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narrans · 29 days

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My Borrowed Son | 16 | Friends and Curiosities

Chapter Sixteen | Friends and Curiosities

Parker couldn’t believe it. Within such a short amount of time, he suddenly had a dozen followers and friends on his page.

Sure, he didn’t know them personally, but everyone was welcoming and polite – two things he was eager to report to his mom when she expressed concern. The miniscule boy also made sure his mom knew he was being safe, not giving out too much personal information, and that the topic of his condition hadn’t even been brought up.

One person commented on his profile picture being interesting, which was a picture of Parker standing in front of his computer screen, but he just explained it was a background and that he wanted to showcase the platform he was publishing on. Karl was the kid’s name, and evidently he and Parker were the same age.

All in all, Parker was pleased with his interactions and the people he was meeting. Lots of them had advice and things for him to check out, and he liked all of the things he was seeing.

There were sketches of space and vast mountains as well as the everyday interactions. There were hundreds of stories from writers just like him.

It felt nice. It felt like some kind of community with people supporting and helping one another. A sense of satisfaction filled the young teen every time he checked his notifications and saw he was getting the chance to meet someone new.

“Just look here, mom,” said Parker eagerly as he showed his mom the latest post he made. “It has almost fifteen likes!” He looked up into his mom’s features and saw her beaming with pride.

“That’s so great, Parker,” she complemented. “Are you going to post your latest story from Mr. Tamplin’s class?”

“I… think so. I don’t know yet though. It doesn’t feel done,” he replied, feeling his cheeks getting warm. The latest story he came up with for Mr. Tamplin’s class was a fiction fantasy story about a sprite named Tal’el. It essentially was his backstory for the Dungeons and Dragons campaign he and his friends started.

Basically, he was a small fairy-like person who was a poison master for his people until he decided he wanted to go out adventuring and exploring. The Dungeon Game Master said it was fine if he played a smaller character, thankfully not questioning why he would want to do such a thing and found a special class for him to play as.

The story actually won a young adult author award for his class and Parker had Mr. Tamplin to thank since it was he who tutored him through his writing slumps. He was now refining it for his literature class.

“Well, don’t be scared to post it sweetie. You’re such a great writer and can do whatever you set your mind to,” encouraged his mom. “Now before you get sucked into checking your notifications, finish your homework and get ready for bed. You have a long day tomorrow.”

“Yes, momma,” Parker replied, rolling his screen back into place in the main area. The structure walls rumbled as his mom closed the outside walls to his home. It was hard to believe it had been a whole month since he “moved in” to this new space.

Parker loved it, in a weird way.

Not to sound ungrateful, but having his own space to roam around, especially in a space that felt suited to him, made him feel just a little bit normal. He liked that he was usually at eye-level with his mom instead of having her loom over him. Just the thought made him shudder involuntarily, and he wasn’t sure why.

It made him feel guilty every time the sensation seized him.

But, now was not the time to dwell on that. It was time for bed.

Parker walked into his room and rummaged through his dresser to find his oversized space t-shirt and elastic band sleep shorts. Then, he went back to the computer and finished submitting his assignments. The words filled the page and Parker hoped that his paper on the evolution of technology was going to be good enough to get him the grade he needed.

Parker’s other assignments were a breeze. Math was simple enough and the biology project about documenting the growth of plants was going smoothly. It was his other project, his story for his literature course, that he was worried about. It was his same story that he was using for his channel, but it was more a mild fear of rejection and lack of perfection.

His online friends liked it, but would his teacher? His followers?

Parker sighed and leaned against the wall before slinking down further into the chair. His eyes focused on the blinking line in front of him as he stared at the end of the fifth chapter he had been editing. Something about this story felt particularly personal, but Parker remembered hearing once about how writers put more of themselves than they’re aware of when they’re making characters and stories.

Perhaps this was just part of that feeling?

The teen sighed and stretched when, suddenly, his lights flickered up above him.

Confusion injected itself into his mind as he stared at the wired lights on the ceiling. His eyes flicked over to the wall switch.

Perhaps just a fluke?

The notion was dismissed when the lights flickered two more times, all of his lights dimming and glowing systematically.

Something raised the hair on the back of Parker’s neck. He felt like he was on pins and needles, the anticipation of a drop while suspended in mid-air. Cautiously, the curious teen stood up and walked over to the switch, examining it closely.

It was still up and wasn’t jiggling or loose.

The lights flickered again.

It felt like he was in a spooky movie, of which Parker had only ever seen one in his life along with a couple of older “thrillers” like Alien and Jaws. Even those movies were censored because his mom didn’t want him to get too spooked.

Was there something wrong with the plug?

Parker glanced at the window at the back by the stairs and, just for a moment, he could have sworn he saw something.

It looked like the quick flick of a shadow.

It was quick and Parker wasn’t even sure if he knew what he saw. He did just step out of his room after all, and he had been staring at his computer screen, which he knew sometimes made shadows appear when there weren’t any.

He held deathly still, his entire body locking up like a perfect figurine. His body fell naturally into the position as he slowly crouched and laid his hand against the floor, as if he could detect any trembling or motion.

He didn’t get a chance to investigate for long though. Before he could make his way to the stairs in his crouched position, there was a knock on the table that made Parker nearly jump out of his skin.

“Parker? Are you going to bed soon?” Parker’s entire body shivered as he pushed himself upright and heaved in a few deep breaths. Every nerve in his body felt electrified. While his heart continued to thrum rapidly, he cleared his throat and called over his shoulder to his mom as the sides of the walls began to open.

“Y-y-yeah, mom. I’m ready for bed,” said Parker. He glanced up at the lights stayed on without the slightest hint of a flicker. The walls opened fully and, instantly, Parker saw his mom’s brow furrow quizzically.

“Everything okay? You look a bit pale,” she said. The maternal instinct in Amanda kicked in and she reached forward and pressed the tip of her finger against Parker’s forehead. He shied away from it, which was typical teenage behavior, but something else felt off about Parker that Amanda couldn’t quite place.

“Y-yeah. I’m fine. I just…” Parker stopped short. It felt like something physically squirmed in his mind, preventing him from saying something about the shadow and the lights. He shook the notion loose, confused as to why this instinct flared up in him, and proceeded with his thought. “I just saw the lights flicker and got spooked.”

“Oh?” Amanda replied as she glanced over and looked down at the power strip that fed electricity into Parker’s Place. Nothing looked off about it to her, but she still knelt and glanced around the ground.

Still nothing.

“Well,” she sighed as she stood and walked back over to the front of Parker’s tiny home. “I don’t see anything. It looks like it’s all plugged in, but we’ll check on it tomorrow. Okay? For now, it’s bedtime.”

“Yes, momma,” replied Parker as he walked up to the edge and accepted the kiss on his torso that his mom gave him. With that, Amanda smiled and watched as Parker curled under the blankets, forming an almost imperceptible lump in the bed. “Goodnight momma. I love you.”

“I love you too, Parker. Sweet dreams my love.” Amanda closed the walls and secured them tightly before tiptoeing out of the room and to her own room to turn in for the night.

Just in the other room, Parker laid there with his heart still fluttering nervously. Everything in him was still on edge, and the curiosity of what was going on with his lights was really bothering him. Parker enjoyed a good mystery or puzzle, but he generally liked ones he could solve.

This one wasn’t solved yet.

For what felt like a couple of hours, Parker tossed and turned in his bed as a mixture of homework assignments and curiosities about the power outlet swirled like a mist in his mind. The more the young teen thought, the more it annoyed him that he didn’t have the answers.

He had had enough.

Parker pushed himself up and decided to go and check out the source of the flickering lights. If it was a cable going bad or possibly the breaker being loose, he needed to get a new one as soon as possible. It would be terrible if he was in class and his power went out. His mom said they would do it in the morning, but Parker knew himself; and he knew he couldn’t sleep if he didn’t at least go and see it for himself.

He couldn’t afford to not check it out with his presentation tomorrow.

The teen stepped noiselessly through his house and exited the front door. As he walked around, he noticed a few things that just seemed, in a word, natural.

Sound was amplified. The darkness in the corners of the room seemed brighter. He could feel every tremble in the desk from his footsteps.

As he made it outside, a choice presented itself to him. For a moment, he considered going down the climbing line he installed himself on the backside of the desk.

But he knew if he slipped on the rope and got hurt, which he never did, his mom would make him take down the line.

He decided to risk it.

It was late. She was asleep. Parker was as sure footed as a goat and knew he would be fine all the way down. The temptation was also too great for the teen to resist. Plus, it would be a lot faster.

There was something about the experience that was, in a word, liberating. The free fall. The catch. The feel of the rope in between his fingers.

It felt natural.

The urge to climb and fall and hide never failed to fascinate parker. Whether it was something his condition genetically programmed him to do so or if it was some personality trait he possessed, he didn’t know.

What he did know was the sensation was addictive and he was itching for a good climb.

Parker snagged the line in between his fingers and leaned over the edge of the desk. There was a mild sense of vertigo that swelled inside him, but he loved it. The weightlessness seized him as he let himself slip over the edge, hands and feet firmly in place and secured on the line.

The line burned against the teen’s palms and against his legs as he quickly descended. It felt like something a secret agent would do, and it felt epic.

The moment Parker’s feet hit the ground, he felt himself instinctually look around and crouch low. Silently, he stepped across the planks of wood that constructed the floor and walked toward the power strip that was only a few feet away. The whole thing was four times Parker’s size, but he navigated through the wires with ease.

His hands worked quickly to check the buttons and reset panels, and the teen could find nothing wrong with any of it.

Perhaps something is up with the electrical cover in the wall? Parker wondered silently. He jumped over the stiff cord that led to the wall and approached the trim on the wall which had small notches in it, so he didn’t need to snag a ladder.

As he approached, Parker noticed something by the very base of the electrical cover that made his hair stand on end.

It was a drill bit.

Flat head.

It was a tad bit rusty, and Parker didn’t recognize it from his mom’s kit that she used to help construct his space. He approached and picked it up, realizing it wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be. In his hands, it was about twice the size of the drill that his mom used, and he realized he could probably carry it around easy enough; but where did it come from?

I don’t think this is mom’s drill bit. How’d it get here?

Parker glanced up at the electrical cover and felt his heart skip a beat as he noticed the screw for the wall socket was protruding from the wall ever so slightly.

His entire body was shaking now, but he wasn’t sure why.

Had his mom messed with the electrical cover with some old tools that she forgot about?

It didn’t seem like her.

Parker stepped up on the trim, balancing precariously and using the cord to stabilize himself, as he pushed on the very bottom of the electrical cover.

With almost no effort, the piece wiggled free and the screw clattered to the ground. The end looked a lot shorter than the others. He knew because he helped his mom replace the covers a few weeks ago.

The young teen took a few deep breaths to calm himself before he dared to peek inside. Engulfing darkness belonging to the wall consumed his vision. There was something exciting and enticing about the darkness in front of him.

It felt, in a word, familiar.

But why?

Parker felt his head beginning to throb as his mind stirred some fragmented memory, but it was hazy and distant.

What really set the teen on edge, however, was when he dared to push himself up onto the ledge to peer better into the wall and noticed something else that made his insides fill with nervous energy.

There was something that looked like a pencil mark. Two lines with a triangle on top followed by a little check mark on the inside. To Parker, it looked like a kid’s drawing of a house with a check mark inside of it.

Was this something his mom did?

Or was this some kind of construction mark?

What was this?

What did it mean?

The teen stared at the marks and then back to the darkness of the wall. Just like the shadows of the room when he stepped out of his house, the looming abyss of those narrow spaces between the walls didn’t seem very dark. It almost seemed inviting.

There was something about that confined space between the drywall and the studs and exterior boards that made Parker feel like he was back in his space. It was familiar.

But why?

Parker hadn’t realized that he had been learning forward to the point where he was barely hanging onto the edge of the electrical cover and leaning into the walls. It took the sound of his foot skidding against the wood and nearly tumbling headfirst into the space in front of him.

Startled and shaken, Parker pulled himself back out of the entryway into the walls, forced the electrical cover back onto its perch, and hurried back to his room. He was in such a tizzy, the young teen didn’t even realize he had gone straight to the secured line he left and climbed up it in record time, ignoring the staircase mere feet away.

His little feet barely made noise as he scurried back to his room, securing the door and slipping under his covers without so much as a squeak.

Parker’s mind was racing. What was that he just saw? And what was that weird draw he had toward the walls?

Hopefully, his mom would have the answers.

