#obviously this is not representative of actual gameplay LMAO

[motherhenna]

I've always wanted to do a "Pieta"-esque piece, and figured my Skyrim OCs would be a good vehicle to do it! Scene takes place shortly after the final Alduin fight, at the throat of the world: Vakna (dragonborn) doing her best to keep her Falmer lover, Sivasei conscious while imploring Odahviing to take them back to Whiterun.

#art #my art #skyrim #elder scrolls #skyrim oc #elder scrolls oc #TES oc #skyrim dragonborn #tesblr #falmer #snow elf #falmer oc #obviously this is not representative of actual gameplay LMAO #this is from an AU where alduin isn't obscenely easy to kill #Siv survives btw but loses his leg #hashtag peeta moment

[owlixx]

Sonic Wishlist: Playable Characters

So, basically, I’d really like a Mortal Kombat Armageddon of Sonic The Hedgehog - a game that finds a way to cram in “every” character in the series. Now, obviously, the canon of Sonic is far too sprawling to make every canon character playable even just across the main canonicity, but something along the lines of “every previously playable character” with a couple extra inclusions.

First off, this post is half just seeing how many Sonic characters I can name off the top of my head.

Also, this hypothetical game already kind of exists in the form of the Sonic phone games and Sonic Speed Simulator on roblox, but I’d like an official console release with every character ever.

Also also, this game would maybe need to not be a core sonic game and instead be a rhythm game, fighting game, etc etc etc although Sonic Heroes did a pretty good job of including a lot of characters.

Also wanted to just rotate my blorbos a bit and sort them into tiers of “how much I expect them to be playable”, which is not the same as “how much I want to play them”.

Okay okay so the first pick is obviously Sonic himself.

At the rate things had been going before Frontiers, I would’ve put “classic Sonic” as the second most likely character but I think maybe Sega has changed their stance there finally so I’ll say Tails is #2, Knuckles is #3, and Shadow is #4. And I’ll leave “classic sonic” at tied at #1 with regular sonic and/or counting as the same character.

Which is honestly kind of funny because Shadow is only playable in SA2, Heroes, 06, Shadow, and Forces as DLC which is pretty rough if you visualize it as a graph over time.

[Image description: a line going downward]

But he’s popular and for a reason too.

Anyways, I’d probably go with Amy for #5 mostly likely character to be playable in a future sonic game. Alternatively, you can view this list as who I would expect to be the roster in a future sonic game announced to have X many playable characters. And I’ll probably switch to tiers after a bit.

#6…probably Rouge? I love her dearly and love how much she features in Prime.

#7/8/9 go to team chaotix in the order of Vector/Espio/Charmy based on only Vector being in TSR and I think Charmy not being in sonic speed simulator at the moment.

#10 Silver and #11 Blaze. Sadly I think TSR and Olympics are the only playable appearances for these two since 06/RA off the top of my head but I think both are in generations at least? I still want to see Silver (and Rouge) in 2D gameplay

Uhhhh #12 Omega? All the robots would be much higher on a personal wishlist rather than a prediction

#13 Metal Sonic which is honestly lower than I’d have expected. Lot of good characters in these games I guess.

#14 Big the Cat, I call em like I see em. Seems like he is on the rise lately.

#15 Cream who I think has been weirdly absent lately. I really like the idea of having a Tails-adjacent character and she’s perfect for that. Id tolerate her being a chao garden NPC if it meant we got the chao garden back. But I love her being kind of a Sonic Advance representative and I adore that she does her rail grind animation from that game in sonic speed simulator too as a reference.

#16 I guess this is where I’d slot the Sonic Forces Avatar, probably just appearing as default one or as “Gadget” from the comics. Maybe with a couple alternate costumes to show off some of the gear sets.

At this point the list is just what order I can remember these characters in lmao

I do wanna stop here actually and word vomit the characters remaining I can remember so I can sort them more easily - Eggman, Chaos, Tikal, Mighty/Ray, team Riders, Gamma, Emerl, Zavik (if TSR counts), Whisper\Tangle (if mobile counts but then I’d also have to counts but then more of the sinister six counts too I think and I don’t like them)

Alright so I’d assign them… Eggman #17, Chaos #18, Mighty/Ray #19/20, Zavik #20 (not by choice mind you), Gamma #21, Tikal #22, Whisper/Tangle #23/24, Emerl would be #25 but I just remembered Marine/Sticks who I’m going to make #25/26 and then Emerl #27 (sorry bud)

Wow, uh, I’m struggling to think of more playable characters. We’ve covered Sonic 1-3, CD, adventure, Adventure 2, 06, heroes, battle even.

Uhhhhhhhh technically versus mode in Shadow lets you play as Android Shadow as featured also in sonic speed simulator so that’s #28

And teeeechnically player 2 of shadow can control any of the “helper” character so technically the alien starfish is playable that way and Maria too for #29 and #30

I forgot you can play as Chao in TSR until just now so we are gonna make that #31 instead of revising the list. I guess you kind of play as Chao in chao karate/races? And you kind of control one as cream in sonic advance.

OH sonic the fighters - throw in Knack, Bean, and Fang in the reverse of that order as #32/33/34

Honestly throw in Nights into Dreams at #35 for his playable appearance in Sonic Riders and the pinball table in Adventure.

I can’t remember if samba de amigo is also unlockable in any of the riders games or not…but go ahead and throw him in at #36 between pinball party and Sega racing and generally co existing.

I am NOT throwing in Ulala, her ass is not canon. Samba is at least a monkey. Same goes for Billy Hatcher despite his animal-adjacentness and the egg vacuum in shadow. I’ll make a separate list for most obvious crossover characters.

Maybe throw in “Eggman robot” as the entire #37 slot between all the badniks but primarily because they’re playable in riders.

I’m not counting super/hyper/werehog sonic or other transformations as separate characters for this list, maybe I’ll make a separate list.

Also not counting NPC’s that I’d expect to see made playable, that’s a separate list. Even if I think Marine is never actually playable…I’m still counting her as belonging on this first list. And I have no idea if Sticks is playable or not. Nobody does. And they’d share a slot and be alternate costumes likely anyways.

Okay so far this has been a list made entirely blind. I’m going to finally go on Google.com and see if I missed any canonically playable sonic characters, including all spin-off games but not including crossovers characters. I GUESS I will include sonic speed simulator and sonic forces (mobile), I did deliberately leave our 5 of the sinister six despite that “rule” I established.

WAIT - first, I just remembered Sonic R exists but I’m going to count Tails Doll and Cyber Knuckles as “transformations” instead of separate characters.

Okay now I’m going on google.com

I am counting the Sonic Prime characters as transformations/costumes, although maybe the new metal sonic would count as separate if he was ever made playable.

I am counting the sonic and the black knight characters as transformations/costumes

UGH Longclaw from the sonic movie is playable in sonic forces mobile…but she isn’t from a game originally and isn’t in any real sonic games even as an NPC or mentioned, so I won’t be including her.

I am counting Game World sonic from colors as a transformation/costume.

Infinite and Mephiles appear in sonic forces mobile…but I still think I’ll leave them for the NPC list because it’s my list and I pick the rules.

I did forget the just…actual bomb you can technically play as in Chaotix, I’ll count that as legit at #38.

I’m on the sonic wiki list of 130 playable characters right now - a lot of transformations or alternate versions of characters. I’m not counting sonic schoolhouse, also.

Counting Eggman Nega as an alternate version of Eggman, personally.

Leaving Honey the Cat for NPC/Crossover since that game didn’t release.

LMAOOO the sonic wiki lists Danica Patrick as a playable character because of Sega Racing.

Alright, that leaves us at…

Sonic

Tails

Knuckles

Shadow

Amy

Rouge

Vector

Espio

Charmy

Silver

Blaze

Omega

Metal Sonic

Big the Cat

Cream

Avatar/Gadget

Eggman

Chaos

Mighty

Ray

Zavik

Gamma

Tikal

Whisper

Tangle

Marine

Sticks

Emerl

Android Shadow

The uhhhh alien from shadow

Maria (lol)

Chao (really should be higher imo but I’m lazy)

Fang

Bean

Knack

NiGHTS

Samba

Eggman Robot (riders…I guess…)

In the end, this is really just a list of the order I could remember playable sonic characters in, which I suppose has its own value but doesn’t signify much.

I could make a list of my personal most wanted of this list - but just bump up all the robot and female characters and that’s about it.

And I didn’t say it earlier, but Sonic Adventure 2 Battle specifically is why Chaos and Tikal get a pass, although I suppose they’re also in the phone game, but then again I suppose that’s why I didn’t let Infinite/Mephiles into this list or the rest of the sinister six.

Now that I’m looking at it - 38 characters is asking for a lot. I think I start pulling characters out of my ass around #20, although personally Chaos and Tikal are both very dear to me and all the robots too.

Also just including palm tree panic here at the end because that’s what I’d like you to be listening to as you read this.

#sonic #sonic the hedgehog #stab #🦔 #gaming #wishlist #sonicccccccccc #I love you sonic #Sega #Spotify

[kintatsujo]

LoZ AU: The Courage of Running Away Supplementary Post FOUR

I think it’s four!  I don’t know for sure at this point!

The next actual story post is going up right after this don’t worry

#AU August

#LoZ AU: The Courage of Running Away

So I mentioned early on that I don't think about game mechanics too hard with CoRA because it's more focused on the story

And I mentioned last post that I've been thinking about it more lately as we've been getting fight scenes lmao

I don't think as many people are interested in this but it does have a lot to do with how I'm managing what the characters can and can't do, specifically Queen Zelda, so here's an overview of what's in my head:

CoRA's game play, if it were a game, would try to marry the botw gameplay with both alttp and Age of Calamity

(why try to include something that's technically a different genre? More examples of a higher variety of characters than just Link, that's why)

The major thing this means is that all characters have both a stamina wheel and a magic meter, and the magic meter also functions like the A-move bars in aoc; if you can't do general magic you can still use it for things that take immense effort, which covers things like A-move style attacks but also probably includes shit like making a wish so hard that it comes true.

[Image Description: Part of a fake screenshot of CoRA as a game.  Link is running across a green field, hard enough to sweat.  He has a bright green stamina wheel by his head that’s partially depleted, twelve full hearts across the top left of the screen, and to the left of the hearts is a long thin blue meter that’s been partially depleted as well.  End ID.]

(The Magic Meter is blue here because that way all three Goddess Colors are represented in Link’s personal resources.)

The magic meter can be replenished by three things: rest (both sleep and meditation), potions designed for it, and success in battle (smacking dudes in the face successfully). It cannot be replenished by food the way that stamina and hearts can but since on average most people don't use their magic every day, most people are walking around with a full meter at all times.

In other words, Queen Zelda used the equivalent of her A-move to blast Astramorus through that wall, because she could afford to do so.

That's also why she was being slightly less active in some of the other fight scenes, including why she didnt step in when Astramorus was getting slapped around by Ghirahim, because she didn't know that she COULD afford to waste an A-move when Ghirahim's rather obviously a high level threat.

She did spend one on the Silver Hinox but as anyone who's played aoc knows it tends to take more than one A-move to take out a red hinox.

There's items that draw on your magic meter and then there's items that have their own internal reserves, like the wizzrobe rods.

As for the stamina wheel, it functions more or less like the one from botw. Some people use it for different things depending on their aptitudes; Marla and most other Zora wouldn't use stamina for normal speed swimming and Rito wouldn't use it when gliding. An old man might use his stamina wheel for a trot he didn't need it for as a youth. After Marla gifts Link with one of her scales he doesn't need it for normal speed swimming either.

