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alittlebirb · 2 years

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Some choice snapshots from the MCC 21 Orange Ocelots:

-The Demon Slayer skins!! They look so cute!

-Philza cracking up over Elaina and Shubble debating whether to use Sand Daddy or Sand Father

"Everyone has their own, I went by Sand Queen." -Shubble

-Philza making a keybind in order to maximize dog pets

"I've automated the love." -Phil

-The team having to leave Shubble behind as they run towards the light show because she can't let Wilbur beat her at dog petting!

"Even at this, Illumina's faster than me!" -Elaina

-Philza and Elaina screaming for the lasers to beam into their eyes

"SHOOT THE BEAMS INTO MY EYES, I WANT TO FEEL THE HYPE! BLIND ME!" -Phil

-Everyone cooing over how cute the decision dome bunnies are

-"The rabbits are a little unpredictable. A little wild." -Shubble

-The bunnies Definitely Did Not Die

"I heard the dying sound." -Shubble

"They were just so excited they screamed 'Yay!'" -Phil

"I don't know, the subtitle <Rabbit Dies> says differently." -Shubble

-Philza and Illu warning of the dangers of Grian on this SG map

"Even if you see him alone, take a full team against him." -Illumina

"If he has an axe, he's taken out two teams with them." -Phil

-The nervous energy spiking when the SG countdown just. stops.

-Elaina being so ready to fight other teams

"YEAH! LET'S TAKE THEM!"

-Elaina getting so hyped by the music and everyone agreeing it does indeed Vibe

-Philza and Illumina counting their kills, and Shubble replying "I hit one man." (as she should)

-"Cue oxygen intake." -Phil

*rapid huffing and puffing from everyone*

-Illumina having an internal crisis during the hub minigame

"Are we just bad dog finders? :("

-The decision dome transporting them literal seconds before Philza is able to pet the last dog

*Cue agonized groans*

-Phil getting stuck in a wall in HITW, escaping, and then diving off the corner of the platform anyway

-Phil then beefing with Noxite in the chat

-"Today's the good day! Good vibes! Good vibes!" -Elaina

-Elaina joking about Phil's bad knees, then getting stuck in the wall, and Phil immediately roasting her back

-Illumina finishing first in the second round (cracked) and feeling redeemed for the first round

"That makes up for it!"

-Phil conspiracy theorizing that the entire MCC is a set up for the Nox Crew to troll them

-Philza quietly talking to Cookie while petting her

"You got enough food, mate? Yeah? You eating well, mate?"

-Shubble talking about 5up in the decision dome like he's a troublesome pest

"5up's in there, get him out!"

-Elaina enthusing over the GR windows where you can see your friends

-"Oh, we know about aggressive waving." -Shubble

"Shelby and I spent 20 minutes yesterday just high five smacking each other and shifting." -Elaina

-Phil having found them 10 minutes in, Shubble making a prediction for which one would win, and Elaina winning while Shubble was "talking weak shit"

-Everyone baffled at Tommy's new political bit

"He's 18 now, this is his new bit. Finally he can vote, and this is just what he wants to do." -Shubble

-Shubble disagreeing that the chickens "aren't monsters, they're innocent gentlemen!"

"They're monsters. Kill them." -Phil

-Everyone encouraging each other to keep booping in Saw Mill

-Shubble saying "That's okay, it's only the first game!", "That's okay, it's only the second game!", "That's okay, it's only the third game!", and getting progressively more sarcastic as the tournament continues

-Sam racing Phil to get the last flowers, after he'd just gotten a bunch, and getting them just before Phil got there

-"You're such a good boy." -Phil through gritted teeth, petting the dog out of spite

-"Me and this game, we don't shake hands. It smacks me across the face. Rocket Spleef looks at me and goes, You are not worthy, and I get saaad." -Elaina

-Elaina saying Phil's brain is so massive, then rushing to reassure him she doesn't mean he has a large head-

-Phil going into Focused Mode during RSR

-Elaina and Shubble vibing together and humming the RSR soundtrack

-Ponk being a Menace to Elaina in RSR and Elaina calling them a "SON OF A MILK BAG"

-"I'm everything except the problem. I'm the solution!" -Elaina

-Illu winning a RSR round and saying, "Oh my god, streamer! (^ ^)"

-Elaina and Shubble cheering on Jojo and being so proud of her

-Phil calling SOT "pay to win, now"

-Phil Will Never Stop Talking about That One Time Techno Broke Build Mart

-Elaina looking through the decision dome items and finding the cute descriptions, and then finding one item which just says, Sometimes wilful ignorance can be the savior of your sanity.

"I need to know now."

-Shubble testing which swears she can type in chat

"I swore?? 😰 In MCC??? 😱" -Illumina

-"I just wanted to see if I could be a perfect angel this MCC, but I didn't. I already said fuck." -Shubble

-Everyone agreeing that if they don't win this MCC, they just go for the most swears as a consolation prize

-"This is my Sky Battle arc." -Illumina

(It wasn't.)

-Phil saying he just tapped out 'Fuck your mother' in morse code, Elaina believing him, and the betrayal two seconds later

"Phil would never lie to me!"

-"There's two types of people in this world: Illumina and me." -Elaina

-Shubble yelling gleefully in SB that SHE KILLED TWO MEN! TWO MEN! SHE KILLED TWO MEN!

-Purple are Orange's mortal enemies this MCC

-"Hmm, people wonder why I hate Sky Battle, what is it? Could it be that it's a TRASH *desk slam* GAME *desk slam* AND IT SUCKS! *desk slam* IT'S A BAD GAMEMODE! *desk slam*" -Illumina

-Elaina going into a Highly Specific analogy about rocks sinking as a kid, and Shubble chiming in that she used to take rocks in the middle of the street as a child and smash them open with a hammer!

-Illumina having practiced sneaking and Elaina calling him a sneaky little guy

-Phil warning to watch out for Tommy and Dream, and Shubble replying "I've killed them before!"

-Elaina employing psychological warfare against Blue and Jack Manifold in particular

-"Grian's scary, dude!" -Elaina

-The streamers debating which person should do the word puzzle in SOT based off how smart their chats are, and Shubble having zero faith in hers

-Illumina trying to bank before the game even starts

-Elaina being the Sand Father, stating they can call her Dad, but only Shubble gets special permission to call her Daddy

"If Shelby yells Daddy at me, I know what's going on." -Elaina

-Shubble just bullying the pillagers

"You're a nerd, AND you're weird."

-Elaina being the BEST Sand Father

-Phil and Elaina getting called 'Dad Squared'

-"I don't need dogs, I have a cat that bites me!" -Elaina

-Phil, Elaina, and Shubble bonding over #JustCatOwnerThings

-All the runners SCREAMING their heads off as Elaina just runs across the PKT floor from 5up for 30 seconds straight, all while Phil listens in silent terror

"That was so terrifying from my point of view because I couldn't see what was happening. I was just floating, listening to screams."

-Eret then coming into Elaina's chat to tell her he could hear the screams from across the house

-Elaina's lil character moving back and forth as she decides she's going to hunt this time!, wait maybe not, actually yes she wants to hunt! (minecraft body language my beloved)

-"THEY'RE SO SLIPPERY! THEY'RE LIKE LITTLE FISH!!" -Elaina her first time hunting

-Everyone shook by Sapnap just murdering right away in DB

-Elaina listing DB words (Dip! Dodge! Run!) and accidentally stumbling into saying 'dick'

-Phil comparing MCC to the Puppy Bowl

-Everyone merging together into one blocky blob during their team picture

-Phil and Shubble getting second and third in pupper petting stats

-"GUMI'S IN LOVE WITH MY WIFE!" -Phil

"I AM TOO, I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO BRING IT UP-" -Elaina

-Phil and Elaina getting prepared to fight in Terra Swoop Force for Kristin

-The team encouraging Illumina to ask for 20 gifted subs for his first MCC swear, which he then uses to say "FUCK SKY BATTLE" with his whole chest and soul

-"I think we need to accept the probability that Seapeakay does not know what a lobster is." -Elaina

(He does, and they apologize for doubting his lobster know how.)

-Phil getting so tilted while trying to get up to the balloon, to the point where he has to put on hype music in order to keep focused and reflexively smacks Ranboo off

-I am not exaggerating he spends 20 minutes straight mentally breaking from this

-Elaina telling them to look at her little chicken feet, and Illumina just replying "...cool feet. 👍"

-ELAINA READING 'IF PHIL DIES, WHO GETS HIS WIFE'??? 😭😭😭 AND SAYING "KRISTIN IF PHIL...YA KNOW...I'M A REALLY GOOD SHOULDER TO CRY ON"

-Phil finally gets there. He is staying there for the rest of the month. He has tasted true glory.

-Elaina threatening to shoot Phil off his perch with the rocket gun if he doesn't give her 69 gifted subs

"ELAINA WHAT IS YOUR HEART MADE OF" -Phil

-"POV, you are witness to Phillumina. You are being perceived." -Phil

-Everyone spends the entirety of the post-MCC period at the rocket spleef practice area getting steadily more unhinged I feel like I'm in a fever dream time isn't real

-"I'm just a cool little guy, and it's my birthday." -Elaina (for luck)

-Elaina finally getting onto the ladder while screaming "KRISTIN!!"

"BY THE POWER OF MY WIFE!" -Phil

-Elaina, Illumina, and Phil at long last getting on the ladder together and taking a screenie! And then...Shubble sending a stray rocket blast that sends them all scattering down like bowling pins. They're free. o7

-Everyone dies internally at that moment and the story ends in a poetic last stand. (Bonus, Scott was watching Shubble's stream for the last 20 minutes and enters the vc just to scream his disbelief.)

#mcc #elainaexe #philza #illumina #shubble #mcc 21 #the energy is so hilarious and so hype and so fun #a god tier team #def my favorite pov so far #scotttt pls can they team again please please please #so good all the way through #and in case anyone is curious yes I will be making a post for almost every pov this mcc #birb's mcc recaps

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astrolotte · 2 years

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so anyway i've been thinking about this random topic for like 10 minutes and i've decided its ready to share with the world

You could argue that each of the FNAF games (bar AR and FNAF world, probably) are about a specific character.

FNaF 1 is... well. Okay. I'm starting out on a bad one here. It's the first game and nothing's been established yet-- but honestly you could say it's about the Missing Kids as a singular entity. That's how they're often treated, anyway. 'The Missing Kids who died, and then there's these characters...', so FNAF 1 is about Susie, Fritz, Jeremy, Gabriel, and Cassidy, as a singular entity, a single event.

Then FNAF 2 is about Charlie. As far as I remember, 3/4 minigames feature her (Leading the player character around the diner, giving gifts/life to the children, then of course her own death scene, part one. Foxy Go Go Go is the outlier, I think), and then there's that one cutscene you can get where it shows that Charlie was in the FNAF 1 location. 2 is about Charlie.

3 is about William, that much is obvious. He's the only actual character, and his death is highlighted.

Fnaf 4 is uh. Even more obvious. Between nights you get a cutscene, counting down to The Party, featuring the 'crying child'. It's pretty clearly about Evan Afton.

With Sister Location, you could argue that it's Michael, but I'd say the focus is on Elizabeth. Again, we see her death, and she talks a lot in here. She's initially shown to be kinder, though that is a ruse, and there's a lot of focus on her character. So, Sister Location is about Elizabeth.

With Pizzeria Simulator, you could again say that it's about Michael, but I'd say it's Henry's lol. The Big Speech is from him, and there's a bit of a focus on his relationship with his daughter, Charlie. He talks to her directly, and her death is once again shown. He made the robots, and this is his Big Plan. So I think it's about Henry.

UCN is Cassidy, because... yeah. Because it's her torture chamber and she's The One You Should Not Have Killed.

As for Help Wanted and Security Breach, they're about the characters you play as, since the focus is put on them. Vanessa and Gregory, respectively.

Michael, on his own, doesn't get a game, but I'd say the main series of 1 thru 6 is about him. Just... all six of em, as a whole. The games themselves focus on specific entities, but the story they all tell revolves around Michael and his journey to stop his father. So Michael,, his story is the games.

Idk what I'm talking about anymore. I stayed up all night to be sure I'd catch the Splatoon direct. I'm fucking tired. New Splatoon idols Shiver, Frye, and Big Man are bouncing around my head and leaving room for little else.

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mirobami · 2 years

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For the first and not last request during this event:

Character: Mary

Minigame: Pyramid

(You have the best event ideas ever ;D)

↳ never lost, always found

♠️ CHARACTER: m. saotome

♠️ MATCH: Pyramid (Time Travel)

♠️ NOTE: shout out to bliss for helping me with this event idea since i panicked at midnight since we were one follower away from 1k--but this one is based off of an idea i wrote for one of my classes >:)

Mary knew that you would never have to worry about anything, you had all the time in the world. Not even all the time in the world, you had all the time in the history of the universe. As an immortal, nothing fazed you because you knew how to adapt quickly after centuries of being alive.

She still didn’t know how she caught your eye. She was a time traveler, constantly going to places that she shouldn’t have been going to because she didn’t belong there. From the ancient era to the future to the Victorian times, Mary went everywhere because she wanted to see history for herself. The one person that was constant was you. You were the person she would see everywhere. The first time you met was at a gladiator fight where she didn’t know where she was and you guessed she was a time traveler automatically. The second time was in the Sengoku era in the middle of a war where she was going to be killed but you stepped in immediately. Maybe she fell first, she couldn’t remember. She just knew that she loved you and counted on you to be there for her.

It was the future now, everything seemed much more advanced, technology wise. The trains were no longer run on electricity, they ran on electromagnetic waves. The neon lights blinded her eyes, signs for just about anything she could ask for. The bubbles which held people flying around, everyone trying to get to their own destination. Mary pressed her watch and it turned into a compass, leading her straight to you.

