their second go… and then their third go... and thankfully then Papyrus offers them to skip the fight.

And while that technically can be circumvented by just manually closing the game and opening it back again on their pre-battle SAVE Point, a lot of players are gonna reflexively Save over it if they pop over to the Shop or the Snowed Inn before their second attempt at the battle. If Papyrus didn’t offer that chance to skip his battle, it could’ve easily become a softlock situation for a huge chunk of players - because he doesn’t kill the Player.

Most of Undertale deals with the value of non-violence from a standpoint of morality and kindness and personal connections. Since most people do die when they get killed. But when dealing with an Unkillable Time God like the Player, Papyrus proves that not-killing might actually be the most practical solution.

Of course, it doesn’t seem like Papyrus is aware of any of this. From his perspective, he is just offering genuine mercy to a being just as ephemeral as he is. But it accidentally turned into one of the most effective methods of blocking the Player’s way… at least he didn’t offer us an opt out so soon after that. 

And it’s interesting when comparing him to how his brother Sans - one of the few people actually aware of the existence of SAVEs and RESETs - deals with the Player. Because the Sans boss battle at the end of the Murder Route is entirely based on the concept that death is nothing but an annoyance to the Player. Sans is less trying to kill the Player (the way Undyne the Undying did), he is simply trying to annoy the Player into a ragequit. But he is still killing the Player.

Now imagine a Sans battle where he has all of his usual annoying tricks, but also instead of killing you - he captures you just like his brother would’ve in a happier timeline. And while it’s not a fool-proof plan to stop the Player in their tracks - he could very easily stick them in that sort of softlock situation where they have to battle him again and again without any Healing Items. Forcing them to either abandon the game or RESET the whole world back the way it was - just like Sans wants them too. 

But instead, by killing the Player, he is just allowing that perfect second-third-fourth-fifth-sixth-try where they get all of their Stuff back. And he does actually knows that. And why doesn’t he do that? (Speaking here from an in-universe character study perspective. Obviously the Doylist answer is that the game doesn’t want to Softlock you even in the most deliberately-frustrating part of the game).

Maybe, even though he intellectually knows that killing the Player will be of no help - he still does it because he wants to. Because he just wants to get back at the evil murderous monster that took his brother from him and destroyed his entire world even if he knows it’s actually ineffective. And this thirst for bloodshed is, ironically, blinding him from a new exciting way to actually practically stop that murderous bastard who is themself motivated entirely by bloodshed. 

Maybe he just can’t do something like that. Reducing an enemy to exactly one HP and then stopping is not a feat anyone else in the game is capable of pulling off - even the ones who would obviously use such a thing (like Toriel or a Player with a Pacifist intentions). Maybe it’s something that requires a lot of hard practice and discipline and carefulness, that Sans never thought to put in because he didn’t see it as a useful skill the way Papyrus did. 

Maybe that wouldn’t have worked anyways. After all, and that’s something I kinda touched on in a previous Overly Long Rambly Hot Take - Sans’ War of Attrition against the Player is greatly helped by the fact he can’t remember every single previous try and so he can’t get exhausted the way the Player can get. Obviously, without a GAME OVER induced RESET that will not apply. Which is especially notable because… Sans’ laziness is literally what brings him down at the end of that Boss Battle. 

So maybe, while Papyrus, as long as you decline his offer to skip the battle, is capable of offering just the same Battle as before over and over and over again.... It’s possible that Sans just won’t be able to pull off two or three or more battles of the same intensity and difficulty in a row without a RESET to undo his own exhaustion. 

But I think it’s at least worth considering the option, y’know? That after all this time of viewing Papyrus’ kindness as sweet-and-yet-kinda-foolish-naïveté - that exact viewpoint made Sans overlook the perfect solution to dealing with his little Murderous Time God problem. Cause he just never considered that while killing might be fully morally justifiable in this situation and very very satisfying, that does not necessarily mean it is actually the most practical solution. And that maybe, in a weirdly twisted way, Pacifism WAS the answer.  

#undertale #ut #utdr #under tale #papyrus #the great papyrus #papyrus undertale #papyrus ut #sans #sans undertale #sans ut #sans the skeleton #papyrus the skeleton #undertale analysis #undertale meta #genocide route #genocide run

[sas-afras]

i kinda don’t get people who characterize maccready as like… secretly generous, or having a heart of gold or anything. like don’t get me wrong i don’t think he’s downright malicious or anything, but the dude is absolutely a selfish jerk once you get past the charming facade. that’s the part that’s compelling!

like, he’s nice enough and open enough with the player once you get high enough affinity with him, but his reactions to player actions still point to him being a jerk overall. the sosu just happens to be in His Circle of people he can be vulnerable with. that includes you, his son, and maybe daisy. everyone else can kick rocks, the same way it was in little lamplight

he HAD to grow up with that kind of “us vs the world, every man for himself” mentality in the capitol wasteland. doing so otherwise gets you killed or taken advantage of, which is just protracted death anyways. having grown up in a place where slavers run rampant, people are all pushing each other further down just to boost themselves up and live one more day, and it’s literally impossible to make renewable food sources because the ground is so poisoned i genuinely don’t blame him for ending up a little tight fisted. the fact that he was the mayor of little lamplight just meant that he ended up being able to accept a few people as His To Protect instead of being a total lone wolf.

the way he reacts to the players open generosity isn’t just for show, he Actually Dislikes when you give stuff away without expecting anything in return. you might need that thing and now its just gone!! that person might see you as a sucker! you give an inch and they’ll take a mile! and it makes sense for his character to be like that considering everything. i don’t get why people want to change that into him just being kind of tsundere.

i understand that having your babygirl blorbo comfort character be a canonical asshole in ways that aren’t just kinda charming can be offputting, but like…. the way he treats the sosu is a very notable exception to the rest of his life & it’s a much more interesting dynamic imo. especially if you’re playing a goody two shoes martyr. but that’s just me

#robert joseph maccready #i also have come to the realization that him disliking when you give austin the cure in v88 is in character #he doesn’t know shit about how medicine works #he just sees some magical cure being used on a random sheltered vault kid who got himself into this mess anyways #meanwhile *his son* is suffering #i also think his disdain towards being generous is because of the ‘if i can’t have it no one can’ mentality #similar to how astarion acts in bg3 #maccready didn’t have any help as a kid. he went through it all by himself. he had to suffer alone #seeing someone get treated with kindness after spending his whole life getting beat down #to the point where he just convinced himself that good people were made up entirely #it’s like a slap to the face #‘you mean this existed the whole time? people like YOU have been out here the whole time? and i was just unlucky?’ etc #idk i took two benadryls and now im cooking #not art

[chaethewriter]

Jack Champion x gamer gf! reader

J. Champion with a gamer gf headcanons

a gym rat and gamer girl in love.

A/N: incredibly short and silly, because this was just on my mind.

◇ even before he had asked you if he could be your boyfriend, he knew about your gaming addiction— obsession.

◇ no matter where he saw you, your eyes were always set on a screen.

◇ whether that be on your PlayStation, computer or even the Nintendo Switch.

◇ he knew you liked gaming, but when you started dating, he truly got to meet gamer you.

◇ you stayed at his house often, it was almost your second home.

◇ the main reason being: the two of you were glued together.

◇ it doesn't matter what either of you were doing, as long as you did it together.

◇ moments when you sat somewhere with your phone being opened on Genshin, waiting at the gym while he was training.

◇ this also meant your stuff being in his bedroom.

◇ your Nintendo Switch for example.

◇ whenever the two of you were free from any work and college, you would be lying down on the bed, resting your head into his lap.

◇ you would be playing any form of tactical strategic game as he ran his fingers through your hair.

◇ he would watch the way your nose scrunched up as you glared at the screen to figure out how to ambush the enemy without getting your team killed.

◇ the movie he had put on the television long forgotten as he watched you in admiration.

◇ he would give commentary as he watched you, asking you things that he saw as he was genuinely interested in the stuff you like.

◇ "babe? What does that icon mean?"

◇ "do you get to dress up your main character?"

◇ "is there a reason why you put the arrow users behind the sword users?"

◇ he knows he might sound dumb, but he was genuinely wondering.

◇ you looked like you knew what you were doing, as if you put all of your energy into it.

◇ it was cute.

