#Incoming OC lore drop

[katartna]

Song of Frosted Light ❄️🕊️

#oc #original character #oc illustration #digital art #blue hair #singing #dancing #winter theme #Another npc from my ttrpg campaign! #Her name is Amelie Felicienne Honorius #Incoming OC lore drop #fancy soft noblewoman who is very sheltered and polite but also aloof in a way where she prefers to keep to herself #she has a voice that can crystalize the air into ice and it responds to her singing #she performs for the noble court and is amazing at it especially with the ice magic she brings with her performances #she didn't have good control over her voice magic at first and her father is also overprotective so she doesn't have much life experience #she does her best to understand others even though she still is figuring out herself #many people see her as the superstar singer of a prestigious holy knight family so she works hard to keep that image up #hoping she would eventually become that image completely #she's actually quite rebellious too beneath that elegance in public and shyness at gatherings #so she knows trying to become this image will be very difficult #not that it's best for her but that's all she knows thanks to her protective dad #she is unfortunately very trusting of her dad even though he's got a lot of issues and would not approve of rebellious behavior #Amelie is good and one of my many daughters I love her

[ervona]

Lulu a while back vs today... messing with her colour scheme but I love the storm cloud hair

(the graphics difference lmaooo)

#lore drop incoming i already wrote something on discord so let me phrase it nicely to contain all the info #oc tag

[smilesobrien]

hiding from tha rain in my car, how is everyone...

#thinking about the next star day of oc tober. ant and birdie lore drop incoming #and you will realize. #text tag

[konjkitkatty]

Hey, just wanted to tell you that I absolutely ADORE Boros, I love their design and The God of Time's crown being a clock is genius.

oh BOY im so glad- lore yap session incoming!

yknow i was rlly worried abt the reaction Boros would get when i finally finished him. I knew for a while i wanted to do smthn with a time deity in COTL but i’d never seen any fanmade bishop ocs up until mine and I wasn’t sure if that was like- some sort of unspoken bridge i wasn’t supposed to cross. Yea, gods existed before the bishops, but the bishops r the last of them, there’s a whole prophecy, I wasn’t sure if it was like… yknow… ALLOWED. The lack of seeing other ocs like him also meant i had veryyyy little references to draw inspo from… like, thank GOD for my mutuals otherwise Boros would just b snake Heket 🤧

The clock was a completely out of nowhere idea to make their crown more unique, since without the clockhand pupil the Orange Crown is… well….. kinda just the Blue Crown with a few extra sides. Plus, I wanted to make it more unique- like the Purple and Yellow Crowns!

It was revealed to me in a maladaptive daydream- the sound of time ticking away following the god wherever they may go, a permanent reminder of how the noise of marching seconds never truly ends nestled safely atop their head. It, the journey, the flow of a river neverending, the sand carried away by eternal winds, ever so present yet always fleeting. Death, the inevitable end, the long drop, the only escape from time’s eternal dance for mortals and gods alike. But what is death without time? What is time without death? What are either without a beginning?

Plus, like, yknow, it looks rlly cool…

Yap session over. Either way, i’m VERY satisfied w Boros AND the Orange Crown and i’m happy to know everyone else seems to be as well!

#ramblings of a kitkat #wow lore drop where’d THAT come from😨

[kylejsugarman]

what did baby think of demi when they first met? what did demi think of baby? how did demi cope with the loss of her sister as a new parent? did she start work at the clinic right away, or did she wait to look after baby? how did baby and demi cope in the weird Transitional period between samantha and josephine dying? did mason keep taking care of baby, or was it just demi? did baby start kindergarten so she would just have Supervision when the adults in her life couldn’t provide it? also, how did mason do with all these changes? sorry for a million questions that are all over the place, i just really like the Ayuluk Family Lore and wonder a lot about that sort of. uncertain period specifically… your ocs are so well fleshed-out and so interesting to me

are u kidding, never be sorry for a million questions about my oc’s i could literally talk about them Forever!! baby had met demi a couple of times whenever demi came home from school to visit her family and just sort of had a vague impression of her as “nice lady who looks like mom and grandma”. demi of course loved her niece and enjoyed seeing her with every visit, but she didn’t know a ton about her specific behaviors when she first moved back home. demi and baby really only had a few weeks to get to know one another better before samantha died, time that demi mostly spent getting her clinic set up and working with her family to try to figure out a recovery plan for samantha. very suddenly losing samantha to an overdose when demi had been working towards getting her sister some help was extremely traumatizing, but demi has always been the family member who absorbs everyone else’s pain and stress so she put her grief aside. she just focused on getting the funeral planned and dealing with now legally having custody of baby, which meant that demi truly never processed her sister’s death in a whole and complete way.

demi kept working on getting her clinic started without any delay because she knew that the family would need income on top of what mason was making. for a moment, things were almost okay, but then josephine died and life just kind of. went gray for all of them. demi continued not dealing with the deaths so she could perform all of the necessary duties and responsibilities required to keep their family afloat, which meant fading out of her life and not having many chances to bond significantly with baby other than caring for her on a loving but not quite personable level. mason had already stepped up by dropping out of high school to work and take care of his mom, but he had always been the optimist until sam and josephine died; he kind of dimmed after that and started smoking a lot more in his down time. he still took care of baby like he had done before, but it was just. Different yk?? and baby had already been a quiet kid but after the deaths, she basically stopped talking for a while and just stayed in her own little world. she did what she was told and was still willing to interact when necessary, but she mostly just stayed in her room. that was also when her sleep issues showed up and really started getting bad.

baby was put in kindergarten early so she could have adult supervision. demi and mason tried to spend as much time as possible with her, but with both of them working now, they couldn’t provide full time care. demi was never fully alone in taking care of baby since her brother was with her every step of the way, but she justifiably felt very lonely during this time and like there was no way for her to ever be a good parent to baby with this kind of start. it was the kind of thing she just couldn’t imagine them ever recovering from

#anonymous #these are such good questions im literally bouncing off the gd walls #thank u so much :’) #demi ayuluk #mason ayuluk #baby ayuluk #samantha ayuluk #josephine ayuluk

[puppycheesecake]

i really wish lian♡ can become one of important sims to you and not just a pretty character to have fun dressing up, he's so interesting and deserves a whole story! and by the way, can you tell us more about his personality and background please?

