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dear-mrs-otome · 2 years

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Silvio Ricci - Main Story - Chp 08 - His POV: 2nd Run

Standard Disclaimer: I do this for fun. I don’t, and never would, claim to be proficient at JP. There will be mistakes herein. There will be dialogue I choose to smooth out or change, because it feels choppy just straight translating. There will be the occasional snarky aside and irreverence and just plain summarizing. If you’re looking for 100% pure accuracy, without commentary or localizing, this is not for you. If you don’t mind that…then proceed, and I hope you enjoy! And please, support your local localizer (they make this stuff look easy) and Cybird by playing the games and routes when they come to English.

(NOTE: This POV is from Silvio’s 2nd playthrough - it may contain spoilers or spoiler-adjacent themes concerning the arc of his route and Rio's route, so reader be aware. This particular one doesn't have much but later ones might)

~~~~~~~~

If Valerio had a woman he truly loved, I wanted to take her away from him.

~~~~~~~~

“Dad! Mom! The teacher gave me a compliment today!”

“Ah, how wonderful! You’re really brilliant, Valerio!”

“I’m sure that one day, you’ll be an even better king than I am.”

“Really? Hehehe…”

~~~~~~~~

“...Mother, I -”

“I know you can do this. You’re bound to be the next king, you’ve come a long way towards being the next king with this level of achievement. My son can do it - isn’t that right, Silvio?”

~~~~~~~~

Just imagining such a scene where the prince who, unlike me, is loved by everyone can’t get the woman he really wants? …It gives me a thrill. It would be a lot of fun to take a woman from him for real.

However…the person Valerio fell for was a difficult woman who’s not interested in money. In fact, she repeatedly harasses foreign princes and makes feeble attempts at getting them to hate her. She’s truly an utterly uncharming woman, and he has no idea what it is about her that made Valerio fall in love with her. But, well …it doesn’t matter.

From behind her, he slides her collar aside and presses his lips over her pulse. He can practically see that damned dog barking as he draws on her skin to leave a prominent mark. “Maybe it would have been better if I’d just done this from the start, rather than the collar,” he muses. “You can’t take it off, and you can’t hide it from everyone.”

She only says his name, and he starts to point out that that’s a pretty weak reaction out of her - when she wordlessly turns around and grabs his hand in an ambush, startling him.

He tries to leap back at the horrible sensation, but her strength was so great he couldn’t believe she was some foppish noblewoman.

“What do you think you’re doing, you scumbag prince!!” she fumes, and he demands she lets go of him immediately. “Not until you apologize, and mean it!”

Don’t you dare bark at me, damned woman! He wants nothing more than to shake her off, but he doesn’t know how much strength a woman’s delicate hands can handle, so he’s stuck doing nothing.

She accuses him of never intending to take the collar off, and he counters that he was taking the lock off but never said he’d take the collar off. “Any day you’re not wearing it, I’ll put a mark on you.”

“I see. Well, if that’s your plan, I have an idea of my own.” Her eyes are steadfast, and he has only a moment to wonder what she means, with a foreboding feeling - before she puts his fingers in her mouth.

“You!!”

Does she normally bite princes?! It seems like she’d held back just shy of causing real pain, but the sensation is still vivid nonetheless and he leaps away from the woman. Ah shit…I can still feel it on my hand.

It’s not the bite that bothers him. Rather, it’s the feel of her warm lips and the soft tip of her tongue on his skin that is the issue. Sassy - no, she’s a shameless hussy. Eugh…what a horrible feeling.

It’s only his imagination that his face is hot. It’s definitely not because he’s not used to something like this.

She tells him that it’ll go both ways - every time he marks her, she’ll bite him as hard as she can. And he admits he’s gotta hand it to her for having the guts to bite a prince, but she best not get carried away.

“I don’t care if you’re some prince from another country. I won’t tolerate any scummy behavior -” she starts to rail.

“What do you mean, ‘scummy act’, Emma?”

Of all the moments, he has to show up now? The figure of that damned dog pops up behind her, having snuck up without him noticing. The woman stammers out an attempt to wave it off, slapping her hand over her neck to hide in in a gesture he finds irritating for some strange reason.

He apologizes for showing up late and she assures him it’s fine - if he hadn’t come, Silvio’s hands might be in tatters by now.

Silvio finally speaks up. “Ha! Who’d let you bite them a second or third time?”

“That’s true…it might have been hard to with you running away scared,” she counters.

“You wanna turn this into a diplomatic issue, woman?” Silvio threatens.

What are you so upset about? he scolds himself. It’s no different than being bitten by an actual dog…It’s just that it’s not exactly commonplace for a woman to bite me.

She expresses her anger genuinely, without trying to butter him up. Something definitely different from any of the women he’s known.

It’s a strange feeling.

“...Emma, let’s go back to the castle.” Valerio takes the woman’s hand, and starts walking.

“Hey, who said you could take her?” He doesn’t hesitate to grab her other hand and stop her, brushing off Valerio’s protests that she doesn’t want to be there. Silvio scoffs at the concept of her ever being charming with an attitude like that, and she fires back that it’s only in front of Silvio she’s like this - if she doesn’t act like this, he’ll take advantage of her.

“You’re getting too sassy,” he warns. “Ah, but…”

She flusters as he lifts her hand and presses his lips to the back of it. It’s an acceptable greeting amongst polite social circles, but clearly not to a commoner woman…and the sight of the sassy woman’s face turning pink is enough to make him finally feel better. “Doing this might make you a little prettier?”

“Not that it’s any concern of yours!” she exclaims.

Valerio protests over how sly he’s being, and tries to wheedle a date out of her, which has Silvio reminding him he’s merely a butler and doesn’t deserve such concessions. But that only has Valerio rounding on him and accusing him of taking liberties with a single lady.

“It’s fine, I’m royalty, right?” Silvio replies.

“You think that means you can just do whatever you want?” Valerio retorts, and they glare at each other in angry silence.

He has no intention of letting go, either. And Silvio grins to himself. Bring it on.

~~~~~~~~

“Give it back…give it back!”

“Who’s going to give it back, stupid? I hate you. Keep crying like that.”

~~~~~~~~

“For the moment, both of you please let go of me,” she asks.

He hears her voice, but ignores it.

Choose me, woman.