You were sitting with your legs over the armchair, reading a magazine from the 1200s. It was indecipherable to normal people, but to you who lived through that era, it was nothing. Once you heard a knock at the door, you had to hide a smile as you walked to the doorknob. Of course it had to be Mary, who else would it be? You hardly made any friends and Mary was different.

The blonde was panting as a hand was latching to your doorframe. “Those bubbles...are not for the faint of heart...”

“And suddenly you’re faint of heart?” Not able to withstand it any longer, you hugged her tightly and were glad to feel her embracing you just as fiercely. It had been the longest time for you but only a few seconds for her. Mary didn’t know how you could handle it, since you never complained to her. She was looking for something in all these eras and was always glad to find you.

She was sitting on your couch as you whipped something up for her, setting the plate before her. She was going to get up and eat before she stared at it. “Um, Y/N?”

“Yes?”

“This is a holographic sandwich.”

“I know.”

“...Is this how you consume food now?”

You had to control yourself from bursting into laughter because she truly looked confused. She knew that the world changed but she didn’t know it changed this much. You finally started laughing behind your hand and shook your head, taking away the plate, her still looking at you quizzically. “No, no, we still have food as usual, I just thought this would be funny.”

Mary crossed her arms. “You are so funny, I am practically dying with laughter.”

You chortled before stepping away. Mary looked around. The place still had your style in it, no matter what the year. Then she noticed a bunch of frames on the fireplace. Picking the first one up, she noticed it was someone that looked almost like her. Then it was someone else. Then another one. All these frames looked slightly like her and she frowned as she turned to look at you. “What are these?”

Sighing, you went over to her. “You know I’m immortal. And even though you time travel, you’re still mortal. But I noticed a pattern. Ever since the first you came to be, you always reincarnate to become someone else. It hasn’t been you looking for me, I’ve been looking for you each time. It was always you.”

Mary’s eyes widened. “So we’ve been in love...every time?”

You nodded. “The present you has met my previous selves because I caught on in the past. It’s why there was a period where I didn’t look for you. You were always my first option.”

With a small smile, she went over to you. “I think I like this time though. Maybe I’ll still.”

“Please...stay this time. Please stay. I don’t want to lose you again.”

Who would she be to turn down a vulnerable request?

#[ ♠️ ] verona's 1k soiree !#kakegurui x reader #kakegurui x y/n #kakegurui x you #saotome x reader #mary saotome x reader #saotome x y/n #mary saotome x y/n #saotome x you #mary saotome x you #now tell me why i was playing my likes and i swear the og version and the minion version popped up back to back

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satoshi-mochida · 1 year

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Some thoughts on my last Gamefly rental, Collar x Malice(Switch version):

After the return of a terrorist group named Adonis, who have kidnapped and killed several people, including police officers, broadcasting the murders on video-sharing sites and leaving calling cards that are counting down to ‘X-Day’, Shinjuku is quarantined in an attempt to contain them, the Swords and Firearms Possession Control Law being repealed to supposedly give citizens more safety and let the newly available firearms be tracked. Adonis claims to be doing this to ‘pass judgment’ on sinners, and that ‘Japan will be reborn’ on X-Day.

A new police force is formed, Special Regions Crime Prevention Office (SRCPO) to deal with the now sealed-off Shinjuku, and the protagonist, Ichika Hoshino(given name can be changed) is a part of this force, taking calls and complaints from those in the city, listening to and trying to help with their problems, and doing patrols.

One night, after going to check on a called-in disturbance, she is knocked out and captured, waking up in a church with a collar around her neck. A member of Adonis speaks to her through it, telling her that the collar contains a deadly poison that will be administered if she tries to tell the police about it, and that they can monitor her through it, intending to use her as a ‘social experiment’.

A group of several men, later revealed to be former officers trying to solve the X-Day cases on their own, soon show up and save her, but Adonis seems to see Ichika as a potential sympathizer and makes it sound as if they have a mole in the police force, leading to distrust and suspicion from both sides.

Now, Ichika has to work with this group to investigate and stop the X-Day cases and Adonis, find a way to safely remove the collar, and not accidentally get herself killed during the investigation.

Three of the Routes(Enomoto, Sasazuka, and Kei), are available at the start. You get to pick Shiraishi’s after clearing one of those three, and Yanagi’s after finishing the other 4(that’s also the best order to do the first 3). You need to pick specific choices during the Common Route to have their options open up when making the decision, and Yanagi's will be available to pick after selecting Start from the Main Menu.

I like how each love interest’s Route covers different parts of the X-Day case investigation, with each having personal ties to them in some way, gradually revealing more about what’s going on and what Adonis’ goals are.

A unique feature of this game is that, at a few points in the story, Ichika will have to use her gun, and a short minigame will start. In it, you need to line up a shrinking circle with the scope’s targeting reticle and then hit A at the correct time to fire/aim successfully. Failing these parts during the story will lead to a Bad End, but I think you can practice this at the police department’s Firing Range whenever she is in the building.

A factor in determining what endings you may get is Ichika’s Trust and Affection with whoever Route she’s on(viewable on the Pause menu under Status). Some choices won’t immediately lead to Bad Ends, but won’t raise either of those two and if it’s too low at certain points, you won’t be able to continue the story properly or get their Good End, depending on where you are in their Route and need to go back with an old save.

A useful feature is giving you brief descriptions of terms and story details throughout the game that can be viewed at any time from the Pause menu under ‘Materials’ and ‘Dictionary’.

Some themes of the game are about police corruption and mismanagement(some in the story have had bad or questionable actions, such as a mistaken arrest with big repercussions, covered up or spun to sound good), some of them not doing their jobs correctly or possibly not thoroughly enough(some X-Day cases were declared ‘closed’ without the full truth being found out before Ichika and the others investigate them), finding out the reason why some people were committing their crimes or supporting Adonis but not excusing or justifying them(especially in regards to what Adonis views as it’s ‘justice’), ‘Justice vs Revenge’, the ‘cycle of hurting’ and more, and I think they’re handled well. There are other characters on the force besides just Ichika that do their job properly(though willing to be a bit grey a bit in cases such as Sasazuka’s hacking), showing how things should be done, so it’s not a condemnation of all of them, just those that allow corruption and mishandling to occur or engage in them, whether out of convivence or their own interests. Also, some viewpoints are from a Japanese perspective, such as regarding the Swords and Firearms Possession Control Law.

This is probably just because of my own tastes, but I didn’t care for some of the vocal music tracks, aside from the one for Yanagi's ending. ^^;

I feel like Aksys should have given the script a second glance since while it’s mostly good, there were some script and text formatting errors I noticed(one that could accidentally send you to a Bad End near the end of Yanagi’s Route).

Ichika feels like a pretty strong, well-done otome protagonist to me, always trying to be proactive, and has a strong will and her own sense of justice, never giving in to Adonis outside of a possible Bad End, as well as trying to convince those that decide to chose to work for Adonis to change their ways.

Of the love interests, Enomoto and Yanagi were my favorites, but the others are good, too. Sasazuka is a bit too tsun for me, though.

...you know, I’m not into dudes, but some of their romantic lines were really nice. <.<

Overall, the story’s pace feels fairly quick, and the Common Route doesn’t take too long to get through before choosing a Route, and you can select which Chapter from the Main Menu to start from if you are trying for all CGs/endings. There’s no flowchart, though. Here’s a set of guides I used.

I may get to its fan-disk sequel, Collar X Malice Unlimited, but not right away.

Next game being sent is: Dusk Diver.

#Collar x Malice #Thoughts on my rentals

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astaroth1357 · 3 years

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The MC is a Valkyrie

Demigod MC Series: Intro

Greek: Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter, Athena, Hades Pt. 2, Poseidon, Ares, Hestia, Nyx

Norse: Valkyrie

A bit of a change of pace this time! No worries, I'm not done with the Greeks or anything. I just had this idea and wanted to get it out.

Valkyries aren't really demigods, but are a part of Norse myth as the minor divinities that help choose and deliver fallen warriors to Valhalla to join the ranks of the einherjar (the souls who will fight when Ragnarok comes). Valkyries are depicted as women who are fierce warriors in their own right. Despite their place as the gatekeepers of the Chosen, they've been said to sometimes take heroes and mortals as lovers or take residence in Midgard posing as daughters of royals/nobility.

Lucifer

At first, they thought they grabbed an heiress - which would have been bad enough - but then the MC grew wings, drew a spear, and asked who among them wanted a glorious death...

How hard is it to find ONE damn human on Earth? Isn't that realm supposed to be full of them??

Diavolo was thankfully able to talk their winged friend down from skewering Asmo and accepting the exchange on behalf of the human wo-… Midgard.

Living with a Valkyrie is different for sure. The MC is a proud woman who takes her role very seriously and she's seemingly deemed him and his brothers as candidates for einherjar (despite being demons).

He's tried many, many times to explain to her that they're not interested, but she's unconvinced. Now the MC watches his brothers like a hawk waiting to cart one of them off to Valhalla! Any mortal wound could be an excuse...

He's had to save Beel and Satan twice from getting dragged to that infernal palace… For whatever reason, she seems to have taken to them the most. Is it old Norse culture to favor the brash and strong? He has no idea...

At the very least, she knows better than to try to drag him into her little plans. Though he's sure he could qualify for the einherjar (obviously, why wouldn't he?) he has no interest in leaving his life here behind.

To think he'd actually have to put surveillance on his own brothers for their safety… But they're not going to get drafted into some ancient Norse war, not if he can help it.

Mammon

She’s an heiress… An heiress!!

Well, her human world identity is an heiress to a well-respected (and rather magical) rich family but that still technically counts! She’s crazy loaded back there! He’s in love!!

The only problem is that in the Devildom she doesn’t have a cent.

… and the fact that she keeps trying to get him killed. That’s also a problem.

In a way, things are not as bad and exactly as bad as that sounds. The MC apparently wants him to go to Valhalla (dope) but she can’t just take him there… He technically has to die in some kind of “vallent battle” first.

Her solution? Pick fights with nearly anything that moves and drag him into it!

Honestly, it’s pretty annoying… Sometimes he just wants to have a fun night out without getting into a barfight, you know??

At least the MC can handle herself… Hell, he was her "babysitter" but she barely even needed him. A lesser demon once made the bad idea of trying to cup her ass and lost a hand for his trouble…

Though, what this amounts to is the MC starting something then fighting alongside him like back-to-back badasses while looking for any excuse to scoop him up and fly him to Asgard!

Why does he put up with this? Well for starters human world rich is still rich, all he has to do is get himself a portal then he's living the high life! And secondly, well… what's the harm?

Sure, she technically wants him dead but he's the secondborn! The list of people who can take him down is so slim that it's not like he's in any danger. She even fights with him so things are a piece of cake!

Is this a case where he's 100% more forgiving because she's rich? Yes. Absolutely. But a golddigger's gotta eat somehow, right?

Leviathan

Is it weird to be jealous over someone not wanting you to die...?

Okay, that's an oversimplification but Levi can’t help but feel snubbed that the MC doesn’t have any interest in taking him to Asgard. Like, none! And why not??

He’s strong! He’s tough! He’s part snake too! Don’t the Nords have a thing about that? Like, there’s a giant snake they’re all worried about?? Maybe he could communicate with it!

Logically, Levi knows that he really shouldn’t press her on this… MC is pretty much a Grim Reaper with a Norse coat of paint and Asgard doesn’t really sound like his speed. No anime, no video games, not even cable! It’s just eat, train, and drink all day… Ew.

But still… What makes him an odd one out?

At best, she just knows he wouldn't be happy there. At worst, she's underestimating his skill… or maybe she's gauged him just right? He's always known he was weak!! 😫

Oh well... at least she's not a bore to be around. Far from it. She treats EVERYTHING like a life or death trial - he's pretty sure that if he challenged her to rock, paper, scissors she'd commend him for his bravery and swear on her sisters that she won't lose.

He once made the mistake of inviting her and Simeon for a game of Devil Party and they both got so into it that they nearly had a duel to the death as a tiebreaker…

Thank Devil that the game had a pre-programmed minigame for that kind of thing… It would have gotten messy otherwise.

Well, even if his other brothers go to Asgard, he can just chill out here with Lucifer and Asmo… right…? Actually, no, that sounds horrible! MC, he changes his mind!! Take him too!!! 😭

Satan

How many times does he have to say that he doesn’t want to go to Asgard?!?

Well, okay that’s not entirely true. Out of scientific curiosity, seeing the godly realm of the old Nords would be fascinating but he doesn’t want to stay, which the MC seems to have trouble understanding…

He’s not even sure why she's singled him out for einherjar status… Any one of his brothers are powerful beings in their own right and he’s not particularly, uh, “even-tempered” himself...

His best guess is she saw him wipe out a handful of lesser demons at some point and declared him Ragnarok material. He always ends up throwing around at least three of those idiots a week so checks out…

If he's being honest, her very existence raises so many questions… Does this mean that Ragnarok is real? Will the human world be swallowed up by the sea? Will the gods of Asgard fight and die as a new world is established? When??

Unfortunately, the MC won't tell him when it all will come to pass (he suspects even she doesn't know) just that Loki will trigger it… Someone keep tabs on that guy.

Until then, he just has to put up with her attempts to convince him but his patience is wearing thin… He's pretty sure he threw a bookshelf at her once but she caught it anyway so yeah...

He did challenge her to a proper duel too but… well let's say she's a Valkyrie for a reason and leave it at that. (Being saved by Lucifer was so humiliating… He's done here, move on already!!)

Asmodeus

First things first, she's gorgeous. Beautiful! Divine! (Literally 🤭)

Now that that's out of the way… She may also have a screw or two loose.