(do i enjoy writing his name with a heart? who knows)

Oop, OC lore drop incoming... 👀

Oh, once I start giving them a personality/backstory it's all over; they become permanent residents in the game. The only reason I haven't put together a house for him yet is I've still got my western vampire save open and my build-focus is still on Chestnut Ridge, but I'm thinking he'll live in San Myshuno. Definitely one of the bigger apartments. (On top of being very good at his job he learned to be good with money from growing up struggling, so his finances are sound. 👌 He may be in magazines now but he never outgrew being a budget shopper.)

It's rare that I don't have potential love interests in mind for an OC, but there's just so many good options for him, and honestly he'd have too much fun playing the field to settle down anytime soon. He's a serial dater and a menace to the local singles population. (Let's be honest, he's a menace wherever he goes.)

I do think he'd have an extra interest in occult partners if only for the added ~excitement~ of it. He's weakest to vampires but they've historically been the worst for him. Always on the lookout for an alien in part because he just really wants someone to take him to Sixam for vacations.

Random Trivia: He started going to conventions and competing in costume contests as a teenager; learned how to sew/fabricate so people would take him more seriously when he won. (He got tired of hearing "UGH you only won because you're PRETTY. That's not a skill. 🙄") He still goes now as an adult (and absolutely still dresses up; he's a big nerd at heart), but he mostly only competes with masked costumes because he's too widely recognizable now and doesn't want it influencing a win.

#Lian♡ #gonna have to make a dedicated tag for him; I'm in too deep

[wilsons-journey]

Lore drop? Lore drop! (long ramble incoming)

Because I have no idea how to fit everything in this blog. So much stuff, so less time to draw / tell it all.

So who is Israfil? Like Valefor or Kying - he is based of a OC of mine. He is originally planned as Demon. Valefor as an Oni (own interpretation) and Israfil as a different kind of Demon. A stronger one, that actually created the Demons to which Valefor belongs. Sounds similar to the training ground, huh? I tweaked their Story to fit into Tyria Lore and have a place to put my hyperfixation for these idiots in. (I still haven't figured out their appearance as demons. And they will be most likely get a human appearance... I can't draw RIP.) Little fun Sidenote: Kying in his original AU belongs to a kind of species, that has the ability to track down those magical creatures. Like Demons. His kind don't has a name yet.

Now. Israfil in Tyria Lore. Before the release of SotO he was planned as a lesser Dragon Servant. Nothing special. Now I'm thinking about him being a lesser Demon. It would fit even more. He got in touch with a lot of magic. That changed him. Even more, when he crashed into a Charr by accident. He devoured him and took on his appearance - allowing him to walk among the mortals. But he yearns for more and more magic. He feast on it, like a parasite. He lives to survive and to expand. In the beginning it was just that - feasting on magic. But with the time he grew more and more hungry. And the more Magic he devoured,... the more he evolved from a mindless creature into a thinking being. At the same time his taste changed. Magic alone was not enough anymore. He started devouring other creatures, too. With the newly acquired foresight, he started to planing out his moves, how he get more of the things he needs.

With that he created the training ground, to train his very own Pawns. First only to feast on them - later to train them to fetch him magic. Be it raw, in artefacts or... people. For the last point, he developed a special weapon that holds their souls. And with it his organization was born.

Because of his own need to survive, he is obsessed of Valefor. He saw that man fight for his life over and over again. In a pit he created to his amusement and to feast (Again, he is one very hungry boy). But Valefor refused to die - that's why he decided: You are my Champion now. Yes. Excatly this. This don't go as usual, but he still manages to bind Valefor to him.

And in short: The topic around the Void inspired me to throw Israfil in there. So he is basicly a walking mass of conscious void. An anomaly. And you can't really kill him.

Now into some more spoiler territorial. (like SotO)

He will have a very hard time, when Aurene starts to cleanse the world from this corrupt magic. He will slowly but surely start to fade away - forcing him back to this former, weak self - a lesser demon.

I'm not sure yet if he just vanishes or if he grew into a huge problem once more. I will decide with the upcoming SotO Chapters.

----

But that's what I had in mind for this nasty man. And I really wanted to talk about it. Thank you for reading through ♥

#israfil #lore drop #chaotic evil

[vertraumend]

I've been working on comms as of late, and I've been sucked right back into Black Desert. (I made my spouse's OC in it as a scholar bc why not, and then it turns out that the scholar is sick and I love her lore and moveset like holy fuck ... the overarching story is still shit but I'm over here bludgeoning enemies with two huge hammers.) ANYWAY I'm behind on PtN and HSR.

incoming rant below

but ... I am most likely going to stop playing Twst. I'll keep up with it via translations from JP, but the game just??? It's not fun for me. I'm tired of the continuous disappointment when I pull on any banner. Like since the year started I haven't pulled a single SSR, and trust me I've blown through more than enough pulls that at some point I should have gotten at least 1 or 2. But pity doesn't work in twst like it works in PtN or HSR or even F FUCKING GO. I think in total I only have like 27 SSRs since I started playing, which feels like a lot until I am harshly reminded that I had to put down over 500 in cash to get that amount. And the grind isn't fun. The official localization is mindbogglingly bad at times. The mischaracterization ... ughhh I could go on.

I hate bouncing between twst and PtN, doing only like 50 pulls or less on PtN and walking away with up to two S-ranks, while twst gives me nothing. it's kinda disheartening. ummm also PtN's localization is really good?? like really fucking good. HSR suffers a little because honestly, it takes a bit to get a 5* to show up, at least with my luck. but frankly for games that I've put less money into, I tend to get more bang for my buck than I have with twst. Why does it take 100+ pulls to get a fucking SSR?? is this f/go??

so yeah, I'm probably going to drop twst bc I can't do it anymore. the game isn't fun for me. I'll keep up with it bc I'm invested in the characters, and the overarching story, but I'm just not into the gameplay.