Generally weapons would have a more complicated durability interplay than what we see in the botw system; cheap weapons and wooden weapons would have durability that looked similar to that but metal weapons in general would never break until Link got the power gloves in Subrosia, and then they'd start wearing down more quickly and sometimes shatter after an A move. The flipside is that Link can hit harder. He CAN turn the effect of the power gloves off, which is good because he'd keep breaking cups.

The Master Sword wouldn't break at all but he's not getting it until the sequel.

The power gloves also increase Link's strength just in general and he absolutely went around Subrosia picking up huge rocks when he got them. If he wanted, he could probably go moblin tipping.

[Image Description: A blue round globe or disc, it’s unclear, labeled “Moon Pearl.”  It has sparkles under its surface.  End ID.]

The Moon Pearl, which is what Serenumbra used to awaken Ghirahim and summon him to where he wanted, does basically whatever I want that makes sense (if the Dungeon Master in my brain likes it that's what I go with.) It largely works in things that involve interworld travel, but it can also transform things according to reflections on their souls OR it can protect the bearer from general interdimensional shenanigans.

I actually tend to think that he hasn't fully understood what this means yet but that Ghirahim has been made slightly more "human" by having its powers worked on him. The main thing this has meant that he's already noticed is that he's been eating and sleeping, but it's also probably a factor in why he was too dazed by the process to do anything about Serenumbra right then and there.

The thing that the Scarred Woman used to summon Chekov the hinox is a Force Gem like from Four Swords Adventures, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, because if my inner gamemaster thinks she can use something she does. I think in CoRA they're basically little shards of power left in places gods and other powerful spiritual beings have trod, and they're less rare than you'd expect, because there are little gods everywhere. Serenumbra has a lower level spell of some kind that lets him use them as warp points for various purposes, hence why the Scarred Woman could put a hinox in the middle of the castle throne room with one.

[Image ID: The Scarred Woman in her fox mask holding up a small glowing green crystal with triangular sides.  End ID.]

If anyone hasn't connected the dots yet, that's ALSO where the hinox Link fought in the tutorial dungeon came from. Astramorus wouldn't see this as absolving him of his own responsibility for how things played out but it's absolutely true that Serenumbra has been actively encouraging, aiding and abetting every worst impulse he's been able to catch out of Astra and has planted just as many as he's helped along.

Anyway that all got longer than I meant but it's relevant for the incoming posts, so!

#loz #loz au: the courage of running away #AU August

[deadlymodern]

the “without fail” writing tag | by gilded-ghosts.

Rules: List five things that you, WITHOUT FAIL, weave into or explore in your stories, whether it be specific themes or tropes, character archetypes, allusions to other literary works, what have you! It really can be anything that you consistently include in your narratives for whatever reason. Then invite others to share theirs by tagging them!

Thank you for the tag @gilded-ghosts and @queenofvraquin 🥰 

Since my sims story was a legacy before, it doesn't accurately represent who I am as a storyteller because, at first, I was adding a lot of dramatic life events just to make my gameplay interesting and now I'm just trying to fix it LMAO.

SO. I'm gonna base this mainly off of my irl screenplays ehe

sapphic narratives.

I can't scape it, but I'm also not trying to fjkdlg. On Simblr, I'm loving to write more soft/cliche wlw stories because of the time period and the way these characters would've perceived their own sexualities back then.

But, in all of my other projects, sexuality is never a main topic, nor is romance. It's just there, and I love exploring the complexity and the nuances of wlw relationships in any genre (especially in psychological thrillers).

poetic & metaphoric portrayals.

I always have many symbolic scenes as a way to portray things such as feelings, mental anguish, backstories and inner thoughts. I personally feel like sensorial experiences are just as powerful as words, and it's a nice way to convey a LOT in a condensed format. I especially love writing sex scenes as symbolisms. Think Black Swan, for example (but, like, not as good fjglfdjgkld).

vague or open endings.

Self explanatory. I love me some good ol bittersweet aftertaste and giving  some food for thought. I don't like doing these endings just for "shock value", though.

my parents fucked me up.

Mommy/daddy/guardian issues jgdfkljg. Because, like... The people that raised us aren't perfect. 

I love exploring common things like: having parents that are emotionally unavailable, over-protective, possessive, "trying too hard to be a friend and ending up not parenting" etc. and seeing these effects on my characters' behaviour.

it's about the yearning.

This one has obviously made it to my Sims story hdfgkf. And here is where I'll sum it all by just dumping my tropes:

Angst, slow-burn, opposite backgrounds clash, suffering over misunderstandings, "she doesn't want me like I want her" when she actually does, "we broke up ages ago but now we've met again what could possibly happen?", "I can't do this, I can't!" when, in fact, she can. The list goes on and on. 

I'm tagging @cyberth0t​  @musicallisto @roaringdandelions @ladykendalsims @captainbored and @softpine​  ✨ feel free to ignore x

#without fail challenge #thaistalks #game; tag #nonsims

[chao-chachaslide]

I've talked positively about Rangers now it's time to do the opposite. Heard some shit about leaks earlier y'know sega being sega and fucking with lore again. Idk what the fuck they're doing tbh lmao.

Under the cut bc possible leaks/spoilers

There's been some rumours fluttering around about how Rangers is either going to be a soft reboot or possibly even a full reboot. Personally I think this is a bad idea on Sega's part, but ESPECIALLY if it's a full reboot.

So a soft-reboot is essentially what we got between Sonic R and Sonic Adventure. Characters redesigned a bit, couple details changed such as ages, height etc, new gameplay style. However overall we're working with the same lore as we had before. Sonic's the hero, Tails' is pretty much his younger brother, Knuckles is his rival and Amy fangirls for him. They all fight Eggman because he wants to take over the world using the power of the Chaos Emeralds and Monster/Villain of the Week. The Chaos Emeralds are mysterious relics that make the wielder fucking overpowered. You get the drill. It didn't really change.

However Sega kinda fucked stuff up later down the line and now Classic is in spacetime purgatory. If they're going to soft reboot the franchise starting with Rangers, they should at least adress if it's a different dimension/timeline, or if everything prior is redundant now. Because god we do not need more of whatever's going on with Classic.

A full universe reboot is a risky move. Longer running franchises like Mario and LoZ have never had a universe-wide reboot (LoZ has timeskips that's why there's a bazillion different Links). I get it to an extent if they want to change some stuff that's been major lore for too long to go back on, but it's a big deal. A reboot is what we got from the Archie comics - to be fair it wasn't Sega's fault it happened - and it was a pretty rocky transition. The comics had been going for around 20 years at this point and suddenly all of that was fucking irrelevant and we're starting from scratch. Half the characters are gone. All the good plots never happened. We're at square one. The comics didn't even last much longer after that.

A soft reboot is better if you want to keep faithful fans around; full reboot is going to attract new audiences but also boot out plenty of old ones.

As someone who's been in fandoms with soft reboots (Winx; DC) and full reboots (TMNT; Teen Titans) this is actually something that I find rather surprising for Sega to consider, and I don't like it. Generally, I don't like it when a franchiss goes full 180 and completely reboots. Teen Titans is my favourite show but I don't like Teen Titans Go. And it does actually bother me a bit that what the franchise is actively delivering is something I really don't care about at all. And while I did end up liking rottmnt eventually, I still prefer the 2012 version (mainly because i grew up with it tbh). I usually get along better with soft reboots but even then Winx S5→ gradually pushed me out of the show. Basically I don't want the same thing to happen with Sonic lol because this (and Idol anime) is the most I've been invested in anything in years.

Also it's concerning in terms of sales and audience. Already talked about this a bit, but although rebooting brings in a new audience it can kick out the faithful fans who were guaranteed to buy your shit. Obviously Sonic will still make a fuck load of money but it could go up or down who knows lol. Oh and reviews might suffer but that happens like every fucking game.

You made it this far have an Espio who accurately represents my state of mind.

Basically I just don't want this to be 06 2.0 where Sega is too scared to adress it's existence for 5 years after release

#rangers #miles' notes #there was more i wanted to say but I forgot what it was while i was writing this up #basically if you choose not to read it i think leaks regarding lore and franchise handling are dumb #oh i was gonna talk about gameplay i remember now. I'll just do that another time #long post

[chikkou]

someone probably asked this already but would u feel like writting on your thoughts on dingalings opinions/statements about buddy? i never got to around to play the lisa games after the first one but im getting the context both from the stuff uve written on it and my gf who played the game and she seems like the best character in the game imo

well im glad u asked.... (does a gay little walk over to the keyboard)

ok so as was mentioned by the last lisa anon i got, buddy is austins least favorite character. i cant recall if he ever specified why exactly in public, but i have seen an interview that he did shortly after the painful came out, so i think i have a LITTLE more context for his thought process (and please remember this is all conjecture, i literally dont know this man LMAO)

so first, for some background: buddy was adopted by brad when he found her abandoned as a baby, but her birth father is dr. yado, the man who created olathe (with buzzo!). she bears a notably striking resemblance to lisa, especially as she gets older - in fact, i think thats part of why brad chose to keep her. for reference, heres lisa, and heres buddy. obviously these are sprites and not indicative of their exact appearance, but this should make it pretty obvious what i mean. note that, even though brad knows how unsafe it is for buddy to “look like a girl,” he still keeps her hair long like lisas was. buzzo noted the similarity between them in the joyful as well. brad also treats her in a similar (but NOT the exact same) manner that marty did to lisa, but i will get into that in another ask i got LMAO

now, as to why austin doesnt like her. so, this may be reading into things a little too much, but i know for a fact that brad is austins favorite character, AND that austin based brads character and experiences on that of his own father, whom he had a sort of mixed relationship with by his own admission (and i believe his dad was also named “bradley” skjfsds). i dont know any details about this at all, but to my understanding, austins dad also wrestled with addiction, and had a bit of a “rough” personality like brad. austin mentioned in that interview dealing with resentment toward his father for a long time, but that he eventually realized that his father was doing the best that he could in spite of his own upbringing, and even though it didnt excuse the shitty stuff hed done, it made austin somewhat more understanding of the difficult position he was in. so, if brad is austins dad.... well, its not that far of a leap to speculate who buddy likely represents. and it colors a lot of the way he depicts her actions.

the painful, for all its amazing content, sort of dropped the ball on showing why buddy hated brad so much. the only things we know about buddy and brads relationship in that game come from the intro or directly from buddy, and since she never goes into detail (which is fair in-context since brad clearly knows the intricacies of their relationship LMAO), it makes it seem like the worst thing brad has done is forced buddy to stay inside and occasionally passed out from substance abuse. however, as we learn in the joyful, that is not true at all. brad insulted buddy (called her an idiot for asking about brads estranged son), forced her to kill at least two innocent men because, and i quote, “my daughter will not be weak,” and tried to isolate her from the only other people in her life (her uncles, rick, sticky, and cheeks) after they DARED to tell her a small tidbit about brads past. brad may not have been anywhere near as abusive as marty, but if i described all of these things together and asked a random person if they considered them abusive behaviors for a parent, i think id be likely to get an affirmative response.

now, this is not to say that austin doesnt make it a point to show brad mistreating buddy in the painful proper - in the marty scene, brad literally punts buddy across a room because she begs him not to kill him, and then when she throws herself between marty and brad to get him to stop, brad doesnt hesitate to beat the fuck out of her until she has to withdraw. remember too that buddy is not an adult, by any stretch of the imagination - austin confirmed on twitter that she is nowhere near 18. i personally put her age in the 10-12 range, but ive seen people go as high as 14 or 15. in either case, though, this is a fucking CHILD, and beating her like he did is no different than what marty used to do to both him and lisa.