Me…rather than that damned dog.

~~~~~~~~

<< Chp 08 | Chp 09 >>

#spoiler #spoilers #ikemen prince spoilers #ikepri spoilers #mrs o loves salty seadogs #ikepri silvio main story #mrs o's translations of dubious quality

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boxinthewild · 9 months

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I'm beginning my horrendously long foray into the /idgames archive tonight (just for doom2 maps rn), and the first map I decided to play was one BADTRIP1.wad. I have little to no idea who made this map seeing as I was stupid enough to mass extract all of the wads from their respective categorizations and plop them all in one folder and deleting their text files (unbelievably stupid). Horrendous shotgun audio replacement and confusing puzzle designs await me in this honestly quite forgettable and annoying, 90's era map.

This may have been a wonderful doomcute-esque bar when this map came out (date unknown because the wad itself is confusingly dated for January 1st of 1980), but even so, I really do think this is just a sloppy job. Speaking of the date when this map came out, I am under the assumption that the person who had made this wad probably either forgot to set their clock after the CMOS battery died in their computer, or never cared in the first place. I believe this map was made in the ensuing months after Doom 2's original release but whose to say for certain, I'm way too lazy to check and finding the zip it was located in inside of the massive archive makes me want to look for it even less.

Even though this map does have the occasional (dare i say) good(?) combat encounter, i do think this really is a weird showing of classic 90's mapping tropes, weird secrets that may or may not be required to progress the level/not marked secrets, horrendous audio replacements for weapons and/or enemy noises, seizure inducing flashing sector lights, and really really confusing map design round out this trifecta of potentially unfavorable map qualities, I can't help but enjoy the weird out of touch charm of this map.

I lied, I am really annoyed with this combat encounter in particular. Extremely heavy use of the zombie sergeant almost to a ridiculous degree. If I would have to tell you one thing i hate in doom maps, it would be the needlessly heavy use of a hitscan enemy in a combat encounter, to the point where the hitscanners are the most oppressive enemy in the area.

2 Mancubi who are either stuck or have been placed on a weird linedef that they cant see me really make this encounter the kind of needlessly difficult and unfun time it is.

The trap that springs when grabbing the plasma gun is a couple of monster closets that hold 2 Revenants and at the very least 2 floating meatballs. (edit: its 4 flying meatballs)

I went into one of the rooms on the side of that rather large combat encounter and happened across a maze. A shotgunner maze. A shotgunner maze with quite a few of the hallways having flashing lights strobing at different intervals. I didn't think my enjoyment of this map could have been lowered any further at this point in my playthrough. The flashing lights got so bad that I pretty much had to use the lightamp toggle cheat so my head didn't hurt more than it already did.

Oh great, the tower in the middle of the area was actually progression, i could have never seen that coming.

This Archvile/Pinky encounter room looks cool at least.

I am very rapidly losing interest at this point and i finally just got the yellow key so i can at the LEAST get to the exit section.

It leads into a slightly annoying fodder trap.

Which then leads into whatever the fuck this is beyond the door?

At this point my patience has become thin enough to move through an airlock seal.

The exit switch.

I really really do think there are some interesting design choices in the map, I really really do, but there are just so many glaring issues with the encounters that I cant in good conscious recommend this to anyone. My interest pretty much ran out by the last couple of rooms and it really really shows with my lack of thoughts on the map by the end.

4/10

source port used: prboom-plus -complevel 2 iwad: doom2 res: 1920x1080 with 4:3 aspect ratio cause i'm weird

#doom 2 hell on earth #doomguy #doom #review #classic doom

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ageless-aislynn · 25 days

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Aislynn and the Long Rambly Rambles about Video Games and Finishing My Halo WIPs and Potential Future Halo Fic Ideas and I Dunno Maybe I Should Finish My Last Two Flash WIPs 'Cause That Would Be Super Rad, Too, Right?™️

Finished! I had a lot of fun with Portal! I did finally manage to compensate for the weird "look to the side and look all the way up or down" problem I was having, thankfully. The puzzle aspect was awesome!

Now, since I'm here for a good time, not to be an amazing gamer, I'mma be straight with you: I looked up the answer whenever I got stuck. I tried all of the puzzles "cold" first and kept trying even when I had no idea what to do. Then, when I reached that first hint of ~~frustration~~, I just looked up the answer. Most of the time, I still had to work to get through it, so it wasn't a gimme. But I don't even care if it does. Like I said, I'm here for a good time, full stop. After really thinking I was never going to get to play any other games in my Steam library because of all of Georgette's serious computer issues, I'm just super happy to be playing again!

I may play the second Portal next, might just go for something else entirely.

I still want to finish Scott/Peebee and Scott/Jaal in Mass Effect: Andromeda but while I can't make any further GIFs, I'm not in a big hurry to do that next. I can still capture the footage, though, so might just have to do that and then hope Georgette will let me install Vegas. 🤞😣🤞

I also have Half-Life and Half-Life 2 and I believe they're connected to Portal in some way? Also have heard they're good games, so they're definitely on my to-play list.

Also there is, in no particular order:

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (got to finally experience the OT, after all!)

Dragon Age: Inquisition (I'm thinking this might slightly scratch my itch to play Baldur's Gate 3, since I'm waiting on that to go on sale)

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (been looking forward to this one for a long time!)

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (another one I've been looking forward to for a while)

Tomb Raider (2013) (DEFINITELY been looking forward to this for ages and ages!)

Titanfall2 (have heard a lot of good things about this one; have also heard it's not too terribly long, which I'm looking for right now, I've got things like ME to play if I want something really long and involved but I'm honestly also looking for a few things that are less of a large time commitment to intersperse with the epic-sized games 😉)

Dead Rising 1, 2 and Off the Record (There are a few things about them I hope won't make me feel stressed out, I don't always do good with things that have time limits, but mannnn, I really want to try out all of the funny weapons and such that you can craft! So the plan is to not worry about "winning" just get in there and have fun!)

I've also got the Resident Evil Village demo but am kinda bummed that it's on a 30 minute time limit. So, like, if it takes me forever to get the hang of the controls, I might not get to see 5 minutes of gameplay. That'll suck. 😠It seems like it would've been better for the demo just to be a level or part of a level and if it takes you an hour to play it, what does it matter? You're still just playing that one little chunk they set aside for you to test out. Oh well, I'll give it a try out of these days.

