#imagine them going down on each other and this is just playing in the bg | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

twisted-wonderland-but-gayer · 2 years

Note

Please consider Lilia going full on Mrs Bennet like “I have 3 lovely sons in want of spouses” while Malleus, Silver and Sebek are all just in the bg like 🧍🏻🧍🏻🧍🏻

Lilia and his favorite future in law, the mc ❤️. No he does not know which son they’ll marry, that’s not what’s important

NRCS: The Bachelor!

Gender Neutral, Slight Crack Toward End

The Diasomnia dorm was almost your second home when you befriended Malleus. The nightly walks alongside each other and sharing ice cream evolved into a genuine friendship. You treated Malleus like a person, not a prince, not a powerful sorcerer, but Malleus. You invited him to hang out, you listened to his interests. He's… never had that before.

From there you ended up going out of your way to invite him out, venturing into the unfamiliar dorm to find him. The act ended up catching the attention of the rest of his friends/pseudo-family, who embraced you happily.

They all grew on you like Malleus. You had your own rituals you did with each of them. Listening to Sebek's passionate rambles. Practicing fencing with Silver. Having to get Sebek to help you carry Silver back to his room when he passes out somewhere. They became just as important as Malleus to you.

Another ritual you had was with the dad of the dorm, Lilia. You would both often play a few online games with him or come over for tea, which you are doing now. Thankfully, this time Malleus informed you that he made sure to prepare the tea himself. You learned the hard way anything Lilia makes is either inedible or toxic. Silver took care of your poor, sick self after.

You take a sip of the tea Malleus prepared– it's your favorite actually– as you enjoy your time with the fae in front of you. The conversations and gossip from earlier died down and now you both sit in comfortable silence.

At some point you must have zoned out when Lilia began talking again, your name on his lips being the thing that snapped you out of it. Lilia looked over at you with his usual smile.

"My my, does my old tale bore you that badly?" Lilia dramatically puts a hand to his forehead, his expression dropping, "Oh how you wound this poor old man."

"My apologies, Lilia, I didn't mean to." The fae chuckles teasingly before responding. "Were you perhaps daydreaming of a special someone?" You tense up and he beams, mischievously. "Oh don't worry my boys do the same thing!"

You chuckle, not surprised, after all, he did raise Silver, who is known for dozing off in the middle of a conversation. You can imagine Lilia speaking to Silver without realizing he was asleep the entire time. "... Speaking of my boys, you seem awfully close to them."

His gleeful voice catches your attention again. "I'm quite happy they found new a friend"

You nod "Yes, they mean a lot to me, you know? Not a lot of people on campus treat me kindly." At that, the general's smile falters for a moment before sighing, deciding to change the conversation to a happier one.

"So… they mean a lot to you?" "No not at all actually," you reply sarcastically, the fae just rolls his eyes half-heartedly. "Kidding. You know I love them." What he says next throws you off guard.

"Hoh, is that so? They aren't seeing anyone currently. If you're interested, that is!" It's hard to tell if he is serious or joking or not. "You would make a wonderful addition to the family, after all ~" His voice sounded serious, yet his expression was mischievous, in the smug dad way only he can do.

You open your mouth, then close it. Right as you were about to respond, Malleus enters the room you both were in. The dragon glances at you, then at Lilia.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you both, however, Silver and Sebek are awaiting your sword lessons, Lilia."

"Oh is that so? I nearly forgot! I'm sorry, Prefect gotta go. Oh, and feel free to help yourself to some tea Malleus, you did brew it yourself after all." You swore you saw Lilia wink at you. Wait. Did he just wingman you with his son??

Bonus:

The very next day you awoke to a lot of commotion outside of the dorm. Stepping out of bed, you made your way to the front door. Opening it, you see an entire camera crew right in front of your dorm, Vil standing in front of them with a mic in hand.

"Hello ladies and gentlemen I am your host Vil, here to present to you the very first season of Night Ravens College Bachelor!-"

You tuned out and looked around, confused. You saw Malleus, Sebek, and Silver behind the camera crew, confused looks on their faces as a few people do their makeup.

"Ah you're awake," a familiar voice purred. Looking to your right you see Lilia, sitting in an old rocking chair on the porch, popcorn in his lap and tomato juice in his hand.