even in spite of this stuff, though, fans are so much more willing to forgive brads behavior than buddys. there are a few reasons for this, but in a more meta-sense, theres a pretty clear reason why buddy is less sympathetic - because we spend WAY less time with her. in the painful, buddy is not on screen until maybe 5-10 hours into gameplay, and we dont even get any real time with her until the games second half. the joyful, in addition to that, is an EXTREMELY short game; the painful is about 20-30 hours, but the joyful runs about 5 hours max. it was a kickstarter stretch goal, and i honestly wish austin hadnt made it a stretch goal and had spent more time working on it, because while it does some really interesting stuff story-wise, it is severely lacking the run time to make buddys story as compelling as brads.  

primarily, though, i believe its because brad gets freudian excuses that at least EXPLAIN his behavior and also show just how many demons he has been fighting. while buddy has just as good of a reason to be the way she is, we never really get to SEE this stuff point blank like we did with brad. we witness him being hurt and mistreated as a kid, and more still as an adult in flashbacks. we get almost nothing from buddy, even though it is obvious that she is suffering in a very unique way. 

so, circling back to your question - why is buddy austins least favorite? i think, quite simply, he seems to identify with her character in the context of buddys relationship with brad, and that actually makes him like her LESS because he has the benefit of hindsight and experience-based wisdom to empathize much more with the brads character and experiences than buddys. so even though brad and buddy are the same in many ways, where he can see brads actions as understandable (if a bit extreme), he cant see buddys in quite the same way. it would be fine if he just felt that way privately, but unfortunately it leaks into the games themselves and leads to many fans not being able to see her perspective and empathize with her, either. and it really does suck bc buddy is definitely one of the most interesting video game protags ive ever seen LMAO

tl;dr austin probably dislikes buddy because brad is based on his own father, and the relationship between brad and buddy is very likely based on his own relationship with his father. there also wasnt enough time in buddys game for her to become more sympathetic, so if ur not really paying attention, it seems like shes just being a bratty teenager instead of, u know. a victim of abuse on a massive scale. so yeah 

#long post #lisa the joyful #lisa the painful #anya's replies #amigarobot #i cant even apologize for this honestly im just having too much fun talking abt lisa LMAO #abuse #lisa

[dazais-guardian-angel]

This post has been sitting in my drafts since like mid-November around when I finished replaying the game, long enough for me to write and upload a fic about some of the concepts I wrote here, what the fuck. DGS brainrot is real. But aNYWAY finally, here are my massive thoughts on Unwound Future, the golden child of the PL series. This is literally *checks* 8k words, because I can never shut up!! and because there is just SO much going on in this game at all times, so many different interweaving plot threads and funny moments and incredible, fascinating characterization, especially combined with the games that come after it; I just had SO much to say. So much analyzing and headcanons and crying galore. :’) There’s a reason this is considered the best game, and that’s why I had so damn much to talk about.

behold the incoherent, rambling, unconnected mess of a novel that I hope makes a modicum of sense under the cut:

Continuing the trend, this game has simply AMAZING graphics/art/music, with a huge uptick in cutscenes and voice acting, and I feel like the sound/music quality is greatly improved too? I love the main bgm for London in this game, never really remembered loving it before, but it’s just *chef’s kiss* and so is the song that plays in other areas like the hospital and subway

Quickly mentioning the gameplay, I really love all the minigames, and the storybooks are especially hilarious to play with putting the wrong things in the spaces to create mad libs-esque crack that makes no sense; it’s so fun lmao

The beginning flashback segment with the time machine demonstration is honestly just so funny, for so many different reasons: Dimitri droning on and on with time travel technobabble while Luke, Bill, Chelmey, and Barton represent the definitive last four brain cells. Hershel being skeptical about successful time travel after all the magical shit they went through just like a year or two ago. The way that Bill’s sprite slowly and nervously shuffles onscreen after Dimitri calls him to the stage, like omg I don’t know why that cracks me up so much but it does. Dimitri’s lowkey savage shade he’s throwing at Bill throughout this whole thing. The way Bill says “wHAT” when Dimitri asks him to help, clearly about to shit his pants. Dimitri just standing there completely unfazed as the smoke from the machine flies past him. And of course, “sOmEtHiNg’S gOnE vErY wRoNg!”

…okay but in all seriousness, am I just stupid or do they never explain how they get Bill to the underground city, like the machine CLEARLY explodes with him in it, there was no secret elevator built into the thing like at the clock shop, so…???

also the presenter’s voice is really funny lmao

Still disagree that this is the biggest mystery they’ve ever encountered, despite being near the top; Luke you say that literally every game!! so what is the truth!!

Spring’s face is terrifying as FUCK in the two cutscenes in the clock shop… why they decided to show both of them in ominous, shadowed lighting in those scenes I do not understand a;lskdl;fds

I need someone to draw a diagram of how exactly the shop looks as a giant elevator because frankly I still can’t wrap my brain around it-

THE FACT THAT WE NEVER GET TO MAKE UP WITH HAZEL IS A TRAVESTY, HONESTLY

Belle… why…… ugh

Wish they’d had “Schrader” drop a casual nod to the events of Diabolical Box; it would have been cool :’) (especially since this is Paul so he’d know about all that)

College-age Hershel is just….. the pinnacle of adorableness. someone protect him from all the pain

One of the few flaws/plot holes in the story of Unwound Future that I only noticed during this replay with more media under my belt, is the that the developers didn’t really decide on what kind of time travel they wanted to portray, or more likely just didn’t scrutinize Clive’s fake role enough when writing it. This is blatantly obvious upon the very first meeting with Clive where he desires to test Hershel to make sure he’s really him. Obviously in a closed loop scenario, everything Luke and Hershel are doing “Future Luke” should remember doing himself in his past, so a test would not be necessary; this is a major trip-up on his part that it’s very odd Hershel doesn’t notice for how smart he is, imo. However, later on when meeting “Future Layton”, Paul calls Dimitri out on this exact principle, proving that he’s not actually Future Layton because he doesn’t remember the absence of a pen in Hershel’s pocket in this moment in his past, and it’s a nice little touch that Paul, on the other hand, an actual scientist, would mention this. Back to Future Luke, though, he should know how everything goes down with stopping Future Layton, because he lived it all as a child with Hershel, which makes it even more dubious to the fact that after seeing all this, Hershel still goes dark and everything plays out the exact same way it’s portrayed in the “future” of the game; it’s the idea that destined fate can’t be changed, but the suspension of disbelief is quite high, especially since we already doubt that Hershel would ever do such a thing, knowing what kind of person he is. Of course this wouldn’t be the case in an open-loop/branching timelines universe, but since the game uses the former type with the pen argument (and something else important I’ll mention in a second), I feel like the rest of the game should have adopted this idea as well and addressed it. Because Dimitri is outed via the fact that he should have memory of things he doesn’t, so it would have been easy to simply add Hershel adding that argument into his final explanation in the bar (”my suspicions were first raised when we first met Big Luke, and he didn’t know if I was really who I said I was- [etc etc]”). Even if they didn’t want Hershel to bring this up early else the entire story would fall apart, they could simply draw attention to the fact that he notices something in these moments, like with a “...” or “Hmm”, and then he explains it at the end like I said. Interestingly enough, Clive actually addresses these concepts at one point in the game with Luke in the statue plaza: he doesn’t want to tell Luke how things play out in his future, so that… things play out the way they’re supposed to…? Even though his entire story here is that he wished Hershel hadn’t gone dark and distanced from him, and ruined the city? But then he makes the suggestion that they could instead be operating on an open-loop/multiple timelines system, where in his past he never travelled to the future, but in our Luke and Hershel’s timeline they do. This is only a hypothetical he gives though, with him seeming unsure of how things truly are, which… again, in this story he’s concocted, he should know for sure, because if he doesn’t “remember” time traveling and how everything went down, then they’re operating on different timelines and it shouldn’t matter how much he tells Luke about his future. You can definitely argue that in-universe Clive didn’t think all this through when planning his dialogue for this role (but I honestly find that hard to believe, since he’s so intelligent, and he nailed the realism of everything else to a T), but it’s obvious just that the writers didn’t think it through, because like I said Hershel really should have picked up on his blunder when they first met, as well as later when Clive is surprised to see Flora suddenly with them and didn’t know for a fact that she and Chelmey/Barton would arrive there. Since the time travel scenario in 99% of the game isn’t actually real, I don’t entirely fault the writers for not getting every single detail right… and yet, that 1% exists where time travel is real, with Claire’s situation. It’s a very isolated incident though that wouldn’t be replicated, with only her going to the future… and yet, she does return to the past again, if only for a split second before dying and thus not enough time to do anything with her future knowledge, the real thing to note here being that they took care to show that she was wearing the same outfit when she died that she gets in the future, one she wasn’t wearing when she entered the lab originally. So they DID think about some things very well, like such a minor and easily-overlooked detail here (but that blows your mind once you realize it). All this is hardly enough to ruin the game or break the immersion completely though, especially since the player is already predisposed to heavily doubt everything with PL’s “the town is a lie” track record lmao, but I can’t help but be bothered by it now after playing games like Zero Escape and watching time travel shows like netflix’s Dark, which have bootstrap parodoxes and timeloops galore looool. My friend who watched me play the game blind this time around brought up all these questions as Clive said things, as someone who didn’t know if it would end up being real or not, and so I spent a lot of time puzzling (har har) it out with her… even though it wouldn’t matter lmao.

……In short, if it wasn’t obvious, despite Unwound Future’s time travel setup being completely fake, I’m really fascinated by the notion of how it would all work if it was real. >.> …and I mean, I know I’m not the first one; monocle Layton aus are popular, after all, but I don’t really care quite as much about the allure of an “evil Layton” as I do just about how everything else would be, I think.

Because, like, lets be real? taking the prequels into account with Unwound Future’s proposed setup, the potential is endless. It honestly KILLS me that the prequels didn’t exist yet at the time of UF, because!! so many people from Hershel’s past!!! SO MANY REASONS FOR HIM TO WANT TO HARNASS TIME TRAVEL AND CHANGE THE PAST, NOT JUST FOR CLAIRE’S SAKE. FOR RANHENGELA’S SAKE. FOR LUKE AND EMMY’S SAKE. FOR HIS PARENTS’ SAKE. FOR DESMOND. listen, listen, you don’t understand how much the idea of Desmond being involved in UF’s concepts destroys me. I wrote about this in my last fic but. imagine if Desmond learned about Hershel going down a dark path for his sake and everyone else’s, just like he did. Or imagine if, instead of Hershel being the one to do it, it was Desmond himself; he’s willing to play the bad guy once again, one very final, this time definitely final, time, if it means he can undo everything that caused all of them so much pain in the first place: his betrayals, the death of his former wife, he and Theodore’s separation, their father’s betrayal, ALL of it, and Hershel would never know. When Luke first is like “oh it’s gotta be Don Paolo right” and Clive says no, i LITERALLY screamed “BUT IT COULD BE DESCOLE!!”. JUST. PAIN. And where would Randall be in this future; what would he, too, think if it was Hershel going after time travel? Imagine him trying to smack some sense into him just like Hershel does in MM, trying to tell him that despite those lost 18 years of his life, despite everything wrong he ended up doing, he’s still happy, and so are Henry and Angela. So is Desmond. And Emmy, she wouldn’t want undone those years she had with Hershel and Luke and then Aurora and Desmond, despite how sadly it ended. Just… so much pain. So much potential. I hurt :’)