The Resident Evil 4 remake demo isn't time-locked and you can replay it as much as you want, so I'm thinking about giving that a try. I dunno. I've watched a LOT of playthroughs in this franchise and I'd like to try them myself but I also know I can get skeeved out by body horror and sometimes survival horror in general just stresses me out. So, don't plan on picking up the full game of either of these until I get a chance to try out their demos at least. And I want them to be on a great sale in case I try the full game and then find myself going

Anyway, if you play games, what are you into these days?

Halo MCC will always be my comfort place, needless to say! Does anybody here do the weekly challenges? I love doing them! Just need 100 more points and I can buy everything on the final level/season/whatever they call it. I love getting new nameplates, lol!

Anyway, I did also do some writing today towards Camp NaNo and made my ridiculously low daily word par. I'm hoping to actually get all of the rest of "Recreation" and "15 Minutes" done in first draft form this month. That would be rad to just have to do final editing and get them posted in May! I'm going to miss them when they're done but I want to make sure that I get their story told, you know?

If I should achieve that goal, then I have a fluffy Vannak x Reader one-shot I'd like to finish. Then I realized if I do that, I'll have given everybody in Silver Team a Reader character except Riz. Can't have that, now can I? Riz is also MAH BB!

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least-sexy-man-competition · 1 year

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Hi! more rainworld stuff, but i wanted to tell you something different.

First, I absolutely LOVE rainworld, but secondly, try and get into contact with a friend or someone who knows the game. Its open world which sounds neat, but i dropped the game several times because the mechanics actively punish you for exploring. Basically each time you survive a day, you gain Karma. Karma is needed to pass to other areas and progress, but Karma also goes down when you die. This can end up just straight up softlocking you if you get stuck in a spot where you're repeatedly dying and cant go anywhere- ive had to reset whole runs because this happened twice on my own playthroughs. The only reason i completed the game was because a friend told me the route to go and was on VC guiding me.

Additionally, some mechanics can be frustrating and hard. The Karma mechanic is the worst by far, but sometimes you can just Die because a lizard fell on you or bc a particular scavenging creature simply thought your vibes were off. The game is rigged against you from the start- as some mentioned you are at the bottom of the food chain and absolutely everyone hates you, and it shows. The game does a wonderful job at showing this! I am not saying this is inherently bad! It's an interesting concept! But GOD it can be so unfun at times. Its not hollow knight or celeste levels of hard- those games are fair. Rainworld is not.

I know it can be exciting to persuade someone to get a new game, to be the reason a new soul finds something they love. But Rainworld isnt a game everyone will enjoy playing, and if its just left in your steam library collecting dust, its wasted money. Rainworld has its moments- i loved it when i snuck around lizards with stealth, managed to kill a vulture by causing infighting, or befriended a lizard by saving it. The difficulty absolutely makes every accomplishment satisfying- but for me, it gets soured when some stupid green lizard screams "GIBBY!!!" and falls right onto me from the screen above.

If the idea of a difficult, unfair game with triumphant moments and a lot to explore, with lots of player agency on where to go and what to explore, and a wide interconnected food chain where you are at the very bottom does NOT sound like fun, maybe watch a playthrough or read the lore? If someone else you know has the game and dlc, theres a multiplayer feature on steam that lets you try the game for free if you so wish.

If you do get it just look up a movement guide btw. The game doesnt tell you some important features like sliding or backflip throws and they are just downright required in some sections.

oh this absolutely doesnt sound fun to me thank you for the warning! ill watch a playthrough sometime maybe then. i like playthroughs.

#ask #least sexy man #rain world #long post

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finedinereception · 5 months

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See, I would care about Sirius if I was good enough to get to the part of the games where he exists.

I usually get stuck on like, the third boss due to chronically forgetting I have access to a shield.

Can you tell me more about him so I can care? Because he sounds like an interesting character from what I could find (not much).

sirius ask!!!!!!!!!!!!🩵🩵🩵🩵

firstly, ill direct you to my big ramble about him, which contains a lot of key details on what i like about him! all his dialogue is on his wiki page since theres not much of it, and you can also just find playthroughs (there are plenty of no commentary ones) if you want to see that whole segment of the game without playing to it!

secondly, since im being asked to elaborate…

he just has a lot of personality for his short appearance! hes different from a lot of other antagonists because he doesnt really have world conquering aspirations or “im going to kill everybody as revenge for x” or whatever, he just…. wants to enjoy himself. theres a sense that he thinks what he wants should also be fun for others, like he believes that, but even if that werent true he wouldnt really care because he doesnt see other life as being as sapient or “relevant” as himself, if you know what i mean.

also, hes canonically a fanboy of mega man. he specifically states that he loves mega mans fights in particular. he IDs him on sight. people dont mention that but its so funny like HELP????

like, he both comes off as a selfish and callous person but also doesnt feel as villainous as other characters, if only for his lack of real malice. ive compared him to “kid pouring water on an ant hill” and i stand by that. is it a little mean? yeah, maybe, but theres also not a real comprehension of the harm being caused when it happens because theres a failure to sympathize with something that feels so small to you.

plus theres the whole thing with the mu metal, which could very easily be expanded on. please expand on it. and the complete “l+ratio+fight your rival forever” he takes being blown up with. and what is he in regard to the other em beings? (personally, i headcanon him as an xm-ian. because. sirius xm radio. teehee)

basically i just think hes really funny and different as a villain for this series and i think there are a lot of directions you can take his character.

#asks #mega man star force #mmsf #sirius

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xsilver-wings · 1 year

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Hope your surgery went well! Character questions as a get-well-soon gift haha - because I'd love to know, how much gameplay vs just pure imagination inspired Xia's story (ie, I've never even made Lex in game, but a different dragonborn now owes key character growth to the time I cleared a forsworn camp only to realise they had one chicken that was left all alone with no one to look after it LMAO)

And also in that vein, are there any specific quests that caused Xia's growth from more to less trusting or is it just. In general. Because Skyrim kinda does that to people haha