Like, he gets it. She's a Valkyrie and snapping up strong souls is her thing but come on… Mammon? Really? Why would he get into Valhalla instead of him, huh??

Why can't he get to go to the beautiful afterlife of the old Norse with all their strapping warriors, lovely maidens, and endless partying?? It's not fair!!

Ugh… and now she's got him sounding like LEVI! How frustrating…

Well, it may not be that bad. According to MC, he'd have to do battle training in Valhalla and that wouldn't really agree with his beauty routine. Like dirt, sweat, blood, and muscles? No thanks! Not for him.

He asked MC if he could get some kind of pass, but no dice… Maybe he could still convince her to let him vacation there… Or go for a visit? Just one? Surely that couldn't be so bad right?? He's heard that Thor looks NOTHING like people think he does and he's so curious!!

The closest he's ever gotten was challenging the MC to a fashion contest for a visit, but he dropped that idea quick when she proposed that they somehow include a wrestling match in the dressing room (and he knows she didn't mean the fun kind...)

As much as he'd love to get skin-to-skin with MC, the idea of getting locked in a chokehold was less appealing for some reason. 🤔

Ah well, he'll just have to make due admiring her wonderful body clothed for the time being… There's something to be said about muscular ladies, no?

Beelzebub

So she’s almost convinced him to join the einherjar like twice now…

He’s not the best at making decisions when he’s hungry and the MC keeps hyping up the food… Apparently it’s really good up there and MC says that she’s never seen an empty platter... Just thinking about it makes his stomach do backflips.

Thankfully for him, Lucifer usually steps in before Beel can sign his soul away and reminds him that he can’t just abandon the family for a meal, even if it is a feast.

You'd think he'd be annoyed but Beel isn't really bothered by her habit of trying to bring everyone to Asgard. At least not on a personal level.

Like Lucifer, he doesn't want to see his family broken up so he'd rather she wouldn't… But she's a Valkyrie right? It's what she does. It's not like she can help it.

In a weird way, he also thinks she means well. She just respects them and wants them to have a good afterlife. It would be kind of sweet if they didn't have to die for it first…

If he's being honest, he's not that worried about it anyway. His family is pretty tough, not a lot in the Devildom can take them down. As long as they're careful, everybody should be alright. 🙂

Maybe he could get MC to make some Valhallan food for them in the Devildom… Or he could get one of those immortality apples?? Though those would extend his life wouldn't they…? Oh well...

Belphegor

Belphie's attempt to kill the MC went something like this:

Belphie: *switches to his demon form* "I can't believe you actually trusted me!"

MC: *blinks* "Oh. So you want to challenge me then?"

Belphie: "What?"

MC: "Ah, now I see! You want to fight to prove your valor then die by my hand??"

Belphie: "What are yo-??"

MC: *summons wings and golden spear* "I like your spunk, demon!! Fight me with all you have and perhaps I'll take you to Valhalla! May you join us in our fight as a brother!!"

Belphie: "What the hell are you talking about!?!"

To his credit, he put up a good fight and probably would have gotten into Asgard if Lucifer hadn't intervened to save his life.

It can be said that the MC's Valkyrie-hood took Belphie completely by surprise. Sure, he thought she was a little weird for a "human" but challenging him to a duel to the death? That came out of nowhere!

His uneasiness about her only grew after he found out that she's been literally trying to get Beel killed! How in the world were his brothers so relaxed about this?? She's insane!!

So say what you will about the MC, but she's managed to do the impossible. She got Lucifer and Belphie to make up and work together on something! (i.e. making sure she doesn't send them all to their deaths)

Between Lucifer monitoring his brothers and Belphie watching the MC, they'll keep everybody in the Devildom where they belong. That's a promise!

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me demigods

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theres-an-impulstor-among-us · 3 years

Note

3rd life Villain!Impulse perhaps? Reasoning because he's been so nice to all factions and appears very harmless...until he kills Tango in the firing squad scenario. Do with that as you will :3

honestly i think the villain 3rd Life AUs are some of my best writing. also i’m pretty sure i’m gonna end up writing everyone as a villain at some point lol (villains so far: Scar, Etho, Tango, Grian, Ren, Martyn, now Impulse. Joel too if you count that fic where he kills Jimmy)

…

A feeling of dread hangs over Impulse as he makes his way up to Tango’s base. Getting a private message from his best friend, simply saying “we need to talk”, has highly unsettled him. He has absolutely no idea what Tango could want to talk to him about.”

As he gets to the hill Tango calls home, he spots Tango himself standing at the top, arms folded, clearly watching him. A shiver running down his spine, Impulse slowly climbs up the hill. Tango watches him all the way.

Finally, he gets to the top. Keeping an eye on the sun, which must be about an hour away from setting, he gives his friend a wave. “Hi, Tango. What’s… What’s going on?”

Tango’s looking at him with a narrow-eyed expression of distrust. “I know your game, Impulse.”

“Huh?” Impulse blinks. That’s not what he was expecting. “What?”

“Your little game of pretending to be allies with everyone so nobody will ever turn against you. Etho, Dogwarts, the crastle folk. You’ve got them all wrapped round your little finger.”

Impulse frowns. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tango rolls his eyes. “Uh huh, ‘course you don’t. You change the sheet music for everyone, don’t you? Everyone believes they’re the only one getting your support. Well, not me. I know what you’re up to and I’m gonna make sure you stop getting away with it, starting today.”

As Tango turns to start walking away, Impulse grabs his wrist, stopping him from leaving. “Please don’t, Tango,” he says calmly.

Tango scoffs. “Let go of me, Impulse. I’m gonna expose you whether you like it or not.”

Impulse hangs on to Tango’s wrist. “I’m giving you one last chance to back down. You’re red; if something happens to you, you won’t come back.”

“You’re not gonna stop me,” Tango retorts. “I know you. Your niceness has always been your biggest weakness, and in this case, it’s gonna be your downfall.”

“You’ve misjudged me.”

Impulse abruptly seizes Tango’s lapels and roughly swings him closer to the edge of the cliff, holding him dangerously close to the precipice. “I‘ll do anything to survive,” Impulse says coldly. “Anything.”

Tango’s eyes widen with shock. “Impulse-!”

But Impulse shoves him off the top of the cliff.

He waits for a few seconds, listening to Tango’s screams get quieter and quieter, until they’re abruptly cut off.

Tango fell from a high place

Taking a deep breath, Impulse takes off running. He doesn’t know if there’s anyone nearby but he can’t risk it. If anyone sees him here, he’s done for. Absolutely done for.

The chat is filling up with confused and concerned messages but it doesn’t matter now. Tango is gone forever. Nobody ever needs to know what happened.

Impulse dashes back towards the wool castle but as he passes Tango’s still-gushing lava minigame, he bumps into Etho, who’s running the other way.

“Impulse!” Etho breathes. “Gosh, you scared me. What happened?”

Despite internally panicking quite hard, Impulse manages to stammer, “I-I dunno, I was just going to Tango’s base to talk to him when I saw the message. I thought he might have been somewhere around here but I couldn’t find any dropped items or anything. He must’ve been somewhere else when he died.”

“Tango doesn’t just fall from a high place like that,” Etho says. “He’s careful. Impulse, I’m worried that someone might have murdered him.”

“What?!” Impulse gasps. “Who would do that?!”

“I don’t know for sure, but my prime suspect is the crastle alliance. Bdubs had it out for Tango for some reason so I’m sure he knows something.”

“Oh no…” Impulse stares at his friend with wide, innocent eyes. “Bdubs wouldn’t have taken TWO of Tango’s lives… would he?”

Etho slowly shakes his head. “I don’t know. I thought I knew our friends really well but lately, I…” He sighs quietly. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past him. But it’s getting late; I’ll go talk to him tomorrow.”

He turns back towards the castle. “You coming?”

“I‘ll be there later. I’m just gonna go check on my villagers.”

“Gotcha. And Impulse…”

Impulse pauses as Etho glances back at him. “Thanks for being the only person on this server I can really trust.”

Impulse smiles back. “No problem.”

…

Under the cover of darkness, Impulse makes his way to the crastle. He can see Cleo up on the roof, aiming a crossbow at him, but thankfully, she lowers it when he gets close enough for her to see who he is.

Cleo and Bdubs let Impulse into the crastle. “What’s going on, Impulse?” Bdubs demands. “Nobody seems to know what happened to Tango!”

“Nobody’s owning up to knowing, anyway,” Cleo adds. “I don’t suppose you do?”

Impulse shakes his head. “I’ve no idea. But I’ve heard rumours going round the server and I thought I should come to you directly to let you know.”

“Let us know what?” Bdubs says.

“That Etho suspects you guys had something to do with Tango’s death.”

“What?!”

Bdubs and Cleo exchange a shocked look.

“Why would he think that?!” Bdubs snaps. “He has no evidence!”

“That’s why I thought I should come over and warn you,” says Impulse. “He’s gonna come over here tomorrow to confront you about it.”

“Oh gawsh…” Bdubs groans. “Thanks for telling us.”

“Oh, but this is just to give you some warning to prepare. You can’t let Etho know I told you, okay? Otherwise he might not tell me other stuff that concerns you guys.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” Cleo says. “If we’re your secret girlfriend, does that mean Etho’s your… uh… spouse?”

“I don’t really have a singular “spouse”,” responds Impulse, making air quotes over the word “spouse”. “More like the rest of the server is my “spouse” and I can’t let them know that I favour you over them.”

“Riiiight, gotcha. Guess you’d better head home before your “spouse” misses you.”

Impulse nods. “Yeah, I gotta go back to Etho. See you guys later.”

As he leaves the crastle and starts to head for home, he spots a figure watching him from next to one of Bdubs’s tall spruce trees. When the figure comes forward, Impulse recognises the person as Joel.

“Hi,” he says, giving a friendly smile. Joel isn’t one of his official allies at the moment but that doesn’t mean he can’t be nice to him. “What’s up?”

“I heard Tango died,” Joel says, eyes sparking with interest. “Do you know what happened?”

“No, I don’t. I just saw it in chat.”

“I think you’re lying.”

Impulse blinks. “What?”

Joel grins as he senses he’s caught Impulse off guard. “I said I think you’re lying. I think you’re manipulating everyone into believing you’re their friend when in actuality, you don’t care about any of them. And I think you killed Tango when he confronted you about it. Am I wrong?”

Impulse stares at him, unable to say anything in his defence.

In the ensuing pause, Joel takes a sudden step towards Impulse, who backs up a few steps, his hand automatically flying to the hilt of his sword. But he pauses. He has to be extremely careful here; Bdubs and Cleo may be watching him. If they see him put a single foot wrong here, it’s over. He has to let Joel make the first move.

“Would you kill me?” says Joel challengingly. “Would you kill me as callously as you killed Tango?”

Impulse carefully turns his back to the crastle and narrows his eyes. “Come and find out. Or would you rather die stupidly and pointlessly because you forgot about FIRE DAMAGE?”

That does it. Impulse knew exactly how to rile Joel up and it works. Eyes flashing red, Joel growls and lashes out with his fist.

Impulse allows himself to be hit in the chin, narrowly avoiding biting his tongue. Joel’s second blow, this time to the stomach, winds him and causes him to drop to his knees, vulnerable. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Joel drawing his sword. This is it; this is the moment. Either his position on the server will elevate… or he will simply die.

He holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shut.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

An arrow flies out of nowhere and buries itself in Joel’s chest, causing him to stagger back a step. A split second later, a second arrow hits Joel in the neck, and that’s all it takes.

SmallishBeans was shot by BdoubleO100

Impulse stares at the ground where Joel had landed, a second before he died. He can’t believe his plan worked so well.

“Impulse, are you okay?” Bdubs appears at Impulse’s side, discarding his crossbow. “What happened?”

“He… He was gonna kill me,” Impulse chokes out. This isn’t entirely an act; Joel’s unexpected hit to his stomach has completely snatched the wind from his sails.

“Why? Why did he wanna kill you?”

“Did he really need a reason?” Cleo says. “He was red and Impulse is green. Nuff said.”

“Wh-Whatever it was, you guys saved my life.” Impulse gives them a smile. “Thanks. If Etho or anyone else asks what happened, you guys spotted me getting attacked by Joel on my way back from checking on my villagers. Okay?”

“Ooh, good story,” Bdubs says approvingly. “But are you sure you’re okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, no, I’m fine. Thanks to you guys. I should probably head home, though.”

Bdubs pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah, go get some rest. Thanks again for… um… coming past and not visiting.”

Impulse nods, knowing exactly what Bdubs means. “No worries.”

…

“Joel just attacked you?” Etho frowns. “Why would he do that?”

“He doesn’t need a reason,” responds Impulse, recalling what Cleo said earlier. “He was red. I guess he just saw an easy target and couldn’t resist.”

“So he attacked you on your way back from the villagers, huh. And you’re okay, right? You’re not hurt.”

“No, I’m fine,” says Impulse. “A little shaken and tired from everything that’s happened, though.”

“Oh yeah, you should get some sleep.” Etho smiles at his friend. “See you tomorrow.”

“Night, Etho.”

As Impulse gets into bed in his room, he can’t help a small smile. He took a big risk today but it has really paid off. Getting rid of two red lifers in one day is enough of an accomplishment in of itself, but doing it without arousing suspicion on himself AND managing to turn Etho and Bdubs further against each other? That’s something he can be proud of.

All he needs to do now is make sure he’s in the right place at the right time for Etho’s confrontation with Bdubs tomorrow and perhaps he can be there for another red life death. Bdubs may be one of his strongest allies but if Impulse sees a chance to get another player out of the game, well…

He’s going to take it.