and adding on to this, i love love LOVE the idea of Clive knowing about some of this stuff in Hershel’s past, in order to faithfully play his role as Future Luke. Like obviously he wasn’t in Misthallory with them all, he wasn’t on the island in ED, he wasn’t at Monte’dor, and he wasn’t on the Bostonius or at all those Azran ruins that I can’t remember the names of right now, of course he wouldn’t know the intimate, specific details of what all went down, but if there was just one npc who was in the right place at the right time at any of these locations, who knows what beans they could spill? Maybe even an ex-Targent person or something. Hell, fucking Bronev is in jail for at least a little while before the events of UF. There are possibly MANY people Clive could have gotten information from to pull off this role - he’s a reporter, he’s skilled at digging for stuff. Not to mention just reading and hearing about large incidents in the news. And this makes his character so much better because he’s admired Hershel for so long, grateful that he saved his life all this time, to the point that he asks him to unknowingly come and save him again… and he most definitely didn’t know back when he first encountered Hershel that he’d already experienced so much loss and pain as well (some of which Hershel hadn’t even gone through yet by that point), but learning about everything he’s suffered? I think it would really affect him, and possibly contribute to why he asks him for his help in the first place in UF: because Hershel has suffered just as much as he has, and he feels a connection to him, feels like he can relate to him, and wants someone who can empathize with him, and show him how to cope. All of these reasons and emotions would probably be completely on an unconscious level, but they would exist - he’d use this limited but meaningful knowledge to try to connect with Hershel more when he’s still in Future Luke mode, to try to convince him he’s really Luke, at first, but unconsciously it’d be an effort to get closer to him emotionally, which is what he truly desires deep down, until his so-called act somewhat stops being an act, and talking about these things makes his vulnerabilities start to show (again, i wrote a fic about this). This all just adds to why Hershel is the perfect person to help and support Clive - the prequels make their similarities even stronger, more than just with Hershel losing Claire, and those accidental parallels when the writers hadn’t even conceived the prequel trilogy at the time of UF are just *chef’s kiss* beautiful.

THE CASINO SCENE IS JUST ICONIC, IT’S SO FUNNY. LUKE BEING SCARED OF THE SHOOTING AND HERSHEL JUST DITCHING HIM. CLIVE’S LITTLE HOP AND ROLL BEHIND THE SLOT MACHINES. THE SLOT MACHINE GUN IN GENERAL. THE CLONE FAMILY MEMBERS FALLING OVER LIKE DOMINOS UPON BEING HIT. BOSTRO CRYING AND SPLINTERS AND LOCKJAW RUNNING IN CIRCLES PANICKING WHILE LAYMAN JUST IS LITERALLY PUSHED BACK SLOWLY WITH ONLY A CHAIR TO DEFEND HIMSELF, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW FUNNY LAYMAN AS A CHARACTER IS TO ME. it’s just so glorious, oh my god. this series is ridiculous i love it so much lmao

Luke wanting to use the time machine though… there are so many reasons why he might want to, mainly from Azran Legacy. :’)

The statue is the worst thing ever for multiple reasons. The fact that it represents Hershel & Luke’s relationship, the two main characters, who have been through so much together and have such a strong bond that can never be broken, and how it ties into the whole Evil Layton scenario and seems to foreshadow that their bond does end up breaking, as “Future Luke” seems to be proof of (though the game doesn’t really put much emphasis on this; Luke is more worried about the fact that he’s moving away soon straining their relationship, and not the whole Future Layton thing. imo it would have been interesting to see his actual thoughts on/feelings about it, since he’s surprisingly calm throughout the entire game before the reveals happen; you can argue he just has complete faith in Hershel and doesn’t think he would ever go dark, but then why doesn’t he bring this up, insist that this can’t be true? I think he should have). The fact that as I just said it foreshadows how Luke will leave Hershel at the end of the game, something that Luke worries about later on in the game. And most of all, the biggest, worst thing it foreshadows… Hershel’s relationship with Clive. Clive had that statue made himself, put it in his giant set. He WANTS that kind of mentor-student bond with Hershel, that’s how he sees them, just from their one interaction in front of the exploding buildings… or at least, that’s how he wants to see it. He sees how close Hershel and Luke are throughout the entire game, and he yearns for that kind of bond with Hershel, too. The fact that the boy in the statue story has an illness that he eventually dies from, but that their friendship withstands… it’s probably meant to represent Clive’s insanity, that he hopes Hershel will save him from - he is Clive’s light of hope in his despair. Or, to be more accurate to the statue, even if Clive’s madness ends up killing him (which it very nearly does, and by that point he fully expects that it will), he’ll still have had those memories of that time he spent with him, and Hershel will never forget him, and that will mean something special. man though can you imagine an AU where Clive is literally terminally ill too, and that’s why he’s yolo-ing this entire thing so hard and doesn’t care if it ends up killing him in the end, at least he got to be with Hershel one more day; ahahahaha turn up the angsttttttttttttt-

Shmelmey and Shmarton do not at all look like Chelmey and Barton, smh

For everything Clive accounted for with his role and setting, he’s honestly way too rude and crass sometimes to be Luke lmao, even if you try to imagine a world where Hershel did go dark and Luke was changed by it… at least imo

the like 4 puzzles that give Clive’s solving animations/dialogue are the most serotonin-boosting things in the world

“you will come back, won’t you?” Clive asks Hershel about his trip to visit Chelmey, desperately wanting him to stop him before it’s too late :’)

Rosetta and her....... sessions....... with Hershel........ hajkkALSKDLD

Okay but Hershel is kind of dickish sometimes though, despite his whole “gentleman” thing??? There’s the elephant in the room which I’ll Get To, but like first he guilt-trips Chelmey into getting him access to confidential information about the lab explosion, and then he has the absolute balls to tell him “Bill Hawks is being held in the future” and that’s IT. No explanation, nothing else, just THAT, and then he LEAVES, after he’d promised to share every last detail with him. I don’t blame Chelmey at all for tailing them and barging in to get information himself, like damn Hershel, why so savage sometimes in not a good way

which brings me to Ranting About Flora’s Treatment, Part 3: The Finale. Y’all I literally cannot even BEGIN to describe how much the way Hershel and Luke treat Flora in UF specifically makes me seethe..... It was already bad in DB, no doubt, but in this game they are straight-up rude to her, mostly Hershel, for absolutely no reason, and I CANNOT fathom why. He constantly makes the excuse that he’s concerned for her safety, and that the places they’re going to are too dangerous for her, but it all exudes a level of thinly-veiled annoyance, even confusion as to why Flora is so upset that they never bring her along and wants to go with them at all... almost like her “frail” feminine appearance (which isn’t helped by how the games make her feel sick or dizzy or tired multiple times), compared to someone like Emmy who could fight and has more masculine traits, means she’s less capable in Hershel’s mind, which, like, even if it’s unconscious on his part... how about no?? I could accept being worried about her, even if I’m still frustrated at her being left behind, and her constant kidnapping (which isn’t Hershel’s fault, even if he probablyyy could do a better job both times at protecting her), but I CANNOT excuse how short and dismissive Hershel is with her in this damn game; it honestly borders on ooc to me for him, I don’t know what the writers were thinking; do they just hate Flora that freaking much??? He treats her like a burden the entire time, apologizes to people for her, acts irritated at having to accommodate for her, when poor Flora just wants to spend time with him and feel like an equal to him and Luke. Meanwhile Clive of all people is the first one to treat her with kindness and respect and pleasure to see her when they first meet, like when Luke bitches about Flora being excited to see the river and not taking things seriously and Clive tells him to go easy on her (Clive, the one who has been rushing them along this entire time himself). honestly can see why it’s so easy to ship them, when literally everyone else treats her like crap It’s SO depressing honestly. Flora asks them if they thought to wonder where her future self was, and Hershel is just like hhhhh we’re kinda busy thinking about... you know.... important things... sorry not sorry....... like BITCH I WILL STRANGLE YOU, BE NICER TO YOUR DAUGHTER!!! Luke at least is a kid, but Hershel??? there’s no excuse!!! Luke be like “damn I hope Becky doesn’t look down on us for leaving Flora behind... >.>” THEY KNOW. THEY KNOW IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT THEY DON’T CARE AND DO IT ANYWAY. I’M SO MAD

Beasly just gets... straight-up murdered yo... between him and Subject 3, what were they smoking when coming up with the animals in this game, jfc. Test subject animals?? that’s unnervingly dark, despite how glossed over it is and how hilarious Subject 3 is a;lksd

LUKE LOVES SHERLOCK HOLMES THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THE DGS CROSSOVER IS WAITING, LEVEL-5 AND CAPCOM. MAKE LUKE’S (AND MY) DREAMS A REALITY

the intentional zoom-in on Clive’s sinister face in front of the tower will never not amuse me, and baffle me as to why they drew attention to it lmaooo

And okay back to time travel bullshit shenanigans, WHY the fuck does Dimitri not pick up on why him not remembering about the pen is such a big deal as soon as Paul first brings it up?? bruh. bruh. aren’t you a fucking TIME TRAVEL SCIENTIST. WHY DO YOU NOT KNOW SUCH A BASIC CONCEPT THAT BREAKS YOUR WHOLE FACADE IN SECONDS. It’d be one thing if he just couldn’t provide the right answer, but no, he straight-up HAS NO IDEA WHY HE SHOULD HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT THE PEN. “HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW-” bruhhhh. Dimitri. my dude. i love you but you are actually so dumb sometimes, like holy shit (more on this later though)

Paul talking to Dimitri about his plan is really good; he has a “...” moment before telling him what he’s doing can’t be excused, like “oh shit let me jump on board, wait fuck i gotta stay in character, Layton is a wuss he would never agree to this god dammit Layton-”. jokes aside though, I’m honestly confused as to how much he actually knew before Dimitri’s exposition in the pagoda, and why exactly he goes along with helping Hershel stop him... and what Dimitri was thinking roping him into this. Because I can’t really figure out Paul’s motives here and how they changed, if they did at all. The only information we get about how he first became involved is that Dimitri was paying him a lot of money to get Hershel to the pagoda and to him - he knows that “future London” isn’t real, he knows Future Layton isn’t real, so the extent of his knowledge seems to be that “this man wants to screw Layton over somehow and is giving me $$$ to get it done; there’s no downside here, never mind this suspicious as fuck fake London and all these people that shouldn’t be here”, but then Hershel gave him more information, probably that Claire was involved in what Dimitri was doing, and his concerns about a traitor being involved if he had already begun to suspect Clive by that point, and then he suddenly decided to turn against Dimitri? Even though you’d think saving Claire would be a reason for him to want to help him...? Or did he plan to turn against him from the very start, and wanted Hershel to come because he knew he could stop all this (part of his character development)? The latter is the most likely, though I still don’t entirely understand or maybe I’m just having a brain fart, that’s very likely too. And Dimitri on the other hand, did he know that Paul liked Claire too and would want to save her (and maybe about his salt for Hershel too), and that’s why he got his help? That makes more sense... but also doesn’t, cause as I said it seems like Paul didn’t know Claire was involved until Hershel told him and then Dimitri told everyone at the pagoda, so maybe he literally just said “here’s some money, help me fuck over Layton, not telling how” and just trusted in him that much, even though Paul is an evil genius who could and does put a stop to all his plans with his machines... once again, Dimitri looking dumb....

Clive, in the most deadpan voice ever at the top of the pagoda: oh no, the prime minister is in danger, someone help him

Flora as they’re escaping the tower: “professor no please take me with you instead of future Luke” Hershel: *ignores her feelings and makes a decision for her yet again* Clive: “shhh don’t worry Flora; i know i’m going to kidnap you in like an hour but i’m just trying to rescue you from these insensitive jerks. not Don Paolo though; he’s a gentleman.”