"Are you sure I can try? I mean I don't want to ruin your rounds-"

"Jack, babe, it's fine! I will help you." You were playing 'fire emblem three houses' on Jack's lap, but you couldn't help but feel a gaze burning into your skin. You had looked to the side, watching how he watched you with interest. You knew that look, he was curious, eager to try.

So you told him he could.

You were still in his lap, the Switch in his hands as yours were on top of his to guide him.

"What I always do is keep the bow user behind with the healer, before that I usually put mages, then axes and polearms and swords. I usually put cavalry on their own as they're pretty strong. Sometimes I leave them with healers, as they also have another weapon to use so that the cavalry isn't all alone."

He had no idea what you were saying and it was noticeable in the way he was playing.

Attacking a cavalry with a bow user, but he was getting there.

You couldn't tell him off, though. The way he was fully concentrating in the game with his chin resting against the top of your head.

◇ when the two of you were at your home, he would sit you on his lap as he watched you game.

◇ one of his arms wrapped around your waist to keep you in place, his other hand occupied by his phone.

◇ his phone was long forgotten though, as he watched you carry in your valorant match.

◇ you play without a headset when Jack is around so that he doesn't feel closed off or ignored.

◇ this is how he hears the toxicity of Valorant though.

◇ genuinely gets angry when you get insulted.

"Bro, why you assuming aimbot? Not my fault I can actually aim." You groaned into the mic as your fingers aggressively tapped on the WASD keys. You got into yet another toxic match and it was pissing you off.

"Make me a fucking sandwich, fucking bitch."

Now that made Jack furious. The grip on your waist got tighter as he cussed the other player out into the mic. He wouldn't let anyone get off the hook so easily, not when they degraded his girl.

"Who do you think you are, fucker? Treating women like trash? You're so fucking pathetic." His voice was hoarse as he spoke, venom laced into his words.

◇ worries when you play any game that involves communication via the mic after hearing what words are exchanged.

◇ call of duty, apex, valorant.

◇ any shooter games.

◇ he just worries that the words will get to you, but seeing how much you enjoy the game, as well as the way you knew how to reply to such comments he just knew you would be okay.

◇ that wouldn't stop him from being the overprotective boyfriend, though.

◇ eventually, Jack actually wanted to spend his time gaming with you as well.

◇ you were over the moon when he had told you that.

◇ your gym addicted boyfriend? Wanting to learn about the game world?

◇ you knew you had to start easy.

◇ something cute, interactive but romantic.

◇ minecraft.

◇ he knew about minecraft. He had played it a couple times with friends, but that was years ago.

◇ he had bought the game on his phone and you helped him with his own avatar!

◇ fun fact: the name of your shared world is actually your shipname.

◇ he hits all the flowers he can find for you.

◇ his entire inventory is filled with different kinds of flowers.

◇ follows you around like a lost puppy when the two of you go hunting.

◇ wants to be your knight in shining armor, but only has flowers to smack the zombies with.

◇ screamed when a creeper blew up not so far away from him.

◇ gets distracted by the most stupid things he can find.

"do we need this web?"

"rotten flesh? Should I take it?"

"this polar bear reminds me of you babe!"

"babe help! I lose you."

"can you come get me? I think I'm lost."

◇ he loves to spend his time building you guys' house and he acts like that's actually what your house will look like.

◇ "hmm, I actually want the dinner table to be here, since you like sitting down and facing that way, right"

◇ you told him it's just a game, but he wants it to be as accurate as possible.

◇ he squealed when you tamed a cat and called it Butters.

◇ he spends time fixing cute dates in minecraft while you're busy with college: picnics, mini zoos— since he knows you're more of an indoor person.

◇ you thank him with a lot of irl kisses.

◇ all over all, he's trying for you and he enjoys spending time with you, no matter what. <3

◇ BONUS

◇ he is so jealous whenever he catches you playing gacha games.

◇ why? He always catches you drooling at some hot animated characters.

◇ sits far away frowning, arms crossed as he watches you giggling at your phone.

"Babe! I'm the real deal! He doesn't exist!"

◇ he just wants attention, pls tell him you love him. <3

#chaethewriter #jack champion is taking my brain over #jack champion x reader #jack champion #jack champion imagine #jack champion headcannons #jack champion imagines #jack champion headcanons #ethan landry #ethan landry x reader

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Alex Eagleston is insufferable:

literally causes the end of the world by being The Absolute Worst and has done so multiple times including his alternate selves. he technically has three (and a half) love interests (cause theyre the only characters he can/attempt to kiss or express any attraction to) and he treats them all poorly first three vella sammy and essentia 2000 are cause hes a misogynist but they all get different flavors of it sammy gets fridged for the plot of the game and is basically never relevant again outside of a secret(?) ending. shes also based off of a real life dead person for no fucking reason. vella is subjected to weird speculation about her age in her introduction scene with alex saying something along the lines of she cant be older than him cause shes too pretty (alex is like 24 and vella 27 from what i recall its been a few years since ive thought about yiik) and has a weird internal monologue about his feminist ex girlfriend prompted by vella just existing. theres a weird scene when alex asks her if shes korean n says she looks vaguely ethnic making her uncomfortable. One Of His Alternate Selves Literally Caused Her To Leave Her Home Dimension Cause Of How Poorly He Treated Her and the context behind that is that to leave the world/timeline/dimension/whatever you're originally from you basically have to be super suicidal and he pushed her to that point by ghosting her for a while and next time vella saw him he was hooking up with a girl noticably younger than her (<- remember this) and immediately after being told this he can attempt to kiss her which has no actual repercussions. essentia 2000 is like technically supposed to be evil i guess but her goal is supposed to be killing alex so i cant fault her on that. the in game day after they first meet alex has like a monologue about how special and attractive she is ""she was like water filling all my cracks"" or some shit. all three girls are alternates of eachother and are on a sliding scale of how objectified they are by alex with who got it the worst depending on which aspect you're focusing on. other sort of love interest is rory (diversity loss!) who alex can attempt to kiss after he confides in him about something when rory is like 18-19 (hes meant to be about the same age as michael whos recently graduated high school) and depending on how alex treats him can literally kill himself and alex's reaction to learning this is to only focus on how terrible he feels before moving on n rory's death never being mentioned again. the whole point of the game is that alex is a piece of shit who cant even buy groceries for his mom without throwing a hissy fit about it but it undermines itself constantly by having characters forgive or just stop being mad at alex on a dime after hes been exceedingly shitty towards them in various ways and any sort of charm or endearing traits he had quickly wearing off due to him never shutting the fuck up. near the end of the game all the other party members are killed off in quick succession leaving alex by himself and all he can do is sulk in self pity before going on a space adventure or whatever to stop an alternate him thats linked to an alternate essentia and enlisting the player as a different alternate him to help fight various superficial flaws of himself (which arent even like the actual things that make him insufferable n a bad person) n then finish the job for him. i need to punt him into the sun

He constantly goes on annoying monologues about things that nobody cares about. In game he is meant to be kind of an asshole, but they never give him the necessary character development to make him feel like a proper flawed protagonist, yet the narrative makes him out to be a character who is ""deep down a good guy"". Also he doesn't seem to care about any of his friends/party members.

"""YIIK"" is a poorly written, irony-poisoned RPG using a real life actual unsolved murder as the basis for an inciting event, altered so that what happened to the victim was some ~scary supernatural stuff~ and also Alex was there being vaguely misogynistic the whole time and monologuing to no-one in a way no real human person thinks uncritically.

The game intends to paint Alex as a bad person, but this is implemented in such a snide and uninteresting manner which has nothing to actually say about him being this way, nor is it at all fun or entertaining to experience.

He has no idea what's going on, blindly following the plot with the vague motivation of being suddenly stricken with affection for a girl he basically called a freak as soon as he met her five minutes ago. He is self-absorbed, lazy and overconfident, constantly bemoaning and ignoring the needs and feelings of others. He is the only character given enough breathing space to have something to him, and yet manages to not even feel any sort of dimensional.

Also his shirt is an ad for the dev's last game.

An incel who always screams about everything and yet is overly pretentious about everything.