My surgery went well! I'm bruised, sore, and mostly tired still now, but recovery is up and up! And I love these!! Xia was initially inspired by my second playthrough (her name was Alixiea because I wanted to make my name sound... fantasy-esque (learning later that Alix was a name used for a few Bretons was cool, but Alixiea stuck soo) She would later earn the nickname Xia because of how the second half of her name sounded (and I dropped the e because well I felt like it sue meeee Xia looks better than Xiea lol. Now when I actually made her a roleplay character versus just one in my head and on screen, I figured I couldn’t really name her after me. That felt too Mary Sue-esque. I mean, I’ve done it before, but like it’s been years and years and years. I just wanted to avoid that grief, so I stuck with just Xia. Also, later when I redeveloped her character, I made her first name Aloisa because she originally had a twin sister of that name :O It’s a callback to her lol.). ANYWAY. I have played around with Xia's storyline for a while. Her first iteration here on tumblr was she was taken in by the dark brotherhood as a child and raised as an assassin so I played her very dark early on. When I rewrote her, I wanted her to have some innocence to her at some point and wanted Skyrim to turn her versus her turning dark much earlier. Because you're right, Skyrim does that to people! So she started very gameplay-based and then turned into imagination based as I delved into where she was from et cetera.

I think there wasn't any particular quest that turned Xia. I think it started very early on when the Imperials were gonna chop her head off. Then, as time goes on, as she was practically forced to kill people (bandits, et cetera) through quests she just became harder and harder the more she killed people. So it would start very early on. Then comes the dark brotherhood questline. She's already desensitized to killing at this point, so being asked to kill Greold, Xia thought nothing of it. Finding the Dark Brotherhood was like finding a family for her again, especially because as she kills more people, the less she actually feels like a hero. The betrayal of Astrid really does hit her hard because I imagine that she was starting to trust people again. I think she really fully hardens herself after that. Goes through the motions of playing a hero, but delves deep into being a cold-blooded assassin.

#☾✦ ❝to thine own self be true❞ ➤ headcanons ✦☽#☾☁ ❝to be or not to be❞ ➤ asks ☁☽#☾☁ ❝lord what fools these mortals be❞ ➤ ooc ☁☽#dionsblood

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glysaturn · 2 years

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a lot of people talk about arthur's death being the saddest video game moment etc etc. which i can totally agree with, sure. but for me personally the most soul crushing thing was arthur's slow descent into illness as it progresses and gets worse right before your very eyes. first of all i have to say that i knew arthur was gonna get TB and die well before i even bought the game. which is a major spoiler and yet it did not ruin the experience for me at all so like kudos to the writers for making it work perfectly when we live in a world where you must avoid spoilers at all costs. yes it did make it easier for me to notice smaller details that you'd probably only pick up on during your second playthrough under normal circumstances. but that's fine by me, i feel like it only enhanced the experience. like how i could pinpoint the exact moment arthur contracted the disease and went oh no this is it. he seems fine for quite a while and the thought fades away temporarily. but then right before guarma i noticed him coughing a little here and there and went oh no it's starting. after guarma it gets to the point where it is actually very obvious cause the coughing is more frequent now. and then you get hit by arthur passing out on the street suddenly and how he has to be taken to the doctor. hearing about the diagnosis as you look at his face's unnatural colour and his mouth covered in blood. the whole sequence is painful to watch. now whenever you feed him he starts coughing and it almost makes you not want to do it anymore just so you won't have to listen to him suffer, but of course he still needs to eat, that’s what the game taught you. and yet still none of these are the biggest offenders for me, there is one particular moment that just GOT ME REAL GOOD and is stuck in my head forever. it is when after one of the missions instead of giving the control back to you upon the end of a cutscene like it normally happens. arthur just finds the closest place to sit. and he sits there for a solid few minutes, wheezing. i watch him, i listen to him. it is agonizing. i don't know if i can but i don't even dare to press a single button in case i interrupt him and rush him to stand up. my heart is bleeding, my eyes are getting wet. he's just a bunch of fucking pixels on my tv screen and i let him sit and rest for a few more minutes even after his breathing somewhat stabilizes. it is not as severe as arthur LITERALLY DYING but for some reason it affected me immensely and i still remember it clearly three years later

#text #personal #red dead depression

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sailortentacle · 2 years

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Gonna start grouping shitpost-tier Golden Sun thoughts together in single posts, because even people who are interested in my playthrough probably don't want to see that many posts. (To be fair, I didn't expect to make this many posts.

We go around Vault...

Here's one hell of a cynical dog.

Isaac/Alex sees a roof with a hole in it, so of course he's going to insert himself.

Fight with the bandits was pretty decent, they're tougher in this patch than they typically are. Not much to say about that. I don't think we really needed to have Lunpa explained to us in the cutscene before the battle, considering that they talk about it and Hammet's kidnapping afterwards.

I mean... I guess it's not a huge discrepancy, but him leaving Ivan all alone in Vault (where people keep talking about how sorry they feel for him) and going straight up into thieves' territory almost feels a little...off, with his later characterization as a particular kind and wise ruler. I mean yes, I understand that the rod is important to Ivan's destiny, yes I understand Hammet was already robbed in Vault, yes I understand that they can't get back to Kalay. I don't know. It just feels weird to me.

Tee hee.

We go to the Goma Mountains and encounter a roadblock.

You know, I have a feeling that if he was Tyrell, he'd try setting the ivy on fire.

But Ivan joins, so it's all good. We actually go back to Vale and get some bread and Mind Read the villagers. Some people still want to believe in Felix.

Later, in Kolima:

That's the spirit! When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! ...Though I don't think he's the right kind of tree to grow lemons. And he has no arms to make it. Look, we're gonna cure him eventually, so it's all good.

I fight Tret first, because I know Saturos will kill me in this patch if I attempt to fight him first. I died the first time because he kept putting my party to sleep pretty much every turn. That's also on me, though, because I forgot about the elixirs in my inventory. The RNG was kinder to me on the second attempt.

And in Imil...

