#theyre not together during the game. theyre enemies during the game. theyre also both kinda immature late teenagers/young adults | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quirkthieves · 1 month

Note

👫+ monoma & kiri / kaiba & marik / ishizu

this has to be under a cut i got out of hand

ISHIZU & KAIBA

i think the moment she met him she went into older sister mode. not out of like, a need to baby him or whatever its actually the opposite he is so machiavellian and uppity and willing to escalate a situation that she was just like right yeah this is exactly how marik is. hes at that age, where boys like to blow up buildings in death matches.

for the aforementioned reason i think thats also why he gets to see a slightly more impish side to her she doesnt really share often. the banter is dry and fast she has said "skill issue" to him at least once and she absolutely does stunt on him whenever she manages to even slightly best him in anything. shes rambling about predynastic art and taking forever to get to her point on purpose. and when i think he and her are an absolute menace to joey like his va and her va did a duel once in character and she was murdering him verbally. at one point they were talking about the north american tournament and joey was like "yeah they wouldnt let me enter cuz my decks got banned cards in it" and shes like "joey if you entered even with your current deck you wouldnt win" and he was like "what? why do you say that? did your necklace tell you that?" and she said "no, I just used common sense." . i could feel her and kaiba high fiving on that one i saw it so clearly

also i really like how in battle city we see that like, especially after their duel and as the marik v yugi fight looms ever closer that she and kaiba genuinely talk strategy on the side. she and him are standing on opposite sides of the ring than yugis gang, like, given her whole thing you think shed be kicking it with them but now she and kaiba are gossiping and speculating and i think that shows that he genuinely respects her skill as a duelist even if he thought the fate stuff was bullshit. he knows her meta game was crazy real recognizes real.

theyre gonna have a really, really long talk after dsod.

MARIK & KAIBA

as above i think the two of them are very similar and i think that pisses them both off. they absolutely refuse to acknowledge it like if you said that theyd snort with derision and be like im nothing like him [insert snide remark here] but thats exactly what i mean. for that reason you cannot just leave them to their own devices together its going to get ugly, or if they have a mutual enemy, felonious. both of them designed Saw Games for yugi.

that being said i do think they should be on a podcast together to talk about like, duel monsters news and commentate on tournaments and stuff like the one-liners would be VICIOUSSSSSSSS . it would be like a frenemies situation i think.

he still feels. REALLY bad about the whole "maiming if not murdering" some of the medical staff on the battle city blimp and he has like, no idea how to broach that topic like if he should send a gift basket or apology text or what so like, hes pretty awkward around kaiba at least at first and is kinda just waiting for the day he brings it up. u said kaibas keeping that as an iou in his back pocket and i agree.

i think the ishtars sometimes hang out with (babysit) mokuba and whenever ishizu and rishid wont let him do something he goes to marik because marik 100% enables younger brother behavior . hes taken him on motorcycle rides. he probably showed him how to forge papers at some point. its really educational

MONOMA & KIRISHIMA

so like. ok hear me out. im about to grab manga panels you know this shit is about to be so for real serious. so like i talk a lot about the team up mission chapter where class a is nice to monoma and he freaks it but id like to bring up that kirishima is one of the main three actors of this plan, esp during the phase where they're trying to gather info on what monomas "secret message" is. deku asks monoma how hes feeling, and monomas like....im not fucking telling you that. so,

(condensed version for time and space). but the important part here is that while deku and Iida fail to engage Monoma in normal conversation because Monoma doesn't have normal conversations with Class A, when Kirishima is like "dude just fucking punch me" Monoma is vaguely confused but goes all in, despite the fact that fist fighting Kirishima is probably more of an immediate threat to his health and safety than talking about his feelings.

so what I'm getting at here is that like, I think Kirishima is fundamentally more capable of communicating with Monoma than maybe other members of Class A not despite the sourness between them but because of it. While Kirishima is kind enough at his core to do this because they think Monoma's in danger (and because they think figuring it out will make him...stop. the things he does.), he also has picked up on the fact that communication with Monoma, even well-meaning, has to be delivered in an antagonistic manner, because he has already done the back-and-forth bickering with Monoma that makes his world go round, unlike Iida and Midoriya.

So I think even though they dislike each other, ironically, Kirishima's better at getting a read on him than a lot of other people.

um. I'm just gonna keep going till it loosely approximates four ideas im in too deep. anyways. It's also important to remember that the remedial classes in the forest training camp were fucking LONG. They were four hours a night. That is.a LOT of acute Monoma exposure for the Class A flunkies late into the evening and we know from the light novels that during that time, he was getting up to mischief and frequently taking "restroom breaks" in which he went and cheated in games on behalf of his classmates who did not know he was doing this. but again anyway the point is that kirishima was. very early on introduced to and spent extended periods with monoma's particular brand of crazy and this would only be even more relevant if hes friends with tetsutetsu, who monoma is also fairly close with. i think thats kinda why we see a willingness for kirishima to get up in his personal space more:

which like, watch out kirishima you may be roped into the monoma handler crew. but like i think a lot about that and like, how kirishima actually tries to explain it to monoma even though as someone who has acute monoma toxicity poisoning he knows this is a very futile effort because kirishima is someone who, actively, is trying to be the manly guy he idolizes, but god, this motherfucker does make it really hard sometimes. most of the time. every time. he is trying to give him the benefit of the doubt because maybe one day it will be different but he does not have his hopes up and he does not know what is wrong with this dude.

which leads me into the next thing i think, sort of along the same lines as bakugou although not as much, monoma does both envy and admire kirishima for being one of the "strong". naturally he'd rather chew his own hands off than say it, but i also dont think he's picked up on the fact that kirishima is the way he is in a very deliberate manner, like that, he worked to be the person he is today and continues to do so. i think if he did know, monoma would respect him a lot more, because he really admires that kind of self-determination and deeply wishes he, too, could form that strong of a personal identity. again, he probably really wouldnt.... express it that well? like i think maybe monoma admiring your strong traits more is kind of a fast track to him being even more annoying because he is truly instinctively a little hater . but he doesnt actually dislike kirishima for any personal reason, like, he has no qualms with kirishima as a person-- he himself is good friends with tetsutetsu. it's solely the class a thing, and the fact that monoma cant really detangle those feelings of jealousy and admiration. he doesnt really care what kirishima thinks of him, but he does make more of an effort when he engages in his antagonism with kirishima, because hes feeling like "look, i want to stand on ground with you as an equal, i see you as strong enough to be worth putting the energy into this rivalry, youre so cool that i feel like im strong if i can keep up with you" except even he doesnt know this is what hes thinking and nobody really wants this. but i dont think he could even really bring himself to HATE hate kirishima or even match his pure dislike as an individual because monoma has no reason to. hes just an awful little man.

also monoma pesters him a lot because he really really likes his quirk. you should be honored kirishima , really. its really fun to him. naturally he does use it for mischief but even non mischief reasons he just thinks its neattttt hes probably got him some deku-style notes about it. its also probably why monoma would tag along on any training tetsutetsu invites him to do with kirishima around bc otherwise he would be like . why would i want to be sweaty and around those despicable clowns when i dont even have to be. <- knows he has no chance of winning a sparring match and is not even going to try

#RABBIT HEART://ISHIZU HC #NEEDLES://MARIK HC #IMPERFECT CACKLES://MONOMA HC #resolutepath

3 notes · View notes

sick-ada · 4 months

Text

CICADA AGENTS MASTERPOST

bc i keep forgetting that i havent actually put much abt my agents on my tumblr and i need to expose the max number of people to my blorbos as i can

going under the readmore cause this is gonna get longg

(this has been in my drafts for over a month)

CB-808 (agent 8, she/her) and Bubbles (agent 8 AGAIN, a SECOND TIME, CAN YOU TELL EIGHT IS MY FAV, he/him)

they're "twins", meaning they both woke up without any memories, saw that they were the only two nearby who looked similar (being the only non-sanitized octolings in the metro) and assumed that meant they were twins

they do all of the tests in octo expansion as a duo! this makes some tests easier (like girl power station) and others much harder (like the one with the dualie squelchers and the grindrails, since they have to share the weapon between them)

this kinda fucks with the computer systems and all their mem cakes are blended (lmao) together. they have to work together to figure out whose memories are whose, to varying success levels

very very very codependent. theyll get anxious if you take the other to another room where they cant see each other. proto (cap3) convinced them to do one test separately and CB got so worked up she punched the side of the carriage and permanently dented it

they didnt try a second time

ON THE TOPIC OF CB DENTING THE METAL: shes freakishly strong, in an artificially-modified way rather than a very-strong-but-normal way

after the splatoon 1 campaign, elite soldiers deserted en masse since nearly all of them were at the concert/final-battle, leaving a gaping hole in the octarian military. in an attempt to fill that gap as quickly as possible, volunteers were "purposed" to become enhanced super-soldiers