First thing in the morning, he would ask her. She would make everything better, right?

~~~~~^*^*^*^*^~~~~~

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lovelyfirebouquet · 11 months

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Okay, so. I had this really cute idea that player/MC/(Y/N) is playing GoGM and Jack gets jealous. After all, why play a game about a ghost when his sunshine has a perfect loving ghost right here? Spicy implications but nothing directly explicit. Short (~1030 words) because I’m just getting back into writing and stretching the creative muscles. Criticism and feedback are welcome!

The Groom of Gallagher Mansion and Something’s Wrong with Sunny Day Jack are both 18+ games, minors DNI! Thank you!

--- Leg bouncing excitedly, I adjust my headphones over my ears and grin at the familiar music. Both spooky and jovial, I hum along as I admire the tattered blue wallpaper on the game’s title screen, decorated with roses. The momentary blackness as I begin a new game seems far too long. Taking a gulp from the water bottle Jack had so kindly left on my desk earlier, I let out a tiny, excited cheer and began clicking through dialogue. Having just recently added voice acting with the new update, I’ve been eager to play all week. Listening along, one line causes me to chuckle. ‘G-g-g-ghost clown?! No!’ ‘Poor Taylor would be screwed knowing me, poor guy.’ I think to myself, lifting one side of my headphones. The sound of splashing and happy humming from the kitchen told me Jack was still doing dishes, so I fixed the device back on my ear and smiled. ‘Thankfully, my ghost clown isn’t too scary.’ Moving through the familiar dialogue, my character begins their performance and I can’t help but follow suit, dramatically laying the back of my hand to my forehead. “Alas, my poor aching heart!” I grin, leaning back with a theatrical flourish. Before I can give my next line, I hear Jack’s heavy footsteps approach. “Sunshine?” He leans against the doorway, broad shoulders on display in his normal white shirt, his jacket presumably left somewhere in the kitchen. “What are you doing?” “Oh, well,” I pause a moment, a tad embarrassed, “I’m playing a game, actually. Did I disturb you?” “No, of course not.” He flashes his signature grin, slipping his gloves back on as he comes to stand beside my chair, glancing down at the screen curiously. “What kind of game?” “Well..” I’ve explained a fair bit of modern technology to Jack in the months we’ve known each other but disclosing the idea of a romance game still seemed somewhat embarrassing. “It’s a… romantic visual novel, which is just as it says. It kind of acts as a choose your own adventure book, with added sounds and visuals.” He nods along and listens intently, though he raises a brow at the mention of romance. “So, what’s this game about then?” At that I grin, nerd brain taking over as I click idly. “It’s about you and your college friend, Taylor, summoning a ghost in a spooky cursed manor. You make choices to see who you end up with, but I always choose Elias.” Coming to the beginning of Elias’ dialogue, I unplug my headphones and raise the volume, smiling as the familiar line echoes from the speakers. “Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains the stony entrance of this sepulcher?” I mouth along with the words and click through, watching Elias’ ghostly sprite fade into view. As I glance back at Jack he wears an odd expression, furrowed brows and pursed lips forming a slight pout as he stares at the screen. “Jack? What’s wrong?” I return the game’s audio to its normal level and spin my chair to look at him fully. He studies me a moment, warm brown eyes reflecting unknown emotions. Before I have time to process, he grabs my hand and presses a warm kiss to my knuckles. Immediately my face turns a bright shade of red, heat emanating from my ears as I stutter. “I- you… Why?” Smiling lovingly, he lowers my hand and brings his gloved one to my cheek, brushing his thumb against it. He brings his face closer, pressing his forehead against mine. “Why play a game when I’m right here, Sunshine? Fantasies can be fun, but too much can be bad for you.” His hot breath fans across my face, blue hair tickling my cheek. His body is so warm looming over me. “Maybe you should take a break?~” He hums, tilting my chin upward slowly, taking a single breath to examine my flustered state before pressing his lips to mine. All at once soft and sweet and intoxicating, I find myself leaning into him, reaching upward to hold his hand on my cheek and wrap my arm around his neck. Locked together like this, we kiss until my lungs begin to burn, aching for breath. I pull back first, taking a great gasping breath as I recover. Looking up at him, his cheeks are dusted a light red and his breathing is more ragged than before. My face burns like hot coals as he looks at me, purest love mixed with building desire reflected in his eyes. “(Y/N)?” His tone is sweet, and yet it sends a shiver down my spine. “Yes?” He grasps my forearm gently, pulling me from my seat and carefully guiding me to the bed. My heartbeat thumps like distant thunder as he nudges me, motioning to lay upright against the pillows. Within a moment he straddles me, his arms acting as a heavily muscled cage. Leaning down to my neck, he plants a knowing kiss, murmuring into my skin. “I love you.” I gasp at the sensation, craning my neck unconsciously. “I love you, Jack.” With those words he melts into my arms, peppering me with kisses and divine praises. Our bedroom is filled with laughter as I am enveloped in a warm embrace, arms and legs cocooned under his hold. A sunny grin takes over his features as I weakly wiggle, seemingly proud of his capture. “Good.” He chuckles, leaning down to peck my cheek. Rubbing my arm lovingly, I notice his expression shift subtly as he glances back to the computer, still softly looping the game’s background music. “You know… I’d love to show you just how I feel,” he sighs, running his hands over my sides and gently teasing my inner thigh, “but if you’re busy…” I groan, looking back toward my desk and the sprite of Elias waiting patiently on the screen. Looking back at Jack, acknowledging my own arousal, I make up my mind. “I guess it can wait a liiiiiittle longer.” Jack got off the bed, quickly powering down the computer and fixing the desk chair before returning to his perfect, waiting sunshine. He’d make sure to delete that game later.

#minors do not interact #minors dni #Something's Wrong With Sunny Day Jack #The Groom Of Gallagher Mansion #Snaccpop #SDJ #GoGM #sunny day jack #oneshot #original writing #please be kind I am nervous #I don't write often anymore

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askhog · 3 months

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BZZZT — Hey — BZZZ — Is this thing on? Hang on a second... a-ha!

Yo! My name is Sonic — Sonic the Hedgehog! Here to hang out and answer any questions you may have for me! My buddy Tails gave me this cool device that allows me to chat with you all in a different world! It's quite impressive, wouldn't you say so?

I don't like to sit around too long, so if you send me a question, I'll answer when I stop running! Thanks, see you ~! ♫

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hey, and welcome to this silly little blog I made on a whim! This is a roleplay/ask blog for Sonic the Hedgehog, based primarily on the video games, with influence from my own headcanons. I haven't run an ask blog in years, so please bare with me as I figure out how to do this all again!

Sonic won't know anything about: Sonic Prime, Archie, the movies, or any other media that isn't the mainline games. Since IDW is vaguely canon, I'll be picking and choosing what applies to this blog from that. If you're not sure about something, feel free to ask and see how he responds!

Answers will be mostly text-based, using the Sonic Colors DS sprites for expression! Sometimes, if I've got the energy & time, I may respond with a drawing! All art on this blog that belongs to me will be tagged with #mun art.

Please keep your interactions with Sonic PG-13. Some tasteful jokes are fine and all, but avoid anything explicitly nsfw.

You can ask Sonic for advice if you want, but don't expect it to be professional! Mun // Muse, anything he may say does not represent my feelings.

While usually a 'hog of few words, for this blog to work, I've had to make Sonic a bit more chatty than normal; I ask that you give me your suspension of disbelief and go "yeah, okay!"

I'll do my best to respond to things in a timely manner. If your ask is taking a while to publish, please be patient! ( this is a sideblog )

His friends may guest star if an ask calls for it! Keep an eye out!

* the miles electric on this promo is just for fun. he's not actually using it.

This will be the pinned post on the blog, so any updated rules will go here! Thanks for reading, and let's have fun together! 💙

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sth #ask blog #sonic rp #rp blog #oh god what do i even tag this with uhhh --#( i saw a few “in character” rp/ask blogs floating around and thought it was super cute! i thought i'd join in on the fun! )#mun art

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midnightsprings · 1 year

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I have been massively dropping the ball on posting ANYTHING to tumblr about game dev progress - or any social media publicly, tbh - I am currently "rebranding" the IG dedicated to the game for when I have the energy to maintain it, which is unfortunately not right now. Lol.

So...since all of this has been revealed to backers already months ago, I feel comfortable sharing here. These are some sprites that have been FULLY finished* in the past year, along with a short blurb about the character shown. ^^ Apologies in advance that some of these images aren't formatted or watermarked in the same way as others.

Takuto Hirashima is a possible love interest for Mikuru, one of the twin protagonists. They both share an interest in the occult and horror movies. Takuto frequently goes on excited tangents about his interests, and has a photographic memory, so he tends to have a lot of information to spill. He has pretty severe carpal tunnel from being an active gamer.

Noah Reid is a potential love interest for Mikuru, as well. He is a Canadian model based out of Tokyo at the moment, the reason he is in Hokkaido at the time of the game is unclear. He likes to think he's very good at keeping himself shrouded in mystery. He was surviving on his own for several weeks after the outbreak.

Hanako Akechi is a possible love interest for Toshiro, the other twin protagonist. She has a pretty reserved personality, but when she finally reaches her boiling point, you'll wish she hadn't. She doesn't seem to have many hobbies and really keeps to herself. While she used to be a childhood friend of the twins, things soured, and they mostly lost contact. In hopes of patching things up, she managed to follow them to their attended university. It was not well-received.

Kiriko Yukimura is a possible love interest for both Mikuru and Toshiro (not at the same time...), depending on routes chosen. She is Arisa's closest friend, if not her only friend, and they've been bonded since childhood. Kiriko discovered gyaru style growing up, and decided it was a perfect aesthetic for her to build on to. She loves pastels and all things "girly," and at first it made her feel better to have a darker skintone when wearing a fashion known for intense tans in a country intolerant of mixed-race kids. Eventually, she felt really comfortable in her skin, and that shines through in her warm personality.

Kyoko Koyama is Arisa's older sister by 8 years. She is recently widowed. It's incredibly hard to read her real feelings through her expression, as she's very good at masking her real emotions, a skill learned from having to raise Arisa mostly alone. She loves Kiriko like family, and is desperate to mend the strained relationship she now has with Arisa as they both became adults.

A part-2 kickstarter to raise more funds for programming, the remaining art balance, and potentially even help with writing (I have a lot of health issues going on, have to do more conventions now than ever in order to afford rent, and I need hip surgery that I can't yet afford or make time for), and more...will launch early 2024. Please keep an eye on this page for updates!

*the sprites done first in order to be included in the demo are not actually finished, they're about halfway done. Each main character has 2 normal poses + 1 "fight" pose, multiple outfits, etc. In order for them to be done in time for demo publication, they just have 1-2 poses and 1 outfit each. Sprite artist is Sasamekuh!

#Apocalyptic Dream #ApoYume #Game dev #Indie game dev #Horror game #Otome game #Zombie horror #zombie apocalypse #Zombie apocalypse au #Video game art #Dating sim #Amare game #Sprite art #Midnight springs

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suspiciousvivi · 1 year

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Unused Puyo Puyo 7 sprites in Art Collection

Oh hey. I made this post after I watched DaEgg123's Cut Content in Puyo Puyo games video, specifically in the part where they talked about Succubus' original design from the Compile games being planned for Puyo Puyo!! Quest in one point. In that part, he talked about the Puyo Puyo Art Collection book that was released in early 2021. What is interesting about this is that he only talked about the Succubus part, and there's one part of the book that I wanted to talk about.

So, in the Puyo Puyo 7 section of the book, they show all the sprites for all characters used in cutins, manzai cutscenes, and other things such as the UI. However, I found that two characters that have designs used in the book that didn't appear in 7, those characters being Dark Arle and Skeleton T. Let's begin with my favorite of the two.

Dark Arle has this sprite that is between her Bayoen cutin sprite and her official artwork for the game. This shows her in the pose from her manzai sprites, but with a glare expression on her face. As far as I can get, this sprite is not used in the final game, and Dark Arle only has two manzai sprites...

...However, in Puyo Puyo!! Quest, the idea of Dark Arle glaring was used in her 6 Star artwork for the game, and this glare expression was used on her sticker in the series' LINE stickers that was released around 2015-2017.

From now on, I had said everything about Dark Arle, so let's talk about Skeleton T.

Skeleton T has a variant of his normal manzai sprites, but this time, it shows him in an agressive expression. Like Dark Arle, Skeleton T only has one manzai sprite for the game, depending on the skeleton that he represents, which implies that this sprite was originally going to be used in the scenes where he is shown angry. Unlike Dark Arle, this idea was never used again.

(If you see the sprite above being bad quality, it's becuase I couldn't find the Google Drive link for the book, which had better quality.)

At the end, none of these sprites where actually used in the game itself, with one of them being reused in the future. If Puyo Puyo 7 gets a remaster/remake of some sort, it would be nice to see these sprites used in the game in this scenarios, alongside other unused content from the game. Heck, it would be nice if the potential remaster had the Museum from Puyo Puyo Fever 2, where it would show all the artwork for the game.

#puyo puyo #puyo puyo 7

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orthoxrequiem · 6 months

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Persona 4 Golden Review (Spoilers)

So I promised my friend who got me into Persona (even if he did warn me beforehand) that after I finished Persona 4, I would write an in-depth review of it, and since I stick by my promises, here it is! I’ll separate this into categories, where I talk about the gameplay, graphics, music, characters, and plot of the game before giving my final thoughts about it. So with that out of the way, let’s do this!

Gameplay:

To start this review off positively, I’ll go over the best part of this game. I love the way this game plays and how it handled the battles in it. The battle system is so fucking good and it makes them feel very engaging. I love the whole elemental system that makes up battles as it allows for a lot of strategy for how you’re going to take down certain enemies and how you can defend yourself against said enemies. It’s also always satisfying to knock them down and follow it up with an all out attack. I also love how the social links of your party members affects how they perform in battles as well, which adds more strategy to that as well. Overall, the gameplay is really what made this game so good to me, because IT’S JUST SO PEAK!

Music:

This game’s soundtrack is really fucking good. Even people who hate Persona (reasonable) can admit that the soundtrack goes hard and has them BOISTEROUS TUNES. Some of my personal favourite tracks include:

-Reach Out To The Truth

-Backside Of The TV

-Deduction

-Sauna

-Heartbeat, Heartbreak

-Game

-A New World Fool

-The Fog

-Secret Base

-Heaven

-Long Way

-Corridor

-The Almighty

-The Genesis

-Electronica of the Soul

-Time to Make History

However, I will say that the normal boss theme is pretty mid when compared to the other tracks in the game, but it’s still alright. So basically, WE MAKING IT OUT IF INABA WITH THIS ONE!!!!!

Graphics:

I don’t give a shit about graphics in video games because I’m not a fucking loser, but I will say that this game looks pretty fire. The 3D model’s movements can feel a little janky at times but they’re alright. I mainly really like the sprites in this game, even if I do think that they could’ve be a little more expressive, because it’s a little jarring when a character is crying and their sprite is just “:(“. Either way, this isn’t really that important, but I just wanted to mention it. Adachi’s sprites are also all so peak by the way. He brings that adachilicious swagger wherever he goes.

Characters:

Yu:

Yu, or Reigen Arataka as I named him in my playthrough, is the protagonist of the game and your typical self-insert MC for the “immersive experience” that game developers love to do for some reason despite how fucking stupid it is and how I would prefer if the protagonist was an actual character with an actual personality. Granted, I did hear that he does have a personality in the anime, but I never watched it, so I really only have the game to base it off of. I don’t have anything to say about him because the game doesn’t give him anything to say, so yeah. He’s just your typical self-insert in the game.

Yosuke:

Where the fuck do I begin?! Alright, look, for the first couple of hours of the game, Yosuke is a great character. He’s just this chill bro who you would play Fortnite with, and even if he was a little down bad sometimes, he wasn’t like that too often and it was just him being a goofball. However, around the Steamy Bathhouse dungeon, all of that changes as Yosuke comes out of the closet as…HOMOPHOBIC! Turns out your bro would probably call you slurs during Jackbox vc sessions on Discord which fucking sucks. Even after that section, Yosuke is really homophobic towards Kanji which is NOT funny at all and makes me want to BANISH HIM to the DEPTH of IKEA! However, you don’t need to worry, BECAUSE IT GETS EVEN WORSE! You know when I said that Yosuke was down bad, well as the game progresses, that becomes more and more evident to the point where him being a pervert is just his main personality. Granted, it’s not as bad as a certain character that I’ll get to later, but it’s still really fucking obnoxious how painfully heterosexual he is. If bro was a Danganronpa fan, he would ship KaiMaki. If bro was a Puyo Puyo fan, he would ship SigAmi. If bro was an Angry Birds fan, he would love the second movie. You see what I’m getting at here? However, Yosuke DOES get bullied throughout the game, so that does slightly make up for how annoying he is, but he still sucks in the end. I also genuinely can’t believe that people actually ship him with the protagonist because Yosuke does not deserve an ounce of happiness in his absolutely pathetic life. Overall, Yosuke is a really annoying and unlikable character that fools you into thinking that he’d be your lovable goofball sidekick. Fuck Yosuke! All my homies hate Yosuke!

Chie:

On a more positive note, I really like Chie. Her personality balances out her whimsical silliness as well as her desire to roundhouse kick the shit out of people which makes for a very engaging and fun character that balances off the next character I will talk about very well. Absolute girlboss! She also beefs with Yosuke a lot which gives her extra points because FUCK YOSUKE! I don’t really have much to say about Chie since I got nothing to complain about or anything important that needs to be said, because she’s just a very solid character. Shoutouts to Chie aka Yukiko’s gf!

Yukiko:

Next up, Chie’s girlfriend! Yukiko is very reserved and not as bombastic as other characters but I really like that about her. She just has this calm demeanour and whenever she talks, I’m always really invested in her dialogue. She’s always got some real shit to say. She also really balances out Chie’s personality really well which is why they’re both perfect for each other and I can’t believe they actually got married at the end of the game, can you believe that? However, I will say that she was way too painfully heterosexual during the nightclub scene around Naoto’s part of the game, but that’s more of a flaw on the story then her own flaw. Also, her social link development felt very strange to me because it goes from “I want to be independent from my family” to “Actually, this is where I belong” which I understand the message it’s going for but it still feels strange tbh. I would say I like her around the same level as Chie, which is ANOTHER reason why they are perfect for each other. Overall, she’s very bodacious. Shoutouts to her.

Kanji:

FUCK YEAH TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE BEST FUCKING CHARACTER IN THE GAME! Kanji is the FUCKING GOAT! It may not seem like it from his funny as fuck dungeon, but he is the GOAT! He’s the bro that Yosuke never was, as I would definitely chill and listen to JPEGMAFIA with him unlike with Yosuke. He’s a bisexual icon, even if the game is too much of a coward to lean into the more gay side of his character, but what do you expect from Persona? I love how he’s this tough badass that does deep down have a soft side to him (which reminds me a lot of Onigawara from Mob Psycho who’s one of my favourite characters in that show) and I like how his character development is him learning to except that being a “real man” is by being true to yourself and making cute plushies, as seen in his social link being THE BEST IN THE FUCKING GAME. Absolute ICON! He really makes you wonder why Yosuke is still in the game in the first place because Kanji does everything he does WAY BETTER! Also, him and Naoto are both gay and in love trust me they told me themselves. Anyways, KANJI SOLOS EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THE GAME FUCK YEAH!!!!!

Rise:

I do not like Rise. I don’t utterly despise her like Yosuke or the next character I’ll talk about, but I do dislike her. I thought I was going to really like her from when she’s first introduced, as I really liked her calm and slightly cynical personality and I thought it would be great to have a character like that in the party, but I was so wrong. Turns out, Rise’s development isn’t about her leaving her life as an idol behind, but embracing it for some fucking reason. Turns out, her idol life is actually just how she normally is????? What the fuck????? Rise ends up turning about to be this annoying hyperactive and slightly smug character who’s always flirting with the main character because of Forced Heterosexuality SigAmi KaiMaki Angry Birds Movie 2 style (I already made that joke but I just had to make it again lol), and she’s also like that towards other characters as well. She’s also mean to Kanji, so she can go fuck herself. Overall, she’s annoying and I don’t like her. If she was removed from the game then nothing of value would be lost.

Teddie:

I FUCKING HATE TEDDIE I FUCKING HATE TEDDIE I FUCKING HATE TEDDIE I FUCKING HATE TEDDIE! HE IS THE WORST CHARACTER IN THE FUCKING GAME! If he isn’t making obnoxious bear puns every few seconds, then he is being a disgusting pervert, and when he isn’t doing that, he’s just being extremely fucking obnoxious. He’s also really fucking annoying during battles before Rise joins your party because he won’t SHUT THE FUCK UP! I don’t like Rise, but she is a billion times better then that stupid Freddy Fazbear wannabe. The most unrealistic thing about Persona 4 is the fact that the group view Teddie as a friend because in reality, I don’t think there is a single person who would ever love his pathetic existence. The game tries to give him character development later on in the story, but WHY THE FUCK should I care about the CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, when I fucking hate the CHARACTER that’s being DEVELOPED! Overall, Teddie is the worst character ever, and it’s baffling how the bad ending of the game is labeled as such when Teddie leaving is the best thing that could happen to the group, because his existence is worse then anything Adachi could even do. If he was removed from the game then the world would be a much better place, and yet here we are.

Naoto:

I LOVE NAOTO! THIRD BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAME! HE IS THE FUCKING GOAT! However, Naoto is different when compared to my other favourites in this game because of how utterly dirty he is done by the game. Kanji is disrespected as well and I already mentioned that previously and how it annoys me, but not to the extent that Naoto is. So, let’s talk about Naoto being trans.

The Naoto Transmasc Controversy:

Naoto’s character arc is fine if you just look at it in isolation. It is meant to be a commentary on how women aren’t given a chance in male-dominated jobs such as being a detective, and that’s a based message since women are amazing and I hope every women reading this is having a good day. However, the way the game handles this message is ATROCIOUS! Naoto is introduced as a man. He shows up here and there and isn’t relevant until after Mitsuo’s section of the game. Kanji is also heavily hinted at having a huge crush on him, which is adorable and I hope they live a happy life together. However, all of that changes after Naoto’s dungeon. It is then revealed that Naoto was born a woman and is transmasc, but isn’t actually, and is just presenting that way just because the detective industry is a male-dominated business. Naoto states here and there throughout the game that he wishes he was a man, but his character development involves him coming to terms with being a woman????? What the fuck????? The game is too much of a coward to have a trans character, and also to have Kanji be in love with a character who is a male, which fucking sucks. In my heart, Naoto is transmasc, and him and Kanji are both dating each other because they told me himself. You could argue with me that this goes against Naoto’s development in the game, but I don’t give a shit. So, with that out of the way, back to talking about the rest of Naoto’s character.

Naoto [Continued]:

I fucking love Naoto. He always has some real shit to say for being the only person in the group with an actual brain (Yosuke doesn’t count because anyone who’s homophobic is a fucking idiot). Whenever Naoto speaks, he always has this great way of delivering what he has to say and I love it whenever he spitting facts. He’s also pretty funny sometimes and has a lot of great moments as well (See: Naoto dissing Adachi in the climax of the game). He’s also the perfect contrast to Kanji, and in this essay, I will talk about why they are both gay and- nah, just kidding! I’m sure everyone knows that by now, but yeah. As you can tell, I’m a huge KanNao shipper lol. Overall, Naoto is amazing but the way Atlus treats him makes me want to hit the griddy but in an angry way.

Dojima:

THE SECOND BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAME! THE FUCKING CEO OF DILFS! MY BELOVED! FUCK YEAH! I LOVE DOJIMA! Dojima is the fucking goat! He’s this great older brother figure in the game that keeps the game grounded when compared to the bullshit that happens with the TV world. He also tries his best to be a good father figure to Nanako, even if he is pretty flawed and neglectful, which I do really like about him because it shows that he is human. He’s just some guy who is struggling with the loss of his wife and having to balance detective/police work with raising his daughter, and the game does a good job at showcasing this. You clearly can see multiple times that he is flawed and has a lot of problems with being there for his daughter and the guilt that comes with it, but he grows throughout the game and his social links and learns to be there more for his family. Persona really cooked when they wrote his character and I love him a lot. Also, him and Adachi are both really fucking funny whenever they’re on screen together because they got them toxic yaoi vibes and I just KNOW that Adachi received them Dojima backshots off-screen. There’s nothing to say otherwise, trust me!

Nanako:

Nanako is great. She’s just a silly little critter. She serves her role in the story well and I don’t really have anything else to say about her. She’s just a very solid character. The silly :)

Adachi:

THE FOURTH BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAME LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO!!!!! ADACHI TRUE!!!!! Everyone loves Adachi. Even if you don’t play Persona, chances are you know him and love him from his funny as shit memes, and while that is Adachi-True.png, he is genuinely a great character all memes aside. For most of the game, he’s just this absolute goofball who’s really funny and lovable whenever he’s on screen before eventually revealing himself to be the main antagonist of the game. Even if I already knew that beforehand, the twist is really well-done and I was even wondering throughout my play through how the fuck Adachi could be evil. The way he acts when he’s evil is honestly great, and I think about his big speech at the end of the game way more then I should. Also, the line about him becoming a police officer just to own a gun is an insane af line for a game that is clearly pro-police. It is a true af line through. He really cooked when he said that. Overall, he’s simultaneously a lovable goofball and a great antagonist. Absolute goat. He’s also my friend’s favourite character so extra point for that.

Mitsuo:

Mitsuo is a red herring in the case and that’s all he’s meant to be, but considering how him killing Mr Morooka is a pretty major event, it feels extremely jarring how the game barely touches on Mitsuo’s character. I would really like the idea of a prominent antagonist in this game being an incel kid, but the game barely does anything with that which is disappointing.

Namatame:

Namatame is another red herring in the case, but the game actually treats him more like an important character and I honestly really like him. I don’t have much to say about him because he’s just a really fucking solid character that serves his purpose in the story well.

Mr Morooka:

THE FUCKING GOAT THE MVP OF THE GAME ABSOLUTE GOAT THE BEST CHARACTER IN EVERYTHING EVER KING MORON SOLOS FUCK YEAH LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO

Marie:

I almost forgot to mention her here which should tell you exactly how much I care about her character.

The Sagiris:

I don’t care about these omnipotent beings. They’re boring tbh, but maybe that’s just my RPG fatigue since they appear pretty late into the game lmao.

Overall, the characters in the game can range from goated to the worst characters ever. They’re kinda hit or miss for me, but the few standouts are really fucking good standouts.

Story:

To easily categorise the story, I’ll separate this section into acts, witch each act being represented by a character that you have to deal with.

Prologue/Act 1 (Yukiko)

Yeah, this game starts off VERY slow. Now, this wouldn’t be a bad thing if it was paced well. I am a fan of slow-burning stuff. I love Better Call Saul, I listen to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and back when I actually liked the Puyo series, I wished that there would one day be a 50000+ word slowburn AmiEss fic, but Puyo Puyo fans suck and would rather write about the painfully mediocre SigAmi, so that never existed. However, the pacing of the prologue is very iffy. On one hand, the way you become friends with Chie and Yukiko feels WAY too sudden, but on the other, JESUS CHRIST THIS IS TAKING TEN YEARS CAN WE GET TO THE GAMEPLAY NOW!!!!! The story does set up the main mystery well, but it should’ve been condensed, which is a problem that you’ll see throughout the rest of the game. The game does definitely pick up once Yukiko gets kidnapped which is when the gameplay truly begins, and aside from her weird sexualisation in her midnight channel cutscene, it’s a fine first dungeon. I like her character’s motives and the resolution of confronting your problems and not running from them is a solid resolution and definitely better then some other ones (Kid Named Naoto:)

Overall, a decent yet slow start to the game.

Act 2 (Kanji):

This is definitely where the game starts to pick up and get pretty enjoyable. It establishes the main quartet well and I really enjoyed watching them interact (up until Yosuke falls off but I’LL GET TO THAT). Here, Kanji is introduced, with Naoto also having a small cameo. I really liked his introduction as it establishes his badass attitude and the way it portrays his whole closeted homosexual feelings towards Naoto is pretty funny and goofy. However, the dungeon of this chapter is actually fucking insane. Kanji is now almost naked in the TV world and in a fucking bathhouse acting like a gay stereotype and dropping lines that feel like punches to the gut. This dungeon is honestly so out-of-pocket that it honestly makes it fucking hilarious because you have a character who’s hinted at liking men and THIS is the fucking dungeon lmao. However, the end of this chapter is also when Yosuke begins to fall of and reveal himself to be HOMOPHOBIC! So that deducts points for this act, but it introduces the best character in the game which adds those points back so yeah.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable part of the game, but FUCK YOSUKE!

Act 3 (Rise):