It’s interesting to me that Luke and Hershel keep acting as if Future Luke and future London are legit even after Future Layton has been revealed to be a fake. Hershel at least probably knows none of it is real by now, even if he hasn’t exactly figured out Clive’s role in everything yet, and is just not revealing his knowledge for now, but Luke is still rolling with it... wonder what’s going through his mind by this point. again, it frustrates me that Luke really has no emotional reaction to anything in UF, aside from the statue and his worries about leaving Hershel soon and how that in particular will affect their relationship

I also wonder what Clive is thinking by this point. Now that the Future Layton jig is up, what kind of story is he going with now? We never find out because Hershel reveals everything completely the next time Clive joins up with them again, but in the (unreasonable) case that he hadn’t, would Clive have just acted like he didn’t know that Alain Stahngun was actually someone named Dimitri, who was actually pretending to be Layton, and that the real Layton was somewhere else out there that they needed to find? I don’t know WHY I’m so interested in details like these that don’t matter at all in the long run a;lksdfklfd, but I am... he tells Flora to continue the “investigation” without him, so clearly he still had something in mind, and didn’t expect Hershel to out him quite so soon after that even if deep down he wanted it

Chelmey really cares for Barton and it’s actually so sweet, oml :’)

I didn’t really praise Paul’s character development in this game enough before, but I really do love it, even if I don’t quite understand the circumstances that started it. It’s not something I would have expected with how he’s presented in CV and DB, but it’s very nice to see this be the culmination of his character, and it’s kinda sad that it feels a bit more natural than Descole’s sudden shift in backstory/character between ED and MM/AL... It’s very funny and good to see him and Luke bicker at each other, and how he seems to have a soft spot for Flora... it’s all cute. I just wish there’d been a bit more time for him to talk to them, but that’s what fanfic is for

Don’t make me have to see Hershel beaten up in the street :’(

The sprite of Dimitri standing in the bar is incredibly hot.... damn why are all the older male characters my type >.>

Alright but it’s about time I finally talk about Dimitri without dissing him for being stupid sometimes and say that in short, I love him. He might even be my favorite new character in UF, even more than Clive; I don’t know if it’s just the Liam O’Brian Tragic Sexy Tired Villain effect or what (nah let’s be real, that’s a huge part of it lmao), but he’s fantastic and utterly breaks my heart, in a much more understated way than how the game shoves Clive’s angst in your face, but his tragedy is nonetheless impossible to ignore. The flashback with young Dimitri is my favorite scene in the entire game, it is devastating and feels so cinematic, so raw and painful, and I’m glad they animated that part because it humanizes him so much more. Claire was his everything, he loved her so much, but it is so obvious to me (and to a lot of the fandom too, I think) that his love was entirely selfless - he might have been a little sad, but he was still mostly content letting Hershel have her, and when it comes to after her death, Dimitri would have been absolutely happy not being able to have her if he managed to save her life; he just wanted her to live. He was in love with her, yes, but he also loved her, as a friend, as a scientist, as a person whose time was cut far too short for entirely selfish and unnecessary reasons, and the majority of his anger and bitterness and drive came from a desire to fix such an injustice - to save an innocent person’s life. And the saddest part of him doing all this and trying to sustain Claire’s existence in the present once he finds her, if you go with the closed loop time travel theory, is that Dimitri should already know it’s impossible for him to succeed in this as long as he remembers finding her body in the past - him succeeding would create a paradox, thus, he can’t save her. But he’s so deep in his despair and obsession and insistence on preserving her life that I don’t think he ever stops to think about this - or he does, but refuses to acknowledge it. I’m sure he was incredibly sweet and kind and soft in the past, with her, and with his passion, and it’s heartbreaking to see how broken he is now, how miserable and tired he is, how much everything changed him. And wanting to get back at someone like Bill, who had it all to begin with and then carelessly used them to gain even more, well, I don’t blame him for that. >_> Not to mention his relationship with Clive, which is all kinds of fascinating to think about: the most chaotic, dysfunctional mess of a half-business partnership half-father/son relationship there is, ahaha... Both of them are unhealthy to the extreme in different ways, but with how much time they spent together, it’s inevitable they had vulnerable moments around each other... Clive is the only other person Dimitri would have around during his research to possibly grow to care about, even if it was entirely unconsciously. Learning he was using him would, well, ruin their relationship even more than it was already messed up, but maybe he would visit Clive in prison at least once, assuming Hershel was. I just crave content for them, ugh. Dimitri just deserved so much better, he makes me so sad </3 and I honestly hate that we don’t get to see him say goodbye to Claire at the end before Hershel; sure it would have utterly killed me, but surely he deserved that much...

The utter, frankly amazing, stupidity of Flora’s kidnapping has been stated everywhere, we all know it, but just.... yeah. smh

Seeing the mobile fortress be like *war flashbacks to the Detragon* “Not This Shit Again” Hershel why tf you putting Luke in more danger AGAIN???

The car scenes with the mobile fortress are, at least to me, the funniest parts of the entire game, even better than the casino, oh my god they’re AMAZING. Luke screaming and flailing his arms while Hershel deadpan flings the car towards the fortress, all the bumps they hit riding across it later on, the car just FALLING and Bill almost falling out of it, and then the plane, all the while Hershel displays no more than mild frustration while everyone else is PANICKING... “a plane? This is an automobile!” ...iconic. top PL moments ever. Luke don’t you recall the time when Hershel built an entire mini plane out of a chainsaw and a barrel in ED, come on now

Onto Claire. Claire doesn’t get much screentime, but some of the moments she does have are very good; she’s one of the best and most fleshed-out female PL characters imo, and like a lot of things, I appreciate her a lot more after this replay than I did years ago... LayClaire is a cute ship and all, but I was never really obsessed with it; rather, I’m realizing now I’m more invested in what Claire has to offer by herself. I hate to use the term “strong female character” cause that sounds so cliche... but she really is strong. The entire part with her wanting to save Clive, their conversation, and her bringing him out... god it gets me, it really does. She’s known she’s going to die for ages, and at this point in the game she knows it could be any moment now, so she has no reason to try to keep herself safe; she’s doomed no matter what, so she might as well spend the last few minutes of her life saving another life, and not just anyone: someone who’s just killed countless people, who anyone else would see as insane, who doesn’t care for her, doesn’t care if he lives or dies - but Claire is compassionate enough that, despite everything, she fiercely believes he deserves to live. Because of her own guilt and sins she believes she bears, yes, but also simply because she believes he can still change, and doesn’t deserve to die, despite the HORRIBLE atrocity he just committed. She’s just that good a person. It’s no wonder she and Hershel loved each other and were made for each other; both of them are such kind, loving, selfless people who see the best in anyone no matter what. Perhaps she hoped and suspected that Hershel would look out for and care for Clive once he was in prison, so she wanted to make sure that could happen, even if she wouldn’t be around to ever see it.

sorry I just get really emotional about this part, about the entire mood and tone of Claire desperately trying to save this kid, and the way the camera focuses on the massive scale of the fortress and how it dwarfs them in size... It’s a really powerful and melancholic scene (just like Dimitri’s flashback scene; have I mentioned how much I adore the atmosphere and cinematic direction of this game? cause god I do) with the knowledge of her real identity and circumstances, the visuals and the music are so good, ugh i just have so many feels. mom Claire hurts me </3 she’s so good... Despite the fact that she dies, and so much of what everyone is doing is because of her death, her presence in the story is so strong, and it never feels like her only purpose is to die for everyone else’s development and that’s it (unlike... well, a lot of other pl females :’); she has her own things to do, she stops the fortress alongside Hershel, and literally saves the main antagonist’s life. Seriously I just adore the fact that she of all people is the one to rescue Clive in the end even though she wasn’t at all obligated to (although I’d be interested and cry over an AU where Hershel saves him instead; it honestly surprises me that he wasn’t going to until Claire said something...), because Clive is the only character (of the adults) who doesn’t have a direct relationship with Claire, but they’re still connected by the explosion, and so it makes for an interesting and terribly sad dynamic, even if they only have a few minutes with each other, for all the reasons I said earlier. Claire doesn’t think what he did was right, but she knows what she and the other scientists did wasn’t right either - and it’s too late for her now, but it’s not too late for him; she knows he has a kind heart, deep down, and that he needs help if he wants to redeem himself. She feels responsible for him, feels like she owes him that second chance, after indirectly taking his parents from him and causing him such misery and brokenness... She’s so brave and strong-willed to be able to do and admit all that she does; I just love her. It clearly kills her to leave Hershel, I don’t think she intended at first to ever let him know who she was (hence Celeste), but she’s not too upset in the end, because she (rightly) knows that he will be all right. ;; She’s so beautiful, too... wish we could have seen her interact with so many of the other characters </3

and so my favorite “insert Descole into the main trilogy” AU is where Descole intercepts Claire and makes some sort of body for her, like how everyone headcanons that for Aurora post-AL. (or/also just mobile fortress vs. Descole robots, that’s cool too lol)

And finally, Clive, the infamous star of Unwound Future, thought I talked about him a bit already (and also in this post a few weeks ago). Clive is probably the PL series’ best written villain Anton excluded, I absolutely love him, like everyone does. Nothing really about him hasn’t been done before elsewhere, but that’s not a bad thing; when I was younger and first played the game I really only paid attention to his sympathetic side, but now I’ve also grown an appreciation and fondness for that kind of unabashedly awful, manic, evil insanity a villain like him has, it’s just SO entertaining to watch. If PL was a more mature/higher rated series I’d love to see his chaotic crazed energy played up even more, just to really hammer in how messed up he is, ahaha, but of course that would make it harder to sympathize with him..... and unfortunately, it already is kind of hard, because.... shit, the number of people he must have killed? It’s a LOT. A FUCKTON. The level of sympathy the game gives Clive and the way it presents him at the end is not at ALL relative to the astronomical amount of people that had to have been squashed to death by his machine, to the point that it honestly makes me uncomfortable, and I try to just retcon that in my head, as hard as it is to imagine a scenario where that thing could have come up to London and not hit any houses, because like..... There’s no coming back from that. He knew exactly what he was doing, madness or not, and I honestly just... don’t want him to be such a mass murderer. Maybe it’s wrong to ignore it, but the game wants me to feel sorry for him and see his potential for redemption, and his relationship with Hershel is so good... dammit game, why’d you have to show those houses being crushed. Ugh. Because Clive is so compelling as someone who feels betrayed by people in power, who desires revenge not only for himself but for all the people who suffered just like he has that he says he bore witness to as a reporter; it’s a very relatable position and a good story, for his well-meaning intentions to be skewed and lost in the midst of his rage and despair and hatred and insanity, where his very valid point of “hey people in government are fucked up and don’t give a shit about us and that needs to change” gets turned into “they all need to die even if the very innocent people I want to save get hurt by this as well”, and I really wish that whole angle of it had been played up a bit more, and there had been more of an opportunity for Hershel to reason with him and argue that in the midst of his blind need for revenge, he’s become even worse than the people who need justice handed to them (cue some Descole allusionssss). He wouldn’t have to win him over, Clive is already too deep by that point despite how much he wanted to be stopped, but just having more of that than just what happens in the surveillance room would have been sooooooo good, I love that conversation. It would have made Clive even better and really drive home that he’s 1) kinda right about some things and wants better for people 2) still very fucking wrong and selfish at the same time and has taken it all way too far 3) very fucked up and broken. Not that the third point isn’t already abundantly clear, but... yeah. It would have given him even more depth, made him more sympathetic, and helped juuust a little to offset how much the game handwaves his mass murders... just a little... One of my favorite Clive scenes though is when the fortress is breaking down and he’s still there, desperately trying to save it, still in denial about the fact that all his plans have failed and that everything he’s done (and himself) is about to go up in flames; I know everyone loves making fun of him and that that scene is pretty memeable (he does get bodied so much in the game, lmaooo), but it makes him look so vulnerable, all alone in there by himself, like a child, which is what he really is, deep down: he never truly wanted to do something so abhorrent and evil, but his emotions and mind spiraled so badly out of control and it led him to such a dark, horrible place, where he couldn’t stop himself, no matter how much he wanted to, and in the end all he can do is watch helplessly as the reality of what he’s done and his unwound future all comes crashing down in front of him, never to be salvaged. And he believes wholeheartedly that he is going to die, that he deserves to (this is my favorite Clive scene; he’s so hurt and resigned, the voice acting kills me ugh), he doesn’t understand at all why Claire wants to save him, especially if he knows she’s one of the scientists (as his line of “why are you of all people helping me” implies), because he always thought none of them ever cared about him and people he saw as like him, thought everyone was like Bill Hawks, but Claire still cared enough to want to save his life, even though she was one of the people he was actively targeting with his revenge... I wonder how he would have felt at the time if he had known about her situation and that she was dying. </3 I just want so many good things for him, as so much of the fandom does. He’s so messed up but that’s what makes him so interesting, and his potential relationship with Hershel that the ending of the game suggests could happen is so touching and lovely and uplifting, one of my favorite kinds of relationships in fiction: Clive’s issues would persist for so long, for forever, really, but Hershel would support him and help him heal, and be there for him always, no matter how much Clive would feel like he didn’t deserve it. I eat this dynamic up, I really do, every single time I encounter it in a story, and it’s made even better by the fact that as I’ve said, Hershel has so much in common with Clive, and so they would get along very well for that reason, and Clive could unknowingly help Hershel just as much Hershel tries to help him. They’re so good for each other. Add Luke too, and Flora, and Desmond...! just ahhhhh........ there’s so much goodness. Clive you absolute glorious, fucked-up mess of a character, I love you. :’) and I love fic writers who explore facets of his personality and write about him. He’s only in one game, and there’s still a few hiccups, as I said, yet he’s handled far better than Descole or Randall in my opinion (though I love them too)... just an amazing fucking villain, and character. I wish UF could have gone deeper with him than it did, but even so, the possibilities with Clive are endless. I love him, so much ;;