#【 ♛ › OUT OF CHARACTER 】 — ❖ ❝ Sweet Nightmare #i'll clean my OOC posts later

[the-worm-wiggles]

Hi I am going around to everyone who reblogged that post with tags: please use this ask as an excuse to ramble about your ocs I want to hear about them

Omg dawg that's so many people, kudos

Aight so the reason I said I'd drop it in the chronmune at some point is bc a lot of it's still secret (and a few of them follow me here so 🤐)

But I'll gladly do an overview of the chronmune and my characters yeah

So, the chronmune (originally "the ceaseless watcher's special little commune") is a tma based rp that started in april 2021 on discord. Following tiktok user crowpunkin's t party livestreams, where over a few months he and the chat brainstormed a fictional castle commune.

Once the discord was made it was swiftly turned into mostly being about the rp (though we still have plenty of beloved folk in there who don't rp)

I ended up being the one to develop much of the lore about the actual castle and commune and all that jazz in the rp.

And so, my bullshit:

The castle had existed for a very long time, longer than even the history I know of it. But what I do know of it is after it had been abandoned for only a few years. A couple moved in, known to us as Mx Chron and Ms Eye, and their child. Chron and Eye would do anything to protect their child, and fortunately for them, they had magic they could employ. So they took the opportunity.

A barrier, encompassing the entire castle grounds, to keep their family safe. Their child was away while they installed it, so they hoped it would be a nice surprise to return to.

But, of course, it went wrong.

The barrier instead made it so that members of the Chron-Eye family could not leave the castle grounds. And so that is where Mx Chron and Ms Eye died, after begging their child to never return, lest they also be trapped there.

Fast forward to the 1880s

The Chron-Eye family was still around, though the name had been bastardised. After dying of tuberculosis, Mee6 Cronie found themself to still be around, though no one could see them. They were a ghost.

Mee6 had always been a rambunctious child in life and took this opportunity to start a grand exploration. Which originally was just further into the city than she'd previously been allowed to go. But eventually took him across oceans to different countries.

1947

Mee6, much more corporeal and confident in their ghostly abilities than when they first died, found themself dealing with a new issue. The inability to leave a castle he had thought looked fun to explore.

And the worst part was that she was alone. There was a long time where she was unable to communicate and interact with others, but there were always people around.

But now it was just him.

And a swirling pattern on a wall, that seemed like it was trying to comfort them.

1965

Someone else entered the castle. Varis Zima, current representative of Chron. Not that Mee6 understood what that meant, but they were thrilled to find out that he was planning on bringing more people to the castle. Making it a beloved and fairly safe space.

1969

Varis- The High Priest finished setting up The Eye Commune, bringing in its first wave of inhabitants, and workers. For the commune was not just the commune but also had a fantastic cheese factory. These cheese makers would generate the main source of income for the castle.

The High Priest hadn't chosen this castle at random. It was a very spesific mission he went on to find the castle once inhabited by the first Chron avatar. He knew about the barrier and, being a Chron avatar himself, managed to gain control of it.

The cheese makers could not leave.

A young person, they couldn't have been older than 20, was visiting the town the castle was in. They saw a poster for the castle's cheese factory grand opening sale, and thought they might as well check ot out.

They were invited into the castle to look at the cheeses still maturing.

They could not leave.

Wow, what an incredibly long post for me and I didn't even get to the modern stuff, but that's more plot than lore anyway

<3

#chronmune #tma rp #kinda #ocs #cw child death #cw death

[floofsselfshipblog]

OC/Self Insert Lore Incoming!:

Thinking of giving Láng some kind of scar to show that he was dropped from the Celestial Realm….like a burn scar from the impact

#self ship #tw scars #not shown but mentioned #lego monkie kid oc #láng lmk

[tenebrisxarmatus]

Halo Infinite

Alright now that I’m not away from home I think I can finally put into words why the campaign hits all the right notes with most people I know. Obviously there’s going to be spoilers, so read ahead at your own risk:

So after getting 4 (decent campaign, great story but hindered by usual ‘new studio’ growing pains) where the dynamic in the galaxy had shifted, and then getting the absolute DUMPSTER FIRE that was 5, Infinite’s main draw, at least to me, is a return to form by embracing Halo CE all over again.

Your ship is downed after being forced to flee a fallen human stronghold by a superior enemy, landing on a mysterious ring world where you must gather survivors, mount a resistance, and unlock the secrets of this alien structure, and put a stop to an existential threat to the galaxy. 

Sound familiar? Exactly. They pulled a “Force Awakens” but instead of just rehashing the first game and calling it a day, and then calling all of their fans racist, they used it as a foundation and built up from there after taking valid criticism to heart. For anyone who read The Flood way back when, it’s like we get to be Silva and McKay this time around whenever you’re not dealing with the Harbinger or John’s trauma regarding Cortana/The Weapon.

This brings me to the sandbox, and I know that the grapple and other equipment are controversial to some, but we’ve had equipment since Halo 3, it’s just how the game evolved. We have all the tools we want and the game doesn’t hold your hand about it. It gives you a toolbox, gives you an objective, gives you the option to upgrade your gear, and then just lets you have at it. I’ve heard people call this the best Far Cry in years and despite it being a joke, I agree. Without being kidnapped by the protagonist every 5 minutes and rescued by THE TOKEN RESISTANCE FIGUREHEAD right afterwards, it actually feels like you’re fighting an uphill battle instead of being toyed with by a cult or a dictator for the sake of the plot. The simplest way I can put it is; you’re playing Halo Wars 3 from the perspective of a Hero Unit.