This is the worst part of the game. Here, Yosuke is at his most unbearable as the worst parts of his personality (his homophobic and his painfully heterosexual attitude) are amplified by A LOT and this act also has the weakest series of events. The whole “motorbike” scenario with You, Yosuke and Kanji was just so unfun because Yosuke is out here wanting women to press their breasts against him and I’m just hear like SHUT THE FUCK UP! Also I hated having to pick up a girls number, especially since I had to pick up an older women, because in Atlus’ world, liking minors is ok if it’s an older woman and a teenage boy, WHEN IT IS NOT OK AT ALL! Afterwards, there is a camping trip but who the fuck cares about that. There’s an unfunny reoccurring gag about the female characters not being able to cook which runs throughout the entire game and it’s just not funny. Then you meet Rise and she tricks you into thinking that she’d be a cool character before she becomes annoying when she joins the cast. Her dungeon is also the worst one in the game, because it’s a fucking strip club. I know it’s trying to convey the stress Rise felt as an idol but like come on! Her resolution is also mid but I already talked about that so yeah However, Teddie’s shadow was a great twist and I loved that battle so shoutouts to that.

Overall, weakest act in the game. That shit was mid.

Act 4 (Mitsuo):

MR MOROOKA IS FUCKING DEAD NOOOOOOOOOOOO! REST IN PEACE TO THE FUCKING GOAT! Yeah, this act is when SHIT GETS REAL! I really liked how much Mr Morooka’s death completely throws a wrench into the case which adds to the whole mystery of it. It makes things pretty damn interesting. Also, TEDDIE TWINK JUMPSCARE! That shit definitely caught me off guard when I first played the game. I still fucking hate him but that scene was really funny and shoutouts to him bankrupting Yosuke as he should. Anyways, Mitsuo is then revealed as the next person you have to deal with in the midnight channel. He showed up around the prologue to hit on Yukiko and be an incel before dipping so him turning out to be an antagonist was a pretty good surprise. His dungeon is also really fucking good and marks the point in the game where the dungeons increase in quality. I also really liked Mitsuo’s performance for what little we saw of him, even if I wish he had more of a presence in the game. However, his boss fight is impossible on Hard mode which is a pain lmao. He’s one of the three bosses that I couldn’t beat in hard mode and had to switch to normal mode to deal with. Also, I wished he had a unique boss theme instead of just a R-R-RETRO!!!!! version of the regular mid boss theme.

Overall, this was a great act. It was very enjoyable and bodacious. Rip King Moron though. The goat will be missed.

Act 5 (Naoto):

Now, this act may introduce THE FUCKING GOAT NAOTO, but it’s also has some flaws. For starters, I did really like the whole fireworks festival part of the game because it was really nice, and I also liked how the group try to include Naoto in their activities and also Kanji’s crush on him coming back into the plot, which is still adorable. However, I did not enjoy the night club scene at all, and how KANJI’S FIRST KISS WAS TEDDIE GOD FUCKING DAMN IT I HATE THAT FUCKING BEAR IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WITH NAOTO GRAAAAAA also I hate forced heterosexuality like YUKIKO GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY LAP CHIE IS RIGHT THERE YOU BUFFOON!!!!! Anyways, Naoto then enters the TV world on his own will and you have to find him and I fucking love how worried Kanji is about him, like that shit was hype. However, then we reach The Reveal. I’ve already talked about it when I talked about Naoto’s character, so you already know how much it sucks.

Overall, this act had a bunch of great moments but also some not so good moments. It’s a mixed bag.

Act 6 (Nanako/Namatame):

This act is really fucking weird because it was on track to be the worst act of the entire game. While I did really enjoy the whole concert sequence, I did not enjoy the whole school festival part of the game, ESPECIALLY the swimsuit contest and the way the game treated the drag contest (Those outfits were fire, the game is just mean), and then you get THE FUCKING HOT SPRING SEQUENCE! ATLUS HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU I DO NOT ENJOY SEEING MINORS SEXUALISED BECAUSE THAT IS DISGUSTING AND BAD AND HORRIBLE AND STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM NAOTO LEAVE MY MAN ALONE AND STOP FOCUSING ON HIS BREASTS GRAAAAAAAA! HOWEVER, after that, SHIT GETS GOOOOOOD! I love the whole intensity of the situation involving the buildup to Nanako’s kidnapping and the actual incident. Your bonding with Nanako, Dojima finding out about you being tied to the case, and the entirety of the interrogation room section and the buildup to Nanako being kidnapped was top tier. The chase scene with Dojima afterwards was also amazing, and I love how this clearly shows his love for his daughter despite being neglectful and not there for her at all times. The dungeon is also one of the best in the game, and the whole encounter with Namatame is also so fucking good. The game does a good job at making this feel like this is where the case ends, and Namatame’s boss fight is also really good as well. Also, you can really feel Nanako and Dojima’s absence at this point in the game and it HURTS.

Overall, this act started off pretty weak but the climax of it made up for the rest of it, because god damn that was some good shit.

Act 7 (Adachi):

NOW THIS IS SOME GOOD SHIT! The city is now covered in fog and now Inaba has more negative aura then Wet Dry World in Mario 64. Also, Nanako and Dojima are still in the hospital so the isolation you feel is further enforced which hurts a lot. Anyways, NANAKO FUCKING DIES IN THE HOSPITAL!!!!! REST IN PEACE THAT SCENE MADE ME VERY EMOTIONAL but then you find Namatame in the hospital and you’re given the choice to FUCKING KILL HIM! That gets you the bad ending which I got on my first playthrough and it was really fucking depressing. You can also not kill him which also gives you the bad ending, but Nanako lives in that ending and Teddie leaves unlike in the good/true ending so idk why it’s still a bad ending because as I said previously, Teddie leaving is based.

Bad Ending:

I honestly love the bad endings because of how anticlimactic and uneasy they feels without being overbearing. It really makes you feel like something is wrong without outright stating it and it’s really effective. Good shit, Persona.

Accomplice Ending:

I’m gonna mention this as well since even though it’s later in the game, it’s also a bad ending so yeah. I sadly did not get this ending in my playthrough since Adachi was NEVER THERE when I wanted to talk with him and I could only get him up to LVL 4 on the social link so yeah. Sorry Adachi nation. I did watch it on Youtube though and I absolutely love how fucked up it is. Great shit, persona. Adachi solos. Shoutouts to his psychotic laughing sprite that’s only used for this scene fr.

Act 7 (Adachi) [Continued]:

To progress the game, you have to follow this specific dialogue tree which is a little frustrating but once you do so, the endgame begins and Nanako lives! Let’s fucking go! Anyways, you then talk with Namatame who’s actually just a chill guy who went down a downfall arc (literally me) and now you have to find the real killer…ADACHI PERSONA! Look, everyone already knows that Adachi is the main antagonist of the game because he’s practically unavoidable on the internet, but it’s still a really good twist and I love how the game handles the confrontation scene with him getting more and more irrationally angry until he slips up and has to run away, where he reveals his true self. Then you head over to his dungeon and fight him and shit goes hard but also the second phase is a bitch on hard mode and this is the second time I had to switch the game back to normal mode lmao.

Overall, PEAK CLIMAX! ADACHI IS THE GOAT! HE SOLOS! FUCK YEAH!

Act 8 (Marie):

After Adachi is dealt with, the game then has a bunch of silly slice-of-life stuff such as you making a snowman with Dojima and Nanako as well as your ski-trip which is all very epic. However, you then have to deal with Marie (after maxing her social link) and honestly I don’t give a shit about that Sagiri shit but yeah you do some shit and blah blah blah look at this point I was tired as shit and experiencing jrpg fatigue so bare with me and also I don’t give a shit about Marie lol. I thought she would be finally interesting here but no she isn’t lmao. Also, there’s another FUCKING HOT SPRING SCENE I AM GOING TO FUCKING LOSE IT FUCK ATLUS GRAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Overall, I’m still enjoying myself even if my JRPG fatigue got the better of me lmao.

Epilogue (The fucking Gas Station Tweaker that Ghetto Smosh warned me about):

Alright, the twist was cool and all but at this point I just wanted to beat the game and get the true ending so whatever. I was satisfied with the good ending until an interaction with my friend made me realise that there was a true final boss so yeah lmao. Also the true final boss was the third and final time that I had to switch my game back to normal mode lmao. Anyways, the true ending is also really wholesome and it put a smile on my face. It was really nice and a great way to end the game.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Persona 4 is a really good game that has amazing gameplay and some pretty cool characters as well as an interesting story. However, weak characters and poor elements of the story hold the game back from being truly amazing. 7.5/10, maybe an 8/10 if I’m generous.

#orthox.txt #persona #persona 4 #persona 4 golden #p4 #p4g #persona 4 spoilers

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prinxe-with-no-crown · 2 years

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fixation ask 💕 favorite

favourite character and why: it will surprise everyone that knows me that my favourite character somehow isnt Peri, the autistic girl with pink hair that has a pink cat ears hoodie. do not get me wrong - i love and adore her and she is high up there (as is the rest of the cast)

no uh. my favourites are Loam - a nice and cheerful character that hoards gender (so that fits a bit into some pattern) - and. i have failed to see any pattern as to why the second one is a favourite, but ill go into a bit of spoilery detail under the cut

Ame. he does not fit any pattern of my favourite characters aside from the "recognition of self in other" which let me elaborate.

so, on the path to the true ending of the game. he gets told that an abled bodied person wouldnt find standing up for two hours very difficult, merely annoying. and, uh. i didnt know that one either. and overall the "i had to discover the fact that im disabled entirely on my own" resonated with me. on my first playthrough that was just about my adhd, but as i slowed down on the second and subsequent playthroughs and started reading more carefully i actually had the "standing up for two hours isnt supposed to be difficult" sink in and hoo boy did that mess with me.

also his smiling sprite - well, i say smiling, but hes wearing a mask; but like. hes still really expressive - is adorable

also now that were here id like to reiterate that yes i absolutely adore Loam while being fully aware theyre a villain. they just need a good support system. i believe that, fundamentally, shes still a person with not only a capacity for good, but who actually might utilize said capacity. im not sure which place or places the idea is brought up - i think i recall something of the sort in Midnight's Cold Requiem, You Are The Anomaly and Collapsing Star - that people at their lowest point will be doing things that they wouldnt normally be doing, and while its important to recognize that this is still them, this isnt something they wouldve done without being pushed to extreme. and uh. "I'm leaving. If they kill me for trying, then that really is fine too." this may not be outright suicidal tendencies but it sure is suicidal behaviour. to give you a bit of an idea on how bad a place theyre in. point is he deserved better and if she got what she deserved they wouldnt be villainous.

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britesparc · 8 months

Text

Weekend Top Ten #605

Top Ten Videogame Intros

I had a bash on Gotham Knights this week via the medium of Xbox Game Pass (a great place to try out games you’re curious about but which you suspect are a bit pants – I’m looking at you, Marvel’s Avengers and Redfall). Anyway, one of the things that immediately struck me – because it’s, like, the very first thing that happens – is that the game has quite a long, protracted opening cut-scene with no interactivity. There’s a whacking great fight in the Batcave and then the aftermath of Batman’s death, and I swear it goes on for about ten minutes. It’s all in-engine, except it’s that sort of souped-up in-engine thing that looks a lot better than when you’re actually playing the game. And this kind of non-interactivity felt a bit incongruous; most game shy away from removing control for that length of time. Over the last twenty years, the most common form of introduction seems to be to allow you to actually play the game; even if the interactivity is pretty rote, the fashion is normally to present the story to you as gameplay. Think of Half-Life, arguably the great pioneer and also poster child for this method; a long, slow train ride through an expansive underground facility, hinting at the expanse of the game and the environments you’ll later have to battle your way out of armed with only a crowbar and a natty orange suit.

It wasn’t always this way, of course; Back In The Day, a game’s “intro” was often a mark of its quality. When the very notion of animation (and voices!) was a novelty worth talking about on the back of the box, intros were all the rage. Given the limited possibility for narrative in the days before performance capture and CD-quality speech, an intro might be the only way to tell you the game’s story, especially in a more action-focused title.

I say all this as a preamble because this week’s list is my favourite gaming intros. And, wouldn’t you know it, almost all of them are quite old. There’s only one that’s from this century and even that was fifteen years ago and – even back then – felt like a bit of a comedy throwback (which, of course, is part of its charm). I don’t know if it’s just because intros are shorter, more built into the actual gameplay, or because ever since in-game graphics and animation became sufficiently impressive as to actually tell a story, the very novelty of a bespoke animated film to kick off your game – whether sprite-based or live-action or rudimentary CG – has fallen by the wayside somewhat. Games like to thrust you into the action nowadays, explaining their backstory and how to play the game through gameplay mechanics themselves. I guess it’s probably a better, more immersive way to do it (the Gotham Knights intro does feel hella-long) but maybe something charming has kinda been lost along the way.

Back in the Amiga days, an intro might come on a disk all of its own. Just the intro disk. You stick it in, it plays a short film, then you insert disk 2 and the game actually begins. It was exciting! It felt like the future, like games becoming bigger and more artful, more able to express themselves using improving technology. And this list is a celebration of that; of game intros that are, well, just impressive in and of themselves, but also in how effective they are at setting up the game you’re gonna play. And I have made a distinction here between non-interactive intro “movies” – I think all of these are actual videos, so to speak, rather than in-engine, even Grim Fandango – so none of that Half-Life emergent stuff. That could be another list, I guess.

So what are we waiting for? Insert disk one.

Another World (1991): the grandaddy of all evocative intros, this was a masterpiece in subtle animation, world building, and suspense. With a limited colour palette, we see protagonist Lester Chaykin (a name I’ve somehow remembered perfectly over thirty years later) screech up in his Ferrari, descend an elevator, drink some Coke, and run an experiment that goes wrong and transports him to – you’ve guessed it – another world. Where you’re instantly dropped into the thick of it and have to start working out what to do and how to play immediately. The hard-edged polygonal look of the game makes the intro appear “in-game” just zoomed-in, from different angles; it’s a seamless and incredibly impressive feat. It serves perfectly to set everything up, and it just looks and sounds so damn cool.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (2008): FMV intros really came into prominence in the mid-nineties with the ascendency of CD-ROMs, and all of the Command and Conquer games excel in this area (remember Einstein killing Hitler in the first game?). Here we have some actual movie stars properly hamming it up in extraordinary fashion – Andrew Divoff as a general, Peter Stormare as a mad scientist, and chief among them, Tim Curry as the new Russian Premiere, having the time of his life. The cast also includes Jonathan Pryce, George Takei, and J.K. Simmons.

Premiere (1992): maybe a bit more obscure than the others, this Hollywood-set platform game from Core Design has a sumptuous and incredibly impressive animated intro (which had its own disk!). They clearly tried to evoke the look and feel of a genuine animated movie as much as possible – the loose, floppy, cartoonish style carries over into the game proper – and the results speak for themselves. Also speaking for themselves are the main character (whose name I forgot, sorry; look, this isn’t Another World), a rare instance of digitised speech in an Amiga game. Also of note: the bit where the phone rings off the hook. Loved that.