Propaganda why Scott Pilgrim is insufferable:

He is not a good person. He doesn’t take other people’s feelings into consideration. He mooches off his one real friend. He’s dating a teenager as a grown ass man. Every girlfriend he’s ever had hates him for good reasons

Stupid idiot

dated a 17 yr old

kind of a cop-out answer since he's like deliberately made to be an annoying person but

#alex eagleston #yiik #yiik: a postmodern rpg #scott pilgrim #scott pilgram takes off #scott pilgram vs the world #insufferable protagonist poll #insufferable protagonist tournament #tournament poll

[ganondoodle]

just to note this, as much as i love botw, i am not uncritical of it, like while i personally like the weapon breaking and rain mechanics everyone else seemed to hate i do agree that the bosses and dungeons were kinda repetetive and there could have been more bigger sidequests, some more diverse epic music tracks also wouldnt have hurt tho i fully disagree with anyone trying to claim it didnt HAVE music, im convinced those people played it with sound off bc wth (edit. plus the unfortunately still orientalist design of the gerudo plus that belly dancer outfit for link ... that thankfully got removed in totk as far as i know but the rest still stands)

personal criticism id have that i would have prefered zelda never gaining her sacred powers but instead finding a different way to fight back, bc her gaining them like that kinda made rhoams abuse .. right, like turns out to activate her powers you need to literall kill everyone she cares about (at least thats why i feel a bit meh about that), her maybe not being as sidelined like that (tho youd have to change alot for that .. which totk had the perfect chance to and then kinda did it again but worse lol) and the yiga clan being less of one little side mission

(also way too many people kept hating on botw for the same few reasons, often without giving it a chance, i think we all heard all the endless complaints about usually little things so i dont need to retread all of that)

alot of those little criticism things got adressed in totk, which i LIKED, but overall its so much less in harmony, this should have been a game about rebuilding and recovering about working together and then zelda gets immediately booted off and we get introduced to characters we never learn enough of to really care and yet they still take away the mystery botw had left us for the world to feel more alive, they ripped out parts that were so internally organically connected to the world and pretended they never mattered nor existed, characters act off and i cant help but feel like the main 'plot' is, as much as i hate to use that comparison, a badly written fanfiction ... it builds on nothing and just leaves you .. or me at least feeling empty, like i am playing through a mockery of the game i loved ... like all the fun i had thinking about the things in botw, the theories you could come up with was all wasted time

i honestly cant describe it better than totk, despite the little QoL changes, and the changes i DID like, it just feels ... empty? not in a literal way but more ... mentally? it feels so shallow? like at multiple points i felt like the game was actively mocking me, when i reached the shrine of life and was faced with barren walls and a puddle of water i felt betrayed for caring so much about what botw had done .. i felt like i could hear the game laughing while i stood there not knowing what to think of it, and while this was the time when i felt the most actually physically compeltely betrayed, that feeling of being mocked kept happening, i kept feeling like i was treated like a dumb player character that just eats up anything they say without thinking or remembering the title this was supposedly a sequel of, like i should play with the little toys of glueing things together and forget the world around me like a 5 year old

that may sound harsh but that is how i, personally, feel about it

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #totk #like im pretty sure i remember being at the verge of tears when i discovered the shrine of life bign basically gone like that #i know im in the minority here but god i cant get over how much all the plot and story stuff in totk feels like an afterthought #like a way it all only serves to give a half assed reason to neat game gimmicks #while also giving it a ham fisted excuse that doesnt use shiekah tech again for some reason #most of the things you can do in totk could have been done with sheikah stuff too #and it probably would have felt more logically connected #like yeah you bet zelda is gonna do research on shiekah tech and bring all that back up #but oooh no we gotta use new other shiny thing i guess #DONT CALL IT A SEQUEL THEN #if you dont wanna reuse shiekah tech then FINE make a game with most of it gone but dont call it a sequel #i have HAD it #anyway #working on more concepts for the rewritten project

[valerieismss]

Okay I did another manga panel recolor to illustrate my point about Danny’s freakassness and how it could’ve been written more effectively.

My main issue with Danny’s character has little to do with his design and nothing to do with his personality and motivations. It’s just his behavior that drives me up a wall. You really don’t have to change anything about Danny himself to communicate his main internal conflicts: his desperate need for unconditional love.

It’s frustrating because I know that others (including myself, when my friend introduced me to this) will misinterpret Danny to be a pedo when he’s explicitly not one, it’s just that his behavior communicates something that’s different to his actual character. You see this in the manga and the anime, especially—a lot of his expressions are weirdly horny even though he never actually communicates or suggests he really feels that way about Rachel. Notably, his need for her is familial. He sees himself in her, and his mother’s eyes in her. In another post, @wlwfav said in a reply to a post by @mothwithapencil that he wasn’t projecting his feelings about his mother on Rachel so much as he was projecting his desires for unconditional love onto Rachel to mother her, like a reverse projection (trying not to plagiarize here!). I fully agree. This is especially apparent when you see a flashback of Danny counseling Rachel in the game. He directly relates his shit onto her. The amount of countertransference (which is when therapists project their own feelings onto their clients) this man has is immeasurable. It’s part of why I’m so attached to him. (For reference, my favorite character of all time is also a therapist with an assload of countertransference.)

Anyways, I think you can make Danny just as unsettling if not more if you get him to stop acting as horny as he does. It causes some really uncomfortable mischaracterizations. There’s really no need for it. That’s why I edited the second panel a little bit. You can change a character’s behavior and keep their motives and desires the same. I wouldn’t change an extreme amount about his behaviors. I think his lack of physical boundaries actually works really well for his character. It makes sense given his isolated and rejected upbringing. I draw the line when he pins Rachel down in the anime. What was the reason. He just wants her eyes. Explicitly. Just her eyes.

Also, the tongue? Can anyone explain why it’s necessary??? It’s GROSS AND WEIRD! It also gives his character a weirdly sexual undertone that isn’t necessary to making him a terrifying guy. Like you can still get freaky with it without that damn thing. The excessive use of peepers…I mentioned this in my last post. It’s a good way to disarm clients/players from his obsession with eyes. If he treats his fascination as a joke (“I just really like your peepers haha!”) it makes him less suspicious. Contextually, it also makes sense. Danny canonically becomes a psychiatrist because he knows he’ll encounter people with lifeless eyes. Unsurprisingly, in the art of the game, they tend to be younger patients. To me, when we first meet him, he came off as a pediatrician. I mean, he calls himself Dr. Danny instead of Dr. Dickens, like a pediatrician would. His tongue shit and his peeper shit could sound like some silly thing he’d say to get clients to feel more at ease around him before he legit kills them and takes their eyes.

All of that is really unsettling to me. You could characterize his freakassness in ways that aren’t sexual but just as chilling. If Rachel’s needs for a perfect family and things that are “hers” can be conveyed in a horrific way without sexualizing her, the same could be done for Dr. Fuckface. He’s so similar to her, after all. He wants a family—Rachel, specifically—that mirrors what he wishes he would’ve had in his childhood, because he believes that comes with unconditional love. Even when Zack stabs him in the anime, his line is, “I’ve been so terribly lonely!” Because that’s his actual issue. He thinks Rachel, having had a similar childhood, is the only one who could understand, and he believes he’s fundamentally unloveable because of his trauma. He literally thinks his eyes killed his mom. He’s so fascinating!! I’m so obsessed with him. I can’t wait to start episode 0 of the manga.

So, yeah. In the second recolor I tried to convey his creepiness by giving him a more wistful expression that still strikes you as fucking weird. Instead of seeming excited sexually, he seems excited at the idea of a forced family. It’s more accurate to who he actually is. He literally does not want her like that in canon. I wish his behaviors reflected that more.

#valerieisms #daniel dickens #danny dickens #i love you dr. dick in me…

[magicjesuscup]

Random BG3 Opinion

Halsin tells the player that he was held captive by a noble drow house for three years, and escaped when another drow house attacked. We're never told the names of either house. We're also not told what became of his "hosts" because Halsin himself didn't know. I would have liked either of the following:

(Option 1)

Of the drow houses that I know of, I think it would've been interesting if Halsin was taken captive by house Oblodra, which was take out by house Baenre. Araj says that she wasn't around when her house was attacked, but I'm sure she would've been there in the three years Halsin was there. The Wikipedia page says house Oblodra fell over a century ago. If we assume that's about 150 years before the start of the game, that would put Halsin at 200 and Minthara at 100. Elves are considered adults at 100, so attacking house Oblodra could've been a coming of age/proving herself kind of moment for Minthara. In a playthrough with Minthara and Halsin, Minthara is a bit disappointed that she didn't kill everyone at house Oblodra, but uses this to her advantage to gain Halsin's trust. She did kinda save him (albeit by pure accident and yes, we're glossing over the fact she would've 100% killed him if she knew he was there). This gets him to agree to let her stay at camp. He doesn't trust her yet, but is willing to give her the opportunity to earn his trust. She earns it when the player bumps into Araj in Act III if she and Halsin are in the party. Araj treats Halsin worse that Astarion, triggering a fear response in him. Minthara immediately goes on the offensive. Minthara will want to attack Araj without Halsin in the party as a way to finish her eradication of house Oblodra. The player will take Minthara's place as protector if Halsin is in the party and Minthara is not.