Oh this son of a-

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #lilia vanrouge #lilia vanrouge x reader #gender neutral #platonic #sebek zigvolt x reader #sebek zigvolt #silver #silver x reader #silver vanrouge #silver vanrouge x reader #malleus draconia #malleus draconia x reader #diasomnia #diasomnia x reader #vil shoenheit

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claireelizabeth85 · 26 days

Text

Come Home To Me - Chapter 5

John Egan x OC Female!Reader

Summary: When the idea of a past life turns out it isn't just an idea or a dream.

Warning: angst

AN: This is a work of fiction and is based on the TV characters from the Apple TV series. No disrespect is intended towards the real men of the 100th BG.

AN2: A big thanks you to @instructionsnotincluded and @thedeviltohisangel for allowing me to soundboard ideas.

All previous chapters can be found here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sarah couldn't shake the weight of Fred's last words. When he mentioned how Lizzy never saw John again, it hit her like a plot twist in her own story, sparking a wave of unexpected empathy. As she slipped into her room, the phrase "never saw him again" echoed in her mind like a chilling melody. She paused on the edge of her bed, imagining the ache of love lost, trying to put herself in Lizzy’s shoes and how the outpouring of emotions the night before was like the reopening of a deep, old scar.

After a moment of reflection, Sarah found herself in the bathroom, letting the cool water ease the tension that clung to her. Emerging refreshed and resolute, she knew she had to dig deeper for answers. Heading downstairs, she made up her mind to untangle the mysteries that hung in the air and got in the car with Fred to head over to the museum.

The hours rolled past as Sarah read page after page of the notebooks donated by Fred's Aunt. There was so much about the everyday life of the base. The gossip between the Red Cross girls and the pilot, the consoling each other when some of them didn't come home. The office and makeshift archives became Sarah's sanctuary.

She enjoyed the quiet. Both she and Lizzy lived in the constant hum that was London. It was always moving, there was always noise or people. Friends coming and going, music playing, or the TV on. But here, nestled in the quietness of the Norfolk countryside, Sarah would normally have found the peace and quiet deafening, but it gave her space to absorb everything she needed to.

There were boxes of history waiting to be rediscovered; to be read and the people within them to be remembered.

Sarah's fingers traced the faded ink of Jean's last notebook. Taking her glasses off and rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes in the hope it would brush away the ache from reading too long. Pulling out the tie in her hair, Sarah ran her fingers through her hair, scratching in a half-hearted attempt at a head massage. She had received a text from Lizzy earlier in the afternoon to say that she was going to take a wander around the village with James and speak to a few of the locals.

Sarah returned to scanning each line of Jean’s neat handwriting with a mix of determination and frustration. She had been pouring over records and photographs at the museum for what felt like hours, searching for any clue that could lead her closer to the truth about Lizzy.

"Anything?" Fred’s voice was a welcome interruption. His tone was heavy with apprehension as he placed another cup of hot tea and a small bagel on the small coffee table.

Sarah sighed, shaking her head. "Nothing significant. Jean was good at note-taking but by god was she a gossip. To be fair to her, she kept better records than those who stamped theirs with 'Top Secret'. But as she knew that nothing of note could be written down, she resorted to nicknames - Buck, Bucky, Benny, Bubbles and Bing" her voice tinged with disappointment. "But I'm not giving up just yet." as she turned another page, her gaze fell upon a familiar date - October 10th. Her heart quickened at the mention of Lizzy.

“Fred - she talks about Lizzy!” Sarah rushed. The neatly printed words transported Sarah back, the scene forming in her mind's eye.

"Lizzy had been waiting around the tower all day, just as Bing and Jack had. I had taken up coffee and doughnuts to keep them fed and watered. Just as I entered the observation deck, Jack shouted that he could hear engines. Before anyone could stop her, Lizzy was off like a shot, sprinting down the airfield," Sarah read out loud, her voice trembling slightly. “I will never get over hearing her scream. Even from the tower, it was the worst sound I ever heard. Jack threw his coffee cup against the wall and Bing Crosby stumbled into the seat behind him.”

Sarah sobbed. She had seen Lizzy’s heartbreak the other night, slow-dancing outside with a whiskey glass in her hands, admitting that she hadn’t wanted to survive, Fred telling her that Lizzy never saw him again and now she was reading the very moment that caused all of her friend's heartache.