(ill probably make a dedicated post abt it when i remember but "purposing" is what they do to make octarians (the stubby tentacle guys) into all the different forms you see in-game. debateably ethical to begin with, SUPER unethical to do to actual octolings)

im bad at timelining but she signs up to this when she's like,,, 13. still kinda blobby

functionally, what it did to her was make her freakishly strong (she breaks the handles on doors ridiculously often) and about 50% more resistance to enemy ink. girls a tank. however, she has trouble regulating her strength and therefore cant superjump accurately since she overshoots her target every time

it's also super painful. she permanently lost her voice from screaming too much and cant speak any louder than a whisper, but she knows octarian and inklish sign languages so she gets along fine

her name is CB-808 bc that was the serial number printed on a livestock tag in her ear

BUBBLES ON THE OTHER HAND. not physically fucked up. mentally though................

his parents were some of the elites who deserted after hearing the Inkantation (in my headcanons it's something that can be resisted, but only temporarily). he wanted their approval more than anything so them leaving him was devastating

hes not actually a dude he just think he/him is a cool set of pronouns. heard someone say "him" once and absorbed it into his gender

he lied abt his age to become a scout/reconnaisance (how you spell that??), even if nobody was really gonna check given the situation after splat1

where CB is built like a tank, he's tall and lanky, and also scarily smart. combined with his lack of filter he'll literally just stare at you for 5 seconds before saying some shit like "oh i see. youre scared of us because of our competence and your perception of our alleigances compared to urs"

captain 3 is scared by him more than CB. as they should be.

his name is Bubbles because he has circular markings on his upper arms and CB is not very good at coming up with names (shes an amnesiac teenager give her a break)

theyre both 15 during octo expansion, and 20 by splatoon3

after reaching the surface they move in with flora (4) and his roommate bola (oc) to form the Leftovers Squad, an inksports team and maybe-gang

these two are wonderfully terrible influences and teach the two of them how to defy authority n shit, it's great, ill talk abt it more in their specific sections

CB mains the dynamo but plays it like a splat roller because she's so strong she can swing it with about that speed. Bubbles mains the e-liter and has nutty aim. the kind of duo that makes people realize theyre ex-soldiers

both of them are too obedient to authority, leftover habits from the military even if they don't fully remember their time there. CB is much worse in this regard, since she was more heavily conditioned to follow orders and Bubbles is observant enough to realize when theyre being taken advantage of

FLORA (agent 4, he/she used interchangeably)

part of the Leftovers Squad! a young punk squid that revels in rebellion and violence and showing people what's what

almost entirely deaf. he had pretty bad hearing to begin with, but loud raves without ear protection worsened it significantly. his hero headset functions as hearing aids but he doesnt usually wear them unless he's on NSS missions or patrols or w/e

came to inkopolis when she was 14, but it wasnt intentional. her parents were the kind of awful perfectionists that expected their children to be equally as perfect, so decided to leave flora in inkopolis bc she did awful in school

he was taken under Bola's fin (get it it's a fish pun theyre fish im hilarious) and became enamoured with the adrenaline-fueled, bloody-mouthed rush of fighting, in and out of inksports

the best way i can describe her is "violent for the sake of violence and gleeful about it". she starts a fight with someone twice her size just for the fun of attacking and taking a beating. probably something wrong with her. i love her with every fibre of my being

has absolutely zero respect or trust in authority -- especially adults, which includes Marie since she's 19 in splat2 and he's only 16

still goes along with her whole "hey go save the zapfish" spiel because A) she cant actually hear what marie is saying B) marie gave her some free fancy hearing aids so she GUESSES she has to return the favour somehow C) she wants to fight some octarian soldiers D) she wants to steal her own zapfish (she succeeds, it gets a tank in Leftover Squad's living room) and E) she thinks itll be REALLY funny to fuck with marie

shes right btw. its hilarious

she only follows orders when it's funnier than disobeying them. she puts zapfishes back in levels she wants to complete a second time. she teaches octolings how to play poker (and how to cheat at poker). she lets a squee-g splat her "to see what it feels like"

if callie wasn't missing marie would NOT put up with his bullshit, but alas.

respects agent 3 even less than marie, when they meet, since at least marie has a sense of humour

he's the one who suggests that CB and Bubbles move in with him and Bola after Octo Expansion. less out of his own goodwill and more out of a combination of morbid curiousity and a sense of "bola has a habit of taking weird inkfish under their fin, walking in with two soldiers will be really funny"

gets hypnoshaded 5 years post-splat2 (during the splat3 campaign) and has to be rescued by the leftover Leftovers (lmao) and Off the Hook. octavio doesnt really convince her to put them on, theres no realistic way he could do that, so he physically overpowers her and puts the shades on

he gets rescued tho! so it's all good and absolutely no interpersonal issues come from it i swear (lying)

Bola (they/them, not an agent)

another member of Leftovers Squad and, arguably, its leader

is about as comfortable with violence as flora (read: very comfortable) but, unlike him, doesn't enjoy it for its own sake. when they do a violence, it's for a specific aim and a purpose, even if that purpose seems inane or petty

theyre the leader of the leftovers mostly because theyre the only one with a goal or any sort of purpose. also because theyre by far the most charismatic of the bunch but mostly bc theyre the only one with any direction in life. the other three are happy to just help with that

(calling it a purpose is doing it too much justice, it's a grudge. a massive fucking grudge against Squidforce as a brand and an institution and a company. they want that thing obliterated)

when they first came to inkopolis (they were like 12), they werent a citizen of inkadia so they had no ID and weren't allowed to do official Squidforce battles, so they went to unofficial/illegal/unregulated turf wars to make some cash

this got shut down by squidforce

they decided "no. fuck this. fuck you, im gonna fuck every single one of you over, die." and swore vengeance about as dramatically as a then-13 year old could. luckily, bola was a very dramatic, kinda blobby 13 year old

they met flora when he came to inkopolis and introduced him to the concept of You Can Just Fight These People If You Don't Like Them

would have agreed to housing CB and Bubbles if Flora had just asked but this is fine they guess

theyll be the last to admit they have a compassionate streak, but they have a soft spot for the underbelly of inkopolis and everyone who lives there, most of which are underrepresented or downtrodden by the system that squidforce upholds

theyre an octoling but not an octarian (citizen of octaria, the nation that lost the great turf war and now lives in the domes) like CB and Bubbles are

instead, theyre a weird subspecies of octoling that went back in the water while the "normal" species of inkfish stayed on the surface. they still have most of the same features as an inkfish, like the shapeshifting, but have more aquatic adaptations like gills and razor sharp teeth and being able to swim in water unharmed (ik inkfish dying in water is only dubiously canon but for my headcanons normal inkfish dissolve like ingame if they fall into water)

they also have sepiism! better described in this post this means their ink/tentacle colours are limited to blacks and browns. their subspecies is more prone to this colour mutation than other inkfish since black is a pretty good camoflague colour if youre in the deep ocean. idk i wanted an excuse to make them look cool dont think abt it too hard

they absolutely despise proto (captain 3). aint no world where theyd trust the militaristic authority figure that orders around the two ex-soldiers theyre trying to teach how to be independent

not to mention the grudge they form against the captain after the hypnoshading incident that i will elaborate on i PROMISE its in the next section

aFTER I TALK ABOUT THE LEFTOVERS SQUAD AS A WHOLE. IF I CANT ESCAPE THEM NEITHER CAN YOU

when they meet, post octo expansion, the twins are 15 and the punks are 16, so theyre 20 and 21 respectively by the time splat3 rolls around

flora gets squidnapped just after splat3 campaign (which lasts like a day for reasons that will be evident once i get to neo 3 and "little" buddy), so proto and the squid sisters are in alterna monitoring the situation and doing cleanup while it happens. this will be relevant later. foreshadowing is a technique where--

a couple months after the twins move in, CB discovers inksports and makes the biggest saddest puppy dog eyes at the rest of the squad until they agree to making a league team together. it's also called the leftovers