and some of the themes of the plot in this game, uhh, hit a little close to home in good ole’ 2020/21 time we live in? :’) #FuckBillHawks

Hershel saying goodbye to Claire.... god. One of the top scenes in the entire series, probably the #1 most iconic I’d even go so far as to say. I don’t even really ship LayClaire, but there’s an indescribable emotion that finale gives me... it’s just breathtaking, in the most gutwrenching, nostalgic, beautiful way. I still maintain that Diabolical Box’s ending is sadder than this one, for a multitude of reasons, just comparing the stories and situations the characters are in, but I 100% don’t blame people for bawling at this scene more than any other, just because of the way it’s done yes I know I won’t shut up about the cinematography; the lighting, the camera angles, the pacing of it, Hershel’s fucking kicked puppy faces, the dialogue oh god the dialogue; it ALL hits like a TRUCK and comes together beautifully. At this point in his life Hershel has been through so much loss, so much so that it is unbearable - when he cries that he doesn’t want to say goodbye again, that he can’t say goodbye again, that he refuses to, nothing in the world is more true: this man has been through too much, and he’s hit his breaking point. even if you don’t have the prequels in mind when watching this, as most people don’t/didn’t the first time through, the overwhelming sense of burden and loss Hershel is feeling is so palpable, so painful - you get the sense that this isn’t just about Claire; Hershel has never shown emotion like this before up to this point, so for him to finally break down like this... it speaks volumes. After so many years of holding everything in, he finally can’t take it anymore, and basically stabbing me in the fucking chest would hurt less </3 I complain about Hershel never showing emotion like this (never crying) in the prequels whenever he’s hit with an equally horrible bombshell, and I still feel that way, but at the same time a part of me is also glad that’s the case, because it makes the very last (two) scenes in the entire series hit so much harder, knowing that he finally loses his composure after dealing with so much. As the titular character of the series, Hershel’s development is very understated and subtle, so it’s all the more meaningful when he actually snaps, because it makes him feel so much more real and human than he ever is the rest of the time, when he maintains his facade of being a perfectly composed, calm, and together gentleman; this scene finally say that, no, Hershel is a person, and he is broken in a lot of ways, because some puzzles you just can’t solve no matter how hard you try, and it’s so sad. And this sad tone of loss and longing permeates the entire cutscene; the way the title is dropped in Claire’s dialogue (both versions equally haunting imo), and Hershel taking off his hat for the first time ever, and the pan up and transition back to show the falling snow as “Time Travel”, my favorite instrumental in the series, kicks in... y’all there is no other feeling in the world like the feeling that elicits, there really isn’t ಥ⌣ಥ ❤️💔 the only thing that might even come close to it is the ending of Azran Legacy with Surely Someday, simply because it was the ending of the series, but the ending of Unwound Future hits me harder knowing it’s the end of the timeline, and with everything else in hindsight. And then an unknown amount of time later, even with Luke gone and Hershel only having Flora there with him anymore unless we headcanon DESMOND COMES BACK BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DID RIGHT, Hershel is still no longer wearing his hat, to show that he’s finally started to heal from his pain, and accepted the loss(es), because throughout all of UF Hershel had never really gotten over Claire’s death no matter how much he tried to pretend like he had, but you don’t realize that until you see the ending, until he got one final chance to see her. I just... ugh I love it so much, so much. It means so much, for Hershel and for the series, and that’s why it makes me cry (and don’t even get me sTARTED on Luke’s goodybe, and how upsetting yet beautiful THAT is. yes, Luke isn’t a gentleman yet, and Hershel finally learns that maybe he doesn’t always have to be one, either :’’’’’’)

Unwound Future is a masterpiece. Diabolical Box has my favorite characters and story for the new characters, and favorite settings, personally, but Unwound Future is such top-tier storytelling and writing; it feels so epic and sweeping and (here i go again) cinematic, it’s so polished and everything flows so well, the pacing is wonderful, everything ties up so perfectly and there’s very little I would change Flora bitching aside and practically nothing that feels like filler, even though some of it technically is. The tone stays consistent and they really push the boundaries of how serious and heavy these games can be, and it works, and doesn’t feel silly or glossed over or too unrealistic or too heavyhanded like some of the other games are at times; the plot twists/reveals feel the least absurd and the most grounded in reality, despite still being wild, and it focuses on some really relevant stuff and themes (again, it feels really grounded and raw, and the least fantastical, which isn’t a bad thing for the other games/movie per se, but being more realistic works in this one’s favor. No one is going to have their family separated and murdered by a criminal secret organization working to unearth ancient advanced civilized ruins, or lose years of their life and memories in said ancient ruins, or have their life ruined in an eternal unaging state from hallucinogenic gas, but being screwed over by people in government who will do anything to make sure they never have to face consequences? now that’s a mood). It’s just a really fucking good game, by far the best Professor Layton game, and I’ll always stand by that, despite preferring DB just a bit more cause it hits more of my personal tastes (DB is still very good too though, don’t get me wrong), and it’s also enhanced even more by the prequels, though it stands perfectly on its own. The perfect culmination of Hershel’s character arc, and the absolute high point of the series. It’s one of the ones I keep coming back to the most, just because it has so much to offer; as someone who is absolutely enamored with near-perfect stories of this caliber, I couldn’t ask for more. ❤️

#professor layton #professor layton spoilers #meta #who wants to read 8k words about a 12 year old game: no one #who's still gonna post it: this bitch #i actually got emotional near the end writing hjklskdfkfldlksk watching the end of uf always hurts :' ) #me: 'db is my favorite' also me: 'rants and cries about uf for almost double the length of the db rant' #It's About The Potential.jpg #i didn't even talk about the puzzles much at all lmaooooo none of them really stood out to me #just........ story........ so good...... emotions go brrrr #i need ALL the dimitri fanfic tbh #and dimitri and clive #and CLAIRE and clive #and clive and hershel ofc #catch me being obsessed with time travel in a game where 99% of it isn't time travel ahjsdffkldskkdfl #It Could Be That Deep.jpg #need to write my other uf ideas.... and then get to the prequels already #but i also wanna replay pl vs aa... and the aa trilogy...... so much to doooooo

[yo-namine]

Okay, time to talk to myself about Re:Mind and Limit Cut Episode. 

Spoilers galore under the cut!

I'm just gonna start off by talking about how the DLC handled my biggest gripe with base KH3, which was obviously how Kairi was written in the last few hours of the game. Like I said in my other post, Re:Mind doesn't totally fix those problems, but... Well, here's what we get:

Kairi's "murder" is reframed a bit in the DLC. Base KH3 presents it as Xehanort killing her just to provoke Sora et al. into "clashing" with him to make the final key. In Re:Mind, we learn that Xehanort was actually stowing Kairi away (by "crystallizing" her, which... means she wasn't dead? But Sora still takes all the steps Chirithy gives him that are specifically for restoring a heart from death, and it works, so...?) as a fail-safe of sorts in case he needed another Light. Xemnas foreshadows this a bit when he says that Kingdom Hearts needs the Princesses of Heart in case the whole 13 Clashes of Light and Darkness thing doesn't work out. And for what it's worth, I do think this is a little better for Kairi as a character just because it shows that she was "killed" due to something unique and special about her, rather than what she was to Sora. She's still being used, and she's still sapped of her agency, but presumably no other character could have worked in that role against Xehanort, so... that's something, I suppose.

During the Xemnas/Saix/Xion fight, there's an added scene where all the Lights get to take a shot at Xemnas, and Kairi actually broke that motherfucker's guard and made him stumble when no one else could... And then she got captured, bloop, but at least this time it was because she was actually fighting and simply got bested. I can appreciate that. I liked seeing her shield Axel from Xion's attack, too.

And of course, she does get the chance to take on Xehanort later. She has a nice battle set-up (a sort of warp dash ability similar to Riku's and Roxas's, shotlock, reflect, and a GORGEOUS link attack with Sora), and it's a little cathartic to play as her taking Xehanort down. However, I don't think she ever learns that Xehanort took her as a safety measure for his plan or why she was the one chosen for this in the first place. She doesn't speak to Xehanort at all, which makes her big battle with him at the end feel rather... impersonal? And never mind him "killing" her in KH3; Xehanort's ultimately responsible for her losing her family when she was four years old, as well as the destruction of her home world. I'm not saying Kairi and Xehanort needed to have some long overwrought conversation or anything, but there definitely should've been some dialogue between them.

Kairi's actually involved in Naminé's restoration after all!!!!!!!! I remember the Ultimania's explanation of Naminé's return leaving a bad taste in my mouth because it seemed like they framed Kairi's death as ultimately a good thing, because hey, at least her murder freed Naminé from her heart. But that's not what actually happened; instead, Kairi and Sora go to Radiant Garden at the end of the game, and she lets him use the keyblade to release Naminé's heart from hers. And honestly, that scene right there? That was probably my favorite part of this entire DLC. The fact that Kairi really did play a part in restoring her Nobody is a much better payoff to her earlier lines in the game about wanting Naminé to have her own experiences. She wanted to give Naminé her life back, and rather than that being something wrenched from Kairi against her will, it was something she did for Naminé of her own volition.  I just. 😭

/tl;dr thoughts on kairi

As for everything else in Re:Mind:

I loved the background moments with Sora and Kairi in the ending cinematic. Each one is framed so that you can't see their faces, so they all feel like you're looking in on something secret. The "Behind the Curtain" trophy name is pretty fitting (and just downright cute, lol). And like I said above, I loved the scene where Kairi and Sora restore Naminé's heart. You just see him pull the keyblade away from her chest, and then she cradles Naminé's heart in her hands and fjsldfjskd. I teared up at that. It was just such a sweet and gentle little moment. Sora and Kairi taking Chirithy to Ven (and Sora even giving them a little push, lol) was really sweet, too. I loved their body language while they watched Ven run off, how you see them turn toward each other just slightly.