#3rd life smp #3rdlifesmp #impulsesv #etho #ethoslab #bdubs #bdoubleo100 #zombiecleo #smallishbeans #tangotek #vaunna’s requests

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something-very-special · 3 years

Text

they ran over the seals

More Replicant playthrough observations and general nonsense under the cut. For reference, up to the keystone quest; completed the Forest of Myth and Junk Heap.

This fucking game I swear to god.

A vaguely coherent ramble about sidequests An observation about sidequests in general in this game -- and I don't recall if I ever voiced this somewhere public or it was just a personal observation from my time with the original -- is that the quests in the first half of the game are all relatively easy to complete. There's that one asshat who wants 10 goat hides, but other than him, most of the sidequests are either very much based on finding characters, or gathering a sensible number of items that are either relatively common, purchasable, or given a guaranteed spawn for the duration of that quest.

The sidequests everybody remembers having to do are in the second half, where everybody is demanding and awful and I'm sorry ten MACHINE OILS do you know how goddamn rare those are? They're goddamn rare.

(We'll not discuss Life in the Sands.)

This is generally agreed to, in the technical vernacular, 'suck'. And it's always funny that the most interesting sidequests are the ones with very minimal requirements (Yonah's cooking, getting Popola drunk, the Lighthouse Ladoh my god everything's gone blurry I'm not crying you're crying who am I kidding we're both crying). That particular aspect of the design also feels intentional, not really gating your ability to progress the really meaningful or funny sidequests behind an unreasonable number of rare items. The other aspect of the design is that these quests are not meant to be completed in a single playthrough; most of them are single-stage and just absolutely unreasonable, but if you're going through the game four times you have a... reasonable chance of getting everything you need more or less naturally.

Nobody does that but I think that was the intended design. I think it's a good idea, although the execution of expectation is flawed so I don't really blame people for saying those sidequests suck. (Although I will in turn blame people for saying the sidequests suck as a blanket statement. Yeah getting that guy who burned his kitchen down a billion Broken Motors is aggravating but did you not find that old man's dog? Speak to Ursula on her death bed? Solve a murder? Then again I think tracking down that rotten son who's trying to get away from The Family Business only to learn his father is a con-artist and get literally no reward is the height of comedy so maybe I'm not the greatest point of reference.)

But that asshole in Facade can get bent. I can't exploit my garden properly, jackass! I am no longer a god of time. (I kid, of course.) (This guys sucks even when you can fix your clock.)

Forest of Myth It didn't even occur to me to wonder how they would incorporate the comprehensive voice acting into the Forest of Myth. I like how it plays out, although I wish the voices maybe had a fade as you went deeper into the dream instead of just cutting out at some point, especially for the lines where the characters are being ascribed actions by the narrator that they themselves aren't doing near the start of the Deathdream. But it's just delightful to go back to it. The second half of the game really sticks in your mind both for emotional reasons and because you play it at least three times per full playthrough of the game, but the first half is just so much fun.

Protip: Talk to everybody after you've finished the dream sidequest. Weiss tries to dissuade you. Don't let him dissuade you. I'm still delighted by the Mayor; "We're building a statue of you, made of solid gold. I know you don't own a horse, but we're going to put you on a horse."

I forgot about Yonah being a disaster chef Papa Nier's reaction to the stew is better. Brother is still funny but Papa Nier just expecting to die is comedy gold.

For anybody curious, the joke about the cakes is that Yonah made 'fruit cake' using some of the worst possible fruits for cake-making. If only she'd thrown a tomato into the mix, too.

Lighthouse Lady Every time. what the fuck is a canal I'm aware of the addition of the new-old content but it didn't occur to me until Popola suddenly starts nattering on about fixing the canal when I'm expecting Yonah to talk about a penpal that oh, yeah, I guess Seafront would have had something going on the first half that would play into the second half? (I assume it does. Be weird to introduce these characters just to have groundwork for an added sidequest. ...but it was a cute sidequest.) But look Popola my boy is supposed to be in the next area I visit could we-- I mean he's on the way could we just-- no-- fiiiiiiiiiine. (It was short and sweet, though, and I appreciate that the couple's love is exemplified by them both calling Weiss a floating magazine in tandem.) On a related note but was I the only person suddenly concerned when the sidequest completion maxed out at 50% and not 51%? I had to double-check with a guide just to make sure, since I've spent the last decade telling people to make sure you hit 51% before going on to Part II.

MY BOY I love that nowadays, Emil is everybody's son. But I really wish I could go find somebody only familiar with Automata and just watch their reaction. (I'm guessing there are streams out there that fulfill this but man I'd love to get it in-person.) If you're only familiar with him from Automata this has to be a mindfuck.

Personal anecdote, but I've had the privilege of playing NIER with somebody else almost every time I've gone through it. I had a wonderful experience of doing a replay some years back with somebody who had experienced it with me before but didn't have the most solid memory of the beginning (and had actually missed the entire weapon's lab the first time through). I get to the boy at the piano introducing himself and the 'Wait, what?' was a thing of beauty.

MY ANDROID This was a welcome mindfuck for me; finding Sebastian and having him 'reactivate' in such an unnatural, mechanical way. I don't recall if it was ever officially confirmed that Sebastian is an android (I know that it's just understood that this is the case but I'm not I can't recall a specific one) but the little flair they added to his animation caught me completely off guard. I liked it!

Destroying the food source A lot of people will cite a major inciting incident for the game as being when the protagonist heading back into the village and killing the child Shades just outside the entrance. This moment is such a great bit of subtle foreshadowing that's so easy to miss... but kind of joining that, just before the Knave of Hearts attacks, I realized that the Shades out on the Northern Plains are clearly ramping up for an assault of their own by murdering the sheep. The sheep population at this point is decimated (which is great when you realize you haven't gotten the Sheepslayer trophy and you're about to enter Part II and you don't know if the boar drifting minigame got carried forward with the inclusion of 15 Nightmares). You go out onto the Plains and you will find not only small clusters of sheep left behind instead of the vast, terrifying herds from the start of the game, but until you get their attention the Shades are prioritizing killing the sheep. (Also annoying because that doesn't count toward my sheep murder number.) The Shades will be out there also killing sheep earlier on, but since the whole map is in Overcast mode after talking to Yonah it's especially prevalent to go out to the Northern Plains and seeing the slaughter. And I realized-- they're cutting the Village off from a primary food source. Shades don't eat and they don't have any beef with the local ungulates (at least, no more so than anybody else does), so why are they hunting down the sheep? To deprive their enemies of resources. Sheep are extinct by the timeskip. It's actually really clever of them, and a really clever indication of their sentience and intelligence before it's fully verified.

"Let's get these shit-hogs!" Everything about the way Kaine and Emil interact across the entire game is perfect I will brook no argument this is objective fact.

Emotive Rectangles I wrote an essay about this before but it really bears repeating that the job the original animators did with this scene is just phenomenal. The way Weiss drifts, flits, flips, fans his pages, drunkenly swerves, shoots around the room in defiance... He's a goddamn rectangle, but there is so much emotion and personality in this scene just based on the movements conveyed through a what is effectively just a box. Ten years later and triple-A titles with full facial capture don't have this much seething personality. I really have to give props to the cavia animators, wherever they wound up. That studio could really put some subtle love and care into their titles, utterly unnecessary and easy to miss but you can tell that whoever was working on it was giving it their all. The books are probably the exemplification of this, but every time I go into Seafront and visit the seals I can tell that the guy on seal duty was having just the best day. They made Emil so pretty There's an FMV cutscene right smack in the middle of the original game after the battle against Noir. I understand why it was a necessity on a technical level, but it always looked pretty out of place and a little uncanny valley compared to the rest of the graphical fidelity. That's no longer a necessity so this cutscene is rendered in-engine. I admit I was actually curious to see it redone this way and it looks fantastic. I single out Emil since he is the focal point of cutscene and because his particular high-poly model had some pretty weird difference from his in-engine model, but he and Kaine both look great. But, like, it's almost mean how pretty he is.

They made Brother Nier so pretty Yeah okay you got me he's kind of hot. Kaine's expression when she wakes up and looks him over is... significantly easier to read now. Good voice, too. (Ancient rumors tell that one of the issues with international releases of RepliCant was that they couldn't find an English VA with a voice that 'fit' Brother Nier. He sounded good out the gate but hearing him growl "Let's go TAKE CARE of those KIDS" during the thief sidequest-- I got chills. It sounds so silly but there's a kind of percolating fury to that delivery. Papa Nier was like frustrated but mostly disappointed dad; I felt like Brother was going to take care of those kids, and nobody was going to find the bodies. Younger Brother Nier just never stops looking goofy to me but Older Brother just looks great in motion, between the alterations they made to the movement and just the entire weaponry system. The distinction between the two halves of the game was always a little odd in the Gestalt version-- not odd enough to really raise eyebrows if you didn't know about RepliCant, but of course you can tell that this age gape between the optimistic doe-eyed dogooder and a man largely ruled by his fury and calloused by tragedy is what the timeskip was going for. Swab me down and call me Ishmael, it works. Younger Brother wasn't quite clicking with me-- not because of any writing or voicework issues, but I've got Papa Nier on the back of my mind and it's impossible not to compare and contrast the delivery and dialogue between the two. I know that this is intentional, too; Younger Brother is supposed to be that happy-go-lucky video game protagonist, always doing the right thing and helping people, in order to contrast against the man he becomes. Even just edging into Part II the effect is dramatic and it recontextualizes Younger Brother into a much more effective overall character. And let me reiterate, I enjoyed my time with Younger Brother just fine, I have no issues with him. But he's up against Well Meaning Big Dummy Part I Papa Nier. No contest. And I'm excited to see where Older Brother goes from here.

Speaking of voices I mentioned this before but the delivery on the character's lines is different. The entire game was re-recorded and quite a few lines are still pretty similar to the original, but there are some that are... definitely different. Part of this is a difference in the relationship between characters based on their life experience and ages-- Weiss is much more of an ass to Younger Brother but has a much more even respect for Older Brother (neither of which are like the rapport he established with Father). Some of Kaine's lines feel more aloof, dismissive, and almost tired in the front half of the game. I haven't really gotten to a point to dig into Emil's rapport with the other characters, but the delivery feels more hesitant and uncertain (which I think is more in line with his Japanese VO, but I'm prefacing that on an untrained ear and a presumption rather than recent memory). It's been interesting to see not just where hey adjusted dialogue (and how-- there are some lines that didn't need to be rewritten), but also how they adjust tone and delivery. Dealing with Younger Brother is one thing, but as I said, I'm very excited to see what's different in the second half, especially being much more familiar with that part of the game. Speaking of Voices! Halua got dialogue! I... preferred when it was inferred (and the implications of "I'll always be watching over you" are borderline malicious given the results of their fusion dance, yeah THANK YOU HALUA this is GREAT). Halua's delivery also felt a little too innocent and upbeat both for the situation and when compared to her narrative voice in The Stone Flower, where she comes across as much more cynical and cold. But given what she's been through and the nightmare she's finally escaping I guess she's allowed express happiness. She's certainly earned the right to having a spoken line. No matter what. Every fuckin' time.

"Here we go." This was always a great line to kind of ease in to the officially-official start of Part II-- every time you start up a New Game+ you're greeted with Emil musing about his conflation of Halua to Kaine, and then the phrase "Here we go". There's a lot in that one line. On a personal level he's grounding his thoughts in the moment and steeling himself for what comes next and pushing through his pain and sadness and fear. Whatever Nier told him in the facility he's still terrified, desperately terrified, that Kaine -- who was the one who told him his life had meaning -- is going to reject him. And why wouldn't she? Ultimately they don't know each other, not really. He understands at that moment that his relationship with Kaine is based on confused memories of his sister, that maybe the bond he thought they established isn't actually real. As soon as he frees Kaine he's going to have to confront her, like this, and how could she ever-- she won't-- but he can't just leave her. Whatever happens next. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. (God it matters.) "Here we go." On a meta level, that's our introduction into the second half of the game. The first half is all prologue. This is where we'll be spending the rest of our time, even to the point that 'New Game+' skips straight ahead to this moment. Now that we've finished the establishment, this is where it all builds and where it all matters. Here we go, audience. The ride starts now. You get up to this point now in Replicant. You get the same lead-in. My dumb ass even whispered "Here we go", because I can't help myself. And he says, of course he says--! "Anyway." ... ...a-anyway? What the hell kind of line is that? "Here's some deeply personal musings that are also an indication of my own discomfort as I babble to myself just to fill the void so I can stave off thinking for just a few more seconds. ANYWAY." What a... bizarre decision. Just bizarre.