CB and Flora love it because they enjoy physically fighting people (CB likes that she doesnt have to be permanently hurting people during it, Flora would like it better if there was a lil permanent injury tbh). Bubbles enjoys it because his sister enjoys it and also because he enjoys using his big brain to do sick predicts and snipe people from across the map where he's nice and safe. Bola only joins at first because telling the ex-soldier, who theyve been trying to convince that you dont need peoples permission to do things, "no" would be counterproductive. they hate every moment they have to fight in a squidforce battle. but then once the team gets well-known they realise that squidforce cant get rid of them anymore and uses their platform to absolutely troll the shit out of squidforce

like when they go on interviews and stuff they constantly mention how shitty squidforce is and "yeah i personally prefer [smaller organisation]'s inksports, they have way better maps and modes, squidforce just has a monopoly so..." and squidforce cant do shit bc theyre the charismatic face of this popular new team and itd be bad publicity

CB and Bubbles dont have real IDs cause theyre amnesiac teenagers who made up their own names. flora and bola get them fake IDs that claim CB stands for Courtney Blitz, making bubbles into Bubbles Blitz

CB often gets called Clam Blitz. CB does NOT appreciate this. Bubbles thinks it's hilarious and only answers people who call him "Blam Blitz" for like a week

Bubbles mains the E-liter but likes lots of different anchors, CB exclusively plays her "splat roller" (a dynamo swung really fast), Flora learnt how to play every weapon from the splat2 campaign and can play basically anything (but usually goes for something close-range so his bloodlust gets put to good use. heavy weapons tend to turn into bludgeons in his hands) i dont know what bola would use tbh. i wanna say a splatana but this is set mainly in splat2 so they wouldnt have those. if anyone is still reading this far pls make suggestions in the notes 👍

CB and Bubbles dont have any sense of money (in my hcs, the domes work more on a communal property + bartering system) so they have no reason to object to pearl giving them inordinate amounts of money. bola and flora have to have a conversation where they ask whether pearl is their sugar daddy. this is agonising for everyone involved.

they used the money to buy an unreasonably large bed that they all sleep on together bc theyre my ocs i make the rules

i promised it was proto next. here *throws them like a javelin through the screen

Proto (captain 3, they/them)

i shld probably start at the beginning for them bc their actions through all the games are the catalyst for a Lot of plot

they were raised in calamari county, their parents were friends with callie and maries parents so they hung out a bunch when they were kids. basically the third squid sister, though they get way too bad stage fright to become idols like the other two

hanging out with those two so much also meant a lot of exposure to cap'n cuttlefish. proto idolised him to no end, decided they wanted to be just like him when they grew up

when the squisters went to inkopolis to become idols, proto became their manager. they were also recruited alongside callie and marie into the NSS when craig decided to reform it. ive never actually watched a playthrough of splat1 so i dont actually know how the plot works other than "craig is there and then callie & marie are there" so the next part is probably gonna be more canon parallel than canon adjacent

also because im just making up random shit about splat1. thats probably also a factor

in this version of canon, the octarians dont steal every zapfish you grab at the end of the levels, only the ones used for the boss levels. all the rest are ones owned by the octarians, mostly bred in captivity cause where tf else are you gonna get the power for running the domes

proto isnt an active agent in splat1, it's callie and marie who go in and do the fighting while proto is the one coordinating them and making plans. their plan is to steal all these extra zapfish to strain the domes' resources and then perform the inkantation during the final confrontation to make the maximum number of soldiers (especially elites) desert, all so they become incapable of stealing more zapfish or launching a retaliatory strike

and cap'n cuttlefish approves so surely that means that this is a good plan and any suffering caused is a necessary evil and it's not like this paranoid old man has any biases or grudges that would impede his judgement. surely not

side note: instead of inner agent 3, CB and Bubbles have to fight inner agents 1 & 2. inner-callie targets CB and inner-marie targets Bubbles because i think the roller-charger parallel is cool

the plan works! elites and soldiers desert in droves, neutering the octarian military capability, and octaria has to focus what resources it has on not starving (which it barely achieves, theres a famine regardless) rather than attacking back. it also creates the conditions for bubbles' parents to leave him and for CB to undergo the extremely painful and inhumane procedures to become an enhanced supersoldier but proto doesnt learn this til octo expansion

the squid sister stories proceed basically like canon, but proto dedicates themselves to agent work while marie focuses on the radio and callie focuses on acting. theyre out investigating the metro with craig when callie gets squidnapped so they dont find out until octo expansion finishes (like a few weeks after she gets rescued)

SPEAKING OF OCTO EXPANSION. PROTO IS THERE THE WHOLE TIME

they dont fight CB and Bubbles, theyre a terrible fighter and a bit of a wimp (and those two are kinda terrifying), instead they watch when they get overpowered and captured by a squad of sanitized octolings (those two got sent to investigate since people kept vanishing when they went that way). they still get the same "youre down here because of me" guilt since they chose to watch rather than intervene

they later got into the metro proper and found those same people but like super amnesia'd and a little traumatised already, even if theyre not sure how much of that was already there, and then they get even MORE fucked up because the metro is fucking Like That

also guilt bc they dont actually help with the tests beyond advice thru the comms. can never have too much of that

they get CB and Bubbles out of the blender by removing their special limiter and spamming splashdown on the top til it breaks, getting exhausted and passing out afterwards, letting tartar control them

the hole in the ceiling gets made by CB throwing a bit of broken blender really hard

usually they would get their ass kicked by either CB or Bubbles, let alone both at once, but the two of them are so exhausted and fucked up and a little injured that the fight is closer than anyone would like. the fight ends when CB grabs them by the ankle and slams them into the floor. think that one scene from the avengers with the hulk and loki

unfortunately, since CB is way too scared and full of adrenaline to properly regulate her strength, she completely crushes their ankle and lower leg. since it doesnt splat them, they dont respawn, and everyone is too preoccupied with destroying the NILs statue to get them to a hospital, the leg wasnt salvageable and they had to get it amputated below the knee

theyre an ambulatory wheelchair user, after that. sometimes crutches instead, but they tend to go for the chair in alterna bc crutches and ice do NOT mix trust me on this. i only had crutches for a couple months but i fell on my ass SO much

anyway they reconnect with callie and marie and things are fine and good and theyre totally not avoiding the twins because marina kept updating them on relevant files she found during OE and theyre struggling to reconcile the idea that these are enemies with the undeniable truth that nobody has had a greater negative impact on their lives than them.

probably would be worse if marina told them the twins were 15. good thing she doesnt!

oh yeah i forgot ages. proto is 17 in splat1, 19 in splat2/OE and 24 by splat3

anyway yeah in their efforts to avoid the twins so that they dont have to think about the wide-reaching consequences of their past actions, they dont actually leave them with any way to contact them while they go check out the Crater. itll only be a quick mission, right? no need to worry about it

alterna happens

then they and the squid sisters come back to cuttlefish cabin to find it completely empty, then discover that flora is still in the hospital after having the shit kicked out of him because he was hypnoshaded and they didnt have any low-tide ink because marie wasnt there and they couldnt contact her and they tried and they tried and why didnt anyone answer and

theres a big cool dramatic confrontation where CB and Bubbles reveal they got all their mem cakes and know exactly who proto is and what they did and would have forgiven if they had been honest but now they cant trust their captain and formally quit the NSS

honestly theres more stuff for proto after this but i ahvent actually figured it out yet.

personality-wise, theyre overconfident in their own abilities and underconfident in the abilities of everyone else, they struggle to give control of anything over to someone else. because why would they allow someone else to be in charge when they know that their own plans are automatically so much better?

as they learn about the actual consequences of their splat1 plan via CB and Bubbles' descriptions of their mem cakes, this confidence falters a bit. they spent so long with that plan being one of their greatest achievements that they cant reconcile with the reality that it had devastating consequences for innocent people

this is not at all helped by Flora, who makes no secret of his opinion on proto. at first he's just fucking with them for the sake of fucking with them, the same way he does for marie, but it gets more antagonistic when proto reacts with genuine anger rather than the good humour marie does. flora absolutely does not take kindly to people trying to exert authority over her so she aims to piss off proto at every opportunity

it is very easy for flora to piss proto off

OKAY I HIT THE CHARACTER LIMIT ILL MAKE A SECOND POST FOR THE REST

#splatoon oc #splatoon #cicada screaming #oc: bubbles #oc: proto #oc: cb 808 #oc: flora #oc: bola #long post