She envisaged her friend, with hope coursing through her body like lightning, driving the speed of her steps as she sprinted down the windy airfield. One hand on her cap and the other driving her forwards. Sarah imagined her whispering to herself that John might just have been lucky enough to survive. She could see Lizzy, breathing so hard with each step getting closer until the crew started to climb out and then the realisation dawning on her that John had in fact not come home. The tarmac biting in to her knees as the weight of the reality crashed down on top of her.

Fred stopped what he was doing.. "Jean always used to say that they never knew who made it back until they got to the interrogation hut, he spoke softly, understanding the emotions bombarding Sarah. "Jean said that the Red Cross girls were all silent and then the minute the doors opened, they would have these jaw crippling smiles on. She never directly spoke about Lizzy’s scream, but said that personnel at Thorpe Abbotts that day knew their cocky, whiskey drinking leader was not one of the lucky ones to have climbed out of the solitary battered fortress that had returned.

Fred left Sarah alone to collect herself and headed back out to the museum where Lauren, a local school girl, was standing at the front desk. “Thanks for helping out Lauren.” She flashed up a wide grin. “Not a problem Mr Thatcher. Mrs Colinson from the primary school phoned to see if they can bring the Year 4s up next week as part of their World War 2 history lesson. I asked her to send you an email. Oh, a lady was looking for you. Said that you were expecting her? That she wrote to you a couple of weeks ago and said that she’s got some pictures and some documents for you? I said that she could take a look around while she waited for you, I hope that’s okay?” Fred nodded, expressing his gratitude at her kindness. “You can pack up and head home now, I’ll shut up shop. No need for you to be here this late. Make sure you call your mum and then head down to the main gate.”

Fred left Lauren to tidy her things, as he went in search of the visitor. He didn’t recollect receiving an email but then between running the pub, volunteering at the museum and looking after his dad, he could quite easily have missed it. The couple were looking at one of the display cases, pointing at people in the photographs. Fred didn’t want to be obnoxiously loud so scuffed his feet a little loud in the hopes that he could catch their attention.

“Oh Mr Thatcher. Thank you for seeing me. My name is Abigail Clarke and this is my husband Michael. I emailed a few weeks ago to say that I would be in the country and that I had some documents and photographs for your collection.” Fred smiled apologetically. “I am so sorry Mrs Clarke, I do believe I received your email but I must admit that I forgot about your arrival. How may I help?” They discussed the contents of what Abigail was donating to the museum as they made their way back to the main area, just so happening to be crossing paths with Sarah - who looked tired and deflated.

“Sorry to interrupt - Fred, I’ll be outside. My brain is shot and my eyes are sore. If Lizzy rings, tell her that I’m still here looking, albeit not with much look.” Sarah left the trio and pushed open the exit into the bright late afternoon sunshine. Abigail and Fred continued to discuss her donation, explaining that the museum was run by volunteers and that it could be a lengthy process to catalogue her donation, but they would take a look and see about adding some if it to their displays. They walked slowly back towards the front of the museum where two small boxes of files, photographs and even a reel of 16mm camera film. Leaving her husband to discuss the intricacies of the B-17 and how often the English Sally-B flies overhead, Abigail headed outside.

Sarah was leaning against the railing with her back to the door, on the phone. “No Liz, I'm fine! Yeah of course. How’s your head? Hahaha, Yeah well make sure you drink some water and eat something or you’re going to feel like shit for days. No, it’s okay I’ll get something when I get back.” There was a pause. Sarah pushed herself off the railing and turned and leant her back against it. She exhaled, forcing the air out and inhaling the resolve to explain whatever it was that she had been asked. “Yeah, I found something. Fred’s Auntie Jean was a Red Cross girl here - you remember her?” There was high-speed chatter. Abigail wandered over to the monument looking at all the names of the men and boys who had left this place, never to return, trying hard not to eavesdrop. “Yeah, well she liked to keep detailed notes - she...erm…she wrote about you?” Sarah suddenly became conscious of her company. “Yeah, she wrote about October 10th. I’m so sorry Liz. I really am. Listen, I've gotta go. I want to go through a few more bits before I get out of here.”