(Option 2)

The drow house that imprisoned Halsin and the one that inadvertently freed him are original houses to BG3. Minthara finds Halsin's "hosts" were the victors in the attack. As a way to earn his trust and officially join the party, she goes to the Underdark to wipe them out for good. This becomes a quest for Minthara (similar to Halsin's reverse the curse quest).

I'm honestly not sure which option I like more. Option one would create special cutscenes or dialog options and creates more interesting dynamics among the characters. (Not to mention it would be easier to throw into a patch.) Option two, on the other hand, would open more of the Underdark to explore. Even though drow live in the Underdark, you only come across one in the game while you're down there, and it's only because he's in the Absolute cult.

#I'm thinking of making some of this fanfiction if I can ever motivate myself to write. #bg3 #Halsin #Minthara #NOT FATE RELATED

[sketching-shark]

I saw your post about how you say that western interpretations of swk are just taking his goofy side and not much his violent side, but didn't you say before that western interpretations were just taking his violent side without understanding his character fully? and that he was more than just an evil/violent monkey? you said it with lmk for example, when they show in the past that wukong just wanted the powers for ambition and became ''evil'' and you said it wasn't right they interpret him like just a violent monkey

Im confused here

Complaining below, so if you (understandably lol) don't want to read all of that feel free to ignore.

My apologies for the confusion anon! And I will admit that I don't remember exactly what I wrote in this regard, though I do remember spending more time than I should have whining about both the goofiness and solely destructive aspects of SWK's character being given prominence in a lot of western interpretations lol. Maybe it was a combination of the two & me complaining of the prevalence of the "destructive meathead" interpretation of SWK? That IS a pretty common personality given to this monkey in western interpretations (see Netflix's The New Legends of Monkey & The Monkey King for example), and is a combination of goofiness & violence that shunts the "intelligent" part of "intelligent stone monkey" into the background.

THAT SAID, I am aware that I'm EXTREMELY picky in terms of Sun Wukong representations, and that it would be completely false to pretend there aren't a ton of Chinese presentations of the Monkey King that don't lean heavily towards a goofy and/or destructive characterization. Hell, I have heard and seen some pretty nasty examples of the Monkey King interpreted through the grimdark genre that ended with me hoping I manage to forget about them posthaste. And when it comes to children's media it makes sense that there would be a focus on the silly side of SWK's character. As I've said many a time before, it's not like you'd want to expose kids to a monkey running around smashing people's heads into meat patties.

I guess a lot of my personal frustrations come from the way there's a bit of a monoculturalization in the ways that western interpretations tend to lean heavily on the silly and violent sides of SWK's character while doing away with a lot of his intelligence, attempts to resolve matters through less violent means, and cutting out a lot of the actually pretty understandable reasons and contexts for why SWK does what he does in the classic. To give an example, one of the things that I find really interesting about SWK in JTTW is how he is undoubtedly a very violent monkey, BUT he's a very violent monkey in a world where many of the major power players, from the yaoguai kings to the Jade Emperor himself, are just as (if not more) violent as him. So you do for example have yaoguai like the Brotherhood of Lion Camel Ridge and the Demon Bull King being vicious man-eaters, with the Brotherhood in particular being described as living in a charnel house of human gore; the Tang Emperor, who Tang Sanzang is sworn brothers with, is literally described as a man who killed countless people to get his power, and we do actually see a lot of their ghosts his tour of Diyu; and the Jade Emperor, besides meeting out such vicious punishments as having Bai Longma hung in the sky and whipped 300 times before he was to be executed for accidentally burning some pearls, basically ordered the genocide of the Mt. Huaguoshan monkeys because Sun Wukong wouldn't surrender after stealing a bunch of immortality-granting treats that were grown/made, i.e. stuff that could all be replaced. So while SWK is definitely a vicious and frequently remorseless and ruthless monkey, this is taking place in a world where so is every other leader to a greater or lesser extent; Sun Wukong's just the most brutally honest about it. And the Monkey King seems fully aware of this and respond accordingly; his very first kill, in fact, was that of the Demon King of Confusion, who had kidnapped a lot of the children of the Mt. Huaguoshan troop. As is, you don't see SWK starting a lot of fights (he even often gives his opponents the chance to strike the first blow), but he sure is willing to escalate to get his way! Not to mention how it's ever-more painfully obvious that Tang Sanzang, who is always preaching nonviolence and compassion, would have been killed and eaten from the very start of his journey if he didn't have an ultraviolent monkey and multiple deities guarding his every step. And that dynamic does as such raise such disturbing and disturbingly relevant questions as: what chance does empathy and nonviolence have of surviving under these circumstances? What would it truly take to create a world were nonviolence and compassion are the rule of law? Can any ruler truly justify their violence based on higher purposes, or are we always dealing with a situation where might makes right? How do we persuade others, even those who can and have wield horrific violence, of the necessity of nonviolence? And does violence ultimately have a place in a world where acts of destruction take generations to heal, if they do heal at all?

IN CONCLUSION, I personally think that there's a lot of really interesting and important questions that the Monkey King and his story in Xiyouji raise, and while I am more understanding now as to why a lot of retellings don't even try to tackle half of them, I do find if frustrating that there seems like a real reluctance to even make the attempt. So you do end up with a lot of simplified versions of SWK, with a good chunk of them falling into the silly monkey, violent monkey, or silly violent monkey sides.

Like as far as lmk goes I'm kind of sad and pretty frustrated that even though they keep hinting at deeper or more understandable reasons for why their SWK is such a mess, Flying Bark now has a history of showing everyone and their mother yelling at SWK for being stupid and destructive and then going out of their way to show this monkey being stupid and destructive, and then basically waiting until the last possible second before suddenly pulling an increasingly unconvincing "maybe he doesn't suck THAT much" conclusion. Like...it's now been revealed that this dude, besides never even having a monkey yaoguai family he loved and was protecting, literally though it was a good idea to instigate a war against heaven with a grand total of 4 other guys even though that was clearly doomed to failure (vs. book SWK who was stuck waging a clearly defensive war against heaven with the entirely of his hundreds of allies and their troops), & even though it was definitely inadvertently he played a massive hand in almost exploding the entire universe with the Samadhi fire debacle. And that's to say nothing of how it increasingly seems like lego SWK is the worst Monkey King shifu out there. Could be that a lot of this is because the stakes are so much higher in Monkie Kid than they are in other stories where SWK has a tudi--as with Liu Chenxiang (who wanted the ability to fight his uncle Erlang Shen so he could free his mother Sansheng Mu) or Li Yunxiang (who was being targeted by powerful yaoguai and dragons for being Li Nezha's reincarnation & needed someone to protect him & help him control his abilities until he was ready to stand on his own), and certainly the unnamed Indian prince in the og classic (who was impressed with SWK & wanted to learn martial arts skills under him & who's life was never in danger)--but its genuinely disheartening how much Qi Xiaotian has now suffered specifically because of his shifu-tudi relationship to Sun Wukong. That's a reality that isn't even partially true in these other cases. It's the kind of thing that drives you to ask if the ever-more traumatized monkie boy would ultimately have had a happier life if the Monkey King never became part of it :(

Anyway, I hope that clears things up anon! If anything, just keep in mind that the Monkey King's character in the og classic is rich and varied enough to act as the baseline for a vast variety of interpretations and retellings, and that a lot of my complaining is about feeling that a particular retelling is going too far in its flanderization. People have come up with all sorts of characterizations for this monkey for literally centuries--and they range from a irresponsible and foolish demon to a honest and diligent holy being--but it does pay to remember what an important literary and religious figure he is, and what sorts of interesting and relevant possibilities he offers.