As for the story; 343i is back to doing what they started in 4 and dropped the ball with in 5, exploring the Master Chief as a human in comparison to normal people, and in this case a “normal” AI. This sort of thing is a gold mine for lore fans, for people with S-II/III OCs, and just about anyone who reads the books. That subtle detail of Chief using Samuel and his ID number (034) as his deletion code for the Weapon actually choked me up, after so many decades he still remembers and mourns his first real friend in the Spartan program. Additionally, there’s consistency between all three games, even though what consistency we got in 5 lasted all of 5 seconds. John is still dealing with Cortana asking him to figure out which of them is the machine, and it’s still up for debate when John refers to his will to fight as his programming.

Speaking of AIs, let’s talk about The Weapon. Pure cinnamon roll who needs to be protected at all costs. She’s peppy, happy, and has a great rapport with John even when they go through their conflict after he tried to delete her. It brings back the feeling of “DILF must protect daughter/son/child while finishing his mission” but with just enough of a twist that it doesn’t feel recycled, and we don’t have to worry about any incoming golf clubs in the next game. Her interactions with the Fernando Esparza (The Pilot) are also fun to work with, and this might sound insane to some, but none of it felt forced or unnatural to me, even with the occasional timing issue.

When it comes to how things were handled with Cortana, I’m actually happy with how things turned out. 343i realized that they fumbled things with 5, and while not just retconning the last game, they did the best with what they had and brought in their strongest narrative left to fix things; the Halo Wars story. Cortana has been handled, Atriox is still available for future outings as a primary antagonist, and with the fate of the rest of the Created up in the air, we’ll see what the Endless have in store for us.

All this being said, there is one elephant in the room that is thankfully, easy to avoid. Fucking Escharum. They push him too hard on the player, but at the very least there’s a Skip button or you can just walk past his hologram and ignore it. He’s no Atriox, he’s no Prophet of Truth, and he’s definitely no Gravemind, but at the very least his boss fight matched the hype he put into the campaign, so he has that going for him.

All around, a return to form by listening to fans has restored my faith (and that of many others) into a franchise that I had feared was dead. In regard to the campaign and only the campaign (I’ll bitch forever about the Multiplayer monetization), it feels nice to see the Halo community active again, and I’m hopeful that this is the start of a trend of excellent campaigns.

#Halo Infinite #Campaign #OOC #spoilers #Master Chief #The Weapon #finally some good fucking food

[ellovett]

I’ve pressed the ask button oh no😩

now you gotta random infodump us on anything about Jesse bc I said so hoho

DAMN. You got me.

Incoming spam:

Jesse's tail and horns are extremely sensitive, so if they were like touched too much (or at least by lillet) he'd go overboard and short-circuit. Doesnt stop him from asking her to touch them tho.

Is a huge game NERD. ever since he figured out about video games he has been obsessed and is actually really good at them! He has merch too! Is the type to buy one of those really cringy gamer tshirts and wear it around casually until Divus screams at him to stop wearing it.

Probably one of the oldest ocs by far? His age his unknown bc he is immortal but his existence literally goes back to like 900+ years maybe even way more

He can eat human food just fine. But hates it. He thinks they're absolutely disgusting. And that coal is a godsend. So he eats it. All the time.

Has fangs, and pretty sharp teef

Often has petty arguments with Divus. And they have a get-along-tshirt. Which they keep in the lounge.

He used to have an (abusive) ex-husband. It was a forced marriage made by the ex-husband's family and Jesse's supposed guardian (his parents are dead). They were married for about 7 years until Jesse strangled him to death during his rest. The two knew each other since childhood and the exhusband used to be sickeningly obsessed with Jesse. It disgusted him.

Lmao lore drop at the end. Thank you for the ask Inky!!

#admin answers

[moistwithgender]

Media Roundup (February 2019)

I wanted to try and squeeze in one last finished show into the last day but I ended up having a really bad sleep schedule hiccup. Anyway, here’s what I finished this month:

Games:

This is actually the shortest list this month, on account of me mostly playing through a single game somewhat slowly. If you follow my posts, you might be able to guess what series it’s a part of.

Super Robot Wars EX (SNES): At the end of the previous post I warned that if you want to get into SRW, SRW2 is an extremely rough starting point, even though it’s canon to the four or five original SRW canon games mostly on the SNES. Thankfully, there is a youtube video that shows you all the dialogue and combat snippets from SRW2. That said... if I wanted to stick hard to canon, I would have either played SRW3 first, or waited for the incoming re-fan-translation that will drop probably at the end of March. BUT, I wanted to play SRW and not jump to a game so far ahead that the mechanics alienate me to the earlier games, so I started EX. EX is largely a contained side story that takes place in and revolving around the original properties of SRW canon. Said original properties involve La Gias, the world that exists inside of planet Earth, and a three-sided war involving mechs that run on magic. There’s a lot of politics and strategic talk and fantasy worldbuilding grounded in fantasy science and it’s actually really fucking cool. They take the time to explain how due to a (magical) scientific phenomena, prophecies are always accurate in La Gias (yet preventable with the right effort), which is exactly the kind of bullshit I love.

However, due to summoning rituals, the setting is also flooded with “Surface Dwellers”, AKA people from different mecha anime who have been written into a melting pot setting that contains all their narratives (sometimes cleverly tweaked to allow and complement each other). This isn’t just a hand wave, but worked into big plot points. It is genuinely stunning how much the creators of these games actually tend to give a shit about making these narratives believable and interesting. I say “believable”, though it’s also worth noting that, as with manipulated inclusion of various IPs, canon is general is somewhat malleable in SRW. There are usually multiple plot options in the games, and EX features a unique system with three separate campaigns that, depending on the order you play them, and also depending on the choices you make and how well you play, change the sequence of events in other campaigns as they weave into each other. It’s not handled amazingly, and to see everything, you may play the campaigns some three times each. I don’t really have that kind of patience, because these early SRW games are also sufficiently challenging games. While not nearly as bullshit as SRW2, EX features a fair amount of incentive to save and reset for better RNG, and you might spend an hour or longer on later maps because situations get really tight. EX is also considered one of the easier early games (phew). Despite that, the maps are almost all really enjoyable, you just have to be willing to work for your victory at times.