5 notes · View notes

nimbus-writes · 1 year

Text

Shackle and Chain Timeline

the zelda timeline as a whole is something of a mess, and its easy to get confused trying to parse out the inconsistencies and how everything fully ties together. ive seen a lot of different interpretations and how they differ from the canon timelines supplied by nintendo (none of which ive ever really agreed with, particularly the more recent idea of having the timeline split during minish cap, but thats another topic i wont get into here), but for my story i figured id give my shot at one that makes the most sense to me. there arent too many differences, but i feel any differences from the canon example at all are deserving of an explanation, so ill get into that here (along with my kinda shitty timeline graphic i threw together in like 5 minutes)

to make things simple, ive outlined every iteration of link in a square, and listed all of their games they appear in! also, the gaps in time arent really to scale, but in general are just there to help spread it all out. this doesnt feature EVERY character that i plan on having appear in the story though (such as how ravio has already made an appearance in chapter two, and i plan on him sticking around for a while because i love ravio) but lets get into the differences! like i said, this mostly follows canon, since i find a simpler option to be better, but there ARE some important changes ive made!

first off, ive included two non-canon games! im not planning on bringing in any others aside from the hyrule warriors games, but i felt these were necessary for the timeline as a whole. the first hyrule warriors is the only way to easily resolve nintendos stupid "breath of the wild is in all 3 timelines!" bullshit, since thats not how time works. at all. but if you take hyrule warriors as having merged the timelines back into one (with three parallel worlds as opposed to three timelines), then the problem is solved! and since i included one warriors game, i might as well include the other, which leads to the second timeline split as a result of terakkos actions. (and like, yeah i COULD have added in another "link dies" timeline there, but since neither that nor the post age of calamity timeline will ever get another piece of media, i dont see a reason to explore that concept)

the next change ive made is combining what canon considers two separate iterations of link (specifically the one from a link to the past and a link between worlds). i understand WHY theyre two different links, but a lot more of the two games just makes sense in my opinion if they arent different at all (specifically how a link between worlds has the same map, characters, dungeons and themes, AND the actions of link at the beginning of tri force heroes, where he tries to hide his identity. that just makes more sense to me if hes been through a LOT more quests, including one where he was labeled a criminal, than just one quest where he wasnt ever vilified)

the last change i made has to do with four swords and four swords adventures, and this change is a hill i will die on. THESE GAMES ARE A PAIR. DO NOT SEPARATE. i KNOW the timeline has them centuries apart. i KNOW this. but its wrong! at the beginning of four swords adventures, it directly references both the hero from minish cap and four swords, but only vaguely referring to minish cap while specifically calling the hero from four swords "link", which, along with implying the hero from four swords adventures already knows what happens when you draw the four sword, leads me to believe that these two games feature only one iteration of link! but then that leaves the question of where in the timeline both games fall? is it directly after minish cap? or after twilight princess? well actually, its neither! several things featured in four swords adventures shows that the two games can only exist during a brief window of time, namely the presence of zora as an enemy, and the existence of the dark world. both of these things are only found in the downfall timeline, after link is slain in ocarina of time, meaning both games have to take place there (not to confuse the dark world for the dark realm, which only exists in the adult timeline as far as weve seen. im pretty sure they have the same origin, but the dark realm was influenced less by ganon since he was sealed somewhere else in that timeline). the dark world narrows it down the most, since it gets restored back to the sacred realm after the events of a link to the past, so the game has to take place before then. this means the two games actually fit nicely into the period of time known as the imprisoning war, where ganon is properly imprisoned within the dark world (which, to those of you who played the game or read the manga, know that this is what happens in four swords adventures!). in my opinion, not doing this is the single most aggravating thing nintendo did to the timeline. everything else i can excuse, but THIS angers me to no end.

anyway, thats the timeline ill be working with! at least, assuming tears of the kingdom doesnt have MORE fucked up time travel bullshit. ill take a look at this again once the game comes out, but hopefully it wont change anymore!

#the legend of zelda: shackle and chain #tloz sac #the legend of zelda #shackle and chain drabbles #nimbus speaks

2 notes · View notes

mistaeq · 4 years

Note

can I request a kakyoin x reader oneshot where the reader has some trouble sleeping bc theyre a night owl? tysm!! 💕

Kakyoin Noriaki: Emeralds and Cherries

TW // Kakyoin doesn't rerorerorero

Thank you for your request! Hope you enjoy!

Where Kakyoin and a night owl crush on each other while they can't sleep, Hierophant Green is a dick, neutral!s/o

WORD COUNT: 2.1k

You were growing kinda nervous. You were used to not sleeping entire nights, but you would have needed to, this time. The next day you would have had to go through the desert, and with no sleep you probaby would faint on the golden sand. The crusaders had been sharing a nervous mood as well, recently, and you could totally feel it on your shoulders.

You sat up on your hotel bed, and tried to drink a glass of water in a breath. But that didn't do any better. You just weren't able to feel sleepy, but if you didn't sleep, the crusaders would probably get angry at you for wanting to rest in the middle of the desert. You soon realized you needed someone to lull you with his voice to sleep, or maybe talk together. You walked to the crusaders' rooms, and just stared at them.

You walked past Joseph's door. He's in shape, for his age, but he's still the oldest one, better not wake him up. You look at Jotaro's door, and the menacing aura coming from it sends shivers down your spine. Waking Jotaro up means dying. He would totally comfort you, but you would die out of awkwardness.

You walk past an empty room. Joseph had mistakenly booked six rooms, for the five of you and for Avdol. You missed Avdol. Jotaro said he was safe and sound, and that he would have joined you again soon, but you didn't agree with their choice of not telling Polnareff. The poor french boy had been so restless, blaming himself for Avdol's "death", that when you walked past his room and finally heard him peacefully snoring, you decided not to wake him up. He needed those hours of good sleep.

The only one left was Kakyoin. In your mind, Kakyoin was just perfect. Not too rude, not too cheesy, always ready to listen to what you had to say. You were just about to knock at his door, when a voice stopped you.

"May I help you, y/n?" you got startled, and turned quickly around just to see Noriaki, right in front of you, with a pillow in his arms.

"Yes... maybe... what are you doing?" you asked, giggling a little. He just looked so adorable. He yawned, his cheeks the same color of a sweet cherry, and then got closer to open his room's door.

"I went downstairs to ask for a bigger pillow... I need to be comfy if I want to sleep well..." before closing the door behind himself, he kinda remembered you had told him you needed help. "Oh... how can I help you?"

"I'm having... a little trouble sleeping... So I was wondering if you could..." you got shy, all of a sudden, and felt as if you were annoying him. He just said he went to ask for a new pillow to sleep well, you would have just kept him awake for no reason. "...uhm... nevermind, Noriaki... I'll just go back to my roo-" as soon as you moved a step away from Kakyoin's door, his hand grabbed a wrist of yours.

"Sleep with me... maybe?" he offered, with a sleepy smile. Did he really ask you to...? But he looked so tired...

"Noriaki... thank you for asking, but I really think..."

"When I said maybe, I didn't mean it." Kakyoin pulled you closer. "I was telling you to sleep with me." you wanted to accept and to refuse at the same time. But you understood he wouldn't have let you go without being sure you were okay, so you had no other choice.

"If you say so..." you started to believe you were crushing on Kakyoin. When his hand moved from your wrist to your own hand to pull you into his hotel room, you felt your heart jump and beat a little faster. He was handsome, cute and caring. After you closed the door, he invited you to sit on his bed with him. But you didn't. Not immediately.

"Would you like a glass of water? To calm you down?" as nervous as you were, drinking another glass of water would have only make you throw up. You shook your head.

"Thank you so much Noriaki... but my stomach is kinda dancing in my belly right now... it's better for me not to eat or drink anything..." he grew a little bit more worried.

"Sit, y/n..." he patted right on the bed, next to him.

"But it's your bed, Nori..." again, he grabbed your hand and pulled you on his bed, smiling. "I'll sleep on the floor tonight, I promise, I just need some company..."

"What? No, we'll share the bed! I can't see my name written anywhere on this bed... looks like it's not mine." he joked, to make you at ease. You smiled. His hair weren't the same as always. The huge lock of cherry-colored hair that usually fell on his forehead now mingled with other hair. You found him incredibly attractive and cute. "Tell me what keeps you up at night." he asked.

"I'm just... used to going to sleep really late... so when I have to sleep this early, I just... can't, and this makes me mad..." you felt Noriaki caressing with his thumb the hand he had grabbed to pull you on his bed, and your heart jumped again. "I don't want Jotaro or mr. Joestar to get angry at me for this... I have to sleep, or tomorrow I'll faint..."

He quietly giggled.