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (1997): another FMV affair at the height of the CD boom, this one had the added bonus of being about Star Wars. A bit of live-action Star Wars, including Jedi and lightsaber fights and all sorts, at a time when that hadn’t happened since 1983. It’s impossible to overstate, when a new Star War flops onto TV every other week, just how extraordinary that was, how exciting. Even putting aside that novelty, it’s still cracking, with some great cod-mythological dialogue, genuinely impressive action, and enough entertainment and intrigue to get you started. And, yes, it just feels so authentically Star Wars; this is probably the moment I became a die-hard fan of the franchise.

Cannon Fodder (1993)and Sensible World of Soccer (1994): when I first played these games on the Amiga they just had the songs – terrific songs though they were, hilarious and silly, with daft lyrics (“War, never been so much fun”). These intros, which I think first appeared on the Amiga CD32 and later PC releases, are basically daft music videos, and Cannon Fodder’s in particular is really funny. There’s a sense of a band larking about as the – young, male, white – developers shoot a video in a field where they get to drive a tank and dress up as soldiers. It's supremely silly and fantastic and so evocative of a time, a place, and Sensible Software in general.

Final Fight (1989): so far these have all been games I played at home, but here we have a great – possibly the greatest – example of a succinct arcade intro. These things had to be short – you don’t wanna put 20p in a machine and wait there all day to get started – but also had to set the tone and tell you why you were constantly pushing a joystick to the right while your dad waited patiently behind you with his hands in his pockets. The sheer eighties-action-movie directness of this – some mad gang threatening a city, kidnapping the mayor’s daughter, and the interaction of the identikit heroes, all in simple stills with hardly any animation – is a daft story simply told, and really sets the tone for what’s about to happen.

Syndicate Wars (1996): this one emerged when the concept of “fully-rendered” intros was all the rage; looking back now, the animation, modelling, and overall quality of the video itself (I imagine the resolution and bitrate was, ah, low) makes it feel like a product of another era. But this, again, is great at setting the tone and the place and also offering a more ground-level view of a world we see from above; the depiction of the violent battles of the agents is great, but especially evocative is how the “persuaded” citizens view the world, and what happens when the digital scales fall from their eyes.

Grim Fandango (1998): I feel like even way back when, most adventure games began in media res, almost; think of Guybrush walking up to the lookout on Melee Island. Fandango is a bit different, in that we see a whole animation play out – and this may have been souped-up engine footage, but it was definitely a rendered animation, not just playing out in-game – which explains the backstory of lead character Manny Calavera (remembered his name too!) and the mechanics of the game world. It’s a terrific overview of what could be a strange concept (the bureaucracy of the afterlife, filtered through Mexican traditions and culture, but also a film noir?) and anything that gives us more of Tony Plana’s performance is gold.

Theme Hospital (1997): another great example of one of Bullfrog’s rendered intros: it's very funny, with its depiction of a doctor as a sort of superhero rushing to the rescue, but also quite pointed (as the game is in general with its humour) in the way the poor victim is dumped down a chute if they can’t afford treatment. The rudimentary animation has a dated sort of charm, and I also love the various little gags and in-jokes they cram into such a short intro.

Shadow of the Beast II (1990): another superb and evocative Amiga intro – I actually thought I’d have a lot more from the Amiga era on here, but I guess the mid-nineties PC stuff has stuck in my head more. Anyway, this goes full-bore fantasy lore, coming across like one of Arnie’s Conan movies more than Lord of the Rings; but we get the return of a dark lord, a lonely cabin on the edge of civilisation, and – through some rather simple but incredibly effective animation, and the very evocative thunder and lightning effects – an evil attack and a baby being carried off by a giant predatory bird. Yes, it’s rudimentary, but it’s very effective. This was also one of the first Amiga 500 games I ever saw – it used to run in demo machines in computer shops, along with Days of Thunder – and I used to play it all the time with my cousin, so this dark fantasy opening is seared into my brain. I don’t remember what the main character was called, by the way, but I remember the cheat code for invulnerability was “ten pints”.

Insert disk two.

#top ten #games #gaming #videogames #amiga #pc #star wars #another world #bullfrog #sensible software #swos #jedi knight #game intros #retro gaming

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onebizarrekai · 3 years

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v3′s art is comically terrible for a professionally distributed game in a series: a compilation

in this not-essay I will list all of the mistakes and problems I have spotted in v3′s art. don’t worry, it’s entirely for fun and I’m doing this on a whim, so please feel free to not take this seriously but also it’s hilarious and embarrassing how ridiculous this is like what happened did they speedrun the whole production or what

see, there are some things you can take as meta like “they made it bad on purpose to allude to the downfall of tv shows that have been on air for much too long” but I have a very strong feeling this is not the case due to the nature of some of these errors

disclaimer, the more I study this art, the more I fear that the artists were underpaid and underslept, so if this is in fact the case, I am so sorry to all of them but also I’m going to make fun of the art anyway

anyway let’s get started!

if you study this image for longer than 5 seconds, you will see that kaede is the only one fully shaded and keebo is literally just his normal sprite pasted into the image. every other character is just an ordinary ref, hence most of them facing the exact same direction with neutral expressions on their faces. it looks like a bad edit, and is probably one of the worst pieces of art in the game. it kind of gets better from here on, but my roasting will not.

with that out of the way, here’s the problem that officially bothers me the most and clarifies my viewpoint of “this is not meta and an actual lack of company communication”

this freaking cg, which seems normal at a glance, but some wiseass was like “oh, kaede is a girl, so obviously she’s going to be shorter than the Male Protagonist™” ah, that’s funny. because if you look at the character bios, kaede is, in fact, one inch taller than shuichi and not like 6 inches shorter as she is shown here.

also shuichi’s shoulder is disproportionate and horrendous and he looks vaguely like a jojo character, but I wasn’t even thinking about that until right now.

thanks guys, 50% of the fandom who has never bothered to check these bios thinks that kaede is like 5′3 (did the developers really put so little thought into her to the point where drawing her correctly in the game didn’t even matter??)

also I would like to point out that, even though this isn’t related to the art itself, yes, a character kaede’s size being only 117 lbs is unfeasible, but this applies to literally every character in danganronpa ever and it’s not new news that it’s unrealistic

update: someone in the tags informed me that in versions of the game that use centimeters, like the japanese version, kaede is actually shorter than shuichi, which just adds another thing to the list of weird decisions the localization team made for no reason. that said, after confirming this, kaede is 167 cm in the original, while shuichi is 171 cm, which are approximately 5′6 and 5′7 respectively, but one inch is still nowhere near as drastic as it is depicted above. (in spite of this, I would rather depict kaede as slightly taller, so I’m probably going to keep doing that.)

the journey continues!

bro if you want kaede to have shoulder length hair then stick to it to begin with

you can pretend this is at an angle all you want but they definitely committed the shorter kaede sin a second time

wait a goddamn second.

DO YOU SEE THIS

no………… it wasn’t kaede who shrank. it was shuichi who got taller

speaking of which, can we talk about how shady the perspective is in this elevator pic? look at shuichi and kokichi in comparison to kaede. kokichi, who is canonically 7 inches (edit: or 5, if you’re loyal to the original) shorter than kaede, looks taller than kaede. he’s growing too. what steroids are these gays taking

running into the room, electric boogaloo: I don’t think tsumugi is supposed to be the same height as kokichi

gonta… gonta you’re lookin a bit like a jojo character there

I love how kaito’s head looks kind of like it was pasted onto his body. why is he the same size as shuichi? shouldn’t he be high school bully size or something? his torso is teensy

ah yes, white angie.

I love this cg but why is shuichi’s right hand so much bigger than his left hand

I also love how this cg looks like they literally took pictures of trees and pasted them into the background, especially on the left. the shadows are so weird, especially closer to the ceiling, it’s difficult for me to believe they didn’t do exactly that.

return of Enlarged shuichi

puberty update: kokichi is now taller than shuichi in spite of shuichi never missing leg day. what crimes will he commit

I have to mention it, guys. this has to be one of the worst danganronpa cgs. kokichi’s facial proportions look atrocious. look at the way his face sticks out like his jaw is in the wrong place. his scarf is a pasted texture. that’s it. this moment was so iconic but the cg just looks so… so… off. like something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

you know what? let’s get into that ‘pasted texture’ thing.

let’s imagine you’re an artist working on a professional game. you’re assigned to draw cgs of kokichi ouma, who has a checkered scarf from hell. sure, it will be terrible to draw, but you only have to draw it once at a time! plus, perspective is pretty important, right? can you be bothered? nah, actually. let’s just copy paste a checkered pattern into the cg, because I’m sure nobody will notice. it’ll blend right in with the other cgs that someone actually put effort into drawing his scarf in, right?

no. the answer is no and I very much noticed. this genuinely looks terrible and I would understand taking a shortcut like that in fanart or even an indie game but this is a full price pc and console distributed game

(an addition: look at kokichi’s TINY HANDS in that last one)

meanwhile, they straight up forgot to color in kokichi’s scarf in this cg.

dude. I forgot about whatever the hell this cg was. anyway look at keebo please just look at him

lovin kaito’s baby arms

real talk, maybe you could argue that he’s missing muscle because he’s deathly sick, but most of his cgs don’t line up with this, and his arms just look disproportionate to his torso size (granted this is a consistent problem across all danganronpa games and a lot of characters have this weird problem, like hajime, but also kaito is bigger than hajime so I kind of have higher expectations of him) maybe it’s his stupid goatee and the way he reminds me of yasuhiro?? it creates this illusion that he’s older than he is and so I keep expecting him to look more like an adult

oh, also rantaro is missing some of his accessories in that video he made–you know the one–but I don’t wanna go back and screenshot it

also you may have noticed that I’m skipping all of the monokub cgs because I literally do not care about them and I’m not even bothering to check and see if they have artistic mistakes in them

JIMMY NEUTRON???

hey um uh kaito you seem to be missing your neck

hey guys do you like my pregame fanart

so, that done, the sprites are also pretty terrible at times. they’re not as interesting to go through, however, and downloading the full sprite sets for every character and studying every single one of them will drive me insane, so I’ll just sum some of the ones I noticed up. I made things for kaede and shuichi before deciding I wasn’t going to get into it, so here are these.

that said, other mistakes include kokichi missing his purple highlights in all of the sprites encompassing a specific pose, stray pixels all over the place on everyone, and everyone also has heavily inconsistent shading, but literally all I think about is how pregame shuichi is unshaded and two of kaede’s pregame sprites have glaring outfit change mistakes in them

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous ramble. in all seriousness, there’s this looming presence of some lack of communication in the development team, like with all the art and design inconsistencies, pieces and sprites that look rushed, stray pixels, and missing basic proportional stuff. these are the kinds of things that you supposedly have to pretty much have in the bag in order to get jobs in professional businesses, so it’s really weird to me that this game suffers from so many of these problems. it’s like they tried to make the art so much more crisp than the other games, but it fell on its face as they realized it was going to take longer to draw everything and they started to rush. it’s weird, because the coloring itself looks normal–it’s just sloppily drawn, and the proportions are a mess once put into the context of perspective. many of the cgs look like they were drawn by different people, and I’m still not over the fact that half of kokichi’s cgs have his scarf pasted in as a texture.

the moral of the story is that if you’re selling a game at full price that also happens to be in a series that has had 3 very good games in it already the stakes should probably be higher than this. v3 has been out for more than 3 years and it’s still $40 (did it cost more than that before? I sure hope not), and the overarching quality of the game is just not as high as the other games. I’m not saying that the other games don’t have any problems with their art at all, they’re just not as glaringly obvious and every artistic choice in those games feels intentional.

regardless, I had a blast roasting the art at 2am, so maybe you got a kick out of all this chaos.

#god I keep telling myself I'm gonna stop rambling about v3 #v3 spoilers #drv3 spoilers #ndrv3 #random stuff #but making this… it sounded so fun #danganronpa

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mando-and-hallwaypatrol · 3 years

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Ishimaru Post-Execution Information

I'm sure anyone who has been even a bit invested with Ishimondo has heard of the theory that Taka went through...serious stuff after the death of Mondo. I'm here to give you some facts about it, his starvation period, and the final statement.

Facts.

•Ishimaru stopped eating altogether, he starved himself on purpose.

• The only person would would try to help Ishi was Hiro. Whether it be forcing him to eat, including him in meetings, or just giving him someone to talk to, Yasuhiro was the only one who would do something to attempt to pull Taka out of his grief.

• In the beta version, it's rumored that Taka would have committed suicide, whaaaat?

• Kiyondo Ishida was Ishimaru's unhealthy coping method. He disassociated with the game in order to collect himself to some sort. You could tell this was coming by the way he separated himself from the group (stopped showing up to the morning meetings, never spoke, wouldn't leave his room, etc...), and if he wasn't murdered, he could have possibly come back to his normal state of mind and would have mended himself.

Starvation.

As stated before, it was heavily rumored that Ishimaru starved himself because he was scared that butter made from Mondo could have been used in the food that was given. Think about that. He stopped eating because his friend, his only friend/bro, could have been put in his FOOD. How messed up is that? Many people have noticed that Ishimaru's sprites 'lost weight', but rather it was just part of his very very very expressive facial expressions. Yet, there is a small difference from the anime between pre-execution,

And post-execution.

I tried to get the same expression for comparison. His cheekbones seem more pronounced while his complexation is much paler. I know this may not be enough proof to warrant this is true, but I'm just putting it out there.

Final Statement?

Ishimaru needs help, if that wasn't already obvious. Hagakure was the only one who actually tried to help Ishi through his grieving period, which is just terrible. Without him, the class would have descended into chaos .But, I understand. It's a killing game, many people lost their friends. Look at Asahina, she lost Sakura. Well, she also tried to take everyone down with her when she thought they were the reason for Oogami's suicide. They all having their periods of despair, but they overcome it with the help of their friends. She apologized for acting in such a way, and not only did they accept it, they also helped her. This was not an option for Taka, who had to combat his grief, guilt, and despair alone.

Ishimaru didn't get the help he needed which caused to be the next victim. I feel no one saw the serious aspect of his grieving, only that he turned into Ishida, which steered everyone away from him.