Upgraded melee combat The introduction to the armored Shades always feel kind of rough-- the defenses on those Shades are significantly higher than anything you've faced and the new weapons you're given to combat them just aren't that good. (If you got lucky you could have a fully-upgraded Faith by now, which is nearly three times as powerful as the 'heavy' two-handed sword you're given; if you downloaded the 4 YoRHa pack for Replicant you've probably been able to upgrade one of those weapons once, which are also a really nice strength boost that leaves the freebie heavy swords and spears in the dust). As an introduction to the new weapon types it always feels like rough going. But then you get a chance to get decent weapons and the combat system truly opens up, and compared to the first game you really feel it. At this juncture I would always just bustle off to Facade and grab the Phoenix Spear and never look back-- the raw power compared to the rest of your arsenal coupled with the triangle dash is basically the bread and butter of the rest of the game. It's not exciting, but it's effective. No more triangle dashing, which was deeply disappointing... but both weapons definitely feel good. I am also somewhat ashamed to admit that it wasn't until now that I realized attacks weren't just about rhythmic input-- you can hold the attacks down to do different charged hits and combos depending on when you execute them in your combo, similar to Automata. I, uh... I felt a bit dumb. But hey, wow, it's a welcome adjustment and it makes all of the weapon types feel equally valuable for different purposes. I never liked using the heavy blades in the original release because they just felt too slow for the damage output they did, even if their 'point' was mostly to sheer off armor (and they definitely felt too slow for use in crowd control). Now they're still heavy and slower, but not to the point that you're basically leaving yourself open just trying to attack. Spears now do crazy sweeping combos and multi-hits. Both of these properties were borrowed from Automata and I find myself prioritizing melee combat and almost forgetting I have magic because honestly it just feels intuitive and fun. I feel like Kaine and Emil might have gotten a power boost as well? Not that I can really confirm this but going into some of the Junk Heap rooms I'd focus on killing a few robots in the corner and then turn around and just see a field of item drops and no more robots. Don't take my word on that, of course, but they felt a little more effective, and a placebo effect is still an effect. "You're staging a protest? That's fun!" Emil. Rebel without a cause. Will not hesitate to kill you if you trespass on his property. (Might explain the statues in the courtyard, actually.) I'll have to double-check this dialogue because I definitely remember more of a melancholia before we get to roasting marshmallows. I think Papa Nier actually offers to talk to/implicitly threaten the villagers to let them in the Village whereas Brother offers to sleep outside with them... which is actually kind of funny. In the former it comes off as Emil and Kaine maybe kinda-sorta not wanting to be allowed in the Village for their own reasons (they're not happy reasons but they're reasons nonetheless) and reassuring Father that no, it's okay, it's fun! The latter is almost telling Brother to stay inside because he'll ruin their sleepover.

(They're absolutely having giggly girl talk about him outside the gates, 100%.) they ran over the seals All I want in Seafront is to enjoy the music and run out to the big beach and hang out with the last living seals and they put a fucking pirate ship on top of them. Oh, wow. Gideon. Wow. OG Nier featured a Gideon that tried to keep himself together and then had fits of mania. You'd be concerned about him during some of the dialogue but generally speaking he came across as... functional. The delivery on all of his lines is now so insanely murder bonkers, like every line he's addressing you like you're already chained to the wall of his serial killer dungeon and it's glorious. I don't know if the distinction between the games is deliberate (in that Gideon in Gestalt was just more even-keeled between his 'rip 'em apart' snarlings and was always just totally nutso in RepliCant) but I do appreciate it. It's a good mirror to Brother Nier's own anger, which only ever seems to be mollified when he's talking to his friends (even kindly accepting sidequests there's a pretty consistent -- not universal, but consistent -- air of barely-bridled frustration). The other characters that Brother encounters are various reflections of himself if things had just been a little different-- Gideon was a representation of the kind of obsessive madness that would have eaten Brother alive if he hadn't had his network of support. Gideon's constant fury and bloodlust even bleeds into him just saying "What can I do for you?" He has no anchor to keep himself sane, nobody to stay human for; he's all mania, all anger, and he only takes any real interest in Brother on his return because he sees an opportunity to act out his vengeance. After defeating Beepy and Kalil he even goes so far as to not only blame Beepy for killing Jakob, but for also killing their mother, which is patently insane but really speaks to how far his justifications and fury have taken him. Papa Nier responds to his anger toward Beepy by basically backing away slowly and saying "Oookay then". Brother, however, actually commiserates; "That's enough. [...] We get it. We really do." This is definitely one of those moments where Brother's context works better than Father's; he absolutely sees himself in Gideon. He completely understands him and sympathizes. He recognizes the madness of his own quest, he sees where it could take him, and there's a resignation when he speaks to Weiss: "Revenge is a fool's errand." "...yeah." Papa Nier has a similar delivery and similarly implies that he understands how terrible his quest is, but there's something decidedly haunting in Brother's sympathy. Also just verifying something on the wiki and this bit of 'Trivia' really jumped at me:

Gideon is the only character to only cause the deaths of other characters. In his case, he caused a platform to crush Jakob and ordered the deaths of P-33 and Kalil, with P-33 surviving.

Metal AF.

#NieR #NieR Replicant #Rambling #He will always say 'here we go' in my heart #And that's probably a serious medical condition

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gothamcityneedsme · 3 years

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I saw this bouncing around my dash and decided to fill it out myself for fun :) I decided to not double-list any games, and I tried to mix up the companies I used too so that the list would be more unique.

Long post, so I’m doing a readmore for my longwinded part lol.

(read more)

Favorite Game: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - I could talk about this game forever. How it tears apart the Star Wars universe from within, how it creates a compelling story while challenging the usual themes, etc. I could talk for ages about the characters and how their motivations slot in place, and how this game lends itself to interpretation and analysis alongside roleplay. It’s just a wonderful game, one I deeply love and will always love. It’s a game that isn’t afraid to have you talk to other characters for twenty or thirty minutes at a time and honestly I’m always riveted at every line. This game deserves the cult fanbase it has, but I think there’s a lot the fanbase misses in appreciating this game. (Note...gameplay is a little janky and a community made mod restores a lot content that was cut before shipping-the game wasn’t properly finished).

Best Story: Fallout New Vegas - It’s the setting that makes the story here, and all the moving pieces and factions alongside the main conflict really make this game stand out. There’s so many little pieces to find along the way in the world and the way the main quest splits based on who you want in power feels important--and you are choosing a future for this whole region.

Favorite Art Style: The Witness - This game is peacefully wonderful with its visuals. There are wonderful nature scenes and nests of wires and panels spreading in various parts of the island that are fascinating to look at. The environment is half of the gameplay in most areas, so it’s important to look around even though exploration is not really the gameplay. You find puzzles in the world, even in nature, and it’s fascinating. The colors are bright and beautiful. There is even a map in the middle of the island inside of a lake that helps you track your progress if you notice it (it isn’t like a normal ‘map’).

Favorite Soundtrack: Shin Megami Tensei IV - I love video game soundtracks, but SMTIV is something special. The music booms in ways that make you really understand the atmosphere of the world, and there’s a great mix of different kinds of tracks for different places. I love the tracks for the other worlds you enter, and the themes of the different routes are done so well. Some of the music draws from past SMT games, but the remixes done for this game really are stunning to me, and there’s so many fantastic original tracks.

Hardest Game: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - I love this game but I literally never touch it without a walkthrough, which is why it gets to be the hardest game on the list, despite being a point and click adventure game lol. Also just emotionally this game is challenging too, but I definitely mean this more in terms of getting a ‘perfect run’.

Funniest Game: The Stanley Parable - Trying to make this list has taught me that I don’t really play many ‘funny games’. I don’t know if a game where multiple endings demand that you kill yourself should count as a ‘funniest game’, but it is also a game where the narrator tells you to stare at a fern and memorize its features, so....it counts.

Game I Like that is Hated: RWBY Grimm Eclipse - I’ve been playing this game since it was in early access and have loved it the whole time. I find the gameplay soothing and fun, and I like playing the different characters. It’s a game I play to chill out and just enjoy some fun battle mechanics. It’s a fun game and I’ve spent over 100 hours in it, so I hope I like it, lol.

Game I Hate that is Liked: Nier Automata - Neither this game’s gameplay or story impress me, and the fact that you have to replay basically the same stuff from a more boring-to-play-character’s pov in order to SEE all of the plot is a huge damper on the experience. The story, to me, someone who engages with a lot of robot-focused fiction, is far from impressive or new, and it hardly engages with genre specifics at all, let alone in a new or interesting way. I view this game as ‘a story with robots in it’ rather than ‘a story about robots’, which, to me, is a detriment.

Underrated: Nevermind - This game is amazing and very unheard of--and when it is heard of, it has been marketed incorrectly. Nevermind seems like a horror game, and does market itself as one a bit, but it’s much more than that. It’s more about trauma, recovery, therapy, etc. This is a game that is so mindful about the topics it engages in that I am impressed by it every time. It’s heavy with symbolism and character, despite lacking conversations or other similar game mechanics. This is a lovely game that I really wish more people knew about-`p5-all of the patients are so interesting, and the focus on recovery and mental health is impressive.

Overrated: Fire Emblem - I sort of mean this as the series as a whole really. I have enjoyed the entries I have played somewhat, but I overall consider the series much less impressive than I was led to believe by others. The gameplay especially is not impressive to me in any regard, even though I sometimes do find myself enjoying it. The stories are alright, but many of them are weighed down by the gameplay and as a writer and person who likes to analyze writing, it’s very hard to do so when it isn’t able to fully exist under the chains the gameplay forces on it. There are ways to mix gameplay and story well, Fire Emblem has not really done that in any of the entries I’ve played. That being said, I don’t regret playing them, and I will occasionally replay, but I consider them mediocre games at best.

Best Voice Acting: Devil Survivor 2 - I love the voice acting in this game. I feel like all the characters are really suited to their voices, and it’s really easy for me to visualize their voices. They really bring the game to life and make both the dramatic and the funny scenes more enjoyable.

Worst Voice Acting: Jedi Knight Jedi Academy - I love this game, I really do, but some of the voice acting is janky. Some of it is okay too--I think Kyle Katarn’s voice actor does fine, and some of the others I like NOW but hated when I was a kid, but the male protagonist voice in this game is just awful. Which is bad when Jennifer Hale is the female voice actress lol. His performance is passable though unless you’re playing darksided--the darksided ending to the game lacks all punch when you’re playing the male protagonist.

Favorite Male: Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni - He’s the protagonist for most of the visual novels and I adore him utterly, especially once you move past episode 2. He’s a wonderful character who I care about deeply. I love his drive and how he fights--he’s someone who is easy to cheer for. He matures well throughout the series and his character development is just wonderful.

Favorite Female: Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 - I really like how Naoto fits so well in the game, especially for being a final recruit--oftentimes the final recruit of Persona games (post 3) have a bit of a more difficult time feeling right with the group. Naoto works really well though, and I love her struggles and story as well. I think the difficulties she has concerning living as a woman in her field hit very deep to a problem that has existed for a very long time.

Favorite Protagonist: Connor of Daventry from King’s Quest 8 Mask of Eternity - I’m like, one of four fans of this character in the world, lol. KQ8 is not a very well liked game and it does have a lot of issues, both with age and with how much of a departure it is from the series prior to it. It’s strange to take a puzzle adventure game and make it a hybrid with what basically is a shooter, and it doesn’t really work. Add to that the fact that you spend most of your time in the game without anyone around to talk to and it leads to this really polarizing and weird experience. For me, Conner goes through what I would consider to be the ‘Ultimate Nightmare Scenario”. Everyone in the world is turned to stone except him (and he survived out of mere chance) and so now it’s up to him, practically alone, to save the entire world. There is no game lonelier than this. I adore him for his bravery in the face of it, and how he just picks up to do what must be done because someone should do it, and if no one else can, then he will. I also really love how he apologizes to people who are encased in stone while he takes money from their houses to help him on his journey. I really do think he went back after the game was over and gave everyone heaps of gold to pay them back with interest lol.

Favorite Village: Oakvale from Fable - The first Fable is the only one I really like, and it was one of the games I played when I was little, so the hometown in the game always meant a lot to me. I like how you grow up there and how your tragic backstory is there--and then how you get to return to the town years later after you’ve come into your own, and you can see it completely rebuilt. I like to spend a lot of my time in this town, just wandering around it and playing the minigames. Even though I have a house in every town, Oakvale is where my hero calls home.

Most Hated Character: Merril from Dragon Age 2 - I don’t really want to lay into how I feel about Merril, but what I will say is that it was suggested to me that I totally ignore her when playing, and I did so. I only met her for her quest, dropped her off in town, and literally never spoke to her or interacted for the rest of the game. I had a much better experience for it, honestly. She appeared after I made my choice in the end of the game, which felt weird since I hadn’t spoken to her in several ingame years, but other than that, the game was totally fine without her. I sort of just wish you could kill characters in DA2 the way you can in DAO, then I’d just do that, tbh. It doesn’t suit very many (or any) of the characters I rp in DA2 to keep her around or support her in any way.

First Game I Played: Mixed up Mother Goose Deluxe - I’m not actually sure if this is the FIRST game I’ve ever played or not, but it’s one of the first I played alone as a kid. I really loved it--this is probably what created my love for point and click adventures, and the game was very silly and fun.

Favorite Company: Bioware - I’ve always been a sucker for Bioware games, ever since Knights of the Old Republic 1 was my favorite childhood game. I love how they do stories and party members, and while I’m not a fan of all of their games, I really love what they’ve made and their style of storytelling and character driven plot. Even though sometimes their stories get cliche, I think the suit video games well and most of my early gaming was within their games.

Hated Company: EA - Bioware truly only started to go to shit after the EA acquisition, so I fucking hate EA. I know Bioware had issues before EA too, but I definitely don’t think EA has helped the situation whatsoever.

Depressing Game: The Beginner’s Guide - I relate to this game as a creator and a writer, and it affects me deeply because of the story it tells and the questions it raises. It makes me reflect on how I think of myself as a creator, and it reminds me of friendships I used to have.

Creepy Game: The Path - God, I love this game. It’s just aimlessly wandering around and finding symbolic scenery and watching your current character comment on it. Then, you go off to find your girl’s wolf, and each one is different and unique to her, and you watch it ‘kill’ her--and facing her wolf is the only way each girl can truly mature. Whenever you get to grandmother’s house, the camera switches to first person, and your eyes keep closing, so you can only see while clicking to move. It forces you to keep moving so that you can see, but since you are moving, you only get to see things somewhat vaguely. It’s got a great atmosphere, and I love the symbolic storytelling.

Happy Game: Eastshade - This game is so sweet. There’s some drama around to with many of the quests, but I like this as an rpg without combat, and I think this would be a really good kids game. There’s a lot to see and explore, and the game was made to be really pretty so that you want to paint several aspects of it. It’s really lovely to just wander around in this game and bike around the area, painting anything that suits your fancy. As long as you don’t finish the main quest, you’re free to wander, and materials do respawn, so you essentially can infinitely paint once you get far enough.