"I'll be there to catch you, then." his answer reassured you. "I've been restless many nights, but... had no time to feel tired, during the day. Everything was just so fast, an enemy stand user everyday... and probably tomorrow won't be any different." he stayed silent for a couple of seconds, staring at his thumb caressing your hand. Then, talked again. "Let's play a game."

"A game? Shouldn't we be sleeping?" he sticked his hand under his pillow. And pulled out cherry flavored Pockys. That game?

"No, if we're not tired. Sometimes doing something you enjoy to relax is way better than just sleeping." Kakyoin smiled. "Also ...if you're wondering why do I have Pockys under my pillow, it's because I get often hungry, during the night." you laughed. But your cheeks were probably as red as his hair. Did he really want to play that game?

"Y/n, you don't have to go far enough to touch my lips, if you don't feel comfortable... I'm just looking for an excuse to eat something and have fun at the same time." oh. Clear. Not that he liked you. But you lowkey wanted to taste his lips. Now that you felt calm enough to eat something without throwing up, playing with Kakyoin looked like the perfect thing to do. "May I get the chocolate end of the Pocky? You know I love cherries..."

As soon as he put a Pocky between you, you felt a laugh creeping up your shoulder, and after a couple of seconds of biting, you giggled, leaving the Pocky hanging from Kakyoin's lips. "Thank you..." he giggled too, happily eating the whole Pocky left. "Let's try again?"

You tried a couple of other times, and everytime you managed to get closer to his lips. You couldn't see it well, because of the shadow of the night, but you were kinda sure that Kakyoin was staring at you. In a particular way. The fourth time you started to bite on the ends of the Pocky, you felt a shadow moving behind you. Maybe it was just the shadow of you and Noriaki moving, so you stopped thinking about it. There were a couple centimetres of Pocky, between you.

You had to decide whether to break it or keep on biting and touch Kakyoin's lips. He seemed to think about it too.

But Hierophant Green perfectly knew what its user wanted. You felt something pushing you towards Noriaki, your lips slammed against his. He flinched, not expecting his own stand to betray him and expose his true feelings like that. But as he felt you were actually kissing him, he couldn't help but kiss you back. You felt your cheeks burning.

You and Kakyoin were now involved in a sweet cherry flavored chocolate kiss, the man pulling you closer. First he pulled you in his room. Then he pulled you on his bed. And now he was pulling you on his lips. Things escalated fast, but you were incredibly grateful for this. Noriaki broke the kiss for a second, cupping your cheek with his hand.

"Do you still want to sleep on the floor?" he teased, smiling and caressing your lips with his thumb. He was kinda grateful Hierophant Green exposed him, now. You shook your head. You just wanted to melt into Noriaki's arms, they felt so warm and good. "I might enjoy having you sleeping on my chest."

"I'd love to..." you blushed, as he lay down on the bed pulling you with him.

You ran a hand on his chest, his pajamas was slightly opened. "How long have you had feelings for me, Kakyoin Noriaki?" you suddenly felt twice more comfortable with sleeping next to him.

"I started to fall in love since that time when you refused to let me eat you ice cream's cherry..." he pushed his thumb under your chin, his arm around you shoulders, for you to look at him. "I just thought you had a lot of courage..." Noriaki laughed.

"I like cherries, it's unfair that you always get to eat them first..." you caressed his red hair, and cupped his cheek. "I love cherries..." you both stayed still, staring into each other's eyes, your breath and heartbeats going at the same pace, and- "I don't want to hurry you or something, Nori, but this is the part where you kiss me again."

"O-Oh, sorry..." he smiled and stopped daydreaming, pushing his lips against yours. His tongue pushed against your lower lip, asking you permission to have some more.

You parted your lips a bit, letting his tongue explore your mouth, his hands gently caressing your hair and your back. A thought ran through your mind for a second, and you laughed in your kiss. "What...?" without even knowing what it was, Noriaki smiled, moving a lock of your hair behind your ear.

"I think our voices' volume is a little too high... wouldn't it be funny if we had woken Jotaro up and suddenly Star Platin-"

"ORA" a purple giant fist broke through the door, Star Platinum coming at you with a menacing aura. You were just... joking. Did you actually wake Jotaro up? You hid behind Kakyoin, Jotaro's stand was terrifying, as it approached. The green boy kept you behind him, but he was sure Star Platinum wouldn't have hurt them.

In fact, the purple stand opened his fist to reveal a little note, which Noriaki took, just before Star Platinum's disappearing.

"Congratulations, lovebirds. Now shut the fuck up, will you? People are sleeping. I am people. - Kujo Jotaro"

Your lover huffed, and answered the note.

"Fuck you. Sleep well. ~Kakyoin Noriaki" You giggled, hugging him from behing while he gave the note to Hierophant Green, to bring it to Jotaro. You snuggled against his back, and yawned.

"You tired, cherry?" you heart jumped and raced. You were his cherry, weren't you. You nodded, watching him laying and pulling you on his warm chest. You wrapped your arms around his torso, and your head was right on his heart. "Y/n... would you enjoy it if I sang you a lullaby?"

"I would love it..." you mumbled, closing your eyes and listening to Kakyoin's calm breathe. He inhaled.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little stand..." was he changing the lyrics now? You held him closer and giggled. "...how I wonder what you are. Up above The World so high, like a Crazy Diamond in the sky~" you felt your whole body relax under the effect of Noriaki's soothing voice. He was stroking your hair. "Then the crusader in the dark, thanks you for your tiny stand, how could he see where to go, if you did not twinkle so..?"

After a couple of verses, you were already sleeping tight on his comfy chest, your little body wrapped around his. Kakyoin was just so happy, he looked at you another time, before closing his eyes too. The next day you had to go through the desert.

Unfortunately, the next day would have been a bad day, for his eyesight. But he couldn't know. So he just enjoyed you the night before.

"I love you, cherry."

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo oneshot #jojo x reader #jojo part three #stardust crusaders #noriaki kakyoin #kakyoin x reader #hierophant green

218 notes · View notes

uniformbravo · 5 years

Text

reading the hitball arc my brain is picking up so many little bits of info but has no idea how to put them all together to form any kind of coherent analysis (cue me rambling aimlessly as i try 2 find that thesis statement) ((this devolved into garbled passionate yelling real quick))

previously “established” in another “text post” i made “a few months ago”: during the game max is wearing wristbands, one blue and one red, which for the sake of this thought process i take to represent max n johnny respectively

also went over how max switching both wristbands to the same arm post-game ~symbolically~ parallels him & johnny having worked together to defeat hijack & come to understand each other a little better & the bands being on the same arm now represents them being on the same team/side

at one point during the game max gets all shaken up abt having dodged one of hijeff’s earlier attacks instead of like standing his ground i guess?? putting himself before his teammates??? am i interpreting this right i feel like im missing smth

one of the key pieces of the game is the golden switch, a ball that has the power to make anyone hit by it switch teams & join sides with the one who threw it at them. this is the ball used in the final play of the game in which max and johnny work together to take down hijeff for good

in said final play, 1) the golden switch hits max, probably symbolic of smth, & 2) breaks one of his arms, the one w/ the blue wristband- based on the color theory i feel like this should also be symbolic of smth somehow ?? max making a sacrifice in order to become a team w/ johnny?? a self-sacrifice??? is the injury representative of itself???? is it literally just as simple as “max is the one that got hurt so the arm w/ the blue band gets broken” ????? but throughout this entire comic thus far max has been first and foremost his own top priority meaning that he doesn’t do anything for anyone else unless there’s something in it for him, he’s not the type of guy to make sacrifices for other people, or more specifically for “The Greater Good” and, considering how shaken up he got earlier about instinctively jumping out of the way of hijeff’s attack while everyone else jumped right in its path to protect each other, it’s kind of a big deal for him to now be putting himself directly in harm’s way instead of like finagling the situation into making johnny the throwaway instead (esp bc max has every reason to believe johnny deserves to have pain inflicted on him more anyway) so maybe the break represents some kind of shattered mindset that he had to undergo in order to then effectively team up w/ johnny??? which would make the metaphor like

1) max n johnny r Enemies who Fight (wristbands on separate arms) 2) max has the sudden realization that johnny is Upstaging him by Caring About and Defending His Friends & generally being a lot braver than him and that he needs to Step Up His Game in response (arm gets broken) 3) now that max has that new resolve he n johnny join forces & also like understand each other a lil better?? due to working together??? (blue wristband gets moved over to other arm w/ red one bc of the injury)

or something????