The writing, with much credit going to the stellar fan translation imo, is also a compelling read, and dialogue is frequently hilarious despite how much it also focuses on political intrigue and fatal drama. The “hard” campaign (at times equally or less difficult than the “intermediate” campaign) has you playing one of the main series antagonists, whose right hand minions include an oujosama who openly talks about how horny she is, a princess with hardcore stockholm syndrome (or is it?), and a semi incompetent little blue bird as a psychic familiar. A running gag is them chastising each other for using rude words. These characters have apparently been popular enough to reappear even in the modern titles, which largely are self-contained timelines of their own, with their own canonical tweaks.

Last point I want to touch on (this single game just has so much to it) is that playing this game out of order is interesting in how canon is referenced. In most self-contained-stories-in-greater-narratives, you’ll get somewhat forced exposition drops when a character is (re-)introduced. Most of these games so far tend to treat pre-existing characters on the same ground as OCs, where a character doesn’t say, for example “yo I’m goku I come from earth and I’m a super saiyan”, but kind of just realistically reacts to the scenario as per their characterization. If you learn more about them, it’s mostly via seeing them interact with other heroes or villains from their own canon (though later games include library bios to catch you up if you want). While this creates an interesting experience where, if you don’t know a series, you get that curious feeling of walking in on the middle of something, but instead from the beginning. The most interesting aspect of this, and what I consider the defining aspect of the game’s storytelling, is that the same delivery is used with the original characters. From the get-go, the original characters in SRW EX talk about other elements the way real people do, without vaguely audience-oriented exposition. Some people won’t like this, but it makes it feel much more real to me, and complements my recent exploration of the breadth of mecha, where I know a ton of names and have very little context, and slowly accumulate context as I go along. It’s a lot of little micro-mysteries. EX didn’t start this, either. SRW2, which is both the first SRW with a plot or even dialogue, introduces the main OC of SRW, Masaki and his Cybuster, who has a lot of his own lore, and tells almost none of it. You are left for the entirety of SRW2 to only grasp the fringes of what Masaki’s story is, and when he says “hey I’m actually leaving now in the middle of the game because I have my own plot bye” you just deal with that. SRW establishes that the world is way bigger than you, even though the core concept of the series is rooted in fanservice. Now, part of this is that Banpresto and Winkysoft probably had a big MCU-style plan from the beginning (cough most ambitious crossover in history cough), because, well, look at this release timeline and associated narrative chronology:

-Super Robot Wars (Game Boy, April 1991) No plot, or dialogue, but establishes the Big Three (Gundam, Getter, Mazinger) as playable characters and has the kaiju villain from an old 70s Getter+Mazinger crossover movie as the final boss. The pilots don’t exist, the robots are all apparently sentient beings. -The 2nd Super Robot Wars (NES, December 1991) Beginning of plot, introduces a proper antagonist (Bian Zoldak), an antagonist force he leads (Divine Crusaders), light political intrigue, Masaki Andoh and his nemesis Shu Shirakawa are established vaguely while having a separate plot that is not explained. IMAGINE juking your audience with your own main character like that. He doesn’t serve as protagonist yet but is clearly, like, the most important OC? Bian and Shu even serve as the final bosses and you don’t even know who Shu really is. The kaiju villain from before comes back for a single map and evolves into a stronger form unique to the game. The heroes from SRW1 also all acknowledge that SRW1 happened and they know each other. This establishes that you cannot rely on canon. -The 3rd Super Robot Wars (SNES, July 1993) Haven’t played yet but I hear this is where they really started playing with canon. Mixes the Divine Crusaders plot with the plot of the original Gundam series. Multiple endings exist now, and plot regularly splits into dual branches. -Super Robot Wars EX (SNES, March 1994) Here’s where it starts to get complicated. This focuses on Masaki’s setting, while continuing off of SRW3′s plot. Elements introduced here will continue to be referenced in SRW4 (the ending screen even explicitly states that, which reinforces my idea they planned this all years in advance). Multiple campaigns with malleable canon means nothing is concrete ever again. -The 4th Super Robot Wars (SNES, March 1995) Campaign now splits into Super Robot (Getter, Mazinger) and Real Robot (Gundam) routes, which is easier to handle. This game finishes up the “Classic” SRW timeline, but would also canonically be replaced by two remakes on the PS1 (SRW F (1997) and F Final (1998). However... -Super Robot Wars Gaiden: Masoukishin - The Elemental Lords (SNES, March 1996) Masaki gets his own game five years later, beginning his narrative. This game has no mecha IPs, and is exclusively OCs. The most complicated aspect is that this game is split into two chapters: the first, at the start of Masaki’s story, and the second, which... if I have this correct, follows after EX and SRW4. The previous games have, supposedly, been referencing this game that has not existed until now, and this game references what has come before. Playing SRW feels like being lost in linear time. This game starts off its own timeline of games that, I hope, stay confined to the OC-centric games. 

So here’s the timeline:

First half of SRW Gaiden SRW2 (loosely referencing SRW1) SRW3 SRW EX SRW4 Second half of SRW Gaiden

As a result...I can never be comfortable writing a suggested order of play. In playing these games, you simply must accept that the world is bigger than you, and at all times you will be an outsider to some degree. You know, until you’ve played all of them. Which you can’t yet, because they aren’t all translated yet.

Phew! That’s a lot of words about Classic Timeline SRW, and I’ve only played through two games. Thanks for reading all of that, I hope it kept your interest. Despite how complicated that got, EX is a great game and easily in my top SNES RPGs now, up there with Live A Live and Dragon Quest V. Let’s move on for god sake!