The call disconnected and Sarah went to head straight back inside. “Sarah?” The voice called out softly. She turned around to find the woman who had been taking time at the memorial stone walking towards her. “Yes? Can I help you? How did you…” The woman, a good two or three inches above Sarah’s 5ft 3” engulfed her in a huge hug, almost lifting her off the ground. “I would recognise you anywhere!” Sarah struggled against the unwelcome intrusion into her personal space. The lady, who still had a gentle hold on Sarah’s elbows was in her late 40s to early 50s, blonde hair with streaks of silver grey. She had blue eyes that reminded her a little of Lizzy’s.

“I’m very sorry, do I know you?” the woman chuckled. “No, not right now but don’t worry about that, the important thing is I have found you as I have been asked to give you this.” Abigail handed over an envelope, containing photographs. “I was told that these would be a great help to your research.” Sarah opened the envelope and took out the photographs. “But how? Where did you get these?” Abigail smiled knowingly. “I got them from my….” She never finished explaining where the photographs came from, as the man Sarah assumed was her husband called her away.

Wandering back inside the museum, Sarah flicked through the photos, there were so many. A wonderful head shot of Lizzy in uniform, one of her standing in from the mess hall and at the officer’s club. But there was one that made Sarah’s head spin and in that moment, her whole outlook changed. She thought this whole situation was bonkers, time travel, Lizzy knowing things she shouldn’t and yet now she was holding evidence, irrefutable proof that it was, after everything she had seen and been told, all true.

Heading back to the office and with a surge of determination, she pulled out her notebook that was buried under all the declassified mission reports. Wiping clean the whiteboard that hung on the far wall, Sarah tried to make sense of the notes she had made only a few hours ago but they all seemed like gibberish now. Standing before the board and with shaky determination and not really sure where this was leading her, Sarah wrote “Dreams” and the dates that Lizzy’s dreams started and all the dates that Sarah could remember along with any words, or names that Lizzy had given her after they had talked through it. Underneath the dreams, Sarah wrote out all the missions that Lizzy had been on, with the dates underneath the name, all except the last one. The only thing that Sarah could add was the month and date.

“Jesus Christ! It all fits! It all bloody fits.” Sarah scrutinised the board and the photographs she had received from the woman outside, studying them intently. Despite her efforts, there was no date on the back of the photographs or any other clue to indicate when they were taken. A sense of frustration washed over Sarah as her confidence plummeted, leaving her feeling as though she had hit a brick wall.

"When? When were you taken?" Sarah muttered, feeling like she was chasing after a thread that led nowhere. Emptying the contents of the envelope onto the table, she sorted through other photographs that appeared to be from the same time period: officers laughing in the sunshine, their hats off and some appearing relaxed despite wearing their uniforms. Rummaging through more boxes of photographs, Sarah grew increasingly desperate, convinced that she had encountered something similar before. If only she could figure it out, if only she could pinpoint their location, then she knew where to direct her search.

“Sarah, you okay? I’m just going to shut up shop and we can head back to the pub...” The look on Sarah’s face was wild. “Fred!! Do you know when this photograph was taken?” She practically shoved the black and white picture under his nose. “It’s the link Fred. That photograph links everything that Lizzy has been through. I just have to find out how to make it all happen.” She took a seat perching on the edge of the chair, massaging her temples as Fred studied the photograph. “I couldn’t tell you when, but Liz does look happy though. Maybe it was taken not long after she got here, not long after she met John.” Sarah took the photograph back and placed it back into the envelope. “I don’t know Fred. That woman you spoke to earlier, she gave it to me. She knew me, by name, she never gave me hers, but said that she had to find me to give me this cos it would help me. I don’t have a clue what that means. There’s something in the photographs that’s meant to tell me when this was taken. But I’d be fucked if I can work it out.”