srsly tho back to the golden switch & the last play im like?? there HAs to be smth here ok it’s this magical ball that represents switching sides or changing perspective or whatever idk!! & then at the v end of the game it’s like.,., li kE ok hijeff has the ball & he throws it at max: 2 things can happen here, either max gets hit cleanly and has to switch to hijeff’s side, or johnny catches it & the rest of their team gets to come back from the dead, right. as per the rules of the game. OR Lri lieke like ok hear mee out i mfuCKING liSTEN

hijeff is EXPECTIGN max 2 jump out of the way like he did before right. RIght! but max had that uthfukgning Change Of Heart or whatever where ehs like “o shit johnny is like honorable or whatever & im a coward” so this time he s NOT a coward & he takes the hit & it’s like!! mad character development!! right in this arc ohm y god

but then like therehas to be smth symbolic abt this ball like it has its own goddamn Prop Design it could have just been any plain ass Dogd=ge Ball there didnt even Have to be a golden switch in the first place but THERE IS so it HAS to be important to the stroyr RIGHT it’s njot just a gimmick 2 make the game more interesting rgiht theres SymbolisM AfooT

so theyre usin this SPECIAL ASS BALL right in the END of the Game the CLIMAX if u will & like up until now max & johnny have been having a Couple conversations that arenyt like “gimme ur lunch money” type convos like they usually have, theyre actually lik e Supportin Each Other???? it’s rly good but OK right at the last play is when theyre finally just like it’s Only the two of them left & so they have to do a THing together in order to win like it’s JUST tTHem right!!!

so max devises his Smart Boy Plan & gets hijeff right where he wants him adn!!! the SWITCH that hijeff was like, totally meaning for to hit johnny with,. max stays RIGHT THERE and lets it HIT HIM aND YEA YEA RIGHT WE ON TO SMTHINg irhtgt sO it’s already hit max at this point right so it’s fukiggng like, , it’s like, IF the ball just flies off & hits the wall & the ground then max is FUKCED he has to go over to hijeff’s team but INSTEAdD he TRUSTS JOHNNY 2 CATCH THE BALL ad johnny is like standing behind him?????? theyr both facing hijeff & max is in ftont so he isnst even LOOKING he just TRUSTS that his plan will work & johnny will HAVE HIS BACK n catch the ball & seal hijeff’s doom imM FUCKIGNG OOOOO BOIYS WE GOT IT WE GFUKINGG HAVE THEHEH

SSO THE BALL IS MAYBE LIKE??? jfuk i mlosing it its juking me oh god oh no but lIKE? it dEFNITELY has smth to do with the ball bein about switchin g sides & max Almost havin to switch sides but then johnny’s like “Not On mY Watch” but then also they kinda switched to each others side and ALSO SALSO I FORGOT TO MENTION ABT HOW JOHNN Y WAS THE ONE WHO THREW THE BALL IN THE 1ST PLACE AT MAX 2 GET HIM TO JOIN HIS TEAM????? max was just FUCKING AROUND in some corner w/ suzy n collin & johnny was like *EYES ZOOM IN* & NAILED HIM W/ IT u can NOT tell me he wasnt aimign for max ok that ball went SCHLOOP right into his head, balls dont just fly around all willy nilly ok u throw a ball in a STRAIGHT LINE & it goes STRAIGHT & it wasnt bad aim bc johnny was picked to be team leader bc he’s like GOod at shit oK strong boy good at PE he was the other alpha next 2 isabel at the beginning of class he knew EXACTLY where hwas throwin that ball & it was At Max’s Head bc he Knew what he Wanted ok!!!!!! glad that’s cleared up!!!!!!!!!!!

IN CONCLUSIOn max & johnny character development GOOD bye

#i lov e max & johnny leave me in pieces............#i couldnt even figure out what i was tryin to figure out in this post but does it even matter anymore???? no #the real pnat analysis was the incoherent yelling we made along the way #thnx fr comin 2 my ted talk (uncut ver)#retag later #pn blogging

1 note · View note

apatheticaria · 4 years

Text

my spoilery thoughts on the last of us part ii

i apologize in advance for this super long post that you have to scroll past because i don’t know how to do the “keep reading” option thing

the only reason i’m writing this out is because i’m literally going insane from not being able to talk about my feelings for this game to anyone since no one i know actually cares lmao so this is mainly just for myself and anyone who wants to read this

the intro:

as i played through this game, i also watched a few playthroughs up until the point where i stopped to take a break. this was a game i couldn’t binge just because it’s so heavy and intense and sometimes you just gotta step away and take a breather

one of the playthroughs i followed along with was jacksepticeye’s and at the end he gave his review of the game like he normally does. i didn’t completely agree with everything he said, but for the most part i thought what he said lined up pretty well with my own opinion.

in particular, one thing that stood out to me was when he said that the introduction to this game shouldn’t have been Joel talking to Tommy about what he did at the end of the first game, but rather the whole flashback of Ellie’s birthday at the museum. then at “one” during the countdown to liftoff, the screen should’ve went black and fast forwarded to four-years-older Ellie opening her eyes in her home in Jackson (idk if i’m explaining this well, but Jack’s editor, Robin, edits this together and really sold it to me. if you wanna see it, go to the last part of Jack’s playthrough and look for it towards the last 30 minutes). i think this would have given us the time i think we all needed with Joel before he died and all the following flashbacks would be more focused on how/why Joel and Ellie’s relationship turned so distant - or hostile on Ellie’s part - and could’ve helped the pacing a bit.

Joel’s death:

potentially an unpopular opinion? but i actually like how Joel died. or uh lemme rephrase, i like the way they wrote his death. in this world of violence, hate, and brutality (actually doesn’t sound too off from our world but ahem moving on), i think the way he died was realistic, especially since he doomed all of humanity by saving Ellie in Part I. it just makes a lot of sense that someone would go after him and hunt him down

from the moment Abby and Owen stood over Jackson from the cliff, i was thinking: well theyre gonna kill Joel and since we’re gonna probably be playing as this girl for some (emphasis on some) of the game, they’re gonna go hard on the grey area of perspective in terms of revenge. which i was super on board with, but we’ll get back to that

when this game was first advertised, i didn’t know how i felt about a revenge story. it’s been told so many times and i’m never as hell-bent on revenge as much as the character is because it never feels warranted enough. that is, until i saw Joel die. watching Ellie pinned to the floor with a perfect view of his body, his face, beat to shit as she screams and begs for Abby to stop? haha that’s fucked Naughty Dog, thanks. but i do appreciate that they were able to make me just as mad as Ellie because of just how brutal his death was and how much i care, cared, about that character. no story has ever made me so incredibly enraged to the point i was with the main character full-stop to just destroy the perpetrator and take revenge. that’s why i think the way Joel dies is perfectly done. the fact that that cutscene is so horrible to watch for so many reasons just proves that it does it’s job.

Ellie’s half:

i actually don’t have too much to say about Ellie’s half of the story. this was what i both expected and wanted from the game, the whole game. while i can’t say i was having “fun”, because this isn’t really a fun game to play, you know what i mean when i say that this part was fun to play and follow.

side note: Naughty Dog’s improvement of your NPC buddy is so good, Dina and Jesse were both actually helpful, still not perfect, but also they’re not supposed to do all the work for you. i think the added layer that they could also get caught/seen and alert the enemy was completely unexpected and such a good addition to the gameplay (ofc this goes for Lev as well).

throughout the whole story, there’s kinda a problem with the pacing, and i know i’m not the first person to say that. however, i think the only big pacing issue i had with Ellie’s perspective was that kinda weird attempt of an open world map that they did with the gates. it felt a little unnecessary since i, and most other people, are playing for the story, not an open world with various side quest-like things. i missed the guitar cutscene with Ellie playing the guitar and singing to Dina (which kinda sucks, but i obviously just watched it after) because i just wanted to get back to the story rather than explore a large area. it was an attempt at something different so i won’t fault the game for that too much, but also stay in your lane lol so that section was a bit of a miss for me personally. i really liked the rest of it though, it had me engaged the whole time

Abby’s half:

ok. i have a lot to say about this half of the game since this is where most the problems occur.

first, let me preface this by saying that i don’t hate Abby. as i said, from the very beginning i knew she was going to have a, not justifiable, but an understandable reason for murdering Joel and that the game was going to be about seeing two sides to the same story. except, at the same time, i came here for Ellie, so why am i playing as this heterosexual? im mostly kidding. but fr i didn’t need the entire half of the game trying to get me to sympathize with Abby. i really didn’t need the message to be so spelt out for me, i got it from the moment i realized she was going to kill a favorite character.