Oh, right. Almost forgot: (SRW EX: Masaki’s Chapter: Beaten 2/9/19) (SRW EX: (One of the two versions of) Lune’s Chapter: Beaten 2/15/19) (SRW EX: Shu’s Chapter: Beaten 2/20/19)

Fun fact: In EX, if you use a cheat code on the title screen to play through Shu’s route with a suped-up absurd final boss-strength version of his mech, and run into one of the other protagonists, then when you later play as that other protagonist, you’ll have to fight the cheat version of that mech as a boss.

Orbital Paladin Melchior Y (PC): I had to play something else this month, and because I’m trapped in a fugue state, I made it something mecha related. Melchior Y is a small, hour-long visual novel/shoot em up made by John D. Moore, who I know mostly as a_new_duck from the selectbutton.net forums. I’m... not gonna have as many paragraphs to talk about this, or anything, as I did with SRW EX, so if he sees this I hope he doesn’t take that as a negative. Reportedly, this has multiple routes, though as of this writing I’ve only played one of those. I don’t know if that means multiple endings! I liked it for the small gamejam game it is, though. John is an academic and a mecha fan (and did his thesis on mecha, iirc) and so this is reasonably an introspective mecha story focused on children conscripted for space war purely for their utility, and adults who boss them around despite no longer being allowed to pilot once they hit the very beginnings of adulthood. It gets dark! A smaller positive about it is the matter-of-fact inclusion of queer identity, comfortably existing alongside religion without having to immediately make the plot about the conflict between those (at least in the route I played). I enjoyed it, and if you have the patience to explore artier games that aren’t polished AAA cash houses, you might gain something from it too. Here’s a link if you’re curious, it’s currently free.

Anime:

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai: I already wrote about this last time, oops! Still, despite a couple stumbling points, this is fun character-driven supernatural lit, and if you’re mad at Persona games for bad political takes, then this... at least this doesn’t have those! The funniest thing about the series is that the bunny outfit is easily removable from the plot and barely relevant past the first couple episodes. (13 episodes, finished 2/5/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu)

Punch Line: I actually went in expecting something akin to the sort of wackiness I remember way back when FLCL was fresh. I didn’t get that, necessarily. What I did get was (as I would discover after I wiki’d it later) a fucking Kotaro Uchikoshi story. That’s not a bad thing, but if I had gone in knowing that, I would have been prepared. Uchikoshi writes light novels. Extremely convoluted, mysterious, non-linear light novels. As I was watching this show, I actually thought the whole time “is this a fucking light novel adaptation?” It wasn’t, but it was by the guy who wrote Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (one of my favorite DS games), and Ever17: The Out of Infinity (probably one of the most miserable game experiences I’ve ever had), and I was easily identifying his particular brand of storytelling. There is a LOT that can be said about his style, but I’ll try to keep it short with a paraphrased example (don’t @ me if this doesn’t explicitly describe any one of his plots, it’s close enough). He likes to tell stories that start as quirky or high-concept, but somewhat mundane, skip a scene at one point, and then progress until you suddenly hit a big plot point that turns everything on its head and, in my experiences, causes things to immediately end tragically. Then you see the scene you missed. The scene held a plot point literally so important that it completely changes what the story was ever about. From then on you are fed a trickle of left-field plot twists until eventually the plot is unrecognizable from how it started. His work is as stupid as it is clever, and he’s got the strongest grasp of continuity I’ve ever seen a human being have. This is the polar opposite of SRW’s “fuck canon” philosophy, and that’s not for the worse on either account. Punch Line starts as a story about a boy who dies, becomes a ghost, and then has to figure out... something? (I should clarify I watched all of this overnight while not sleeping as as the story built more and more upon itself I had to fight to keep following it) BUT ALSO, if he sees panties twice, he’ll accidentally destroy the earth. Those details are, like, one percent of the secret plot that the show is built upon, and by the end when the wacky dorm sitcom has become a full blown world war with government conspiracies, I was like “wait why is that girl a superhero again?” Everybody deserves to experience an Uchikoshi story once, just for the wild novelty of it. I don’t think this is his best work (I think 999 is better), but it perfectly exemplifies his style.

Also, I spent the full binge watch (which I rarely do) thinking it was a visual novel adaptation. Absolutely convinced. But, it turns out that, no, he just writes like he’s making a VN game. The “panties = genocide” concept is so obviously a choose-your-own adventure mechanic that I thought it had to be. On the bright side, an actual VN adaptation later came out, and even came out in English on the PS4. And they added in apparently ten episodes’ worth of significant extra plot, so I might play that.

Also, it’s called Punch Line because in Japanese it sounds like “panty line.” That’s it. Also maybe it’s referencing plot twists, or mortality, idk. (12 eps, finished 2/6/19, Crunchyroll/Hulu/HIDIVE)

Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow (Movie): A month later, I finally got around to the rest of Gundam 0079. I think I might like this movie best of the three, even if it does feature a lot of character death is kind of a downer at times (granted, that’s kind of most of Tomino’s work isn’t it). This movie is where most of Kai Shiden’s character development occurs, and it’s nice to see his go from a bastard to a sympathetic, uh, bastard. He’s terrible and my son. (Finished 2/9/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space (Movie): You know I really like the original Gundam in concept, and even execution, but sometimes I’m chewing through it. Even when boiled down to the compilation episodes I’m just pushing through at times. I mean, I think part of that is my burnout and executive dysfunction issues preventing me from fully enjoying things, but it could also just be that I’m baby. This was the movie I liked the least, despite having some of the best moments in the series. The final showdown is genuinely incredible, and there’s probably a lot of essays out there discussing the recurring theme in Gundam of invoking the figure of Newtypes, while also regularly denying being one (even to oneself!) after engaging in a lot of telepathy. My problem with MSG3 is that they packed the most plot points into this one, and it gets to a point where it was hard for me to follow. Mirai goes through two separate love triangles, and a huge tactic (bordering on the severity of a war crime) happens and then is iterated on in such a small amount of time that I actually lost track of who had it and how I was supposed to feel about it. If I were to rewatch it, I might grasp it better. I spent this movie feeling like I should have just watched the 50 odd episodes instead, for the sake of comprehension. Idk! Hate to end this on a negative note, because this series has layered characterization, complex examinations of war, the things people do in war, and the ways that war changes people, and also cool robots. It’s probably something you can revisit multiple times and gain new value from each time. (2/15/19)