I hope to hear your take on this, I'm probably wrong! I will update this if I get more info on it.

#danganronpa ishimaru #ishimaru kiyotaka #ishimaru deep dive #analyzing #starvation #cannon suicide mention #details #danganronpa hagakure #thh #trigger happy havoc #danganronpa #dr1

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danteinthedevildom · 3 years

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A Royal Pajama Party “Analysis” - Part 1 (of 7)

I mentioned (a while ago, oops) that I had a lot of thoughts on Diavolo’s character as revealed in the A Royal Pajama Party Devilgram. I ended up with so many screenshots, I couldn’t contain them all to a single post - so I’ve had to split it up into seven parts (ironically).

For this first part, I’m focusing on the free chapter. Spoilers under the cut, of course!

To start off with, I’m going to focus on this one, single screenshot. Despite how short it is, there’s a lot that’s revealed in just six words.

My main point of focus? Diavolo is so genuinely excited to spend time with you - actual time, not time he’s tried to slot in with some pretend event to trick you into hanging out with him - that he’s been actively waiting for you to turn up.

This is something I’ve noted before, but we know from previous Devilgrams that Diavolo doesn’t often get to spend time with other beings simply because nobody really wants to. He openly admits that he has to trick his friends into it by planning parties - as seen in the Concealed in Colour Devilgram - and that he struggles to get out of that habit now that he’s found someone (you) willing to visit the castle just to see him. No other alterior motives required.

And here he is, finally setting something up without trying to trick you into it! He doesn’t feel as unsure about your friendship with him anymore; he’s aware - and accepted - that you are there for him, to see him, and that he really can just ask for your time and have you willingly show up. So he’s created this little, private sleepover just to hang out with you. That shows a heck of a lot of improvement in his confidence with you and the strength of your friendship (or relationship, depending).

It also just shows the sheer excitement he has towards it. He’s anticipating the moment you arrive with such ferver that he’s been actively waiting for you. I’ll go over this a little more beneath another screenshot, but this really does highlight A) just how much it means to him that you’re coming over for a hangout and nothing more, and B) how rarely this happens for him that it’s an event worth waiting for.

This is, mostly, just exceedingly cute, in my eyes.

Firstly, the onesies are canonically a gift from Diavolo due to his enthusiasm for the concept of sleepovers and his enjoyment at having everyone wear one (which he believes makes it feel like a festivity). He’s so into the idea of everyone doing something together that, even if they aren’t specifically there with him, he’s had these outfits made for the beings he considers friends to unify them in fun and merriment.

These are things he’s never been able to do before. With his isolated and sheltered childhood, the experience of sleepovers with friends - something more than normal for most (if not all) of us - would have been something he completely missed out on due to the impossibility. He couldn’t get anyone close enough to him to even make friends, let alone have them spend the night with him playing games and having fun.

So, this act of making onesies and sending them out? This is probably his own way of replicating that experience. He’s aware that a lot of the demons - and possibly the angels - won’t be too enthused with the events he has planned, and might begrudge even showing up. Doing this instead - letting them have their own sleepovers but with his gift - is like giving them that freedom and distance from him while still being involved.

It also shows the sort of relationship he wants to have with them. Yes, he canonically needs to send everyone an outfit since that’s how outfits in these events work - but the devs could have just as easily come up with some other reason for them all having onesies. Considering the main event, it could’ve literally just been “these are outfits forced on them as part of the curse, and are retained afterwards as a reminder of the experience”.

To state, then, that Diavolo had these made for everyone - and combined with another screenshot I’ll show later, where Diavolo announces that he believes onesies to be part of the sleepover experience - shows that he wants the other main characters to be the kind of friends comfortable and happy enough in his company to willingly spend extended time with him.

(It also shows, I think, that they’re the friends he always hoped for as a child. You often find that people who were isolated as children or forced to grow up too quickly try to recreate moments they never got to experience in their childhood once they’re adults. I fully believe Diavolo is doing this. He’s always doing this; it’s why he can be so immature at times. He wasn’t allowed to be a normal kid, so he’s being a big kid now to make up for lost time. It’s why it’s so important to him that he does this sort of thing with others.)

Secondly, I love the wording of the second screenshot: “I’ve had yours specially tailored”.

This is a way around not showing MC with a onesie, and allowing all of us to create our own, sure. However, it’s also Diavolo openly admitting that he’s put extra work (and no doubt time and money) into having MC’s outfit created. After all, it’s not likely due to us being human; Solomon’s a human too, and he got his onesie without issue (Simeon explains that Purgatory Hall get theirs at the same time in his SSR Devilgram, Purgatory’s Pajama Party).

The implication? Diavolo didn’t just want to give us a onesie; he wanted to give us the perfect onesie.

Do you recall that I said I’d come back to Diavolo’s waiting later? This is why. (Please excuse the shoddy editing to remove my own MC’s name-)

This exchange says so much about Diavolo’s relationship with you. Not only is he anticipating your arrival, he’s anticipating it with such unrestrained glee that he - the Prince of the Devildom; most powerful demon in his entire kingdom - ignored typical royal protocol and sat down in front of the castle entrance, impatiently waiting for your arrival, so he could be the first person you saw as you entered.

The way he words it, you can imagine him bubbling with excitement, eyes constantly flickering over to the clock, shifting in his seat until the need to pace drew him to his feet, counting down the minutes until your scheduled arrival. Then, maybe fifteen minutes early - or thirty, or an hour - he can’t contain himself anymore. The sheer excitement - the knowledge that you’ll be there soon, there of your own free will, there to spend time with him - finally gets the better of him, and he sneaks away to stand before the grand front doors, eagerly awaiting the moment they open to reveal your much-loved form.

I’d definitely say it was a substantial amount of time, too. Fifteen minutes at the least, and maybe an hour at the most; Barbatos seems genuinely shocked, and the fact he says “all this time” implies Diavolo’s been guarding the door for a while. Longer than any reasonable demon - let alone a royal one - should have been.

This childish excitement really does show just how much of that lost youth Diavolo is getting back through MC. You let him experience things he never got to; things that were utterly normal for everyone else. He gets to replace those memories of loneliness and isolation with these moments of exhilaration and unrepentant joy - all because you treat him like someone normal. Someone worthy of care.

Additionally, the extent to his feelings towards you? Fully encompassed in that screenshot: “For [MC], no amount of time is too long.”

He cares about you and enjoys your company to such a degree, he’ll wait however long it takes just to see you. Every moment spent counting the minutes and seconds is worth it if, at the end, he gets to spend time with you. You - the one being he’s fully confident enjoys his presence as much as he enjoys yours - mean so much to him, you’re fully capable of making the Prince of the Devildom wait for hours, and he’ll be perfectly content to just sit there until you arrive.

What other being in all the Three Realms can claim the same thing? That they made the Prince wait for their arrival, and rather than be met with annoyance and disregard, they walked in to a veritable man-puppy so overwhelmingly enthused to see them he had to be scolded by his butler for breaking protocol?

The best part, of course, is Barbatos’ response. He sounds so resigned, so disbelieving; like a mother sighing over their child’s ridiculous behaviour.

This isn’t the first time Diavolo’s done something like this. This isn’t the first time Barbatos has had to reprimand Diavolo for acting in an un-princely manner over you. It’s something we’ve seen before, of course - in the aforementioned Concealed in Colour Devilgram, Barbatos teases Diavolo for constantly inviting MC over just to see you - but in this instance? When it’s not just Diavolo making up some scheme to lure you to the castle? It implies something else.

Firstly, it implies Diavolo’s behaviour regarding you is completely different to his behaviour regarding anyone else. That sort of childish, gleeful, almost puppyish excitement? The enthusiasm that makes him lose his poise and authority, and drives him to do such expressive things as wait to greet you at the front door? That’s very likely reserved only for you. It’s only you that he so wholly loses his shit over, to be absolutely blunt about it. It’s only you he feels so strongly for as to make such a bold declaration over.

Secondly, though? It implies this sort of... length, I think, is the best way to word it; the lengths Diavolo will go for you, even in really small, insignificant ways. “Whenever anything concerns [you] in the slightest”, Diavolo will forego all set boundries and standards. That feeling of resignation is Barbatos chastising Diavolo’s utter willingness to do... pretty much anything for you.

He’s just so excited that you’re there, he overreacts. From the tone, the sprite, and the wording used, I could fully imagine that, when it comes to you, Diavolo isn’t above diving out windows just to keep good on a promise. He isn’t above going the extra mile for your sake, whether asked for or not.

And though it’s done in a humorous way here - really just implying that Barbatos is a bit done with Diavolo’s sillier antics when it comes to you - it does make me wonder just how far that goes. It’s when anything concerns you “in the slightest”. Not just directly, but anything that has you in it even tangentially.

How much has Diavolo done, or planned, or changed, solely because it might have a glancing side-effect that makes you smile? How many times has Barbatos had to mention your name in something to get Diavolo to take an active interest in it? How many times has, “I believe MC would benefit from this...” actually worked to get Diavolo to consider a proposed deal?

More than that, however; if these are the lengths Diavolo goes to when you’re only slightly involved... what lengths would he go to if you’re more directly involved? What lengths would he go to if your involvement was something dangerous? Something that could have a rippling effect across the Three Realms?

You’re the only true friend Diavolo really has. He’s admitted before, more than once - both in the main game and in Devilgrams - that he’s aware both Lucifer and Barbatos don’t consider him as much of a friend as he considers them, and although we know of someone like Queen Rose, we don’t actually know the full extent of their friendship. Certainly not all too close, if the Dame event was anything to go by; it still felt stiff and formal, and Diavolo was still putting on airs.

You’re the only friend he can really let loose with; can laugh and play and spend time with, without having to do so through a veneer of formality.

He can be himself around you. Not the Prince, but Diavolo.

How far would Diavolo go to preserve the only friend he’s ever had?

+++

This post is the longest one of the lot, so if you made it this far - thank you! Hopefully it’s been an enjoyable and easy read.

The next set of screenshots are a bit more clear and don’t require so much in-depth thinking, but still provide plenty food for thought regarding Diavolo and his relationship with MC. They also go into content that you have to use Story Keys to unlock, so if you’re unwilling to see spoilers, you’ll have to end your reading here.

That said, if you’ve already unlocked the Devilgram (or are curious about what happens next/how much we learn about Diavolo in the next chapter), you can hop right over to part 2!

#obey me diavolo #obey me analysis #Character analysis more like but... you know #obey me

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patroklides-archive · 2 years

Note

ship bias. for el and hubert. <3

SHIP BIAS; accepting

i just realized how long this got so i’m putting it under a cut, whoops...

EDELGARD —

e.deleth.

this one is probably incredibly unsurprising for me, but i went into the game knowing i wanted to 1) do CF and 2) romance edelgard on my first playthrough. there aren't a lot of characters i actually do ship with byleth, but edelgard is one of the few where — to me, at least — it feels organic and not just like player insert wish fulfillment, particularly because edelgard's connection to byleth is a constant on all routes.

also, the trope of byleth's heart beating for the first time at the end of CF while in edelgard's arms? byleth being one of the few people who el is willing to open up to? of byleth and el having gone through equal and opposite traumas, with byleth being created by and used by rhea/the church in the same way that edelgard was created by and used by thales/twsitd?

i also love a tragic romance so the silver snow death scene hits me HARD and i both love and hate it.

e.delthea.

dorothea's crush on edelgard isn't even remotely subtle in their supports, and there's just something really refreshing about seeing a support chain between two characters who are canonically wlw where both characters openly express attraction to each other, particularly given that it never feels like anything about their supports is meant to cater to the male gaze. that just ... isn't something that expected to see in a fire emblem game, tbh.

i can speak to the ship a LOT from dorothea's perspective, but from edelgard's, i think dorothea is good for her in a similar way to byleth, because ultimately el needs someone who can help her relax and have fun, bc those are things she's ... not very good at.

b.erniegard.

this wasn't one that i initially really gave much thought to my first time through the game, but honestly, the two of them are really cute? i like that edelgard is willing to open up and be vulnerable to put bernadetta at ease, and like the first two, i think bernie also has the ability to push el toward more leisure activities like art and gardening.

bernie having endings with all of the most intimidating people in the game is also just. delightful to me.

e.delclaude.

you converted me on this one, but honestly, i really like their chemistry? i'm really picky about m/f ships for edelgard and i just find most of her m/f paired endings underwhelming, but i love her chemistry with claude. the two of them have a lot of similar goals and ambitions, but also have a LOT of secrets they're hiding from each other. they're also both incredibly smart, and i think edelgard is one of the few people who's capable of operating on claude's level. one of the other's being hubert, which. you know me.

HUBERT —

f.erdibert.

narrative foils? sun/moon aesthetic? helping each other become the best version of themselves? literally what don't i love about them, tbh.

honestly though i really love the way ferdinand pushes hubert to be more independent, and that hubert helps encourage ferdinand to be more humble. i love that between the two of them and edelgard, they round out the perfect "golden trio" dynamic in a way that i don't think you quite get with the other lord/retainer/rival trios. i love their goddamn jane austen-inspired dynamic. i love that their A+ is the only time hubert's blushing sprite is used outside his S support with byleth.

i also love that their post B-support meal time conversation is them politely making plans to go bicker somewhere else after lunch because that is a 100% normal thing to do with someone you hate, yes, absolutely.

c.laudebert.

this one is similar, but not identical, to e.delclaude in terms of my reasoning, because i do think hubert is on a very short list of people who are capable of keeping up with claude, and hubert is someone who really appreciates being challenged, whether that be intellectually or in his worldview.

i also really love their mirrored speeches after the other's defeat, bc on CF hubert's monetary dialogue after claude's defeat sounds like in complete awe of his tactical skills, and he comments something to the effect of beneath his compassionate exterior he's quite shrewd and calculating (that's not the exact quote but i don't have it in front of me), and he repeatedly tells byleth not to underestimate claude. i can't think of anyone else, short of edelgard and maybe byleth, that hubert speaks about with that much admiration.

s.ylvbert.