Favorite Ending: Virtue’s Last Reward - I love the questions this game asks and where the ending goes. It thematically ties together--the whole reason the game itself exists is to get the attention of a ‘higher being’--the player, essentially. I love how it plays with that concept, and even though the final game in the series doesn’t entirely pick this idea up where this game left it, standalone this game is stunning in how it comes together.

#shitpost #long post #this was fun to do #i made it so every answer was a different video game and i tried to mix up my companies as well #got 3 atlus games on here but mer #2 obsidon #llol #2 sierra too haha but still #beginner's guide and tsp were made by the same guy too but #STILL I LIMITED MYSELF OK #these answers aren't absolute because i was trying to have a good diverse list lol

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blookmallow · 3 years

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time for more wacky murder adventures

------

love saionji just always saying the most fucked up shit

they had to set up a camera system to communicate as a precaution to avoid spreading a disease

that sure is, uh, something, isnt it :’ )

why though

why are we even wasting effort on him. would it count as a murder if they let him die? like its specifically monokuma’s fault he’s sick with the despair disease or whatever, so if he just Died wouldn’t it be monokuma’s fault. why bother

they happen to have a nurse here but i dont see why monokuma’s disease should be tsumiki’s responsibility

like obviously they want to do everything they can for ibuki and owari, they’re their friends, their wellbeing is motivation enough but KOMAEDA???? THE FUCKER WHO WE KNOW ALREADY ATTEMPTED MURDER ONCE??????

:( :( :( :(

i knew this was about to happen and i knew who the killer was but i completely forgot ALL the details of this case so i was just about as much in the dark as everyone else. i could NOT remember how the fuck any of this happened

i mean that’s. objectively not true. this has happened a significant number of times now. it is very much possible

i have NO MEMORY of this

gundam what the fuck are you talking about

not a fan of her just interjecting awww im so useless and stupid :( there’s no way i could ever do it :( : ( when I KNOW ITS YOU,

i could not fucking remember WHY it was her though i just knew that it Was

god i am getting so tired of these mid-trial minigames :’) :’) like... why is this necessary. why are my mental skateboarding skills important to arriving at the logical conclusion here

that and i forget how the controls work every single time, its not very intuitive or very well explained, like. the skateboarding one is okay but then you get into the sword battle thing and its like

“this person has become hostile, we can’t continue the discussion until we get them to chill. use the arrow keys to shoot down their statements in the direction they appear from. succeed at that enough times and eventually they’ll say something you can refute with one of your Truth Swords Of Logic. but it’s a different key to use the truth sword. if you shoot down the statement with an arrow key instead you fail. you have to remember to select the right sword and do the right attack thing at the right time. this is a split second interval and if you react too fast and do the wrong thing you have to start over. also they are screaming at you and the screen is flashing during all this. everything is very loud and very fast”

what does this Mean

also im pretty sure the voice actor said “moth balls” on this line

agreed, we should scrap that rule so komaeda can get dead too next time

all in favor of literally anything that could get this guy out of here

also love every character just exactly as sick of komaeda’s shit as i am

“the stepladder was completely clean!!” (shows a picture of the stepladder with clear, visible blood splatters) OKAY

i mean ok yes, in this particular instance, he didn’t do anything, but he’s very much still a criminal. he still attempted murder in the first chapter. if he hadn’t attempted murder then the first death wouldn’t have happened. he’s still responsible for it in my book even if he wasn’t technically the one who committed the act of killing the first victim himself. he Intended To

“that video that Only Hinata Saw? i remember it clearly” you’re really just digging your own grave here,

i dont understand her obsessively begging for forgiveness throughout this trial once she becomes the primary suspect bc like. she’s not saying “I did it, but you should all forgive me and let it go :( “ she’s. saying she Didn’t do it and they shouldn’t accuse her. she’s not. asking for Forgiveness. she’s asking to be dropped from the questioning. like. forgive you for what exactly, tsumiki,

#lucy plays sdr2 #this got long sorry :'<

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annakie · 4 years

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An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Six

Wherein we get out into space and explore a bit, and complete our crew.

And post a lot of gifs, because screenshots were lost.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

So I use the NVidia Control Panel app to take screenshots and videos. Since it’s already running and it takes good shots it seems dumb to not use it.

I ended up being super busy this week and didn’t play much, just got through like, talking to Kaidan after the big speech on the bridge more or less for the entire week, and through Therum. I updated my drivers a day or two ago. And then I didn’t notice that for whatever reason, yesterday when I went to play for a few hours, NVidia decided to record videos just fine, but not take screenshots. I probably actually mashed the button several hundred times.... but all I got were videos.

Most of it wasn’t a great loss, it was a lot of talking to the crew, and a few planetary missions which... so I’m going to have to go back and redo some of it later for screenshots.

But I thought... hey, for posting on tumblr, I’ll just make it a shorter update and make a few gifs and most this a mostly-gif post! That’ll be fun!

...and then I spent several hours making almost 80 gifs, including a lot of what I also had screenshots for but thought making gifs would be more fun.

I mean I was watching the last few eps of the newest season of Great British Bake Off on Netflix, and a few other shows this morning so it wasn’t just gif time... but yeah I made a lot. So I might split this into two posts now because... that’s a lot of gifs. This post will still have a lot of screenshots, too. So here we go!

There are so many things to love about this moment. It’s such a great like, re-launch of the game... Bioware telling us “Okay, now you know the plot, you know all the major players, you know a lot about our world (galaxy) and how it works and who lives here, now, it’s time for you to go out on your own.”

First, it starts with being able to vent a little to Joker, which is a nice touch. Shepard might feel guilty about taking the ship over from Anderson, but Joker also assures us here, a great preview of the way he’s tasked with helping Shepard keep it together in ME3.

I love seeing Shepard’s words affect the crew. The swelling music, the same as the “you’re a Spectre now!!” music just underscores the journey, and what’s to come.

I used to always miss this scene by not picking the right speech option, and would be mad Kaidan was left out of this montage. My fault!

This moment is so beautiful and epic.

...and here we go.

ALOT, btw, makes the galaxy map so pretty. Sharper and clearer and more colorful.

We all usually just head to Liara’s Dig Site first, right? Unless you’re doing one of those “Pick up Liara last just to see what happens” playthroughs? I did that once. It felt weird. And sad, when you tell her “oops I killed your mom and I’m not sorry.” Seems like she shouldn’t have gotten over that so quickly, but well, that’s game design. The entire plot just doesn’t feel the same and more flimsy without Liara around from the start.

I usually do Therum --> Feros --> Noveria --> Virmire.

Well okay, first a stop at Edolus, since, you know, it’s on the way.

What a LOVELY day, nothing could possibly go wrong on this barren world. I feel like they gave us a pretty easy-to-get-around-on world to start out with.

I honestly love driving around in the mako 90% of the time? Once you’re used to the controls, it’s not that hard to get most places you want to go. Though I admit the Nomad in Andromeda is a big upgrade. I kinda miss it in ME2 and ME3, though I only do what driving is necessary in Overlord and skip Firewalker like, half the time.

First, let’s check out the map...

I’m pretty sure I didn’t realize you could mark your destination on the map and it’d put a handy arrow on your radar until I started playing on PC. Before then I was checking the map every 5 seconds making SURE I was going the right way. *facepalm*

Generally my scanning strategy on the planet is... just go to the things on the map, but do go to ALL the things on the map. If I see something along the way, stop and get it. I don’t go way out of my way to look for unmarked stuff. Usually the UNC missions can be completed doing that + complete planet / asteroid scanning.

Oh hey here’s a guy, let’s just grab what we can off him...

UGH. MINIGAMES.

Like I get that the minigame is a stand in for “looking for clues, are you successful in finding anything useful?” or whatever but it’s still just the worst. A minigame is fun occasionally, making it as a gate to something like looting a body is stupid. I guess I have to forgo actually putting points into things that keep Kaidan alive at the early levels so he can help me... loot bodies. Cool. Great.

Since I’m cheating in credits, all weapons and armor get medigelled almost immediately so that I don’t have to do the minigame later on when they get harder, like, ever.

The ME2 minigames at least make a little more sense than this moving puzzler thing. That’s at least an attempt to look like some kind of code hacking or rewiring/reprogramming. This thing is just... silly.

ME2 has a disable minigames mod... so there will be no talk of minigames from here on out. They don’t exist after the easy minigames early on in ME1.

So I ... somehow managed to not get video or screenshots of you know the ICONIC THRESHER MAW attack on Edolus? So please enjoy this gif I made of it back in 2013 instead.

It’s such a great fakeout and moment. Like “Oh man how easy my goal is like right in front of me! That’s great, so easy!” then OH HELL NO, FUCK YOU, GIANT WORM!!

These gifs are from another planet later on, but they’ll do.

My normal MO with Maws is to get out of the way, far enough that they can’t appear too close to or especially under me, but close enough that they do still show up, then stay stationary and jump over the goo while shooting at it.

YOU’RE FACING THE OTHER WAY HOW DID YOU SPIT AT ME?!

This is fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE. We’re just A LITTLE ON FIRE. Our shields are at full...

Oh hell, Kaidan slap some medigel on it, please.

Even though we don’t know who Cerberus is yet, FUCK YOU CERBERUS. I always bring the VS to any Cerberus mission because THEY WERE RIGHT NOT TO JOIN YOU IN CERBERUS. Let’s keep a FUCK YOU CERBERUS count going to remember all the horrible shit we SAW Cerberus do in ME1 to remind ourselves why Ashley or Kaidan is the only SANE ONE for going “No, sorry, I’m not joining you in Cerberus.”

Deep breath

OK, let’s go get Liara.

Wrex comes with us to Therum.

Dear Lord, Therum is gorgeous.

This is real nice just a pleasant day on this thresher maw-less planet and great scenery, we’ll find that asari scientist in no ti--- WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

Have I mentioned how everything is fine lately?

Well it’s time for how I deal with most of the geth while in the Mako...

Armatures are worth five points each!

Rocket troopers are only two points, but I got a lot of them!

Stopping and fighting in the Mako takes way too long. Push on through all the way til we’re stopped.

Hm, this is the one I should push, right?

*crickets*

Fine.

Just... real pretty.

I love this part of Therum right here. A really great, scary fight that feels so dangerous, but winnable. Great level design, too.

Then this happens.

Does everyone’s hair do that in this cutscene, or just mine, or this hairstyle?

Also, ME3 has a mod now that lets chracters use their correct weapons in cutscenes, my eternal devotion to the modder who could do that in ME1. None of these characters use assault rifles in-game!!

I’m fairly certain I have played and replayed this fight more than any other in ME1. AKA RUN FOR COVER OH SHIT AVOID THE BOMBS AND LASERS FLYING AT YOU AT ONCE PLEASE DON’T DIE COMPANIONS PLEASE KILL SOMETHING I CAN’T DO THIS ON MY OWN AHHHHH!!!

This time around, I died my first time, actually did really well the second time, and decided to go back and record the fight for gifs and... won, barely. The gifs would not be good. Wrex and Kaidan didn’t last long.

Anyway, It’s a great cutscene, but hoo boy I wish it were skippable.

Okay but what were these ruins *for*. Also, real lucky that they had the boss fight way up here instead of down where Liara was.

Speaking of Liara...

Hello Doctor T’soni!

I have a lot of questions like... how long have you been in that bubble? How are you sustaining it that long? How long has it been since you’ve eaten? If I didn’t come get you until after Virmire, would you have been holding that bubble up for the weeks in between then and now?

Ah well, you’re here now, and I suppose I’m going to owe you my life later so... welcome to the team.

You gotta admit that’s one badass entrance, though uh, if the forcefield is still up, where did he come from? Doesn’t matter. Wrex, let’s kill us one of your brethren (sorry.)

I’ll just *assume* that Liara is too tired from holding up her stasis bubble she was in to actually be USEFUL.

I love the chaos of running the fuck out of there.

Texture popping is still an issue even with a decent computer and texture packs, but at least it’s quick now.

Also I really feel the loss of this conference room in the future games. The awkward oval table never quite feels the same. But also, uh, this is a lot of room taken up in this small ship for eight chairs and a holoprojector. You gotta think there’s more uses for this space than just that.

But yeah, I love these check-ins, it’s a chance for everyone to get together and really hash out what’s going on, as well as reinforcing the plot to the players in a more natural way. Having Liara this early will let us understand the Protheans better at an earlier stage, even if it turns out she’s wrong about some stuff (though at the time this was written, she was right for all everyone knew.)

Wrex and Garrus don’t talk much here, probably because you can make it through the game without one of them. I did a “didn’t recruit Garrus” playthrough in ME2 once. They change like one or two lines then Garrus goes back to talking about Old Times. So like you CAN, but you really shouldn’t not recruit Garrus, because Bioware didn’t do a great job changing anything aside from your initial greeting during the Omega Archangel mission.

Not recruiting Wrex, though. Wow that’ll have consequences later on.

OK! So the gang’s all here, and this post is already very long. Next time: Let’s go talk to everyone for awhile, and do a few more sidequests because we can’t go back to the Citadel til our persuasion is high enough to grind Mikhailovich’s arguments into the dust!