i think my main gripe with the way they told this story is the way they formatted it. this story has all the elements to be amazing, but the execution just lacked the...finesse? idk if that’s the right word.

rather than splitting up the game into two halves, they could/should have integrated Abby’s story into Ellie’s so that when we cut from Abby holding the gun at Ellie in the theater to suddenly Abby as a young girl, it won’t feel so jarring when we have to start all over again with the upgrades and the timeline.

i really liked how we switched between them in the very beginning so why couldn’t that have just continued? in a book with multiple povs, the author often switches back and forth between every or every few chapters. you never see a book that starts with one perspective, then at the climax you have to start all over again from the other. at least, i’ve never seen this in any books i’ve read and i’ve read a lot ngl

maybe they forced us to stick with Abby for so long because if we’re forced to play as her, then we’re forced to get invested into her story. while this makes sense, it also really degraded at my enthusiasm for the game. it took me so long to just give up on the idea that we would be going back to Ellie relatively soon and when i did actually realize that was what was happening i was really disappointed.

instead of separating their stories, i would’ve liked to have Abby maybe one step behind Ellie the whole time so that while we play we’re just anticipating when Abby will finally catch up and it builds to this whole thing. instead, when we actually got to the point where everything was supposed to go down, we’re hit with whiplash and back to the very beginning with tutorials?? like did they just expect us to forget how to play since we switched characters?

i’m thinking, after Ellie and Dina jump over the barbed wire that explodes and Ellie’s knocked out, we could have switched over to Abby waking up in the WLF stadium. after Abby sneaks out of the stadium and you have that interaction with Jordan where he mentions Leah at the tv station, then we go back to Ellie waking up and tied to the table and we see Ellie kill Jordan.

after this i think Abby should have met Lev and Yara way sooner because i barely even remember what happened before Abby was caught by the seraphites it was so boring. so she gets caught by the seraphites AFTER we meet them through Ellie being shot through the shoulder (i still want to get all the first impressions of new stuff with Ellie because then it still makes her feel like the main character) and we meet the siblings and blahblahblah.

as a follow up, after Ellie kills Nora, which by the way, Ellie’s facial expressions are just so good with the red light while she’s just beating Nora to death? wow that entire interaction was so well done. anyway, after Ellie kills Nora, and Ellie gets back to the theater and the scene ends with her and Dina hugging, then we would switch to that whole section with Abby and Lev traveling to the hospital to get the meds and it would be cool if on her way in, Nora helps Abby and then on her way out, we run into a door we have trouble opening so we push and when it opens, Nora’s beaten up body is right there.

you get the gist. Abby’s story was barely intertwined with Ellie’s until the very end where she finds Owen and Mel dead. she doesn’t know that literally everyone else, except Leah, is dead too. i feel like that would’ve made the impact of Abby and Ellie’s fight at the theater more effective. affective? whatever i’m not an english nerd

i also think we should have gotten the flashback with Abby’s dad a little later when we’re expected to understand her character a bit more.

overall, i’m not mad about getting Abby’s side of the story, but i am mad that the way it was told felt so disconnected from Ellie. we could still get that whole arc of Abby going to the island to get Lev, she can still get her own story apart from Ellie, but she needed to have more of a interaction with Ellie’s actions.

Abby vs. Ellie, Abby’s pov:

i absolutely hate this fight. i really hate the way it was written and the way it happened. i get that the game is trying to give us Abby’s perspective and to show that in her point of view, Ellie is the villain in this story.

except, AGAIN, i don’t need this spoon fed to me!!! i KNOW that the world isn’t black and white and that people’s perspectives are different, but also? i don’t really care. both characters have gone through shit and both have done shitty things. neither of them are innocent, no one in this world is innocent (hence why i really dislike Mel, but that’s not really relevant), so it really comes down to which character you value more. in my - and most other people’s - case, it’s Ellie. i know the whole point of this fight is to make the player uncomfortable, but i wasn’t just uncomfortable, it made me legitimately start to dislike this game (spoiler for the end of this stupid-long review: i don’t completely dislike it)

the game really emphasizes that this is Abby’s story as much as it is Ellie’s and i get that, but this fight did not need to happen the way it did and the game didn’t need to be even longer after this. a lot of people say that we played from Abby’s perspective because Ellie would have killed Abby and that would be that (and she did, by the way, i relished watching Ellie get her revenge because while i don’t hate Abby, it was still so satisfying even if that wasn’t how the game wanted me to play). however however however, Abby wouldn’t have showed mercy either. she was absolutely going to kill Ellie if Dina hadn’t intervened then she was going to kill Dina if Lev hadn’t intervened.

here’s how i wouldve wanted it to go: we go back to Ellie’s perspective once Abby has the gun pointed at Ellie in the lobby and during their fight, Ellie would get the upper hand because she has weapons and shit (let’s be honest, Ellie would not win in hand-to-hand combat with fully-healthy Abby, we saw that first hand). Lev would try to jump in, but then Dina would disarm him and prevent him from escaping her grasp. then eventually Ellie would have the barrel of the shotgun pointed at Abby’s face and she would hear Lev tell her to please stop don’t kill her and Ellie would listen because the same exact thing happened to her (we could get a short flashback or something for more emotions, idk). so instead of killing Abby, Ellie would knock her out and her and Dina would leave and Lev would run to Abby’s unconscious body. this would end that cycle of revenge and because Abby has something more important to her than revenge (Lev), they would move on.

the ending:

if the game went how i just imagined, we probably wouldn’t get an ending that’s as depressing and open ended as it is, but i’m sure Neil and his team could figure something out, such as Ellie still has to deal with PTSD and Tommy’s really pissed at them and Ellie still looses her two fingers. so we get that little domestic sequence and the PTSD flashback and Tommy coming with his eye missing and showing the map. he leaves and when Ellie is about to leave in the middle of the night, Dina convinces her this time to stay and the next day Ellie tries to play the guitar one last time before giving up since she doesn’t have her fingers (i still want that last heartbreaking flashback, that one fucked me up i love it) and she goes out to leave it somewhere in the woods with it all ending with her walking away from the guitar that Joel gave her to symbolize her letting him go. idk man something like that, still not that open ended, but i’m just talking out of my ass rn

anyway that’s not how it went so we’ll stick to reality.

an open ending isn’t supposed to be unsatisfying, because that’s what this ending was. Part I does an open ending perfectly as we still get closure even though we don’t know exactly how things go afterwards (until now obviously).

after playing from Abby’s perspective for so goddamn long, it was weird to play as Ellie again, even while it was also a relief, and that makes me really sad. in the end, i did feel bad for Abby when she was literally left to starve and “hang” (but again i didn’t need 15+ hours in order to feel basic sympathy).

from the way they wrote the story, i knew Ellie wasn’t going to let it go and she was going to leave Dina and JJ. it made sense and i don’t think it was out of character for her, but the fact they did that in the first place and that Abby was the one to let go first? Abby got her revenge, she killed Joel, but Ellie never got that closure so of course she was going to go after Abby.

in the very end, Ellie is left with no one and Abby still has Lev and a group of fireflies to run to. Ellie’s biggest fear was being alone as she said in the first game, but that’s exactly what she’s left with. yeah life is unfair and i do like that the consequences feel real in this story, but i don’t think Ellie deserved to be done so damn dirty while Abby is living her best life. sure all of Abby’s friends were murdered because of Ellie and Dina leaving is Ellie’s own fault and i don’t blame Dina, but i mean we have no idea what happens to Ellie after this, where she goes. it at least feels like she’s on the road to eventually being relatively okay, as okay as you can be in this world.

i can’t completely articulate how i feel about this ending, even after three days having finished playing. all i do know is that while it’s realistic how Ellie’s story ended, i would’ve liked for Abby to get the same treatment. for her to not actually find the fireflies through the radio and escape from the Rattlers only to have no where to go so that, just like Ellie, revenge cost her everything and we don’t know where she went after.

maybe because Abby’s story was pretty much wrapped up and Ellie’s wasn’t, they’re planning for a trilogy, but i guess we’ll see.

the tldr;

this game has all the elements it needed to be amazing overall imo, i just wish they were all utilized Better. the reason it’s so hard to figure out how i feel about this game is because it has so much potential that just never came through and i’m really jealous of all the people who were blown away by this story. it’s still a good game though, but a 7/10 seems too high and 6/10 seems to low. ig it’s a 6.5/10 for me.

thanks for reading if you made it this far

#tlou2 #tlouii #the last of us #the last of us part ii #the last of us part 2 #i just love ellie a lot #i dont think abby is better than ellie for letting go because everyones an asshole #im scared of them making a part three because they would end up killing ellie somehow #this game fucked me up and im sorry if you actually read all my rambling but i appreciate you #also joel is not a bad person he’s just traumatized from losing his daughter leave him ALONE he’s HUMAN #the last of us part ii spoilers #tlou2 spoilers

0 notes

tumblunni · 7 years

Text

Oh yeah I TOTALLY FORGOT to talk about environmental monsters lol

Okay well what I mean is.. in games with enemies roaming on the map, why don’t we ever see them doing anything? They only ever home in on you when they see you. Everyone in the entire world does nothing except run screaming at you to initiate a battle. No matter what the enemy is, no matter what the story is, no matter the genre. its even rare to see minimal differences like some enemies running and hiding, or whatever.