#anon answered #sun wukong #monkey king #journey to the west #jttw #xiyouji #monkey critical

[ultra-puzzlemaster]

A bit late but for the @layton-npc-appreciation-week, I wanted to talk about Beth from The Last Specter:

Mostly because I've only now realized how important she's for the plot, years after playing LS for the first time.

Spoilers for Last Specter/Spectre's Call ahead!

So Beth worked as a maid for the Barde family, but got fired shortly before Evan's death, then started working in the Triton household. Which means she's the one who can tell you the most about both families and how things changed when the Specter appeared. And she does so!

Her first and perhaps most important action was actually before the game started. If you remember what Luke says…

That's right, she's the one who let Luke know about the flute being sold at the black market! She may not be aware of it but it's thanks to her that Layton and the other get to meet the Black Ravens and learn about Barde, and ultimately

In fact, if you think about it, perhaps she could have told them even more about this flute if they had asked her, since:

She already knew Arianna was the one playing it all along.

But that's not all! She has a role that might be less important for the professor but crucial for us players.

Indeed, she's the one giving us the biggest clues about Doland being an impostor:

In game, Layton realizes and proves he's the mastermind thanks to Luke's notes, which we sadly can't see.

But if we listen to Beth and help her, she'll tell us how Doland suddenly changed after the Specter appeared: his beautiful penmanship became nearly impossible to read, he started going out who-knows-where a lot, didn't gave her clear instructions like he used to, and got mean to her.

Another character, Jasmine, notices and mentions Doland's change in character but she doesn't say much except "he ignored me and my puzzle do you want to solve it?" while Beth gives us an entire puzzle based on Descole's awful handwriting.

And it makes sense: since they work together, she's the most likely to see the cracks in his act, and since he doesn't really care about her, she didn't get kidnapped nor blackmailed.

Other notable things she can tell us include:

Mentioning the oracle and that Doland knows about it.

Another clue that there's something hidden in the cellar, and that when Emmy thought she heard voices it wasn't just her imagination. (also the poor woman started to doubt her own sanity because of Descole)

She confirmed (although was there any doubt about it?) that Barde's death and his will are very strange, even if they were confirmed by the famous police officer Third-Eyed Jakes. She doesn't say it in front of Luke but she suspects that Clark killed Barde and now his ghost is haunting the house.

Speaking of Jakes, she informs you later that Clark left with him.

If you go see her before going to save Arianna she'll tell you that both Clark and Doland left without a word. Layton knows what's going on.

Not a hint but she also has this line:

Poor Beth struggles with Fake Doland's instructions and bad temper to the point she has to repeatedly ask Layton to help, she gives him puzzles (which he likes) and then feels guilty about it. This woman deserves a break. And someone to tell her it's not her fault Doland was so rude to her.

There's a lot more to talk about: how working under a manipulator's supervision affected her self-esteem, how her role in the story was overlooked, how the game treated her character… (I could probably make a whole post about sexism, working classes and the devaluation of social work… but not today)

I'll end with this picture from the credits where we can see Beth regained her place in the Barde's family:

If you've read to the end, thank you very much!

And remember: whoever you are, whatever you do, you matter, and you're more important than you may think.

#professor layton #professor layton and the last specter #professor layton and the spectre's call #last specter #spectre's call #layton npc appreciation week #pl beth #arianna barde #pl4day #screenshots #pl screenshots #no jokes in the alt text this time sorry

[factorialsotherfandoms]

its 6am and I'm complaining myself through the ending of purgatory k? This is just the bitching not a full balanced analysis, bits I genuinely enjoyed are missing so it looks like I have a worse opinion than I did, its below a cut because a lot of people don't want that and that's absolutely good. I'm just processing through.

I think purgatory ending feels bad because we were promised by the way it was advertised and treated the end of the arc, and what we got was another fucking mid point instead. A mid point which after this going on for so long nobody really wanted. Setting up new project cool! But it felt miserable to watch the end. Probably could have been helped if the CCs had more info on a meta level - just the timescales and that this wasn't actually the end of the arc - so they could pace themselves and us better. The eggs missing has gone on for far too long, we've been given far too little to work with, and it's just not fun viewing any more. Which is why my engagement is so dependent on the next little while.

That, plus getting to the boat on foot was impossible without near perfection - something they were never going to all have. I like giving qMaxo his big sendoff with the nuke which solves nothing! But people who were legitimately trying to escape (Cellbit, Tina, off the top of my head - Cellbit just legit got lost in the underground. He said after he decided to stay but like... really? We'll have to wait and see next time he plays qsmp. If nothing else he legit had shit to do planned, and I feel like he would discuss it more with Roier if he was going to perma-kill Cellbit as that's massive to put on someone else's character. Pretty sure ccCellbit was just teasing like he fucking does but we'll see. Also changes what Maxo did if any of them die to it /significantly/. I'll be genuinely worried for ccMaxo if his characters actually pretty neat death arc resulted in a fan favourite character permadying in a game without permadeath) should have had a legit chance to do so. If they were supposed to be able to. I really hope the admins smooth that bit over one way or another, because it just made shit feel extremely bad. Kinda expect the /actual/ ruling to be if one person made it they all did, but dear god they needed to tell the players that immediately after or whatever if so. Failing that you could maybe have the others in the Nether or something, but youd need to coordinate everyone who didn't make it and that'd just suck logistically. The sensible answer is if one person got there they all did because this isn't a high legality sort of game. For players.

Like the other eggs were probably kidnapped by something and reported out? And I'm betting on black concrete plot as that's the plot actually associated with them disappearing in the first place, but for all it's cool moments up until then it just... dropped the ball. Tbh the entire thing with the eggs being involved was a massive ball drop which lead to /one/ cool conversation but otherwise just made everything infinitely less enjoyable.

Poor BBH. Like cc wise. He's one of a whole lot of them who have horrific rp safety practices, but also there's not really anyone to teach them that and that's nothing to punish someone for. Hope it gets hashed out with him. All of them but especially him.

Having players of another project as "advertising" for a new project without them knowing more in advance tastes kinda shitty. Very shitty. We'll see how tied it ends up being but that's just not comfy.

Quackity saying about big stuff planned is absolute ass. Like legitimately and out of character the CCs genuinely need a break for a bit you can't just throw them back into heavy stuff immediately. They need space to breath oc and find their footing ic. Most of them have streamed far more than usual this fortnight, and even for those who do stream daily usually it's been intense. You can say if its hurting them they can just take a break but you cannot convince me they can when their literal irl incomes depend on this. Some more than others, but they do.

Also like the tension just genuinely doesn't hold that long. Most of what I run is combat heavy fantasy events, but I've done horror too. And a big bit of running horror events is studying how pacing and tension works, especially over an extended period (horror events locally tend to be multi-day). You /can/ change the usual layout, but you have to know your fucking shit and be really careful if you do, and the admins and Quackity just don't seem to - as a collective whole, some individuals may - have the experience necessary to fuck with the formula. Like. I'm burnt out, the players are ooc burnt out, the fandom generally seems burnt out - not giving the players a win here was already a mistake, but the tension /has/ snapped. Too many people are too burnt out from playing more than usual and all that, under very high stakes circumstances, for very little reward. There needs to be a break where players who do other stuff can play other stuff and players who don't can take the time to find their footing again. Tension levels are not sustainable and they broke them open. If they hadn't revealed the eggs you could have stretched it another few days, but they did. At which point losing the eggs again is genuinely so fucking unsatisfying. They could have only been shown the winning egg. Like sure fuck with people, that's what's going on IC and OC maybe it was supposed to be reassurance, but it just ended up feeling ghoulish. It was so obviously playing on feelings it just fell flat for me. Not even the fun playing with feelings, just a fuck you.

Also communication has been fucking atrocious. Yes keep twists in the bag, I can see arguments for all plot points, but the players needed to know the timescale, the fact it was a PvP not a lore event, and that this wasn't the end of the eggs missing arc rather an interlude waaaaaaaaaaay earlier. Like they found out as these things became obvious, but given the time commitment it demanded they needed to know like weeks before it started. As soon as it was announced. We can tall all we like about trusting the admins, but the admins have got to fucking trust their players to still make good viewing times even if not everything is a complete surprise. It fucked over Cellbit and Roier and their murder plot planning, it fucked over a lot of people ooc and their streaming schedules and their ability to do actual life things. Forever when given the Judas plot should have been told in advance when it would be activatable. The players - not the characters or the audience, the players - should have known it was 15 days, PvP, only 1 egg was on the cards for now, that the chance to save the others will come later (I have no doubt it will), and that they would need to escape fast at the end. Not the why, not the how, not the plot, but you need to know the fucking stakes.