I also like how Sora and Kairi's relationship evolved from "Even if we're apart, our hearts are always connected" to "Heart connections are nice and all, but I'd much rather actually be with you."

Demyx and Riku interacting was something I never knew I needed. Riku's like "PLEASE be careful with that vessel, it's very important--" and Demyx is just "Bro, I got this," and hoists it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Sora and Roxas actually talk to each other! I liked the scene where Sora's Station of Awakening starts to peel away to reveal Roxas's, and you get little glimpses of Roxas's memories. And it turns out that Sora actually did release Roxas's heart from his, and it wasn't just Xemnas kicking Xion into his chest that did the trick, lmao. I like that change.

Xemnas mentions that the original Organization doesn't remember Xion, but they do have records of her. That's a nice little tidbit to have for my Day 4 AU. 👀

Saix says the Guardians must be desperate if they're getting a Princess of Heart involved in the war, and Axel's like "Nah, she's our trump card." Aw. I also thought it was interesting how Saix purposefully uses Axel and Roxas's names to try to trigger Xion's memory of them.

I had to watch the recusant's sigil bit like four times before I understood what the hell was happening, lmao. The sigil represents the Sea Salt Trio's actual connection to one another that they had to "reclaim" from Xemnas, which... okay, but why was that needed? The thing I always liked about this trio is that they're the only one that we see develop fully from the beginning to the end of their relationship. They were always the most believable (canon) trio to me because of that, so throwing in this whole "The sigil binds us together!" thing just seems kind of stupid and unnecessary. They're friendship is good enough as-is. You don't have to add in this nonsense to represent their bond; their relationship development itself already did that. But whatever, they still had a really cool combo attack.

Scala ad Caelum is expanded on! I really enjoyed exploring it and solving the little puzzles to put Kairi's heart back together.

I LOVED THE GUARDIANS VS. NORT REPLICAS BATTLE SO MUCH I HAVE TO YELL ABOUT IT. I ACTUALLY DIED THE FIRST TIME BUT I DIDN'T CARE THAT I HAD TO REPLAY IT BECAUSE I WAS HAVING SO MUCH FUN. THE TAG TEAM ATTACKS!!!!! AQUA, XION, AND MICKEY'S COUNTER-ATTACK!!!!!! EVERYONE ACTUALLY WORKING TOGETHER!!!!!!!! IT’S ALL I EVER WANTED!!!!!!!! 

There are so many cute dialogue exchanges during the Guardians vs. replicas sequence, too! Ven and Roxas compliment each other, Aqua scolds Axel for talking too much (twice, I think? Axel fusses at her the second time, lmao), Terra says something to Riku that I couldn't quite catch, and Riku's like "All thanks to you!" It's just so cute and charming, and it really made the Guardians finally feel like a team.

Mickey Mouse straight-up Boromir-ing his way through the Nort replicas was... I think I loved that? Yeah, no, I loved that. I was laughing through half of it because I kept getting knocked back, but it was a great sequence (visually and gameplay-wise).

Connecting all the keyholes was very satisfying, and was just a beautiful visual altogether.

Sora and Kairi's reunion was adorable. And then Sora sees Goatanort enter the scene, and he just looks at Kairi and is like, "You ready, B?" and Kairi's like, "FUCK yeah, I'm taking his trachea through his kneecaps!!!!!" Okay, not really, lmao. Actually, Kairi's surprised when Sora asks her that, like she didn't expect him to let her help, or maybe she felt like she wouldn't even be able to, but she says she's ready anyway. Kairi’s under-confidence in her fighting skills is a little more apparent in the DLC. Like she says "I can do this" right before the final battle, but it comes off as her trying to reassure herself. She even has a counterattack where her battle quote is "Please work!" and I don't remember hearing her say that in the base game. Girl knows how outclassed she is compared to most of the other Guardians (and Xehanort), but she fights like hell anyway. Attagirl. 🎉

And as for Limit Cut:

Aww, I love that Terra calls Riku "a great leader."

Cheers to David Gallagher for saying "Are you sure about this?" with the exact same inflection as the John Cena meme.

Riku's a master now, right? When will he get some spiffy keyblade armor???????

Okay. Riku is having dreams about looking for Sora. Sora is dead (?), and "the edges of sleep and death touch." Kairi has been asleep for the past year so that the Radiant Garden team can study her heart in effort to find Sora. Nomura? Nomura? Nomura. You cannot fuck this up, man. You can do this. You can write the Destiny Trio working together again. You can write a full story in which Kairi has an active role. You can write her and Riku interacting. You can do it. I believe in you.

The data battles are so hardddddd. I wound up just watching all the LC cutscenes on youtube, lmfao. But I do want to try to beat at least some of these bosses. Tragically, Riku is TRAPPED IN MERLIN'S HOUSE, so you can't leave to grind or anything. Boo.

I don't really care about Yozora. I think we got a confirmation from Sora that Nameless Star is Stella (?), and that's cute for her I guess, but I genuinely don't care, lmao. But I definitely understand the compulsion to include beloved characters from old cancelled projects in your newer ones, so I hope Nomura has fun with that. ...That sounded sarcastic, lol, but I meant it. I hope he gets to do something cool and creative with this recycled cast. It just might not be a story I'll end up following, is all.

Data greeting is SO much fun. I sank a couple of hours into that the other night just creating scenes and playing with effects. The controls are really easy to use, and it's even fun to just explore environments like Radiant Garden and Scala ad Caelum without messing with photos at all. I hope we can unlock more character outfits and poses in the future, but I can definitely enjoy it as is for now.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this DLC. True, about half of Re:Mind is a rehash of the Keyblade Graveyard scenes with some extra content here and there, but it's sort of justified story-wise since we're in a timeloop. I enjoyed the extra Kairi scenes and the interactions between the Guardians the most. Limit Cut is mainly just bonus bosses, but like I said, I do want to actually beat those once I can figure out a strategy for them. And I'm obviously having way too much fun with Data Greeting, lmao, so yeah. Not a bad update.

#my posts #kh3 bloggin #dlc spoilers

[ot3]

Sorry for my late reply, tumblr never notifies me. I couldn’t agree more with what you said. I think videos game have an amazing capacity for all kinds of expression. Something that stood out to me from the video was noting how Pathologic doesn’t rely on Skinner box mechanics. Pathologic works so well, IMO, because it’s entirely player-motivated. Through it’s mechanics and story it invites players to keep going and doing unpleasant things. (1/2)

I think if more games marry mechanics with their story, rather than have a sharp divide between them, we would see more games do what Pathologic does, to a lesser degree probs. Games like Lisa and to a small degree Undertale do a good job of blending the two aspects. I’ve been following your blog for a while so it’s just cool to me that you’re into this and have some great opinions on the topic. Sorry if I’m bothering you with this lmao. Have a good one! (2/2) 

You’re not bothering me at all i LOVE talking about this kind of thing, feel free to send me any sort of Discussion about storytelling, art, or games.

 I think you make a fantastic point about player motivation! This ties in a bit to what I said in my original response which im linking here for anyone who might be trying to read this without context. I absolutely can’t remember where I saw this - I’ve been watching a lot of game related youtube videos out of late, but someone was talking about what makes a game Engaging. I think it might have been gamemakers toolkit?

Anyway, they made a point about intrinsic value in a game, where you’re not playing it for any ‘reward’ at the end (whether that be grinding for lootboxes, or levels, or achievements, etc) and the incentive is wholly just the experience of the game. And I think that’s so important! In a sense you could say that pathologic doesn’t have the intrinsic value because you’re just suffering through it for the reward of the story, but I don’t think that’s the case because that suffering is part of the story.

I haven’t played lisa and i don’t know a thing about it, actually, but its on sale right now so i’m legit about to go buy it. 

Undertale’s also another great example. It’s combat mechanics and the way the game is SIGNIFICANTLY harder if you don’t wan’t to kill anyone I think blend super well with the message the game is trying to send. I think it’s a super careful balance to strike.

Like, I’m gonna go off track here for a minute and talk about breath of the wild which is probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a game. Obviously the story is, at best, fun. It’s pretty basic and most of the depth in it comes from the things you end up projecting onto it, which is completely fine. The plot in BOTW comes secondary to the fun you’re supposed to have in the world. In my first BOTW save I just ran around getting apples for weeks until i had capped out my apple storage at 999. And then i baked all of them. I just sat there dumping one thousand apples into the fire just for the sake of having a thousand baked apples and nothing more. But in many ways the robustness of BOTW’s physics and how the world feels so real makes the story feel that much weaker in comparison because the simplicity of the story is almost discordant with how complete the world feels. Imagine how much impact it could have had if they had found a way to conceptually marry the two. 

I think death mechanics in story games in particular are an interesting thing to look at, because whether or not the threat of death feels heavy very much effects the way a story will feel. Like in undertale, death isn’t that bad. It’s fine, you just go to your next save - but the fact that you are able to do this is a significant part of the real story and is canonically addressed and contextualized. Then there’s, on the other end of the spectrum, Pathologic, where character death is the main threat hanging over your head the whole time. The mechanics of dying, how you need to keep track of hunger, exhaustion, health, etc. tie directly into the feeling of ‘this isn’t a game, i’m not a main character, i’m just a person in a bad situation’ that the game attempts to create.

Hollow knight is another interesting look at this: when you die in Hollow Knight you get sent back to your last save, you lose any money you were holding, and you lose some of your potential to heal/do magic, represented by the container that stores your ‘soul’, a type of energy you gain, being shattered. You also leave behind a shade; a ghostly shadow of yourself that you need to track down and defeat to regain your money. As a death mechanic, people have different opinions about this and how it relates to the exploration aspects of the game, but regardless of how it fits into the gameplay flow it has a place in the story flow. As you progress through the game and learn more about your character, the knight, and their origins, this mechanic actually begins to not only make sense but reveal a lot about the world of hollow knight in general.

Video games are a unique medium and still relatively new and finding their footing but I truly believe that the ability to marry mechanics and story will elevate narrative in a way you can’t get in any other format. it’s so cool. Stories that you have to engage with to truly experience! Art that you have to genuinely commit to to experience! The potentials are LIMITLESS.

#vibeo game . . . . #im explaining hollow knight because #maybe youve played it #but im sure someone who might be reading this hasnt #THIS IS LONG IM SORRY #I'M JUST PASSONATE #dot-tired

[survivor-marianas-trench]

“How Am I Supposed To Sit On My Fat *ss And Do Nothing If There’s No Tribal Immunity?” - EPISODE 1

i wont say names bc if these get released at the end i know the psycho wont leave me alone but theres a certain someone that never leaves another certain someone alone and theyre actually so annoying and they look like a balding foot and if i have to be in the same tribe with them i will definitely end up fighting them

so...cole walking on day 1? because he didn't want to be in a game with Julia wow. I am shook to the core. 