i didn't like s.ylvbert initially but i've really warmed up to them over the past year. sylvain is capable of keeping up with hubert intellectually, even if he doesn't often act like it, and i love putting hubert with people who annoy the shit out of him, which sylvain is singularly gifted at.

i also find it hilarious that sylvain canonically refers to hubert as "edelgard's idiot sidekick" bc i cannot think of another person who would have the guts to do that, even behind hubert's back. (well. maybe linhardt.)

h.ubernie.

so this is more speaking generally than for my specific playthrough, but after the f.erdibert ending, this one is definitely my next favorite canon option for hubert. i really love their supports and how soft their A support is, and i love hubert going out of his way not to frighten her. imo it's one of the best support chains for really getting a feel for hubert as a character, because the way he treats bernadetta is a testament to the fact that in spite of everything he's actually a very caring friend.

one of my friends converted me on this ship after i had already been writing hubert on this blog for a while, and tbh this ship has almost made me reconsider if i wanted to make my hubert portrayal bi because i'm so fond of it.

#( misc. ) — edelgard.#[ there are other ships i'm fond of for them as well but these are the big ones.#i do like m!byleth/hubert and l.inbert but didn't have quite enough to say about them #and e.delys and e.delstance are both very good. ]#( answered. )

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ckneal · 3 years

Text

So, I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head for a little while now, based on this premise: What if, due to some wire crossing that Chuck never anticipated, because he never anticipated Jack, or his powers, or that Jack might use his powers to tear open a portal to one of his cast off-worlds, allowing a scrapped draft of Michael to waltz over into the main canon universe, the OG Michael experiences some side effects? Such as, perhaps, his grace syncing up with the AU’s, causing his appearance to change for seemingly no reason, unaware that it’s corresponding with the other Michael changing vessels?

And as this is going on, Michael and Adam are at different stages in processing how they view one another. Adam’s just at the tail end of digesting the fact that he might be bisexual. Sure, there might be times when he and Michael are talking, and Michael says something, or—god forbid—laughs, and Adam feels this warm rush of affection, but that could just be something that happens when you’re part of a friendship that’s gotten this close. And, so what if he occasionally thinks about what might happen if they kissed, doesn’t everyone have that thought from time to time? That’s probably normal. And anyway, Michael looks just like him. Maybe he’s just getting vain.

But then, right in the middle of a conversation one day, Michael’s grace suddenly goes haywire. There’s this blinding flash, and Michael’s human form changes to that of the AU Michael’s apocalypse vessel. Dark hair, long coat, delicious beard, and neither of them have any idea why.

And this change is jarring for Adam. But it’s even more so for Michael, because, firstly, why did this happen? But also because, when he separated himself from Adam in the cage, for the sake of “privacy,” which Adam had made a big to-do about, Michael might have glossed over the fact that he couldn’t actually separate their minds completely. And, to a certain degree, a large part of maintaining their agreement, unbeknownst to Adam, involves Michael pretending that he doesn’t hear the odd fragment of a thought trickle over from Adam’s head. So, when Michael looks down at himself, at his hands and his new clothes, and then asks Adam what he looks like, he hears:

Holy shit—gorgeous—fucking hell—take me now. . .

“. . .Different.”

And with time moving more slowly in Hell than it does on earth, even though AU Michael only briefly wore this vessel after he crossed over, this new look sticks around for a little while for OG Michael and Adam. Which initially changes their dynamic a bit. Michael begins to wonder if he should tell Adam that his thoughts are not as infallibly private as Adam had been led to believe. However, there’s only so much entertainment in the cage, and there is something unspeakably gratifying about the fact that now, when he and Adam get into a debate, and Adam has a really solid argument going, Michael can stretch his neck like he’s trying to work out a kink, and hear Adam’s train of thought come to a screeching halt as he helplessly imagines what it would feel like to nuzzle into the expose skin. The thought generally only lasts a second or so, but inevitably costs Adam his footing the conversation every time, as it’s usually followed by Adam chastising himself for upwards of twenty minutes.

On one occasion, while discussing something called Kohlberg’s stages of morality, Michael evidently said Adam’s name in such a way that made him excuse himself to the far side of the cage, where Michael knew for a fact Adam spent the entire time scowling at the ceiling and thinking:

Creep—Stop staring at him—Not his fault he looks—sexy—gorgeous—fucking get it together. . .

Michael is aware that he has no business finding the whole situation as amusing as he does. After all, if Adam were to ever act on his errant thoughts, Michael would have to tell him that, as an angel of the Lord, entertaining any kind of relationship with a human would be utterly inappropriate. Angels simply didn’t do that sort of thing. . .

That said, a week or so later, Michael can hear Adam telling himself not to look at the dip in the V created by Michael’s new button-down shirt (it had arrived with the top two buttons undone, and Michael had refrained from altering it). Michael is getting ready to throw Adam off his game, again, when his grace flares. When the light subsides, Michael looks down at himself and sees that his human form has changed again. He looks up at Adam to ask what he looks like now, and Adam says. . .

Like an asshole.

“You look like Dean now. What happened?”

“I don’t know. . .”

Sadly, this change lasts significantly longer than the last one, and the awkward shift it causes in their dynamic is a lot less fun (for Michael). The second Michael’s face changes, Adam’s inner turmoil shifts from untoward appreciation, to a running loop of reminders that he’s looking at his brother’s face, which does not have nice eyes, and even if it did have nice eyes, the person looking out of them is a divine being with no interest in—in anything, and that the whole train of thought was sick, and redundant, and Michael didn’t mean to listen in, but he was already in the habit by this point.

Nor could Michael contradict Adam’s inner monologue, because of course Adam was right. Michael certainly wasn’t interested in—well, if anything, Michael was relieved that temptation had been taken out of Adam’s path. If Michael excused himself at one point to quietly explore the possibility of snapping himself back to the mysterious form from before, it was purely out of curiosity about the strange glitch in his powers, not for any other reason.

And, finding that, having never possessed or even seen the body in question, his attempts to revert to past vessels only brought up John Winchester’s form, Michael certainly didn’t feel disappointed. Nor did he spend the better part of an hour contemplating whether Adam’s father’s face would be an improvement over his brother’s, before remembering that he is not supposed to know or care about whether Adam is repulsed by his appearance.

Their rapport recovers, but nonetheless, they are both secretly relieved when Michael’s grace flares of its own volition once again. This time Michael is standing when the change happens, and the first thing he notices after is his height. This vessel was taller than Adam, or so it initially seemed, until Michael realized it was equipped with footwear that bolstered its natural height by a few inches. It was wearing fewer layers, and accessories securing its hair and dangling from its ears. Michael studied them with his hands.

“You look great,” Adam says before Michael has a chance to ask.

Obviously, Michael doesn’t care. By this point, Adam’s rush of lustful imaginings has become a relatively distant memory. Which made it all the more surprising when Michael was teaching Adam to speak Enochian sometime after the newest change. Michael was leaning forward, speaking slowly to show Adam precisely how he moved his lips and tongue around the syllables, but Adam’s accent was abysmal and distorted one word so badly that it threw off the entire sentence he was trying to say, and Michael briefly forgot himself to the point of actually laughing out loud—at which point, he heard the word Beautiful resonate through Adam’s mind.

Adam seemed to like this face. Words like “regal” and “stunning” crossed over from time to time, but, more significantly, Michael feels a surge of warmth come from him whenever Michael smiles—sometimes so intensely that the affection takes up residence in Adam’s eyes while they’re talking, and Michael can’t seem to look away.

After experiencing that, feeling his grace billow out of his control once again filled him with dread. Michael struggles to resist the change this time, but the flash of light comes nonetheless. Running his hands over his jaw afterward, and noting the familiar set of his legs, Michael knows before Adam says anything that he has changed into Dean Winchester again.

Adam chuckled when he saw Michael’s face. “You almost look disappointed.”

“Of course I’m not. I. . .I just wish I knew what was causing this.”

Once again, Dean’s face stays longer than it had any right to. To himself, Michael carefully thinks back over what he had been doing at the time of each change, wondering if he could possibly trigger another randomization. He had been talking each time—could it have been a key word or phrase, perhaps even a gesture or. . .thought?

Adam humors every experiment that Michael suggests, always with the same amused expression on his face. After the fourth or fifth failure, he says, gently, “You know, Dean’s face kind of suits you. Is it that bad?”

Michael retorts that this was not about vanity.

After all, Dean’s face is a reminder of their abandonment in the cage, and precisely what turn of events had led to Adam’s residency in particular. Michael would not force Adam to live with it peaceably when he should be capable of less offputting alternatives.

He’s overjoyed when the the now familiar surge of power finally courses through him again, and Adam has to bite his lip to stop his grin when Michael immediately begins running his hands over his new face. This vessel is the shortest to date; even with heels, Michael only stands as tall as Adam’s shoulder. This one also came with the most elaborate accessories. One of Michael’s new rings catches in the pins restraining his hair, necessitating the removal of both, and releasing a mane of shining red curls.

Adam helps him with the hair pins. And promptly grins when Michael’s thanks comes out in the cadence of a lilting Scottish accent.

Adam’s reaction to this one is easily the loudest since the first change. However, the words that Michael overhears run the gambit of Spitfire, Adorable, and Spritely—words that Michael is not accustomed to hearing in relation to himself, and not certain if he approves. He finally takes offense at the term pixie, and in the midst of a conversation about Purgatory, detours into a tangent about how angels and pixies are in no way similar to one another, regardless of humanity’s affinity for portraying the two specifies as humanoid beings with wings.

During this spiel, Michael fails to notice Adam raising an eyebrow at the abrupt segeway. He spends a minute, leaning against the side of the cage, half listening to Michael, while also trying to deduce how pixies came into the conversation. Then suddenly realization hits, and the fact that he is able to keep his face completely neutral is nothing short of a miracle.

Adam’s rather proud of the fact that he’s managed to get himself under control since coming to terms with his attraction toward Michael. Being around Michael after the first body swap had been difficult, and then confusing, after the second change put Michael in the shape of a blood relative, and not exactly a fondly remembered one at that. Self-control had become a matter of sanity for Adam, and, once he’d acknowledged his feelings to himself, vital for maintaining their friendship as it was. He hadn’t imagined making out with Michael against the side of the cage in ages. But now, with Michael’s tangent, with his fussing after each vessel change in mind, he had a hypothesis to test.

Michael was still talking when Adam’s fantasy hit him: Adam pushing away from the wall, three steps to close the distance between them, and then tilting Michael’s pixie-esque face upward to kiss him breathless. It was. . .very vivid. Michael could almost feel Adam’s arm slip around his waist, and the ghost-like caress of his tongue along his lips, requesting admittance. The fantasy cut short before request could be answered.

Adam bit back a grin watching Michael trip over his consonants. Even before he walked over, he could see the blush spreading out on Michael’s face. Michael doesn’t move back as Adam approaches him, coming in closer than he would normal go. Instead, Michael seems to lean into the closeness, tilting his own head back as his lips parted, eyes on Adam’s face. Adam’s tempted to run a hand along Michael’s jaw.

Then. . .

“.. .I’m sorry, I got distracted thinking about something. Can you repeat that last part?”

“W—Yes, of course.” Michael practically flies three steps back. “As I was saying—”

“Wait, Michael. . .”

“Yes?” When Michael, flustered, finally looks at Adam again, Adam is giving him a look that normally means a joke has gone over his head—though what the joke could be is beyond him. Michael tries to listen into Adam’s mind, but all he can detect is vague confusion.

Meanwhile, Adam is not sure whether he’s being rejected, or if Michael had honestly just missed the part where Adam caught him listening in on his thoughts red handed, and maybe caught him in something else too. Judging by the look on Michael’s face though, Adam was going to have to ask the question outright. . .

“You know, I think we got off topic. Let’s take it back to Purgatory.”

. . .But he cops out.

Shortly after the pixie incident, Michael experiences the opposite of the power surge that marks the onset of a change. His grace seems to short circuit for a moment, and when the riotous flickering subsides, he’s reverted to Adam’s form. What this means, neither of them know. They carry on, neither of them saying it, but both secretly braced for the next change. Instead, the next time Michael senses an unexplainable rush of power, the cage door swings open, and the two of them sit there gaping at their freedom for an embarrassingly long amount of time before either moves to step outside.

When they do, Michael is wary. He doesn’t know of many beings that could simply open the cage, and he can’t dismiss the thought that this might be a trap of some sort. He pulls the two of them back into one being and ventures out cautiously. He knows where the doorway to earth is, and can get there as easily on foot as by wing. . .but then they happen to pass by the new queen of Hell, seemingly out on some kind of procession. Which is unusual enough for Hell, since festivities are not typically done there, but more importantly, Michael gets caught on the queen’s appearance.

“Michael? Why are we stopping?”

“That woman.”

“Yes?”

“Doesn’t she look familiar?”

“Um. . .I don’t know? Why, is she some important bible-y character?”

“First, we are not characters, Adam, but also—” Michael struggles to articulate his thoughts. He’d seen that woman in Adam’s fantasy! She was attired differently, in red and gold, with her hair arranged in waves woven through with braids, but it was her. He knew for a fact that Adam had once gazed at her in amazement that he could find anyone so unreservedly endearing while they were in a “mood,” as Adam had put it, yet now he hardly seemed to notice her. To think that Adam could be so offhanded with his affections was disconcerting.

Michael sets it aside, but the thought cycles back when he and Adam are at the diner later.

“You really didn’t recognize that redhead?”

“Jeez, Michael, did you?” Adam shoots him a look as he takes a bite of his pizza. It’s the one that usually meant there was something humorous going on that Michael didn’t see.

One thing that had slipped Michael’s mind when he bound Adam and himself back together in Hell, was that their proximity would make Adam’s thoughts significantly easier to overhear. As Adam chews, Michael distinctly hears:

Go on, say it—You’re not going to say it—Say it, I dare you. . .

“What’s with the frown?” Adam says after swallowing and wiping the corners of his mouth with his napkin.

“I’m still figuring that out.”

Adam chuckles as he picks a french fry off the plate of his first entrée. . . .Yeah, you’ll get there. . .

#the himbo and the coward: a cage story #Adam would think AU Michael's a reprehensible person #but those vessels are fine af #midam #this was not supposed to be this long when i started typing #my thoughts #if you think this is long you should see what happens when i’m TRYING to write a fic #adam milligan #supernatural michael

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aqvarius · 4 years

Note

Top 5 fav hlitf cgs?