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: Guess who watched this on Adult Swim a long time ago and almost totally forgot! This series is amazing and probably going to stay my favorite Gundam series. The animation is consistently beautiful and consistently had me comparing it stylistically to Cowboy Bebop, from the body language to the lavish mechanical displays to the character writing to the excellent english dub. The US got it ater it was complete, but the original airing of it was spread out over three and a half years, and given how flawless it is, I can understand why. If you’ve have a spot in your heart specifically for watching the switch axe change shape in Monster Hunter, you’re gonna lose it watching them do maintenance in this show. Character-wise, while 0079 was about watching whiny teens complain and break protocol on a regular basis, 08th MS Team is as much about living army life as it is about going on missions. There’s soldier superstition, there’s writing to girlfriends back home, there’s complaining about staking out in the desert for five days. I haven’t watched MASH, but the things I have heard about it make me link the two. 08th MS Team is also about a super unfortunate star-crossed love between people on opposite sides of the war. This plot element is a recurring one even back in 0079, but here it feels the most heart-wrenching, and with the very weighty and believable mech combat (it’s so pretty, good god), I was constantly worried about the well-being of all the characters, Fed and Zeon (except for Ginias). If you have any interest in anything, you have to watch this. I’m not good at selling things.

I watched all of this when Hulu was threatening to remove it, but now it appears to still be up? Uh, so go watch it I guess. Oh fuck, right, I almost forgot. The last episode of this is so bad they didn’t even air it on TV in the US. It’s tangentially related to the plot, claims to be about the main characters but instead centers on two side characters and like six new ones, has zero character development, has comparatively/definitively awful animation, relies entirely on misdirection towards the viewer to keep the plot barely hanging together, and has no satisfying payoff. Thankfully, it’s sort of an omake episode, and you can completely skip it. (12 eps (minus 1), finished 2/20/19, Hulu)

I can’t find a decent HQ poster so have this you filthy animal.

A Place Further Than The Universe: It’s not about robots! Wait. Is it about robo--it’s not about robots! I had heard about this show for a while, it was almost universally agreed upon by everyone that follows seasonal anime to be easily the best show of all of 2018. And wow they were not kidding around about that. APFTTU (oh god that acronym) is about four high school girls who decide to go to Antarctica. It is a feelgood comedy with occasional ventures into very real drama, and is rooted very realistically. The show is semi(?)-educational with the attention it gives to showing how real life expeditions work, while also liberally flowing into the poetry of the concept and experience of such a thing. The four girls are all hilarious and innocent without being cloying and, and this is the most important part, without being written with voyeuristic appeal. It is not off-base to have concern for the ways in which a significant number of female cast anime are written with intent to appeal to lonely men who want to feel a safe ownership of something innocent and attractive. It’s not all of them, but it’s a significant amount. Male gaze exists even in the lesbian shows, it’s something you sometimes have to roll with. Here, however, these girls are fully realized and believable, it is obvious that they are developing people, and that is treated as its own value, not as something to covet. If you’re lookin’ at thighs in here, that is your problem, and I’m calling God. A subplot that comes up involves a guy who gets a crush on one of the older women, and he tries to make it about his narrative and is immediately shot down by the whole cast, because this isn’t a vehicle for his romantic conquest. This isn’t anyone’s romantic conquest, really. It is significant to me to say, “this is an anime I could show to my mom and not be worried about.” I know I just said 08th MS Team was required watching for everyone, but A Place Further Than The Universe is required watching. (13 eps, finished 2/26/19, Crunchyroll)

Giant Gorg: At some point I picked this out to watch on CR without any prompting. Wait, I had one prompt. I knew nothing about this show except I think for seeing it on a short list of tumblr user @lightningclone’s favorite anime. It kind of floors me that this came out a year before Zeta Gundam and has way way better animation. Granted, Zeta has twice the episodes, which might be a big factor. The defining trait of this show is probably way it unravels itself, focusing for multiple episodes on exploring what of the great mystery of Austral Island and Gorg has been established to the audience, before revealing something more an deliberately taking it’s time as it takes you to the next reveal. The reveals don’t feel like twists, because a twist comes out of nowhere and sidelines you. The reveals here feel organic, and expected, but all the same compelling. Another good trait of the show is the characterization. Everyone fits into a very different role both in terms of personality and function, they all have their own motivations, and they all complement each other in unique ways. Also, this show has an Usopp. Back before Usopp was a thing. He’s Dr. Wave, and he’s the best character. 

If I have any criticism for the show, it all comes at the end. Near the end a character does a heel turn that, while a little twisty, is hinted in the beginning of the show, and in his heel turn the writers go a bit overboard and have him commit some sexual violence that goes on for an intentionally uncomfortable amount of time, and features frontal nudity. I know we’re supposed to think “oh god he’s a horrible person actually,” but 1) the main character is a child, I kind of expected this to lean family friendly with the occasional dark element (ignoring all the hilarious New York graffiti at the start that says FUCK in several places because America), but... okay! And 2) the stakes rise to a point by the next episode that the characters, including the victim of that violence, all just shrug it off, like whatever! The character is even redeemed by the end, which I wouldn’t mind if the betrayal itself was less physical. It’s a bit much for me, and I wish they hadn’t done it. Aside from that, I feel like the ending itself is a bit anticlimactic, but everything up to these two points had been so solid that I still think it was worth the watch. Worth it if you like mystery, adventure, and big robots, but worth bearing in mind the trigger warning for near the end. (26 eps, finished 2/27/19, Crunchyroll)

Manga:

Shin Mazinger Zero Vols 1-3:

[Serious Content Warning For Everything]

Shin Mazinger Zero is reprehensible garbage and I hate it. While inspired by Go Nagai and intentionally over-the-top, the absurdity is juvenile, offensive, and often just empty. Now, it may seem hypocritical of me to complain about transgression in something based on Nagai’s works, but I genuinely don’t find this transgressive, just extremely self-indulgent of toxic masculine fantasies, both sexual and violent. It has interesting ideas, about how Mazinger is both a tool possible of great good or great evil (literally the mission statement in every Mazinger work), and it wants to explore alternate timelines to see how characters can be corrupted or overcome corruption. The visual of a demonic Mazinger is genuinely pretty rad.