Like okay let's look at shit I run a sec. Its nor perfect, but we've been building on a 20+ year tradition of larp in the same place and learning from what does and doesnt work. Info players have in advance:

date and time. for things run for and at the university, dates generally are announced start of the year, and which system will be which day is the start of every term. For events for the uni but at an unusual place or time (often an IC dinner party or similar), 3 weeks in advance. For stuff not associated with the university (I help with fewer of these, as far fewer happen and theyte the ones i can still play with my disability)... well, they tend to be multi day in a hired venue and players pay a lot of money to be there, so its usually about a year and a half in advance. The stuff below about pitches are for saturday ones - paid for multi day events all that info is announced at least a year in advance, and for single day non-university ones at least 6 months. But like qsmp is a constantly running thing so the university stuff is a fairer comparison.

Every event has a "pitch". This goes up the Tuesday before for Saturday events - theres a couple of different teams running different genres but same place same time theres a larp every termtime saturday just 9/30 are run by my team. The pitch will contain the information the characters know going into a mission or social or whatever. If theres a twist the twist isn't mentioned, ofc, just the initial setup. Then, there's an out of character section, with stuff like date and time and reminders to weather weather appropriate clothing and sturdy shoes.

If the event is /not/ in the format players expect, in the out of character info including things like the time, we say that. We run combat heavy stuff. If it's purely social, we say so. If it'll be more Freeform than usual, we say so. If the party is getting split we - you guessed it - say so.

Our events have different levels of IC rewards. The basic reward can always be assumed (3 gold, iirc). Theres also 4 and 5 gold days. If its not 3 gold, it says so in the pitch, and players know this is a difficulty rstinf system. 3 is normal, 4 is "this is designed to be challenging for late end high xp characters and is likely to kill lower levels", 5 is "we are actively trying to kill someone". Death is always an option, but the ref team don't usually want it.

Sometimes there are RP rewards too. These are not explicately stated, but are alluded to "you will be paid so long as you eliminate the monster. If you capture it and deliver it to the university, however, the chancellor promises an extra something for you" sort of thing. "The Dowager Duchess is well known for rewarding those in her favour. Impress her, and she may do the same for you".

If there's distressing content that isn't covered by genre and game style, we include a warning. Last time was "this session will include horror elements. A list of content warnings is available from any ref on request", and we DMed players we knew have triggers on that list the same day pitch went out to liase with them. Yes even when the trigger is a plot twist or a spoiler because fuck you player safety will always be most important. One which had content warnings but was not horror "this session contains potentially distressing material. A list of content warnings is available from any ref on request".

And like... call me naive but this is the sort of info the players should have? In advance they should have a summary (yes it's also given IC at the start of the event, but it means they can prep properly), dates and times well in advance (so they can prep their lives and other projects), expected rewards (even if vague), and any particularly common triggers (like say a third party intentionally sewing paranoia and fucking with mental health of characters) should have a "theres triggers here please put a message in your help channel for a list". I'd say also some indicator of where on a plot arc something falls.

We dont give this because our pacing plot arc wise is determined by how we run them. Paid events are all always one offs (I run them with a different group of people but same circle) - except when they aren't in which case this is made clear at the pitching stage- and uni ones its dictated by the university schedule - we run nine main events a year, 3 each term. There's a small climax last linear of every term, and a major one at the end of a year. Yearly arcplots do not always exist but when they do they end with the last linear of term. There are some other plots brewing over longer periods - when those come to a head, they will become the main plot for a year and their climaxes run on yearly arcplot rules. It is never the case that all sessions in a year are arcplot related, to give players not interested in a specific thing something to do.

Other things they could probably do with include a safe word and establishing a way for an admin to indicate a fuck up due to glitch or mistake - probably an "ignore me" emote only admins have access to.

This all being said - the admin team want people to have fun and for it to go well, and the medium is much younger than traditional LARP. Information for their specific media does not exist, and while they maybe should look at rp for ideas they probably look at tabletop and don't even consider LARP - let alone larp styles more common in Europe. I can say things all I want, but I'm just a guy over here. The admins are trying their best and do want the best for their players, and will have a plan. It's just infuriating sometimes.

#fandom neg #qsmp neg

[inlocusmads]

[spoilers, long pissy rant ahead]

okay, i have some thoughts. Haven't finished the chapter yet, as of writing this post, but I still have some thoughts.

okay but like, I'm happy that MC was allowed to talk about their feelings but I just hate it that it's ALSO dismissed and condensed into a couple of dialogues, like EVERYONE, mc literally almost died so many times it physically hurts they didn't get more than just that one ONE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.

I don't want to compare but think of all those times Nia, Tyril, Imtura and Mal were comforted and that too it was taken seriously with long-term payoffs at the very least or callbacks to those moments of healing and learning.

It doesn't make any sense! Where was this foreshadowing that MC was "about to break into pieces"? Where was this acknowledged in the narration, apart from a few moments of empathy extended to other characters? And yet, everyone else had "plenty of time" to confide in MC. (I know I'm being nitpicky here, but I'm so mad that the one person who attempted to patch together the group again at the start of Book 2 still got treated like shit. This reasoning doesn't make an ounce of sense at all, apart from MC wanting to spare their friends the additional guilt - if you want to take it in that context.)

MC! DID YOU NOT LEARN ANYTHING AT ALL? HOW IS IT THAT EVERYONE ELSE IN THE PARTY HAD SOME REFORMATION ARC GOING ON (albeit a swiftly written one) BUT YOU DON'T???

First off Valax? Girly she tried to steal your blood. I know there's a nice Valax/MC buddy-buddy situation going on/relationship going on but this is just extremely not okay of the writers to dismiss MC's own feelings and true thoughts. And what do you mean, "just a little blood, no scars"? "asleep for all of it"?? Like make it make sense! Either MC is referring to how Valax kidnapped her ("little blood" HA) or the fact that they walked unscathed, which is a huge understatement - like my child, you were almost fucking killed! Stop downplaying everything!

Honestly I would accept it if it were an internal characteristic of MC to go all Mal and be like 'yeah it's just a scratch' but in the other times when they're allowed to be open with their emotions and this time, they're robbed of the only opportunity to do so, I'm going FUCKING FERAL.

I dunno, I just feel like this is just a horridly rushed scene for no reason at all. They could have cut back on the Elf-recruitment scene to give MC a chance - give us a chance to talk about it, but nope. I don't know, I feel like it was STILL half-assed.

Blades, stop making fun of death and all those 'getting killed' jokes. It isn't funny anymore. It grew stale by the start of book 2 and now it's like PB can't write new humour material anymore without making it Mal's entire personality or the subject of Tyril's disappointment or Imtura's ammunition for one-liners or Nia's excuse to gape at it in horror. Stop. Please. I just feel like it's been overdone so much, we don't know if the characters are struggling or anything.

**

Angst is a good tool to use to highlight MC's motivations or be it any characters and yet IT IS KADE WHO SUPPLIES IT!

THIS HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL TO BE A SUBJECT MATTER and yet of-fucking-course they have to paywall the social quest. fuck you pb. mental health's already expensive as it is.

The fact that MC has no intention to bring it up - bring up how much they missed their brother before Kade does is just the icing on the cake. Like come on, PB. For once, I want a non-paywalled scene that acknowledges this in writing - a proper conversation with Kade for once. Because paywalled scenes are usually up to the choice of the player to take and it is downright cruel for MC to not have any interaction with people until you shovel out gems. Without the social quests, everyone's personalities are so hollow. It actually hurts. Premium options used to be for collectibles, unlock bonus scenes, maybe even level up, etc, but to see characterisations - the very basic pillar of writing being paywalled is like reading an article on the internet only for the author to step out of your screen and beat your eyes with a bat so you can never read again.

Am I the only one in this?