#mass effect #liara t'soni #urdnot wrex #kaidan alenko #ashley williams #garrus vakarian #annakie's mass effect stuff

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snazzamazing · 5 years

Text

Stupid random theories, headcanons, and unpopular opinions of mine

Btw, these are all long so sit tight

My mangle theory :

I cant be the only one here who thinks that mangle was taken apart by little kids. It wouldn't make sense that little toddlers would be strong enough to pull apart a metal robot. That's because the kids didnt break her, william did. Mangle seems like he was an inspiration from funtime foxy because sister location happened before AND a lot of times, "toy foxy" is often referred to "funtime foxy". Due to this inspiration, mangle had the ability to record voices and things just like funtime foxy. Why am I pointing this out? Well, why would mangle randomly have static noises and a broken radio sound? It's her recorder, it's broken. He recorded many things and then recorded something that someone didnt want anyone to find out about. That someone would be William afton. William is always suspicious and doing evil things.Let's say that, oh idk, maybe William murdered someone, some person called the cops on him, (which explains the police messages n stuff in the radio) William killed that person and his the evidence of the murders. At least that's what he thought. Mangle was somehow recording the whole thing. William had no other choice but to take her apart and destroy him. But then William thought that it would to suspicious to have mangle be randomly broken the next day and so he fixed mangle up in way where it looks like shes fixed, but one tug hes broken and the kids are there to blame for. All of this might be a stretch I know, but apparently in one of the fnaf 2 minigames where theres a mangle Sprite, in the files or sources codes or WHATEVER IDK, there's a hidden message that says "he was here" or something like that. THAT CAN SUPPORT THIS THEORY errr headcanons? Idk I should go sleep lol

Micheal headcanon:

I always wanted to believe that Micheal was the older brother/Bully and that the bite victim was a different character. Why? Because I want more..character for Micheal. He went to sister location because he wants his torn apart family to be back together. He went to save Elizabeth and he never forgave himself for being the one to 'kill' his brother and all that failed. I wanted Michaels story to be exciting and emotional because of his past and the whole family thing

I also always liked to think that Micheal started working out to gain some strength before becoming a technician because he knows that the robots are strong and dangerous. That way things can be more action packed with Michael punching through pipes and walls, and holding back animatronics trying to grab him, and just...cool stuff

Fnaf headcanons:

Freddy has a nice deep voice and that's his real voice. When it comes to preforming during the day, he talks in his "family friendly" voice which is all goofy and fun (kinda like Patrick star's voice) The animatronics are a lot different on stage. It's as if they play as characters and they change their voices sometimes (like Freddy). Chica acts like this ditzy cute country gal, Bonnie is a laid back chill bon, foxy is just more ...pirate, and Freddy is a fun loving silly lead singer

Nightmarriones pupils change shape to Express his emotions. (Sad=tear drop pupils, sick=swirly pupils, angry=skull or fire pupils)

Lefty has his own voice instead of a whispery girly voice because he is his own character. He may look like the rockstars but he was made differently. The rockstars were built by some factory or company and they have advanced technology which gives em the ability to have emotions, personalities and to do tricks. Meanwhile lefty was built by henry in a shed or something. Henry only focused on programming him to find charlie and he had to make lefty look like the rockstars to blend in and not be suspicious. Other than that, lefty was a total rush job. Henry only wanted Charlie therefore, Henry didn't care to give lefty a personality, emotions, an EYE, or stablness.

In the afton family, the mother is sweet, kind, caring, and over protective while william is outgoing, silly, and isnt afraid to do anything (before he went insane). Usually kids have similar personalities to their parents soooo I like to think that Micheal is more like his mom but looks like his dad and that Elizabeth looks like her mom but acts like her dad. Why? Because I always saw Michael as a hero, he cares for others and he wants to save his family. He is sweet and protective like his mom. Elizabeth is rebellious and sassy. In the sister location mini cutscene with William and Elizabeth, she disobeys william to see baby and that's a rebellious move. Elizabeth likes adventure and crazy things so she wont follow the rules any time soon.

Funtime chica does all the rockstar's make up. When months pass by, the rockstar's paint would peel or chip and so ft. Chica would repaint their lipsticks, eye shadows, cheeks, etc. And they look fresh and new afterwards

Even though puppet and Goldie (and all the other animatronics) have been through so much shiz, they still try to keep their cool and enjoy life

In the rockstar crew r. Bonnie is the creepiest. Yeah, he seems chill and is self centered, he is the only rockstar who is most likely to murder someone if he's told to do so (this isn't counting ucn where they all kill). All on Bonnie's songs are so creepy and he sings about killing you in unique ways. Stuff like making slivers (or slippers) out of you, flaying your flesh, smashing your face into concrete, ending your life, and stabbing your heart with his guitar. He's definitely into gory stuff

Springtrap has two different personalities. Most of the time he's himself, spring bonnie. A kind fun loving bun who completely changed his personality after becoming springtrap. He is know constantly scared, upset, and afraid of Williams next move. He hates being an evil monster but it's not something he can control due to William still having control over him. When the slringbonnie side of springtrap gets mad or upset that's when hes weak and William takes control and becomes the evil side of springtrap. Springtrap is very aggressive and very strong. Slringbonnie tries to fight back Williams spirit, but as time went on and when the kids got sent free, spring bonnie got lonely and gave up which let William take full control over him. Sprjngbonnie is gone, its William now (which explains scraptrap)

Idk if this is a theory or headcanon but fnaf 1 bonnie is blue. Yes, he is known to be purple and everyone says and draws him purple but he's blue. Maybe it's the certain blue color he is but due to lightning it makes him look very purple. When he's in more darker areas, bonnie is very blue but when he's in the light areas, hes purple. Let's not forget how every single version on bonnie is blue (except for extras like spring springbon and bonnet etc.) Exept for fnaf 1 bonnie. That doesn't make sense if one of the originals would be purple but all the other versions are blue. One more thing, in the silver eyes, they mention that bonnie has blue fur ;) this was a dumb rant sorry

Shadow bon is evil and can shape shift cause hes a goopy shadow boy and shadow fred is his lil assistant

After fazbears fright burned down, William got to take control over springbonnie(trap) and roamed the streets at night. He roamed dark allies and probably killed whoever slighted him. It was a long walk but he was just trying to get to his destination, fred bears diner. Because of the fires, the springtrap suit was more ruined and unsturdy and so it was time for a change. Somehow William got out of the suit but he's weak without one so he picked an old spring bonnie suit, scraptrap. (According to the fnaf minigames there are multiple spring bonnie suits so that why spring trap looks different)

I got more headcanons but this post is already to long :p

My Unpopular opinions:

Am I the only one here who's not way into the whole Michael AI theory?? Like it kinda makes sense but at the same time, making a whole new robot son with advanced technology IN THE 80s does not give the fnaf-y feel?? Ya know what I mean? Like it doesn't fit the theme? Also the ai thing is in the books and the books are a different universe from the games sooo idk why matpat still connected them?? Hsjsbsjsjsn fnaf is just waaaaay to confusing. Also please dont get mad at me for this opinion cause matpats ai thing is just a theory, its not canon

Foxy isnt super great. Dont get me wrong, I love foxy and he's an amazing character but I don't get why he got so much attention and hype

Bonnet and lolbit should just be canon already. They're not canon characters but they're included in sooo many things in fnaf so might as well make em canon

Funko needs to make a fnaf 2 figure set where you collect t.chica,t.bonnie,t.freddy, puppet, one of the withereds or shadows and you collect them all to make a mangled mangle figure. I would DIE for a fully formed noodle fox figure, how cool would that be?

Scraptrap design is perfect. I know that we all make peanut and Jimmy neutron jokes but honestly I love his sharp teach, creepy eyes, AMazInG voice, and his stabby arm. Sometimes in some angles, he can look heck a creepy

SCRAP BABY LEGITIMATELY FREAKS ME OUT SHES SCARY

butter sock

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf sister location #sister location #fnaf ucn #fnaf theories #fnaf headcanon #im sooooo tired #all of these are dumb but i just wanted to get em off my chest #not art #yay

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sentientpaperbag · 4 years

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hey Sin, just wondering what The Arcana is about?

The arcana is a dating Sim phone me game where you romance six different characters:

The magician Asra. He's one of your closest friends and you live with him. He's nice and has a pet snake named Faust who is Babey.

The Countess Nadia. A gorgeous woman with flowing purple hair who comes to visit you after having strange dreams. She gets the plot going because you have to find the man who supposedly killed her husband, and later you have to figure out why a mysterious plague is returning.

The doctor Julian. A swashbuckling Handsome Lad who is flirty and kinda kinky. He wears an eye patch cuz he got the plague but he actually managed to get better. He's the one to claim he killed the count. Also he's a plague doctor and likes leeches. It's kind of a running gag at one point?

The recluse Muriel. A big, big guy who everyone forgets the moment he is out of vision. He really wants to be left alone but he just can't stay away and in his route specifically becomes part of the quest to figure out why a certain dead count is returning. The way you remember him is if you carry a pocket of myrrh!

The handmaiden Portia. Julian's sister who works under Nadia. She's adorable and has a cottage of her own on the grounds, and a cat named Pepi, who is Babey as well.

And finally Count Lucio, the man you were tasked with finding the killer of, but because this man has like one braincell, he found a way to come back and was a goat monster for a while. He has a prosthetic arm that looks like it's made of gold? He's my least fave but a lot of people love him and to that I say: to each their own.

So in this story you're visited by Nadia the night Asra leaves on a special journey. She asks you to read the cards, the titular Arcana that belongs to Asra (which he gave you), and after doing so asks you to come to her palace the next day. After she leaves, Julian comes in as he is looking for Asra (they have a history together.)

You go to the castle and meet Muriel at one point, but because of his curse, you forget him easily. He gives you a cryptic warning before leaving. Then you (literally) run into Portia! She escorts you to Nadia's home (you're late oops) and you get a nice place to stay in at her home. You have a choice at one point when you see some eels on whether you like them or not. It defines how animals treat you later lol. So long story short you have six routes you can take with different stories, each with a positive and negative ending. I've played only two and I haven't finished either so I don't know how it ends.

You can choose your pronouns so you can use he/him, she/her, or they/them. They never go into detail about appearance so you don't have to worry about the issue of like.. What other otome games do and automatically make it a woman if you yourself are not one. The story is a little flawed but it's not gonna be perfect and you'd have go change some stuff to make the other stories work. A couple of the characters have little back story things in their profiles which is neat.

There's a wheel to spin that either lands on coins or trinkets. You want it to land on both cuz trinkets , once you collect enough, give you a neat short story. Coins you use to buy the better, and sometimes spicy, choices in your preferred route.

There's also a thing where you watch several ad and after each ad you get 15 coins cuz a lot of people don't wanna pay for that or can't.

And then there is the cute postcard game. Basically it's a minigamd where you spin a wheel with 1, 2, or 3 and it determines how many steps you take on a little map, and you want to try and either get to one of three love interests on the map, where you get 1 heart if it's day, and potentially 2 once night hits in the minigame.

You can also find the cute snake Faust, and she gives you a wheel with the three on your field or a fourth, wrong choice that gives no hearts. It's usually one of four specific characters I've not mentioned cuz they become spoilery way quick and I'm trying not to spoil in case you wanna play this. I think it's on IOS but I know it's on android.

Some of the stuff with Muriel is a little uncomfy, he used to be a trained fighter who killed people for Lucio's enjoyment. As such he is now the biggest soft boy who doesn't wanna hurt anyone and just wants to be left alone with his beautiful wolf and his chickens. He wears some chains but so far in at least a few of the routes I've seen them come off

Here's pics of the main six:

Portia

Muriel

Asra

Nadia

Lucio

And Julian!

Plus the creators of this game have a blog they post update stuff on! @thearcanagame

A lot of people latch on to a specific character too which I find funny

Also every character is based around a certain card of the Arcana, it comes into play later.

#the arcana #i recommend it tbh it's fun and the art is really good #answering from mobile so i hope it doesn't mess up

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wispywillo · 5 years

Text

muriels traumatic background is handled in the most insensitive way possible

The Arcana is a game that indulges in many fantasies that varies from creative (magicians) and just jumps straight into inappropriate (BDSM, slavery) for a PG13 game.

I’m gonna handle the slavery fantasy because Yes. It’s there. Speaking as a diasporic black person, slavery is an incredible touchy subject for me. While never having gone through it, intergeneration trauma is most definitely a thing and even if it wasn’t -- empathy exists.

Muriel is an ex-slave. He used to really resonate within me as a character who suffered trauma and considers himself a loner. He is loved by the fandom because of his outcast demeanor. A lot of players probably suffer from social anxiety and thus see themselves within him. But let me get one thing straight:

the way he acts like this is 100% because of childhood trauma and trauma only exacerbated by the treatment of lucio

And that trauma more explicitly is from being held captive and turned into a slave.

From what we know, Muriel grew up homeless and was tortured/bullied by other school children his age. At such a young age, being without a family, being homeless, and being bullied leaves you vulnerable. It’s a vulnerability that most of us could never even dream of relating to unless you experienced it firsthand yourself. Count Lucio literally took a traumatized child’s vulnerability and abused him until he was at his beck and call.

Something that a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that slavery is one of the most traumatizing thing someone could experience

Slavery Literally Ruins Your Life

Slavery literally runs on vulnerable people’s entire lack of agency and safety. And if someone ever defies their owner in choice of having autonomy -- they’re punished with any and all kinds of abuse.

slavery shouldnt be something you take lightly

but thats EXACTLY what nix hydra is doing to this character.

especially in heart hunter:

(cred. anonymous @thearcanasucks)

Muriel was coerced into fight under the guise of “the Scourge”

Lucio basically molded Muriel into a fighting machine persona, just so he could enjoy watching slaves fight and kill each other. He had no concern over Muriel’s physical or emotional health -- if Muriel ever died doing what Lucio forced him to do he wouldn’t even care. And muriel was put into a situation where he had to murder if he valued his own life.