Someone asked, so I'm going to explain the "Alex" thing. The first time I played I forgot there was another character with that name, and that's typically what I used to name male RPG characters. The absolute confusion this part of the game caused me was so memorable that it became my personal tradition to name Isaac that every playthrough.

...It feels slightly off, this time. I kind of wish I had stuck with Isaac. Anyway, image limit reached.

#Mireia replays Golden Sun #Mireia thinks she's funny #long posts

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ezdotjpg · 3 years

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Do you have any headcanons about the different Links' personalities? Not for any particular au like LinkedUniverse, but just the vibes you yourself got from them from the games or something.

sorry this took so long for me to answer!! i can only speak to the games I've played (or. watched a LOT of playthroughs of) but I do have a few.

just as like. a baseline. all the links to me are both incredibly sweet boys and also absolute terrors. the two r not mutually exclusive. more thoughts under the cut cause this got longer than intended whoops buckle up

botw, pre-calamity-

selectively mute, thought i suppose that's canon

deadly serious about everything he does, even when its something silly

perfectly polite and well mannered on the outside, snarky lil bitch on the inside. he would rather die than be rude to anyone outright but like. he's thinking it. oh boy is he thinking it. it takes forever for him to show this side of himself to zelda and when he does she is delighted. they bitch abt all the nobles they hate together

has the emotional capacity of an oyster fork. yeah.

honestly I think he just runs on autopilot a lot? he stays focused on his task of protecting zelda and what's expected of him as a champion but he's otherwise mostly checked out. not to say he doesn't care, he does, but it's a method of escaping the suffocating pressure.

there is chaos in there somewhere. he lets zelda get away with a Lot of shenanigans once they become close, whether or not she bribes him with food (though the bribe helps cut down on time spent convincing)

he can also be bribed with cool looking rocks and strange mushrooms

on that note, he's as much of a magpie as post-calamity link. he's all about efficiency but also no he will not explain why he needs his collection of cool buttons he found on the ground on him at all times. what abt it.

garbage disposal man. he will eat anything. he eats twice the amount a regular human eats. it is horrifying and awe-inspiring to watch

botw, post calamity

talks a little bit more freely, but still prefers not to most of the time. he doesn't remember how he knows hylian sign but it comes naturally. unfortunately not many people left still know it. he gets by with a lot of gesturing lol.

he doesn't mind being alone in like big fields or forested areas (he LOVES the forests), but it gets to him in the cold regions where it's nothing but snow and silence for miles. i feel like he actually talks to himself a lot in those areas just to fill the silence.

arguably a different person than before (thesus' link, anyone???) but the capacity for chaos is not only the same, but amplified. we all know this. some other things are the same. the magpie tendencies. the snark.

i like the idea that hylia stuck either a new hero's soul, or better yet just any old random soul floating around, into the shell of a body in the shrine of resurrection in a fit of depseration. the soul fashioned part of itself after the lingering memories, but the rest is entirely its own. but idk what do i know

no filter. absolutely just says whatever. no manners either.

think about every asshole dialogue option u can choose in botw. that's the link that lives in my brain.

frighteningly clever and yet there is not a thought in his head. how does he do it.

makes an impression on everyone he meets. ppl start swapping stories about That Boy and he becomes a bit of an urban legend even without ppl knowing he's the long lost hero (or something like him). there are good and bad stories but mostly good ones (or vaguely horrified, vaguely impressed ones). he is so charming and he does not realize

would literally give u the shirt off his back

somewhat resentful of pre-calamity link, struggles a lot with his inability to be the same person

i feel like. he's actually really good at processing his own emotions. he has a lot of time to himself to work through them.

Skyward sword

quiet to the point of almost never talking, but has a lot to say once he actually does

also charming, but he definitely realizes

he's got like the entire village wrapped around his little finger ok. he mostly uses this power for good. mostly. he's just as chaotic as every other link, but everyone on skyloft lets him get away with it bc he's such a nice boy. have we all forgotten about the lumpy pumpkin's chandelier?

was in charge of getting everyone out of trouble when they got up to shenanigans and often succeeded on the strength of puppy dog eyes alone

post-canon he deals with a lot of chronic pain and fatigue

i said this on twitter once but he sleeps for like a week solid after the events of the game. no one can get him to stir. they're worried he's fallen into a coma or something but then he wakes up like nothing happened like "what's for breakfast"

i know this isn't standard characterization but I like to think he's actually kind of bitter and confused about the whole zelda/hylia thing for a while? like to what degree he was used, to what degree the zelda he knew is still there or ever existed at all, etc. Zelda isn't sure herself. i feel like their relationship is strange for a while bc of it but they work through it eventually

Twilight Princess

COUNTRYYY BOOY I LOVE UUUU

i don't have a Ton to say bc i never actually finished this game but. farm boy. just the thickest southern drawl you've ever heard. y'all'd've and other such bastardizations (i say lovingly, as someone with the same vocabulary) it is important to me that everyone knows this

pat his head and it's all over he turns to Goo

retains some vaguely feral tendencies. listen he likes his meat rare. like really rare

he's also a link that i headcanon as deeply unhappy post-canon why do i do this to them all

oot/mm

OKAY LAST ONE BC THIS HAS GOTTEN OUT OF HAND and i've also technically never played this but i have thoughts anyway

i rlly love the idea of oot teenage link being very sweet and naive and childlike (bc he is. a literal child inside) and mm child link just absolutely going through his shitty emo teenager stage in the body of a 9 year old. maybe moreso after the events of the game.

in my mind he spends a Long time in termina desperately trying to create the perfect loop and never quite managing it. he has a lot of regrets about the cycle that finally ends it. despite his somewhat bad attitude as it goes on, he cares deeply and wants to help everyone bc he is a sweet boy like all links

he curses like a sailor LMAO like the way that teenagers say fuck just entirely too many times in a sentence. yeah

I'M 11 SO SHUT THE FUCK UP

i like the idea that he returns to the ranch afterwards at some point and lives with malon and they fall in love (thank u lu)

post-mm link grows out of his edgelord phase into an outwardly deeply serious adult who is incredibly mischievous on the inside. he's a prankster making up for a lost childhood. he tells jokes with a completely straight face. he is blisteringly funny and no one but malon can tell. he tells ppl abt the stupidest things he had to do in termina with such gravitas that no one can tell if he's bullshitting them or not. he always is.

obviously things go wrong at some point for him to end up the hero's shade but let's not dwell on that