MAYBE YOU CAN SHOW MORE AND TELL LESS PB, GOD. FOR ONCE, ACKNOWLEDGE MC'S EMOTIONS WITHOUT IT BEING ONE TEXT OF DIALOGUE IN THE NAME OF EVERYTHING HOLY. (I do remember an Ash Empress scene where MC gets -- possessed, for the lack of a right word, with a vision?? And that too at the last possible second for the Kade conversation to happen. Good job, PB)

The thing is PB can do this. They've acknowledged MC's part in stories before. From being able to "tell off" characters and having MC acknowledge their past traumatic instances and giving them a motivational tool to keep going forward. A recent example of this would be in Crimes Book 1, when MC suffers from PTSD and is shown to have some panic episodes-- I'm assuming? (Not showing my bias here, but I'm just pointing at it because it is within PB's reason) and yet the company shoots themselves at the leg with overstuffed stories and plot points it becomes harder and harder to be able to relate to characters.

*** I don't know. I haven't played the whole chapter and maybe this might come off as tone-deaf and I'm gonna look like an absolute clown; once it is up and maybe in a future scene, they do bring up their trauma but I'm posting this anyway because it's just -- arghhhhhhhh

#blades of light and shadow #choices book club #mads rants about stuff #tw caps

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: Unladylike Rules of Attraction by Amita Murray

4/5. Releases 5/14/24.

Vibes: "must marry or else", vaaaaague guardian/ward sorta kinda?, two people living on the edge of English society, light mystery

Heat Index: 6/10

Court sitar player Anya doesn't expect to inherit much, if anything, when her client dies. But the Dowager Countess Budleigh has left Anya half her fortune--with one condition. She must marry by her twenty-fifth birthday... which is four months away. Otherwise? The money will go to Lord Damian Ashton, the family outsider and now trustee. (Oh--and they think he killed his way to the title.) As Anya begins looking for a husband, Damian is there, initially to irritate and then, when she's accused of murder by the Budleighs, to help. The question is--if they make it out of this, can he bear to see her with someone else?

The second in Amita Murray's Marleigh Sisters series, I found Unladylike Rules of Attraction faster-paced and more exciting than the first installment, which is always lovely. The chemistry between Anya and Damian had me immediately--and though the relationship unfurled a bit more rapidly than I expected, their back and forth remained a treat. As did the very true reality of them both living on the edges of English society, seen as oddities or fetishized due to their races (Anya had a white father and an Indian mother, and Damian's grandmother was a Jamaican Black woman).

So while I do have nitpicks here and there, I have to say that this was an engaging romp with serious insights.

Quick Takes:

--If you enjoy romantic leads that snark, you'll be into this. Damian and Anya are kind of at each other's throats from the jump, but in, like, a fun way. They both find each other annoying, mostly because they want to bone, and I support that. I also really love the marriage plot setup: she's supposed to marry, or he gets everything, so maybe the best thing would be for them to marry each other...? But NO, God NO, that would be AWFUL.

Damian also has a lovely younger brother who enters the scene as a supporting character. He initially thinks that his brother is making a play for Anya, and the "I am quietly seething from across a ballroom" content was great.

--But, as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of quiet understanding these two have for each other. Anya is seen as an exotic marvel at Queen Charlotte's court... to an extent. There isn't much actual real respect there, because women hate her (and let's be real, are often jealous of her) for who she is and men want to fuck her without offering any legitimacy or respect.

Although Damian didn't have an identical experience to Anya, he's also very much an outsider. I mean, people just assume this guy murdered someone to get a title... basically, let's be real, because he's of Jamaican descent. The novel is covering, basically, a lot of nasty, racist shit. However, it maintains an optimistic, if realistic attitude, and understanding reality doesn't mean that Murray is going to keep her leads from falling in love. It's a tough balancing act, and I think she executed it well.

--That said, these two do move pretty fast. And I'm not someone who loves a slow burn, right? I enjoy reading sex on the page early. It's not that the sex happens so EARLY in this book. It's more that I don't think there was quite enough build up between Damian and Anya. The chemistry was there, but when it began I was pretty surprised.

It's not a huge issue, but if I had to give a critique, that would be my main one.

--One thing I really appreciated was the way Murray dealt with Anya's trauma surrounding her separation from her sisters. She knows where they are, she loves them--but she can't really bring herself to be close to them because of this chasm of years apart. She wants to be! She feels guilty! But that doesn't make her reluctance built on years of separation go away.

--The mystery and murder stuff here is pretty light; there's nothing that's too much to bear here. But I found it entertaining, and I can be a hard sell with mystery, so that's a good sign.

The Sex:

This is an open door romance. It's not super explicit, it's not over the top. There are a few scenes, nothing super wild, and I do think Murray could go into a bit more detail with it. But as it is: if you enjoy a Lorraine Heath level of heat (and I do too, I could always appreciate more though), you'll enjoy these.

Moving along at a clip, Unladylike Rules of Attraction is both romantic and astute. I see it being compared to Bridgerton, and while I get that on paper... First off, this is a lot smarter in general than that show. Second, it's certainly more attentive to the issues of race. If you want something fun and different and very much its own thing, check this out.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#romance novel blogging #arc reviews #netgalley #book reviews #book recs #books #romance novels

[elegantwoes]

If Clerith is canon, then how come there only exists the possibility for Cloud to kiss Tifa in the game? At the point where Aerith is still alive. And as for your question about why Aerith needs to die like in the original, it’s partly because she needs to be in the Lifestream to summon Holy. There’s also the fact that Final Fantasy 7 is a game about loss and finding the strength to still live despite said loss. Aerith’s death works because she was a character who loved life, and thus to see that vibrant spirit suddenly snuffed out is tragic. And as for the whole Clerith vs Cloti thing, the Sector 5 dream date kind of puts a wrench in that with Aerith’s dialogue about “knowing where they stand” and the difference between “liking someone and liking someone”. The love triangle is an illusion that ends when Cloud regains himself, and the player can no longer choose dialogue options for him. Nojima seems to be going full steam ahead with Cloti and Zerith in Part 3, and while it’s fine not to prefer that, that’s what’s happening.

The reason why I question the choice of killing Aerith again is because the devs have said that dying is a fate/promise that Aerith is desperately trying to escape. Couple that with the fact they promoted Remake and Rebirth so far with posters as, “Defying fate,” and making the characters say “the future isn’t set in stone”. Near the ending of Remake you the player gets to defeat fate. Introducing alternative worlds where Zack and Biggs are alive. Implying that even if Cloud didn’t save Aerith in his world there is another world where she did survive and that Aerith is waiting for him. All of this sweet build up and for it to what? To go down the route of, “psych, no you cannot change your life. You need to give up and resign to whatever is coming your way.” Giving hope to not follow through with what you have been hinting at isn’t good storytelling. It’s pure sadism. But no matter. I am relatively confident that Aerith will get her wish. To live long happy life with her friends and Cloud.

Zerith is a ‘couple’ that doesn’t exist. It was created by certain shippers to get Aerith out of the way without being overtly hateful to her. Aerith is allowed to have somewhat complicated feelings to Zack without her feelings for Cloud being diminished. Zack may have been her first love, but there is no doubt that Cloud is her true love. That is clearly established in the alternative world where Marlene says Aerith is In love with Cloud. This is even further hammered down when Aerith has the opportunity to fight with either of them near the end of Rebirth but while she heals Zack she chooses to stand by Cloud and with him fight against Sephiroth. Zack himself has accepted that Aerith moved on. He wants Cloud to save her and not let her die. If only people more understanding like him.

As for the kiss you speak of. Nojima said that all the Gold Saucers dates are separate from the main story and more similar to dating sims. The fact that the kiss did not change the relationship between Cloud and Tifa in the main story shows it should be treated like it never happened. No impact means not relevant. It’s interesting you believe that is the direction the game is going. We each can have our interpretation and can only wait for the part 3 game in a few years to confirm whose analysis is right. Until then I say goodbye, anon.

#woes answers #ff7 remake #ff7 rebirth #Clerith #Anti Cl*ti #Anti Z*rith

[davekat-sucks]

I do have to say that anon who soeculated on Dirk’s role does have a good idea for where the plot may be going and the setup for Dirk’s ultimate session, although I never considered the horrorterror session, generally because I have a hard tike taking it seriously. What’s notable as well is apparently it was 48 players that made the 48 zodiac signs of Alternia, but that got retconned to 288 signs of Hiveswap. What I think Dirk is doing is two-fold.