1st off why are there 30 people here! 2nd off why are we all in a chat together! And 3rdly at least someone already took themselves out of the game. I didn't get last!!! I know setting the bar high. I'm very excited to play everyone is super nice and also I think my tribe is great. I got Sam and Liana on my tribe whom I played with during Atlantis. Sam and I were in an alliance but obviously it wasn't super tight...since I voted her off. But I love her dearly and hope we can work together again. Also excited for Liana because I always remember that she was good in challenges and she has already told me she won't want to throw any challenges this time. Haha. I already appreciate her so much. She is so sweet! Carson k is also on my tribe. Carson k is also a sweetheart and I'm sad that I didn't trust him much during Malibu and I hope that it can change here. Hopefully there is a survivor trivia challenge because he is so good with survivor trivia. Everyone else on the tribe seems really cool too as we aren't involved in the drama of the one world chat. Haha we have all of our members still and we are ready to win some challenges! #YouWishYouWereATasi also. Kait is here!!!! Omggggg I'm not ready. She messaged me last night and I was like oh god how do I talk to kait????? Like ugh ahhhh scared. No. Nothing against kait she just scares me! And I feel like she can tell....*gulp* but billy is also here and I love billy too. And Luke!!! Honestly so many amazing people who hopefully won't vote me off. Everyone in the community has been so supportive of me and has really helped relive some of the anxiety I've been having. But queen kait is here so I don't know how long it will last. 

what the fuck am i doing i don't even know if im making a confessional for the right game....like i'm in a 3 survivor games and  a big brother game and i've never wanted to kill myself more i was talkin with kait and i was like "omg i love karen!!" and KAREN ISN'T EVEN ON OUR FUCKING TRIBE. SHE'S DEADASS IN ANOTHER GAME. omg and this ninjohn bitch cracks me tf up so yeah thats about all i've done bye

tbh! what is going on in this game!!! The only people that I know and want to work with are Sam G, Dan, Amanda, Billy and Christine tbqh! I don't know anybody on my tribe except Billy so we're gonna be a cute duo. I think the twist is kind of fun, it's gonna make people need to be on their toes 24/7 and not get too comfortable hiding behind tribal wins because they just don't exist. Uh first boot from my tribe? Idk,...maybe me> maybe chrisssa? who knows!

On 3/6/17, at 9:54 PM, veronica [ hoenn host ] wrote: > how am i supposed to sit on my fat ass and do nothing like nicholas did if theres no tribe immunity >.> but also i really like the cast in this game and i know its gonna be lit this is like one of my fave survivors already and im in like 4 rn

set my soul on fire pls

YES MA'AM! This is Kelsey Mikaelson, representing BBCAN and Vampire Diaries, checking into Mariana Trench Survivor, is you good? Is you happy? Because I's wants to know, ok. Entering this competition was a quick shock. The tribe I was on is very friendly and we all got along quick and I'm living, I seem to get along well. Obviously, I'm the loud one, but I think that overall, I'm not too much which is good! You know what is too much though? Literally both other tribes OTHER than Tasi. Seeing how crazy they are during the One World makes us seem a lot more mellow which makes me seem a lot more quiet which is absolutely a great factor for my game.  Anyways, next twist: triple elimination each week. Girl...I came here for a fresh new game that would be welcoming to newbies. This is literally death. I'm literally dead. *sigh*...Whatever. There are people in my tribe I've clicked with early on. Carson, Liana, Sam, Shea and Seamus have all been rather nice to me. However, one person that I have definitely gotten along with thus far is Lilly. She's so explosive and she's also so logical in everything she tells me, she's a great counterpart to me in this competition. I would say I trust Lilly the most, yes, I would. And going into this first tribal, I'm interested to see how our relationship will translate into gameplay. Hopefully, in a positive way~! Now to the challenge...I want to remain a team player, an innocent virgin, an airhead with  nothing but loyalty with everyone. I don't want to manipulate, I want to slay. So, I'm going to put a rather safe score for myself. As long as I'm not on the bottom end of the powers, I'm fine. I just hope that this first tribal doesn't eat me alive...against my gut instinct, I'm not bringing strategy up for these first days. I just hope that people actually come to me like I'm expecting...otherwise, I gotta start making them moves, mama! Wish me the best of luck! From Canada with Love, -The ORIGINAL...Kelsey Mikaelson, muah!

I'm so nervous. I feel like knowing that you're going to tribal no matter what makes this all more nerve wracking. I'm trying to feel out who people want to go and what they want to do without making anyone feel like I'm jumping the gun or being too forward. Plus I think Darian is probably gunning for me, since I know he doesn't like me. I really don't wanna be first to go, but I feel like it's too risky to just immediately go after him. I'm hoping someone is inactive or will give us a reason to vote them out so that this first one is an easy one. 

http://youtu.be/PTJUoasIy_Y

...moments later

If i learned anything from Rakiura, it's that I need to make a list or something of peoples' point values and possible advantages since people will forget about them come merge and then the person with all the advantages will win the season. :)

I'll call them out!

https://youtu.be/gK_YU4BaKyc

WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN MY TRIBE 

So like this is a weird position to be in. I like everyone on my tribe????? Like how the fuck am I supposed to vote one of these hoes out when I like them? I'm clearly the prettiest, but like I love them all. This is a tragedy because if it was a normal damn game, I would be able to slay with my tribe. My plan so far is to just be super social and find the majority. I don't know how to play one world because usually the world revolves around me so. 

So this season hasn't been that exciting at all so far for our tribe due to Cole's, not surprising, quit. I want to try harder than the last few skype/Tumblr games I've played since I definitely was inactive in the last few. I'm trying to socialize and need to expand my social surroundings since I haven't approached many yet. I have been talking to Luke however but he's terrible at responding. I don't mind if you're busy and can't respond quickly but when you message in the main chat and have the online symbol by your name you might want to respond back to a tribemate. That doesn't bode well for track records. 

Things are weird. What do I do. Who do I talk to. Where am I. Okay now that I've gotten that off my chest I just tribes are weird. We aren't even really a tribe. I know we will have to just keep voting people off of our tribe. So what do we do? I have no leads. Except I kinda want a girls alliance so I would prefer a guy out this week just to play it safe. I feel like I could talk to Liana and Sam about this but also nervous. Idk. I'll do something soon but this is a lot to process. I also hope that not too many voting things will affect tribal. I'm not ready for it. That is all. Good day. 

Hello!!! Alright so this first week has just been....a mess. Like, y'all really put me in a group with 30 people...with one world in play...I'm gonna go insane. Although it's not entirely a bad thing. I have my Queens Kait and Jenn to keep me sane. I had Cole......for like 2 hours until he left WHICH I'M STILL BITTER ABOUT. I love him so much it's not even funny. Anyways for the people on my tribe, I absolutely adore Dan so I can definitely see us working together. Sam G. is here as well and WHEW. A Queen. I love her so much. If I had a dream alliance within this tribe it'd probably be Dan, Sam, Kelsey, Lily, Carson and myself. I haven't gotten the chance to talk to Seamus or Liana and trying to start a conversation with Shea is a bit like pulling teeth so far so...yeah, that's how things are looking right about now I'm so scared for this tribal cause I don't know what to expect??? Like I probably should've just went all in for immunity but I didn't cause I didn't wanna go overboard...so much for that huh. Wish me luck for now I guess!

...30 minutes later...

I'm screaming apparently Shea's already brought my name up to people but suddenly changed it to Carson when I started talking to them??? Something smells fishy here and I'm not here for it. I've got my eye on Shea, that's for sure. In all honesty I'd rather target Shea than Carson cause Carson's actually chill while Shea's probably gonna get a little messy along the way which makes me nervous but Dan trusts him for now so I guess I just gotta go with the flow for now...

Hi Ricky! Super excited to be safe this round, just gotta sit here and look cute!

the furrys are on the prowl, yiff yiff. there are quite a few furrys in this game lmao. so basically on my tribe i really like veronica and am teaming with her. shea really likes me and veronica so we r gonna try and work with them. i think i want to vote for sam this round bc like i like everyone else and the noobs in our tribe seem kinda easy to push around so im excited!

My tribe is so BORINGGGGG tbh no one talks in the chat anyways here's an analysis i promised Ricky <3 When something more happens youll get more out of me but literally nothings going on OH I HAVE AN ALLIANCE WITH DAN AND LUKE BUT YOU BUT US ALL ON DIFFERENT TRIBES WHICH IS GROSS The end. heres my analysis of my tribe woo Andie - Love him we've been friends for a while and he wants to work together so thats cute af Daisy - Super nice we've talked quite a bit so far. I like her Darian - He seems super nice to me and we talked a bit but ive heard he's a shitshow and ive been warned so i know to tread lightly Emma - I'm not gonna like when i saw Emma was on my tribe I was about to beat someones ass because I felt like she hated my guts last time i was around her and it was a rough experience but she like came to me and apologized and shit saying she was having a rough time and idk if that was just to cover her ass for this game or what but im gonna forgive but not forget at this point...or at least until swap/merge lmao Kait - i fucking love Kait she's super straight to the point which is great when everyone else sugar coats the hell out of everything. We seem to work well in PI so here's to hoping it works out this time and we can be a dynamic duo lolol Rhea - Last Week in another game she said she didnt like playing with me and my friends...im not really with my close friends in this game so idk if itll be different but like we've played together a ton and i dont think we ever worked together. She's the nicest person in the world but we like never click together so i wouldnt be surprised if she wanted my ass gone Rob - I dont think we've talked? oops lmfao Sam R. - Hes so chill. We played Myanmar together and we worked together while also targeting eachother? it was so fucking complicated ahahaha but i love him as a person so i hope we're okay in this game??? idk yet tbh Steven - We've talked a bit in the past. He's chill but we arent super close. I dont think he'd target me though so thats a plus

Wooo! I guess taking -10,030 points was worth it! I won immunity from the raffle and I also have the 30% advantage! Couldn't be more happy about the outcome of this challenge. I honeslty don't know who to vote for and I sure as hell won't be scrambling. I know it's not me and that's all I care about 

i am gad we were safe week 1 thanks to Cole quitting again it's insane that he did that but i am glad it gave us safety this week. I hope i can stay longer because immunity wins aren't relying on everyone to win together so if i am bad they won't think i am a threat..

well! tasi WAS peaceful, until little shea decided to target me ONCE again in a game. id like to see him try, because i am NOT going premerge. and, if i have anything to say about it, his ass is GRASS!

So, everyone this tribal has said they are voting Carson, which I have no problems with. I feel like the blame is being put on me for this vote which I don't want. If people flip and I go home, so be it. 

Daisy seems to be the first target and I don't want her to leave. I'm going to see if we can get the votes back on Amanda.

.

http://prntscr.com/ehnjlj

So, tonight is making me super nervous and I don't know what to do.... I feel like this twist fucks me and that's not good. I have played sooo many PI seasons that  I feel like I am an easy target. Also this one world twist is legit making this game THAT much harder and I honestly don't like this shit. I don't know what the fuck I am going to do, and it sucks  so much. I feel like I am a mess and it sucks more so than anything. I just want to make it past this tribal, and I am not sure that I willl. 

Whew I need to write a confessional but also I'm watching Survivor! I am really nervous for this vote! Everyone has been so quiet and I haven't talked to that many people. The plan is supposed to be for Carson. Lily, Liana, Dan, Christine, and I were supposed to create an alliance but we haven't. I'm hoping we will later and no one is actually trying to vote me out. Seamus did say  'Christine or Sam' but he meant Carson? Okay sure hopefully he did! 

Sooo, this has been a wild round, and im not even gonna get into the cole thing other than to say, I'm glad you and your negative bitch ass is gone, and maybe come for me with more accurate shit next time :))). But since this "lovely" soul quit, I didn't have to go to tribal, and I also beat him AHAHAH. BUT I've been chit-chatting with Gabriel alot and I love Gabriel they are soooo chill tbh. And I also am kinda lucky since I know so many people know this season whew. Okay bye

#deeperdarkerdanger