OK IM DONE sorry if that was more than u bargained for lol

#listen i got more to say if anyone ever wants to know lmao #the fics that live in my brain and sometimes in my notes app #anyway im just having fun here i might have some headcanons that don't line up with canon well #but this is my party and i can bastardize canon if i want to #text #loz #ask #the legend of zelda

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createandconstruct · 3 years

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can i ask about amarant coral? the monk in red himself~

Can you ask about Amarant Coral? *cracks fingers* Oh I insist that you do. Welcome to my Amarant Appreciation Post:

favorite thing about them: First off best thing about Amarant? His theme. The percussion and the guitar. It’s great and it captures him so well. People out here like “take Amarant out of the game he adds nothing.” EXCUSE ME? You remove the Amarant you remove the Amarant Theme my friend and that is something I do NOT vibe with.

least favorite thing about them: I wanna know more about him. Now Amarant doesn’t need a backstory or history in the game. In a sense, he already has one that connects him to Zidane and explains his motives and actions and eventual arc. But my issue is, Square never gave him anything else. If you look at Ultimania there’s additional lore about other characters, like Steiner for instance. You learn Steiner was a war orphan who was saved by the Pluto Knights - explaining his devotion to them. Amarant though? Square was like “uh... yeah he was born....? And then he uh got famous...? Idk then he met Zidane. You figure it out.” Square. I hate you. 18 years from his birth until he became “well known”. WHAT WAS HE DOING. WHY’D HE BECOME A SECURITY GUARD. WHAT WAS ON HIS RESUME. TELL MEEEE. Like, okay, what the actual in-game canon gives us on Amarant is sort of enough. He’s a purposely written mysterious “cool-guy” character so we’re given scraps to make him unknown but come on. In the published after-game canon, like Ultimania, we could have been given a bit more. He says he doesn’t remember anything about his origins or parents, but why. Was he another victim of Gaia’s wars? Probably. Was he born on a battlefield? Fighting for his life, living without comrades, taking scraps whenever he could? Was he betrayed when he was young? Is he a supposed to be a version of Zidane had he not been adopted into Tantalus by Baku??? These are questions I deserve answers to, Square.

favorite line: “’I can't just walk away. It goes against my nature...’ You're a real simpleton. Forget it, guys. There's no stopping this fool." I love this. Amarant figures Zidane out pretty quickly after Ipsen’s Castle. Zidane is hardheaded and also an actor. He acts cool and pretends his reasons for doing things are loose but when he’s decided something it’s always for a reason. You don’t need a reason to help people, but Zidane has his reasons for helping Kuja and while Amarant doesn’t give two shits what they are he knows Zidane won’t be stopped because, despite everything, Zidane saved a loser like him. Also this line “Tell me! Why didn't you kill me!?" Because I quote it all the time and it makes myself laugh. Amarant is such a drama queen and Zidane knows it. Zidane’s like “dude... what is your damage, it’s 5 pm on Tuesday in Madain Sari. I ain’t getting blood on my gloves cause you’re having a temper tantrum.” And then Amarant runs away to have an existential crisis. He’s 26 but compared to Zidane, he’s the real teenager with angst.

brOTP: I could talk about Zidane or Freya with Amarant but instead I’m gonna say the underrated dynamic of Amarant and Eiko (and also Vivi). Amarant with the kids is truly the greatest gift given by his presence in the game. Amarant has never known true suffering until he became a designated legal guardian of a group of minors. It also kills me how he’s the one to volunteer to carry Eiko and Vivi up the Iifa tree. He looks at Zidane and is like “you have seriously been the ‘adult’ of this group???”

OTP: Gotta say the Freya and Amarant dynamic. I really enjoyed their unlikely friendship in the game but then the content. The fan content. The Freya x Amarant fans out there, you win. Ya got me. You captured me and I am now imprisoned by their banter and begruntled allies to lovers story. Even if they’re not romantic I love them together and really wish the game gave us more of them. But even Lani and Amarant together are valid, though I prefer them as butting head bros. Not much content for my girl Lani out there either, she deserves more.

nOTP: Nothing I can think of. I tend to like platonic pairings for Amarant. The dude needs friends because he can barely define the word friendship.

random headcanon: Before Zidane returns at the end of the game Amarant wanders around a bit, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t feel any place with the others in Alexandria, Burmecia, or Lindblum. I imagine he goes off on his own for a bit like before but this time he’s not after Zidane or a fight. Instead he’s got no particular destination. Yet he somehow always finds himself running into people just like him - or the old him - friendless lonely people who are looking for a fight. He doesn’t go out his way to find these folks he simply runs into them and decides he might as well knock some sense into them. He does however make it his business to go after any murmur of people hatching any ideas of going after the far off little village on the Lost Continent. The home of the genomes and black mages. They were so helpless, so weak that anyone who’d want to mess with them is pathetic in Amarant’s book. Until Zidane returns, no one has the chance to even look at the Black Mage Village the wrong way because in the shadows Amarant lurks, making damn well sure of that.

unpopular opinion: I kinda love that he’s just there for most of the game? While I agree he gets the short end of the stick in the same way as Freya, not receiving additional individual character spotlight (which could have very well been supplied through discoverable lore in the world/npcs or through sidequests) I never considered his “standing off to the side” as a detriment to his character.

Many would probably agree that Amarant always felt like a bit of a parody of the loner character, or at least the stereotype of the loner character. Amarant is so easily paralleled with Squall and Cloud’s surface-level attitudes because his dialogue always felt like something to poke fun at. As the player we’re supposed to align with Zidane’s way of thinking and how he views Amarant. When Amarant loses to Zidane and pretty much grits his teeth and goes “KILL ME,” along with Zidane we’re supposed to kinda raise our brow at him and go “...really, dude?”

Amarant’s a character introduced as an antagonist who has more in common with the power hungry villains of the game. Like many of the characters in FFIX, Amarant is in search of purpose in life, which he has never found, because he was always looking in the wrong places - in places of violence and power. Very toxic-masculinity of him. Amarant is “cool” on an aesthetic level but in reality he’s the polar opposite of cool in terms of what FFIX states about the need for others to be intertwined in your experiences so that you can live a full life.