...Okay maybe he’s not, he’s kind of overdesigned. I like the toothy grill, though.

The problem with that exploration of corruption is that sometimes a character is just a horrible monster for no reason, without much explanation (so far?) for how that comes to be. Maybe in volume 4 they’ll get more into that, since they are currently in flashback mode, so there’s no undoing the damage.

Anyway, female characters so far are hypersexualized and submissive or motherly, or hypersexualized and, like, totally unreasonable. The hot robot girl sat on my lap in her underwear and did sex moans, why are you mad, main love interest? Men are testosterone as FUCK. The hero is constantly yelling to the point of visual distortion, no matter how the drama of the scene is being portrayed. The old man villain Dr. Hell is, for some reason, jacked as hell, and in the backstory to the main timeline (it’s all post-apoc) he shows his superiority over everyone by crushing Not Obama’s balls in his grip. I know exactly the kind of dude that would find this appealing and that’s the kind of person I avoid.

Honestly I knew this series was going to be a trashfire from square one and just kept reading out of morbid curiosity. The story starts in media res at the end of the world, with sexy girl robot disintegrating the hero so his soul can go back in time and try the timeline again. Okay, sure, I’m on board. Immediately next we’re shown what I would assume is The One Timeline To Get It Right, after establishing that there have been thousands of timelines where the hero is corrupted by evil. Pretty normal storytelling. And then, uh, the hero’s grandfather molests and murders the hero’s girlfriend, because the hero might become evil. My face is in my hands at this point. The incomprehensible shame. The hero is then corrupted and goes on a killing spree and humanity’s caught in the crossfire and the world ends. After *that* we get the One Timeline. Why? Why say things have always been bad (and I guess imply that bad things are the default) and then waste my time with the worst shock value trash that comes after for a full volume before actually starting the story? It’s edgy garbage! Why is this an official Mazinger work? Stuff like this is what makes me stop and think “wait are all Nagai’s works like this and I’ve been lying to myself when I like it?” Christ, this turned into a rant. Moving on.

[Content Warning Over]

Dumbbell Nan-Kilo Moteru? Vol 1: Idk if talking about horny manga after that mental breakdown is gonna make me look weird but hear me out.

Hot girls lifting weights.

You still here? Okay, good. I started this on a mutual’s recommendation and while it’s not regularly engaging with my own things (I’m more of a “watching fit woman deadlift and hoping she drops it on me and I disintegrate like so many dead leaves” person), and with the two main girls being high schoolers, I try to avoid engaging with that in that way. Luckily, there’s a teacher my age with a bob cut, so we’re good! More interesting, though, this is in the same genre as that Skullface Bookseller Honda-san anime (though less biographical), where the author just wants to explain their job or hobby while also using likable comedy characters as the vehicle. Anime made edutainment work.

I’m starting to get tired and I wanna wrap this up but unfortunately I have a bit to talk about regarding the last manga I read in Feb.

Tokyo Ghoul Vols 10-12: I’ve been reading this for the past, uh. I read it a lot last year, I don’t know when I started, though. Around 8 books in I started slowing down and taking long breaks because phew! I’d hit the end of the series’ big bad story arc and was having trouble picking up from there. I’m glad I did, though, because the story is still getting good. Here’s hoping I can handle the sequel series, because Tokyo Ghoul itself only has two books to go.

I’ve talked about TG a few times before, maybe just on Twitter. It’s very intelligent “vampire” lit that ramps up the stakes of transition by saying “you can’t just suck their blood and let them go! Human meat is your food and you’ll suffer without it.” At first, I was like “oh wow lol this is edgy” but the last twelve books have talked about trauma, alienation, and most importantly loss of innocence. It’s also about the importance of the bonds between people. The main character is perpetually at odds with himself, trying to be a good person in spite of the fact that being a ghoul is literally and figuratively being a monster. It could easily be an overwrought story of self-indulgence and angst but everything in it has been careful and effective. Ghoul culture is thoroughly built up and balances concepts of territory and posture along with careful deception for the purpose of staying a part of, and hiding from, human culture. It’s about predators who cannot remove themselves from their predatory nature, even if they want to be people with families and educations. There’s an organization that wears white and hunts ghouls with weapons crafted from ghoul bodies and functionally I can’t fully argue with them, sort of, but hey we’re starting to discover that corporations are corrupt (who knew?) and that’ll be fun.

But forget the poetry and human condition, the best thing this series does is that unashamedly works the Hot Topic aesthetic. The main character likes reading books and wears an eyepatch to hide his heterochromia and works as a barista. He wears a mask that evokes an S&M lifestyle. Ghouls can only eat people and all other food taste rotten. Except for black coffee. There’s also a number of ghouls with black nails and eyeshadow, and very heavily coded queer male characters (some more flatteringly portrayed than others but that’s a whole other thing). If Sui Ishida never listened to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, I’ll eat my fucking feet.

@sun-eater-official I think this might be up your alley. Or maybe not! But these aesthetics sound like you. Actually, you should probably watch 08th MS Team too, for the Bebop vibes.

So that’s everything! I thought I had a short list but apparently it was all things I had a lot to say about. Again, if you read all of this, thanks a lot, I hope I end up introducing you to a new favorite. In the future, I may have to split these into separate posts for each category. I have a lot of free time to write these lately. Writing two roundup posts back to back is a bit tiring, but I don’t have to do another until April starts.

#curry plays games #curry reads manga #curry watches anime