thanks for this ask!! ahh it was so hard to narrow it down to 5 but i will try my best (with some bonuses bc... how could i not). i’m not going to include vip room CGs here even tho there are a couple of them that i adore too. also i can’t believe i’m not including the soma coming out of the shower CG that i love enough to have made my icon for a very long time now... but that just goes to show how much i love these ones.

5. are you bullying my aide?

okay so i’m cheating right off the bat and decided to group these two in one category bc they’re like conceptually the same CG lmao. i made a post before about loving instructors getting furious at people trying to hurt you in the sunset. and the fact that two of my absolute fave LIs of all time get these gorgeous fury CGs makes me infinitely happy alskdfls. the sad thing is that there’s an error in soma’s route so the CG doesn’t actually appear in-game... anyway you know i love seeing cool love interests get mad so these two CGs are a perfect depiction of that.

4. i’ll take compensation

who doesn’t love this scene and CG!! and the in-game version as well where his eyes are open bc he was surprised. i love it so much. that entire ending was so good, with the mc being the Best Senpai Ever? and she tries to blow his socks off with a kiss but then he just grabs her butt and goes in deeper? we stan a tie-grabbing mc. i only wish there was a CG for that elevator kiss too in the sequel(?).

3. it reminded me of ugly cat

honestly i love all of goto’s s3 CGs bc they are all just so pretty and i love the one as well where tsugaru is joking about him and usa being a couple and goto gets pissed. but this one is just so... pure and soft???? it’s so rare to see goto all relaxed and smiley and i just love it soooo much. also does anyone else find that his smile in this CG is so similar to chiba’s smiling sprite? ughhh this is so freaking cute i physically can’t look at it for too long otherwise i get overwhelmed with feelings. oh and also that cat is so weird looking lmao

2. please... let me be with you

one of my favourite moments of all time. look how stunned kaga looks (but also... how pretty is he here... and how pretty is she.... season 3 CGs are so top quality). the fact that she’s hopped up on painkillers but they’re just fading off so she’s already starting to feel pain again and kaga is already kind of angsting over everything that happened on the case and then tsugaru is taking her home while kaga can’t even speak to her bc of office rules. and she just runs back to the office by herself even tho she’s already starting to feel the pain in her gunshot wound and just bursts into the office and yanks his cigarette out of his mouth and kisses him? and says even if you don’t want me, i want to be with you. honestly this whole moment is like freaking kdrama level dramatic and romantic and i love it so much. it’s like... the perfect moment combined with the prettiest CG. kaga’s pov of this scene makes it EVEN BETTER because he’s literally smitten with her, like he wants her so badly and then she just magically appears in front of him and kisses the life out of him, just as he was thinking about how much he needs her. right at the moment when he’s feeling the most empty, the most hollow, like his entire career in public safety amounted to nothing, she comes back to him. and then there’s that line of his, where he talks about love so fierce that he can’t breathe around it filling his chest and honestly it gets me every single time (also bc i can relate to that feeling lmao) but basically kaga/mc is my favourite couple and this moment and CG are just like... exactly what i love the most about them as a pair. ALSO i love her hair and that gold pin hahaha i want it.

1.5 did i or did i not say you were forbidden from acting rashly?

how could i not include this one as a bonus? i’ve been in love with this CG from the very first time i laid eyes on it back in 2018. no context (at the time i think soma’s graduation hadn’t even come out in l365 so we hadn’t even seen his short hair sprite in the intl app), no idea what was even happening in this scene, and yet i was immediately struck by the dangerous look in his eye and that little smile, and also just like... getting to see him in a tshirt and hoodie is so rare? i’m p certain that outfit is just recycled ayumu sprite’s casual clothes. anyway, knowing the context behind this CG makes it 10000x better for me. i wrote this in my unpublished review of soma’s battlefield route but i genuinely believe we’re seeing this CG from his mc’s eyes and that’s what tokito really looked like in that moment - with soma’s face, his hair, his expressions, his hands, his voice. our poor, sweet mc had been suffering for so long to the point where even toru and ayumu noticed that she hadn’t smiled in forever and were trying to cheer her up (and momose too later!!). for me, this CG represents the absolutely heartbreaking sense of delusion that soma’s mc feels in this route, and the way that she keeps trying so hard to project soma onto tokito because of her grief. i genuinely felt like in that moment, she physically saw soma coming to her rescue, like her desires manifest into a delusion. also, this CG comes at an absolutely amazing time bc we had been deprived of seeing soma for like 60% of the route and then we get this CG and suddenly everything is better for a short moment, and then everything goes back to normal and you really get a sense of how upsetting life has been for his mc.

1. come now, love. tell me what you desire

i love this CG. i love it so so so so so much. firstly, i love the look of it. both soma and his mc just look so attractive?? soma’s muscles?? in his shoulders and back especially?! his mc has commented on his shoulderblades and back muscles before which have been honed through kendo practice so i’m very happy to get to see them. the actual text says that the mc is naked but here she’s still wearing a sundress, but she just looks so pretty and like she’s feeling unbelievably good? anyway i scream bc even soma’s hands look good and they still kept that one piece of hair that he has that sticks up lmao what’s gravity anyway? anyway, beyond the sensuality of the image (and also his tongue... and his sweat...), there’s just so much meaning behind it? like yes, it’s very hot and sensual and the dialogue that goes with this scene is unbelievably sexy, but this scene is just super meaningful bc it’s part of their recovery as a couple. they’re on this secret holiday in okinawa and they’re reconnecting after their trauma and idk it’s just so intimate. we really get to see the mc from soma’s eyes and we get to see how he is the only one who can see her weakness behind that strong face of hers, but also how he sees her strength in recovery? the way he describes that scene where she’s in this gorgeous white swimsuit with a sheer coverup and then picks a brown swim float so she can sit atop it on the waves and say “don’t i look like a doughnut?” despite having a literal near-death experience in the sea not too long before honestly had me falling head over heels in love with her, and it really made me understand exactly what he loves about her, and how much he just adores her. anyway this is me gushing over that special story, but what i mean is that the ending of his battlefield in combination with this special story sets up the beginning of soma and his mc’s healing as a couple, and it culminates in this scene. soma is kind of similar to kaga in the sense that they both actually demonstrate their feelings the most honestly through physical means, and here you can just see how palpable the desperation is. they desire each other so intensely and intimately and having this moment for the two of them to share is so significant for their recovery. you can just see how much soma needs to show her that he’s here, he’s really, physically here with her, and he’ll never leave her alone ever again, and he’s so sorry for all the pain she’s had to go through. you can see the way he’s telling her that with his body and with the way he talks to her and is just so himself in bed. there are really parallels between their first night together and this scene (mostly like... him asking her to tell him what she wants lol) and it just makes me so EMOTIONAL.

YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS THE END?

no, that was just my top five solo (or li/mc) CGs. i also need to give my top five fave group/multiple character CGs lmao.

in no particular order:

what can i say? it’s just so beautiful, and every single expression and pose is just so suited for each character i’m in love.

frankly no real reason for this one aside from the fact that we get to see goto and subaru in yukata and subaru always looks soooo freaking good in hlitf CGs and also goto’s hand is on subaru’s chest and you know we ship gobaru in this house

the third anniversary substory CGs are just amazing (you’ll see the full one in a bit and it’s WILD) but honestly i just need everyone to see this one bc it’s just gorgeous. look at ishigami and kaga and look at how inhuman they look, all sweaty and tired from being in panda mascot costumes. kaga with his sleeves rolled up literally has me salivating. look at PRETTY their faces and muscles are... anyway, this CG has me as thirsty as ishigami guzzling that bottle of water..........

i said it was in no particular order but i just need to say that this one is my actual favourite bc it has EVERYONE. and look at how gorgeous they all look.... every single one of them with their hair pushed back ;alskdjfalsk WHO??? WHO LET THIS HAPPEN? NAMBA’S GLOVE? KAGA AND GOTO’S MATCHING SCOWLS? THE ANGLE OF SOMA’S HEAD? TSUGARU’S TONGUE? and also the way his legs are positioned?!?!?! also i love swishy hair ayumu and hide with his leg crossed the other way from kaga and also i’ve never seen toru look this attractive it’s very unfair.

the sheer amount of chaotic energy in this one is just wonderful and i love all the details. you all know namba is DAY DRUNK. goto and toru in that signature headlock position, ayumu being a lil shit and putting wasabi in all the cupcakes and ISHIGAMI AND KAGA FALLING FOR IT AND SUFFERING??? LOOK AT THEIR SUFFERING FACES JUST LOOK. and you just KNOW that soma is going to suffer the same fate oh sweet mercy this is like “famous last pictures” level of good. also they’re all wearing new clothes which i love sooooo much. i wanna see ayumu in that orange sweater more often and also army green shirt kaga with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms with that look on his face. have i ever been more in love? no.

finally, here’s my ultimate favourite favourite group image of all time! not a CG but it’s the header that i use on the mobile version of my blog:

they’re all looking so happily/fondly over at YOU (hlitf mc who fell asleep) and wondering what you’re dreaming about/saying that you’re dreaming about them. and they all just love and adore you so much. the amount of affection in this one image is unreal and also momose is in it ialskfjsd i just.............. am the SOFTEST for this one.

anyway sorry that (1) it took so long for me to answer this, bc i had to spend ages thinking about it alongside being busy with life stuff and (2) that i went on for so long and did not pick 5 CGs but rather... 12....... but these are my faves!! thank you so much for the ask!

#her love in the force #hlitf #seiji goto #hyogo kaga #hideki ishigami #shusuke soma #ayumu shinonome #jin namba #toru kurosawa #takaomi tsugaru #takeru momose #snow answers #Anonymous #voltage inc #otome game #voltage otome #otome romance #love 365 #at times like this i really miss my tag bundles

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otome-silvynne · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on Saeran's After End

Okay I think I've finally got my thoughts together enough to write this lol. I will try to keep it as organised as possible!

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SAERAN'S AE

TL;DR - I loved the amount of work put into this AE. The CGs and new sprites were absolutely stunning (not the hands) but I wasn't a huge fan of some of the writing choices.

Okay let's start this mess of a post with what I liked about the AE!

The new CGs, sprites, and emojis. I loved every single (positive) CG even though the art style changed a lot. Some of them were so cute I wanted to cry and Saeran's new sprites fit him really well I think. Though the crying one made my heart hurt 🥺

The length. Cheritz went above and beyond when it came to the length of the AE. I was really expecting it to be episodic like V's but the fact that it's a mini route was a cool surprise!

Calls/texts. The Cheritz team added a tonne of extra calls for this AE and though I've only seen the ones my friends have shared, there are some super cool ones that add interesting perspectives on the plot.

Good End/Normal End. I have some issues with the plot which I'll get to in the next section, but I really really loved the good end and normal end for the AE. They were both so heart-warming but I do think that a combination of both would have been the best ending.

Jumin Han. This poor poor man went through so much during this AE but holy crap did it make me love him even more. He really had some amazing character development and even though he was in a crisis, he still did everything in his power to help Saeran and MC and I think it really showed just how deep his loyalty goes. I love him.

Okay so this is where I get kind of ranty. Apologies in advance.

I find the plot of this AE to be unideal in... many ways. Though it was satisfying to finally have it after waiting so long I really wish they had done some things different, so let's get into it.

V. My #1 issue with the writing is what they did to Jihyun's characterization. It just really was not fair in the slightest and in my opinion it wasn't entirely accurate to him. (Feel free to call me out for being biased, I have role-played as this man for years now.) V and Saeran are actually tied as my favourite characters so as you could guess the prologue for this hurt me so so so bad. V never seemed like the type of man to turn on his friends like that. Not even for Rika or his obsession with her - he has always made shitty decisions or has been mysterious, but he would never betray them like that and he was never straight up evil like he sometimes seems to be in this. That man was not Jihyun to me - it was like he was a stranger.

Guilt tripping. There are multiple moments in the AE where they mention that "maybe V wouldn't have turned out that way if he met someone like MC" and it's kind of bullshit. It feels like they're blaming the player for choosing Saeran over Jihyun when they really shouldn't be - both are amazing characters and there is no reason the AE should have that kind of undertone at all. I might make another post about V if anyone wants to hear my opinion in more depth lol.

Forgiveness/Healing. Cheritz hasn't always been the best at portraying trauma and we know this but I felt like I should mention it anyway. This AE takes place two weeks after the end of Saeran's route. Keeping this in mind, every single interaction he has with Rika in the AE is just... unimaginable. For years he was brainwashed and manipulated by that woman and yet it seems like he feels nothing when he sees her again even though she has done unspeakable things to him. Realistically he would have felt fear or hatred or anything at all. I understand they said he healed a lot but completely getting over it? In two weeks?? I don't think so man.

PM/The agency. I feel like the focus should have been on them a bit more during the whole thing. A lot of the focus of the writing was on Rika and V when they were the least of the RFA's problems - they were dangerous and outright insane, but they wouldn't have killed anyone like the other antagonists.

Pain. Out of every single piece of media I've ever consumed - game or otherwise - this is the only thing that ever gave me physical chest pain from how upsetting it was. It made me so anxious I could not sleep at times and generally stressed me out lol. Some would probably see this as good writing or something impressive but it just felt awful for me because of how long we waited for this to come out. I was looking forward to seeing Saeyoung's rescue and everyone living happily (which is sort of the point of an AE, right?) but there was just so much heartache in between that it almost didn't feel worth it when I finally did get to the end.

BR End. I'm sure you all know the one lol cough collar cough cough and lord why on Earth is it so incredibly easy to get by accident? I got 100% on all three days when I played and still got it anyway - it sucks man. I had to start over and go through all of the stress mentioned above again and it wore me down. That being said, I do like how you're free (and expected) to be suspicious of Rika and V instead of forgiving them for literally drugging the entire RFA and making deals with criminals. Thanks man. Wish we didn't have to see them and the PM forgiven in the end anyway though :)

Okay /rant lmao. Obviously this is all a shortened version of my thoughts and it's still pretty long but I'm glad I could at least express this much. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this and I'd be glad to discuss more with other fans through DM or something and see other opinions. If you're interested you could message me here or @silvynne and if you read this far you are probably insane but also awesome so thank you.

#otome #mystic messenger dlc #mystic messenger #saeran ae #saeran ae spoilers #ray ae #ray ae spoilers #my post #text #long post #cheritz #saeran choi #mysme saeran

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