I sort of love that he’s like a grumpy pitball following a 16 year old and his friends around. Then he sits in the corner when they all meet up and discuss current events acting like he doesn’t care (not to mention he casually walks as everyone is running as fast as they can to escape Terra - made me laugh cry on my first playthrough) He is “just there” but that’s because he has no where else to be, no where else to go, he’s a man without a home. And until Zidane offers his hand, at the point where Amarant is most willing to take it at Ipsen’s Castle, he’s not truly a party member. He IS an outsider for almost the entire game but at Ipsen Castle he joins the party, becomes a comrade, and decides he’ll allow himself to change paths and start a life where he has friends and lives, as well as fights for them. Which is why after that moment, Amarant finally has a victory pose.

song i associate with them: I was scratching my head for so long trying to think of a song or track that had Amarant vibes until it hit me. Outskirt Stand by Tsukasa Tawada (from Pokemon Colosseum). Amarant is so chill, he’s not a bombastic guy, so he needs a theme that drops me in the rocky open desert of the Lost Continent like I’m just lumbering around looking for a monkey-tailed menace. Some other Amarant tunes: Pyrite Town, The Under, Snagem Hideout tracks from Pokemon Colosseum. This post is just an elaborate call to action for everyone to listen to the Pokemon Colosseum soundtrack. Tsukasa Tawada is so great and he has a YouTube. Check him out.

favorite picture of them:

Yoshitaka Amano’s Salamander Coral. I love him. He had too much power.

Also everything drawn by @crispy-ghee. Everything. I will think of this Comic forever until I die. Tattoo it on my flesh. The banter, the dynamics, the post-game content, the Zidane prince-consort outfit, the new Amarant outfit, the stuck-in-the-same-place relationship him and Freya have. Perfect. Go read it and consume Crisipy’s stuff. And also check them and their current art out, they just consistently get better and better. Here’s a first panel preview of my fav comic. Read it.

@hannahlady‘s Amarant art and their Freya/Amarant art is just ugh. *Chef’s Kiss* Here is another preview because you should go look at it.

Here’s a piece that deserves so much more love by @snackage. I LOVE how they drew Amarant. Here’s a little preview. It’s SO GOOD

Anyway TL;DR: Amarant is love and life and you’ll have to pull him from my little gremlin hands.

#asks #scriberat #amarant coral #ffix #final fantasy ix #amarant #final fantasy 9 #freya #amarant x freya #lani #zidane tribal #eiko carol

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aquilinas · 3 years

Text

(long basim/loki analysis ahead)

rewatching the cent and suthsexe arcs and thinking about how much of the 'real' Basim we got to see in the game, and how much of it was Loki having already taken over, and just trying to picture the duality of this particular struggle in comparison to the evolution of Eivor and Odin's relationship and...

when eivor and basim rescue sigurd and eivor asks how sigurd losing his arm might affect him and basim replies “so much stress can drive a man to despair” – this stuck out to me, because on one hand it might just have been a general statement on the significant impact of his trauma (what I thought on my first playthrough), but on a re-watch this immediately made me wonder something else – what if something similar happened to Basim to re-awaken Loki’s memories in him, like the real Basim losing his own son or some other kindred life event?

since it seems that for reincarnated Isu, undergoing traumatic events that mirror what their Isu went through triggers, or at least accelerates, the recovery of the Isu’s memories – and if something like this did happen to the real Basim (which is very sad!! 😔), this brings me to the next thing: whether Loki was either able to manipulate this grief to take over Basim’s consciousness, or if Basim had willingly (!!) acquiesced to accepting Loki’s memories, a more symbiotic relationship if you will

I say this partly because I’m comparing this with Eivor’s relationship with Odin and how she eventually is able to/makes the choice to consciously shut him out completely, a reflection of her convictions and personality, which makes me wonder if Basim and Loki had a similar struggle, or if there was one at all – if Basim was unlike Eivor in being unable to resist Loki’s manipulation and succumbed to it during his darkest time (“driven to despair”), which opens up the very sad idea, using this comparison with Eivor/Odin, that if the real Basim indeed lost his son or family as Loki did, then he unlike Eivor had no family or friends to remember, to ground him, when it came to that confrontation with Loki’s consciousness...

OR a more enticing explanation, if Basim and Loki didn’t have such a struggle like Eivor and Odin did, and instead Basim willingly (key word is ‘willingly’, there is also that quote Loki as Basim says during the Cent arc about manipulating others to believe they’re still in control) allowed Loki’s memories to merge with his, willingly accepted and took him in even after seeing Loki for who he was – master manipulator, does nothing without it also being mutually beneficial for him – because that was a reflection of who Basim truly was, deeply empathetic to Loki’s cause, their kindred experiences, and also (!) being a seeker of truth and knowledge himself (more Basim backstory I have so many thoughts about – growing up frequently visiting the Grand Library of Baghdad? I imagine him being a scholar during the Islamic Golden Age would have greatly complemented his role as a Hidden One)

and of course, Basim is still a part of Loki’s consciousness (his subconscious, for lack of a better term), and I think it does seep out at times – the parts of the Cent arc where he’s having fun arguing with the church clerics about religion and truth in particular stood out as less Loki-like and more the old knowledge-seeking scholar Basim coming out.

especially when he says to Eivor “I am always at peace and never alone. I move among the people of the world with great joy, I watch them, study them, learn from them at all times – this is our duty, the Hidden Ones’ calling” and Eivor replies “For the first time since we’ve met, you sound more like Hytham than yourself” like??!?

this sounds like the real Basim leaking out, the Basim who mentored Hytham and the Basim that Hytham remembers, the empathetic scholar and wise mentor who loved people (“he loved sigurd, he loved you!”) and had a desire to learn more about them, to learn more about the truths of the world (Loki also would certainly have been tempting with his Isu knowledge…) and to use his understanding to help and protect others.

JUST ASFGJFKLGFNDV 🥺🥺😭😭😭

#i'm sorry if any of this has already been said or discussed #but oooof there's a lot more where this came from #basim ibn ishaq #ac valhalla #valhalla thoughts

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time-schwime · 3 years

Text

I’m replaying Dishonored and all the dialogue is amazing, of course, but one line in particular stuck out to me on this playthrough. It’s in the opening dialogue to the Return to the Tower mission, when Admiral Havelock says,

“One man, one beating heart, is all that’s left of the forces that brought this city to the brink of ruin.”

Because it’s not just one man. Hiram Burrows is the face of it, sure, and he had probably the biggest part in it of any one individual, but killing him doesn’t just magically *poof* fix everything.

TL;DR killing one man will not fix the devastating social ruin, horrific and cyclical poverty, and inequality we see in the world today in the streets of Dunwall.

Look at the Flooded District--it wasn’t one single event that led to the dams breaking. One diary, found in one of the abandoned apartments, puts it like this:

Truth is it wasn't some plot to wipe the ever-prosperous Rudshore off Dunwall's maps: it was laziness and stupidity. The barriers keeping the rising river waters out hadn't been maintained in at least a decade, and once one leak started the whole thing gave out. City was so tied up fighting the plague no one lifted a finger to salvage the place.

It wasn’t a single action of a single person, it was years of neglect, years of ignorance, years of laziness.

Just like what brought Dunwall itself to ruin--years of a class divide letting the rich become richer and pushing the poor to desperation; years of negligent city maintenance and shoddy infrastructure that let a plague spread so quickly; years of spending city money on frivolous construction projects to boost egos at the top; years of power-hungry monsters acting behind the scenes to expand their control over the city.

I wonder if Havelock knows this, if he knows one or two or ten men can fight like hell but, ultimately, can’t make the kind of difference he’s promising. Or maybe he really buys into it, really thinks killing Burrows and assuming control of the government will solve everything. Void knows there’s plenty of hubris to go around in the Loyalists.

I wonder if he knows it’s too late to change, that life in Dunwall and the empire at large will always be this way. Because the greed of the few will cause the downfall of the many, as it does in every civilization.

And I know I say this all the time but Dishonored is such a topical game for exactly this reason. Because even though this game came out nearly a decade ago, it deals with the same issues we’re facing right now. And even though the streets and the technology look different than ours, and there’s the whole...magic thing, we can see ourselves in the people of Dunwall.

Maybe we see ourselves in the Loyalists, taking an active role to fight injustice and trying to fix a long-broken world. Maybe we see ourselves in the City Watch or the Overseers, working for a cause they may not believe in because they need coin and elixir to survive. Maybe we see ourselves in the ordinary residents of Dunwall, struggling to find work and meaning in a city that’s forsaken them.

I think this is why I’ve been so strongly drawn to this game at this moment in my life, because it’s exactly the reality I’m living with, that everyone I know is living with, that everyone in the world is living with. For years, we knew the cracks were there, beneath the surface, but it took some major tragedy--an attack, an assassination, a plague--to draw back the gilded layer and reveal the crumbling foundation below it all.

Now, we try to muddle forward. Try to survive. Try to figure out what to do. Try to put the pieces back together.

Wonder if we even can. Wonder if we even want to. Wonder if, in a year, there will be any pieces left at all.

So maybe there is just one man, one beating heart, in our way. Maybe it’s a hundred, maybe it’s a thousand, but at the end of the day, does it even matter? We’re still down here in the gutter, fighting off the rats, hoping that cough isn’t what we think it is, trying to find food and elixir to keep us through the week, worrying for our friends and our families, and wondering about the life we used to know.

#long post #i had some Thoughts #i accidentally wrote an essay #whoops #dishonored #dh1 #dunwall #flooded district #hiram burrows #thaddeus campbell #corvo attano #the loyalists #farley havelock #admiral havelock #high overseer campbell

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stormhaven13 · 3 years

Note

I haven’t been paying close attention, are you still doing your Horizon Zero Dawn playthrough?

Also, for fun, what are some of your favorite video games that you’ve played?

I will be, but I had to pause for a bit cause life, then my uncle showed up out of nowhere and has been living in the room with the PS4, and I've been too busy to like. Move it and the tv. I will finish it, but I'm gonna settle back into school first.

Ahhhh favorites. My old nemesis :p I'm gonna just list a bunch cause I suck at favorites. I'll also include a brief like. Intro to them/why I love them cause I love talking about games, I'm learning game design sue me :p

Read more cause this got much longer than I expected!

In alphabetical order, cause if I order things another way this will take much longer!

Divinity Original Sin 2 is one of my favorite RPGs ever, Lohse owns my entire soul. The character writing and world building are just excellent, and I love how little the game restricts you, so you feel like you have a lot of agency while playing the game.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a fantastic bit of neurodivergent representation. Senua has some form of hallucinations/delusions, but the game is set in like. Viking fantasy basically. And the way its recorded makes you really feel her auditory hallucinations. And she's just portrayed as a really well rounded character and I really appreciate it.

Horizon Zero Dawn, I feel like I don't really need to mention this one, I've already talked A LOT about why it's basically my favorite game of all time.

Life is Strange is an old favorite, literally life changing for me. It's got some flaws but its close to my heart. I played it in early high school and had some Realizations that I then proceeded to ignore for like 7 years.

Oxygen Not Included is a deceptively complicated management game that eats up dozens of hours at a time. It's really cute looking, but it is also absolutely brutal, you can get all your people killed in like. 30 seconds if you're not careful. I have never finished it but I love starting it.

Pokemon is an old standby for me, it's the first game I ever played, and even though I get deeply frustrated with the series at times, it has stuck with me forever. I actually help run a Draft League server, which is a fun time! Also have done some background design on an entire region worth of custom mons, ya know. For funsies :p

Stardew Valley, for probably obvious reasons. I mod it a lot, I love SVE, and the game in general pushes all of my buttons. Good character writing, interesting world building, intense management game! I play a little bit of everything, but management games are the ones that eat my attention the most.

Stellaris is an excellent strategy game that I personally prefer to something like Civ. As a strategy game their about on the same level, but Stellaris A: lets you completely design your own civilization/species, and B: actually has super interesting story telling mechanics that really let you tell stories about your games.

The original Subnautica is probably my favorite survival game, just really great environmental storytelling and atmosphere. It's one of the few games (that I play, horror is rare for me) that truly scare me, cause my reaction to attempting to go into the desert full of giant Reapers is visceral!

Warframe is, in my opinion, the best free to play game ever made. It's gorgeous, the gameplay is super fun (Ninjas in Space!), and nearly everything is gettable completely for free, and anything that isn't is only cosmetic. To be warned though, it is terrible at teaching you the systems of the game, and they are super unclear.

I could go on, I play A LOT of games, and as someone studying game design I love talking about them, but that's already 500+ words, which is probably way too long for a simple ask! If you want thoughts on a particular game or genre I am happy to oblige though. It will probably be more mini essays though :p

#storm replays hzd #eventually anyway #it is not abandoned but put on hold as I have actually Had a Life again #sort of #benhargreevesapologist #asks #thanks for enabling my infodump :p #and apologies if that is much longer than you were expecting

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