And like.. i can understand this in some genres, at least. In some genres ‘creating a vivid world’ isn’t really a priority, or there’s an actual reason for all the enemies to attack on sight, like if its a stealth game infiltrating a base. or it might just be hardware engine limitations of the time. i think the majority of this trope used to be because it wasnt possible to do anything else on those consoles, and its stuck around even on more powerful consoles just cos its “a tradition”... I think this idea could specifically be very useful in monster-catching games, where the goal is to find them and gain their power. Having ones that appear on the map and run away or hide would be a better form of challenge than some of the bullshit in pokemon where there’s a 0.5% of fishing up a certain fish only on five tiles out of 140. And like.. the weaker more basic ones could just stand around doing cute animations instead of chasing you down. Chasing you down is only a challenge instead of an annoyance when the chaser like.. actually poses a threat. For minor monsters where the aim is literally just “allow player to enter this encounter” then.. do that. They can stand still in a predictable spot so its easier, and they can have cute animations so it doesnt draw attention to the fact they’re just standing there. Plus there’s loads of other ways you could make it difficult to get them! like ones that camoflage with the scenery or have different movement patterns for their escape, or only appear under specific conditions!

but BASICALLY the concept i mean here is that... I want to run through a field and see monsters everywhere I want to be able to run past ones that don’t attack I want to see them interacting with their environment as if it’s real I want encounters that’re possibly completely optional I want to be able to find little secrets of monsters being cute that i can take a screenshot of i want a world that’s memorable as if its a travel trip i want all the fun of actual animal-watching!!! ^_^

IDEAS!

* Peaceful grazing herbivores in a field. * Shake bushes or flip over rocks to find smaller bug monsters. * Flying monster that can only be caught during a brief window of time when it swoops down to eat smaller monsters. you have to find which small prey is marked as its next target, by seeing a shadow overhead. And then when you engage that prey in battle, instead you get the rare flyer! kinda like the shaking grass that gives you audino in pokemon BW? * Monsters hiding up in trees who only emerge when they cant see you, and jump back up when they can. So you have to avoid their line of sight and wait until they appear, or set traps for them. * Similar sort of thing with monsters in burrows? But you could perhaps get a shovel item to bypass this restriction, at the cost of permenantly destroying that monster spawn spot. You’d get a horde battle with all of the rabbits at once and they’d be angry and harder to catch.

* Possibly having to balance ecosystem stuff like that? you can only fight a certain amount of a certain monster during a single adventure, and have to wait various different times for them to respawn. Perhaps areas have sorts of levels for the ecosystem too, so stronger monsters with higher chances of rare abilities would start appearing if you favor a certain area a lot. And maybe a few choices at certain levels where you could kinda customize it? like go on a quest to improve one part of the ecosystem which will increase the amount of one monster and decrease another. Or there’s two rare species that have just been sighted but theyre competing for the same territory and only one of them will stay- you get the choice of which side to help out.

* Possibly monsters who have rivalries! If you happen to initiate a battle with one monster while its predator is within eyesight, it’ll join the battle and help you fight against it. or you might have certain monsters that’re rare because they spawn near their predator and you have like a time limit to catch it before the other monster does. or maybe lesser rivalries instead of eating each other- like two different patterned variants of peacock who do elaborate dance battles! Thei AI could switch from peaceful to aggressive whenever there’s more than one of them together.

* Possibly monsters could have schedules? like, a time-based system of changes for this ecosystem. More than just only finding certain ones at night, they’d all have their own set walk-routes of being available in different sections of the area depending on the time of day. Figure out the brief time window for a very rare creature, and enjoy that satisfying feeling of pulling off a successful ambush. And maybe different cute idle animations that make you feel like they have a life outside of when you’re there. See the wildebeast herd making their daily trip to the watering hole, see birds digging up worms, see baby lion cubs playing chasing games together while mama and papa watch~! This would work really well with having an integrated screenshot system, and maybe some achievements for getting certain rare photo ops? * Maybe this could also relate to the rivalries? like, have two monsters whose schedule runs on wildly different timescales, and only matches up once in a full moon to have them both competing over the same food source in the same area.

* A good hints system would probably be necessary if we’re gonna pull this off. Or at least a logbook that keeps track of details you’ve already found about each monster. Encounter it at a certain time of day and its written down now, etc. And have a general idea of how many different times and different behaviours you havent found yet. * Could have various npcs who reward you for different things instead of just for catching X monsters or defeating X monsters. Like ones who just want you to find out what time you can find that monster, or what its favourite food is so they can lure it. these could help give you the hints towards finding rarer secrets!

* Hoarder monsters. A rare archetype which can reward you for finding their nest during a time that theyre NOT there! Like squirrels burying their nuts or magpies stealing shiny and potentially valuable things. You have a chance of scoring a bunch of useful items, even if it makes you feel like a bit of a jerk. * Monsters who’re sleeping on the world map and you have to sneak past them to not wake them up (if theyre dangerous) or sneak up to them instead (if theyre ones that normally run away) * Possible ability to lure in monsters by throwing food, or chase them away with stuff like smelly salts or items theyre scared of. (Giant cat: *no like banana*)

* Pet button. not many monsters are tame enough to just accept it immediately, outside of the ones in the basic tutorial area. But it can be super rewarding to win a monster’s trust and be able to do this! It’d be like a small chance of capturing them without a battle, and be boosted by taking various actions that particular monster likes. * Maybe not all of them are as simple as just giving them food they like and being unthreatening? There might be monsters who respond positively to ‘bad’ actions, like ones who respect you for seeming tough and simply think you’re too boring to deal with if you seem unthreatening. Maybe even ones who want to see you prove yourself in battle? So if you fight enough other monsters in the area, suddenly all these ones start following you around cutely and practically forcing theirself into your team! Oh, and also maybe if you defeat the predator or rival of a certain monster?

* Similarly, other forms of affection and temporary allyship you can have with monsters even before you catch them. Like maybe monsters that’re teetering on the edge of trusting you might display certain behaviours to try and convince you to catch them, and then you can benefit from that for a little while before they get frustrated and leave. The ones who respect your toughness might join you in fights as a guest party member, or reward you with an item for every fight you finish within their time limit. * Probably the most common and useful temporary allyship would be mountable wild monsters! Cos I’m thinking maybe how many mons in your party would be determined by ‘party points’ or something, rather than each taking up one slot. mount monsters are bigger so you could take one of them or like six small monsters for the same amount of upkeep. Finding a good reliable mountable wild mon and bringing all the stuff you need to befriend it will help you cut costs on your adventure! Tho probably they have more limited abilities compared to a tamed mount, like worse obedience and stuff.

* The design of this monster is something I’m gonna enter into a kickstarter backer reward thing, so i probably won’t be able to still use it in other projects afterwards. But here’s the idea I had for that Sombul monster if it was in a game style like this! I was thinking it could be one of those sleeping on the map type monsters, but also it fights back with sleep magic when awakened. So it just puts you to sleep and then falls back asleep next to you XD There could probably be other monsters that evade you using other techniques instead of regular fighting. Various sorts of stunning or weakening your attacks, so they can run away while you’re distracted! But I think Somnul in particular would be super cute if it doesn’t even run away afterwards. Its just like the ultimate no-sell “NO FIGHTING” monster who you can only catch by befriending it. And even its no-sell just has it cuddle up to your sleepy self and take a nap too~ Probably its befriending technique would be to just sit down next to it and go to sleep on your own. I know i’d really wanna just lay around and watch the monsters frolicking in a game like this~ Weird ghostie friend admires your napping technique! It joined your party! Woo!

#blunni thoughts #i edited it to add some more ideas

6 notes · View notes