1. Dirk states in the epilogues this is being done to maintain the existence of their Universe. Homestuck is shoulder-deep in metatextual fuckery so of course the characters treat the in-universe existence of canon as real and like a story they exist in. If the story ends, the characters will decay away into unobserved, undefined, and untended void of irrelevance. Without us, the audience to pay attention to the narrative and characters of Homestuck, Homestuck doesn’t exist. Of course, narratives need conflict, and Dirk makes a new session to run a new overarching story that keeps Dirk and Rose in focus, and in a sense the cast alive. It could have gone a lot of different ways but Dirk is better at abrupt action than long term planning, the real plan comes from the second reason.

Earth C is the Cherub’s birth planet. Billions of years after Earth is ruined, a cherub will lay the egg of Caliborn and Calliope inland a ruined field somewhere on the dead planet, with only communications via a radio tower that transcends the narrative… Hussie’s IP server!

Of course, the earth now orbits a red giant with all the water evaporated and food wasted, so they are cared for by Gamzee who got sucked into the black hole caused by Lord Jack’s big-ass head implosion in [S] collide, giving that version of Jack his one true purpose: to die and transport the cherubim guardian to the right place.

Now the next requirement for Earth C to house the Cherubs is all the immortal Gods to be gone. Inevitably over the course of 3-4 billion years the beta and alpha kids, Kanaya, and Calliope are going to have to leave Earth C and never come back. Something happened for them to be gone. The cause doesn’t matter, only the effect is destiny. Dirk was nesting the Cherubs, he just had to pull their biggest threat off the Earth.

One final addendum, I don’t know what Dirk’s successful species is gonna be, and if the HICU will actually let the species exist and build the new sburb session or fakeout kill them in classic Hussie trolling style. What matters is Dirk gave the species a name: Sartyr, amd looking at sillhouettes it looks to be a bipedal anthromorph, much less a squid creature. I don’t think the HICU has the balls to do the horrorterror session.

They don’t have to, they heavily implied Dirk is dating Rosebot and fans on r/homestuck avoided the topic to talk about how good the art is and how the update is finally getting the ball rolling and how the sequel writing is finally good, stuff we’ve all heard before. The HICU posted another 12 pages of a monthly update where something almost happened and fans ate it up. This is Homestuck now. Where something almost happens, and then we wait a month for something to almost happen again.

That really seems to be the case. Before under Hussie and Whatpumpkin, the bad art and story were noticeable within each update. It's been routed in our brains that every update would be this. James Roach and HICU took advantage of it by getting to focus on the pretty art first before the story because most of us would skim through the text. Nobody would actually pick up on what it is going on until they read it 3-6 more times to let it sink in. It was like this before for many new readers of Homestuck. Most would look at the pretty picture or flash and less reading on the text. Vox's Let's Read at least makes it accessible for those who struggle reading, but even they don't update frequently and are at a certain stopping point where others need to go to the webcomic to continue. And I think a person watching the LR Homestuck and having to go back to the webcomic during ACT 6, is probably not a good experience for those entering the series. It's funny back in MSPA Forums, talks of incest was banned despite the themes of said incest being a common thing in Homestuck. And it was TOBY FOX who made The Baby Is You to troll at the mods that tried to cease the topic of incest. People may have known Toby Fox wrote some crazy funny m-preg song and it got relevance again thanks to a modern Pokemon game, but I don't think people actually knew the context and history behind on WHY he made it in the first place. And now we got people too scared to speak about it openly.

#homestuck #homestuck fandom #hs2 #homestuck 2 #homestuck^2 #homestuck2 #hs^2 #Homestuck Beyond Canon #HSBC #James Roach #HICU #Homestuck Independent Creative Union #MSPA Forums #Whatpumpkin #What Pumpkin #Andrew Hussie #Toby Fox

[poyobox]

*sigh* Headrush characters hcs, maybe? (Bob and Baby Diva specifically)

Sorry this took a while, tbh, I don't really think about Baby Diva as much as I probably should.

They are both 5 Small Headcanon guys so here

Bob:

My Bob is a Cat Boy, but not the kind that ends every sentence with “owo” he just happens to have cat ears and a tail.

He and Diva both play Pokemon. Bob specifically is very good at Competitive Pokemon surprisingly, though not enough to have won a World Championship in the Jackboxverse.

Bob is powered by sheer cartoon logic. Nothing he does makes sense. You're not supposed to be able to visit T-Shirt Island without an express invitation and yet Bob's there on a vacation like once a season and doesn't stop no matter how many times Tournmo kicks him out.

Because of said Cartoon Logic, Bob is nearly immortal. He is capable of dying of old age, but he can not be actively killed. No amount of falling off cliffs, being blown to smithereens, or getting hit by a falling piano will give him anything other than a Bob-shaped hole in the ground, a face full of ash, or birds swirling around him.

He and Guy are distant cousins. Despite not seeing each other often, the two treat each other like brothers. Guy is the person who got Bob the audition for YDKJ, in fact.

Baby Diva:

My Diva is a Robot, specifically one designed to basically be a sentient music player. She has a slot in her chest that opens to allow a CD to be inserted and her hands have speakers on them.

Back to Pokemon, Diva doesn't do Competitive, but she is a shiny hunter. She recently finished a Violet Shiny Badge Quest Playthrough.

Diva is a Tumblr User.

Diva is on the Jackbox Celebration Team, which means she's one of the people in charge of any celebrations involving members of the entire team; birthdays, retirements, bachelor parties, etc. She's mostly in charge of playlists.

She's in charge of the official “Jackbots ™ Discord” where all the robotic/ai Jackbox characters that aren't affiliated with Binjpipe send memes to each other. No one who isn't in the group chat understands half of the jokes they make related to the server.

#jackbox #bob koolaid #baby diva

[pangurbanthewhite]

I have been thinking a lot about Haurchefant Greystone lately.

(But then again, when am I not?)

I have a theory that the positive reception to Haurchefant before Heavensward even dropped could have, to some extent, inspired some of the improvement we see in the game’s writing and characterization once Heavensward begins.

I can’t be the only one who was surprised that, during the final battle with the false Inquisitor, that Haurchefant doesn’t just promise to show up later to help you, but actually does show up later to help you.

It’s such a simple thing but it stands in stark contrast to so much of ARR up to that point. Up to that point, you’re treated both by the characters and the writing as a glorified errand runner. I know that is to some extent the nature of videogames in general and MMOs in specific - the devs think that all that matters is that the player be involved in the plot, often without care for how that gets accomplished.

And broadly speaking, in ARR up to that point, how it gets accomplished is that you do everything and everybody else does basically fuck-all except make apologetic noises about how you’re the one who has to do everything. I know I’m not the only one who found that to get intensely aggravating. 

Such a simple thing as someone promising to show up and help and then actually doing so - not turning up five minutes after the fight’s over to go “oh darn, you killed everyone without me” - was a breath of fresh air. Someone who’s so dead set against us fighting alone that six people have to hold them back, someone who is vocal about how unfair and not-right it is that we have to do everything, perversely makes it easier to be the one having to do everything.

And, after being run all over creation to fix everyone else’s problems only to have it all blow up in your face by the end, to have someone show up with a hot drink for you and say “rest now, you’ve done enough, let me help you and look after you”...yeah! It makes me emotional!

And it feels to me that, once the Scions reappear at the end of Heavensward, it’s with that fact in mind. I feel like you get more of them making contributions to the plot, more scenes of “you investigate here, I’ll investigate here, we’ll reconvene later to discuss our findings” which makes them feel a lot less willfully useless, a lot more like friends and allies. You get more of them fighting bosses and enemies offscreen that yes, were written in for the sole intention of giving them something to fight, but it still makes it feel like they’re contributing.

And you get a lot more of them raging over how unfair it is that you have to do everything, that you’re the one carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, that no just world would expect so much of you. Which makes it feel a lot more meaningful that you’re still often the one left to stand and fight alone.

IDK! This is just me pontificating. But I feel, with Haurchefant, the writers accidentally hit on the solution to a writing problem that they might not even have known at the time was a problem. And I think they did a good job propagating that “fix” throughout the rest of the story.

#final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy 14 heavensward #final fantasy xiv heavensward #heavensward #haurchefant greystone #haurchefant my beloved