And let’s not ignore race -- Muriel is a brown man. He’s big too. And he murdered people (who were most likely stuck in the same situation as him). Nix Hydra thought it was acceptable to make a man of color into a violent racist caricature. And this is racist in so many ways -- it just matters how you apply it. And nix hydra gives you plently of room thanks to never confirming his race:

native american men face the violent stereotype of being deemed “savage” and being bloodthirsty warmongers. Muriel being a brown man tied up in chains? Living in wilderness? Fighting to the death? Checks all of the anti-native narratives.

Being a man of slavery? Slavery is already hugely racialized. Some of the biggest and longest standing slave trades involved african, arabic, and native american people. And since we don’t. know. his. race. we can just assume that he’s all of the above and fits yet another racist trope :)))

now we know that slavery is Bad and Traumatizing and we ESPECIALLY know that Muriel Is Traumatized. But does the writing know? because no.

back onto the heart hunter topic (because im a bitch who doesnt know how to organize) Heart Hunter is a minigame where youre meant to collect as many hearts as possible to win a photocard and some coins and stuff. every time you collect a heart you’re shown a cute interaction between you and a character -- or a character and a character. These interactions are meant to be lighthearted and fun, maybe even romantic. And it worked for a while.

Until the writers at Nix Hydra somehow thought it would be lighthearted, fun, and romantic to write about Muriel’s slavery. Multiple characters bring up Muriels slave persona as if its not a sensitive topic you should only approach with as much care as possible. Slavery is a repulsive practice and it should be treated as such.

And even if you ignore slavery being slavery, Muriel as a character is shown being traumatized by his past. he tries to bury it as much as he can even if that means making people forget about him entirely

Muriel is CLEARLY bothered by his past and wishes no reminder of it -- but what do the other characters do? exactly that. They explicitly call him and refer to him as “Scourge” his slave name, even right to his face. So either everyone hates him wants to trigger him or the devs hate us and wants to trigger us.

and this screenshot shows that even years after Muriel becoming a public embarrassment, that he still doesn’t own an ounce of his own privacy. This 2-lined interaction shows us that people are still buying and selling his personal property without his consent. All because they KNOW slaves don’t own their own agency, their own life, their own image. That isn’t okay.

what also isn’t okay is the fact that they brush over it like its some cutesy ‘oh oops!’ moment. Portia shouldn’t be enticed by the fact that her friends underwear is being sold on the black market. She should be horrified. Especially when we see Muriel uncomfortable at the fact and even his reaction isn’t a well written one.

would this your reaction if you found out someone somehow got a hold of your used underwear and sold it to creeps for god knows how much money?

Its obvious that the writers at Nix Hydra also don’t see Muriel as a character with his own agency. They will shove his own trauma in his face, but write him indifferent -- because they don’t care that Muriel suffered trauma for nearly his entire life. Nope. Because caring for a trauma-ridden brown man would just be too much work for them.

they’d rather use their time to turn their slave owning, abusive villain into a quirky little power hungry ghost uwu or whatever theyre getting at...

this isnt good. its offensive. and i almost broke out in tears at the way theyre handling this man’s situation. it fucking sucks. stop supporting these racist shit bags please i beg of you

#the arcana #muriel #slavery tw #abuse cw #long post #uhhh cant think of anymore but please if you find anymore let me know!

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thechocobros · 5 years

Text

My little (not so little) Kingdom Hearts III’s review :)

(possible spoilers under the cut)

Somebody asked for my personal opinion about the game, so, here I am! I’ll try to be as objective as possible, even if you probably know already my deep affection for this saga and for its creators XD

Let’s start with the positive things, the things that really impressed me the most about KH3, which are: the graphic (even the in-game one), the gameplay, the huge amount of enjoyable exploration. And then I’ll start voting the rest, by giving my opinion.

- Graphic: 10/10. I was able to see the pores on Sora’s face and on Terra’s hands. I was able to zoom on the smallest details with my Gummiphone and still find some amazing details in the landscape. Literally EVERYTHING was so well done i had to stop more than once to admire what i was playing. It was stunning. Let’s not even talk about the Disney cutscenes, because those were a masterpiece and i have no words to describe them.

- Gameplay: 10/10. Listen, i never played a game where there were so MANY options for the gameplay. I beated the 13 darknesses by using attractions, limits, different forms, combined moves, special abilities, combos, different keyblades ... There were so many minigames, ideas, i fought on Baymax, i fought as a captain of a ship, i cooked, I did treasure hunts, took pictures, the gummiship style too ... every fricking world offered so many different gameplays options i even freaked out because i wasn’t able to learn them all. It was so FUN!

- Exploration; 10/10. Let’s be real, every world (except Twilight Town lol) was as huge as all the Disney worlds of the previous KH games together. Really, i was lost. It was even too much. It will take me a lifetime to explore all the worlds in all its beautiful details xD for ex in the POTC’s world we are able to access to at least 6 different islands + Port Royal + underwater + the battles setting + we command an entire sailing ship. Also, have you try to collect all the lucky emblems? Because I think they all are in some areas i still don’t know they exist. It was AMAZING.

- Music: 8/10. I love “Face my fears” so much, i like “Don’t think twice” a lot, Utada is always a queen. As for Yoko, she never dissapoints me either, even though this time she didn’t came out with “new” brilliant melodies like she did in the other games. She mostly arranged differently songs and themes we already were familiar with, which is nostalgic and happily welcomed anyway. + Bonus Points to Somnus song mixed together with Hikari. Wow.

- Plot twists/Surprise/content/plot elements: 8.5/10. Every Kingdom Hearts game needs a huge amount of “WHAt-THE-moments” and KH3 makes no exception. The final battles and the endings were a concentrated of twists and turns, starting from Yen Sid, to Ephemer, from Sora dying (like twice, during this game? the last one almost got me tho), to Kairi dying, from Xigbar’s real identity to Yozora officially inserted in KH’s main plot etc etc. It was a rollercoaster. And I loved it. Funny enough, the only “secret” that didn’t feel like a “secret” was the “secret” that Nomura defined the “biggest secret” XD ... aka Roxas xD I mean, they talked about making a replica for Roxas all the game long, so when Roxas actually appeared and claimed that Vexen made a replica for him, i was like ... yeah, thanks, that’s not a brand new information xD Talking about Vexen, him and the rest of the Organization had some really nice surprising elements, their story was worthy.

- The narrative/structure/pace: 6.5/10. Ok, here’s the thing. Even if the actual story content was interesting and pretty good, there were problems in the pace and we all hardcore fans noticed it. Why was that? Because they changed some things they shouldn’t have changed in order to give more space to Disney worlds.

For ex, I’m talking about the fact that we started our adventure in ... the Olympus world. I have nothing against that world of course. But in KH1 we started in Destiny Islands/Traverse Town. In KH2 we started in Twilight Town. In KHBBS we started in the Land of the Departure. In KH3 we should have respected traditions and start from an original world. Why? Because original worlds are strictly connected to the original characters’ development + main plot. By making Sora starting in a Disney world, they cut out an extremely important part in the KH3 story’s development, aka the very own basis. And no, Twilight Town arrived 3 hours later, and was half as big as the other Disney worlds, so it doesn’t really stand the competion.

So, by putting so many Disney worlds and cutting out the original worlds, they confused the storyline’s pace. The actual story’s progression was reduced to some cutscenes between a world and another which is ... not a really good idea. We needed at least one or two more playable original worlds somewhere there in between, like KH2 had Radiant Garden and KH1 had Traverse Town, so that the story could have been developed and the characters would have been able to meet and interact properly.

In fact, the biggest problem is that the entire main plot is rushed in the last hours of the game. 35 hours of funny happy Disney gameplay. 5 hours of actual plot. It’s not balanced. The player didn’t feel the rising pressure for the final battle of light against darkness. No matter how epic the Keyblade War actually was, of course it felt a bit rushed, because it popped out all of a sudden and wasn’t smoothly inserted from the beginning of the game.

I can actually justify this choice though: KH3′s purpose was to give a conclusion to Xehanort’s saga. Which means they didn’t plan to develop the story or the characters more than what they already had in the previous games. They just wanted to show a proper “conclusion”. Not “development”.

It’s not the choice i would have taken in terms of storytelling, but it’s an option so i’m not really angry about it. It worked anyway because almost all the characters really had a solid background plot. .... almost. Which sadly leads to the sore point of the game. Here we go.

- Characters development: 7/10. Kingdom Hearts has a large quantity of very developed characters. Kingdom Hearts’ original characters are the ones who entered in out hearts years ago and we love them for a reason. They’re all well characterized, with specific strengths and weaknesses. Which means that no matter how weird the pace of KH3 could have been, the characters have been so well written in the previous games that they were able to tollerate everything in terms or story telling. Sora, Riku, Aqua, Roxas, Axel, Ventus, Xion, Terra, Naminè .... they all had a major role in KH’s plot on their shoulders and unique facets. But one character was strongly penalized by this the rhythm of KH3: Kairi.

Unlike most of the other characters that belong to the famous trios, Kairi could never count on a strong background, nor a good characterization.

Even though i liked her in KH1 (where she at least interacted with both Sora and Riku multiple times and had a part in the main plot, even if she was comatose for 80% of the time), it’s not a secret that she got benched immediately after that. KH2 didn’t make her justice with all that being kidnapped, and in the next games she completely dissapeared even. She was never involved in the story ever again. What am i referring to?

In Birth By Sleep, only Sora and Riku met all the members of the wayfinder trio and played an actual part in their lives. Kairi barely meet Aqua once, and never played an active part in her life anyway. I mean, Aqua never needed Kairi for anything, never. On the contrary, both Sora and Riku were vital for all the members of the wayfinder trio, back then and later on.

In Chain of Memories, Coded, 358/2 days ... Kairi was replaced with two other girls that quickly became more interesting than Kairi herself, aka Naminé and Xion. In those stories Kairi is barely mentioned and almost never appears. But Sora and Riku ... oh, Sora and Riku! They’re the PROTAGONISTS. They always interact, they always appear, they always do stuff.

Let’s not even talk about Dream Drop Distance, where it’s JUST Sora and RIku.

What’s my point? The Destiny trio isn’t a trio, it’s a duo. Kairi is ALWAYS put in a corner, she never has a part in the story.

I’m not talking about ships, i don’t care about ships, I don’t ship Soriku nor Sokai, it’s not about this. The problem is Kairi’s character development, which did not exist. Not only a development, but even a purpose was missing.

So, since i kinda liked her in KH1 and the potential was there, i thought that KH3 would have set things right for her. I had high hopes especially because of Axel, I was like, “WOW here it is a great potential for a good, healthy, platonic relationship, finally Kairi found someone to be paired with and do stuff. We will finally see her being weak, finding her power again, maybe she will be a playable character, maybe she will interact with BOTH Sora and RIku too, making jokes, express her preferences etc etc” yeah and what we got? Kairi is reduced to a mere man pain object again. She almost forgot about Axel once that Sora appeared. She got kidnapped here and there all along. Again. She kinda forced Sora to eat that fruit and never asked for his opinion, while Riku was having an existential drama going on just some steps away. But i don’t think she cares for Riku anyway since she never had any kind of bond time with him and isn’t interested in his problems. She fought once (badly), revealing that her training was somehow useless (she had to be saved by Sora and the others). She gets killed (pretty stupidly too) and Sora had to sacrifice to bring her back. And what made me angry the most: Sora’s heart gets lost in the process of saving her but it’s NOT Kairi the one going after him in the secret ending. IT’S RIKU. LIKE WHAAAT?? Riku?? She can’t even take her girly keyblade and go after the boy she is supposed to love and that died for her?? Riku has to do it? Really? It’s ridiculous. ...

Furthermore, she wasn’t a playable character. The only characters that we were able to play were Sora, Riku and .... Aqua! Pretty funny. (I think they are Nomura’s favorites, i don’t know.)

Kairi’s only part in KH3 was changing outfit and “being Sora’s light” somehow but ... that was so much out of the blue and most likely an isolated moment. It could have been a nice coronation for a developed love story but the problem is that no development was there before.

So, going back to my point.

Even if i would have chosen another way to tell the story, the rushed pace of KH3 worked for everyone anyway, except for Kairi. Kairi needed a different treatment.

But at this point i don’t think she will ever get it, probably Nomura doesn’t like her too much since he decided to make another DreamDropDistance game settled in Insommia next time xD so i give up on her. I’ll focus on the other beautiful female characters of this game.

Anyway, even if i talked a lot about why Kairi was another flop, i want to point out how interesting some characters got instead. I’m talking about Xigbar (great plot twist), Saix, Demyx, Vexen (Vexen had so much importance, i mean, i didn’t expect him to be the one moving kh3’s plot), Luxord, Marluxia, Larxene and Repliriku! They used to be marginal characters and now they turned out to be protagonists, it’s amazing.

- FF characters: 7/10. I really loved Verum Rex’s surprise, it’s a clever idea to recycle the Versus characters and concepts Nomura couldn’t bring to life. Now that Nomura turned them into original characters, he has the copyright over them again thanks to Disney and he can use them as much as he wants, bringing the “ff characters cameos in kh” on a brand new level. Starting from the next game, we will have semi-FFcharacters included in the main plot, not just having a cameo here and there, which is amazing!

But. This doesn’t mean i didn’t miss actual FF characters in Kh3. Cloud, Leon&Co left a hole in kh’s tradition.

Let’s sum it up my notes:

Graphic: 10/10 +

Gameplay: 10/10 +

Exploration: 10/10 +

Music: 8/10 +

Plot twists/Surprise/Content/Plot elements: 8.5/10. +

The narrative/structure/pace: 6.5/10. +

Characters development: 7/10. +

FF characters: 7/10. +

Total = 8,3

AND ... THAT’S IT FOR NOW I GUESS? xD

#kh3 spoilers #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3 #kh3 #obina plays kh3

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