“You need a break Sarah, you’ve been at this all day. You’ve read so much you’re probably word blind and won’t be able to see the wood for the trees. Besides, there might not be anything that we can do about it.” Sarah shook her head, not wanting to hear it. “There has to be Fred, there has to be, look at the fucking photo! Look at it, I’m in the bloody thing!! There has to be a way that this all comes full circle because I’m in that photo and I don't remember it and yet Lizzy remembers everything - she remembers everything and everyone and it’s breaking her heart all over again. You didn’t see her Fred, she won’t survive that kind of heartache again. I have to try and fix this. I have to find the answer and it’s here. I’m sure of it.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Back at the pub, Sarah and Lizzy sat at a table tucked away in the back, the evening sun casting a warm glow through the windows. Plates and cups multiplied around them as they caught up on their day, small talk interspersed with moments of serious discussion. Lizzy, still feeling fragile from her hangover, listened intently as Sarah shared her research endeavours, determined to uncover the truth behind their recent discoveries. Sarah kept the photograph from Abigail a secret for now, mindful of Lizzy's emotional state the night before.

As the evening progressed, Fred and Geoff joined them, bringing with them an air of camaraderie and purpose. With the museum's recreated board spread out on the table, they delved into the details of their past missions. Lizzy faltered when asked about her last mission, her memories clouded and fragmented. "I'm not sure," she admitted, her voice tinged with uncertainty. "I don't really remember much... just the flak and all the bomb groups, the largest run on Berlin in the whole war."

Sensing Lizzy's discomfort, Sarah exchanged a knowing glance with Fred and Geoff, silently acknowledging her struggle. Lizzy excused herself to fetch a round of drinks from the bar, leaving the others to pore over the evidence laid out before them. Geoff focused on studying the photographs, while Fred meticulously checked paperwork and logbooks.

Fred leaned over the table to talk to Sarah in quiet whispers. “You need to ask Geoff to have a look at that photo” Sarah’s eyes went wide. Twisting around to check on Lizzy’s progress at the bar, she slid the small, 3-inch by 2-inch, black and white photograph face-side down across the table. “Not a word to Lizzy. Not until we have something concrete”. Geoff’s eyebrows shot up. “But this….” Sarah threw him a stern look. “Not a bloody word Geoff.” He nodded. Picking up his magnifying glass, he set out looking at the small photograph in all its finer detail.

As Sarah delved deeper into the dates surrounding Lizzy's last mission, her focus intensified. Returning to the group and passing around the drinks, Lizzy took a moment to watch her best friend as she sat with her cup of coffee. She couldn't help but notice the exhaustion etched into Sarah's features. Despite her own deafening thoughts, Lizzy recognized Sarah's tireless determination, even amidst her own weariness.

Summoning her courage, Lizzy attempted to unlock the lid on her final memory, the one she had buried deep within herself. It was a memory that frightened her more than any other, a jumble of names and flashes that refused to coalesce into a coherent whole. "Rosie," she murmured aloud, drawing Geoff's attention as he turned to inquire if she had said something. Gathering her thoughts, Lizzy continued, "Rosie, that's who I flew with on the mission. Robert Rosenthal, a Brooklyn lawyer. He was the best pilot we had after..." Her voice trailed off as she drained her coffee and headed outside for a smoke, seeking solace in the cool night air.

Pulling out the files that Sarah had borrowed from the museum, she split them in half and handed them over to Fred, not looking at him as he gave her the look of "these should not be out of the museum." Knowing that they were only looking for February 1945 missions, this cut their research down by hours. "I've got it!" Sarah said triumphantly. Laying the mission report of Major Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal on the table, Sarah and Fred read the few short lines that were written about Lizzy. "Lt. Waterfield stayed steadfast her in choice to stay onboard despite the significant damage to our bomber. She expertly managed to keep the plane steady enough, despite being injured herself, so that I could get out. I am not aware of the whereabouts of Lt Waterfield at this time." Sarah looked at Fred and then at Geoff. "Does this mean..." The two men exchanged glances. "He's saying she probably went down with the plane, but because he didn't see a chute, he or the Air Force can't be certain that she didn't survive. So, she was classified as Missing in Action until such time evidence could be provided to the contrary." Sarah looked at everything on the table. "That," pointing at the report, "the day after the anniversary of that mission is when Lizzy's dreams started."

Suddenly, Geoff's voice broke their concentration. "Sarah, I think I've worked out when this photograph was taken," he exclaimed, pointing out a minuscule detail in the photograph that Sarah had handed to him. Sarah took the picture and magnifying glass and with Geoff carefully pointing at the detail, Sarah's breath caught in her throat. "Oh, holy shit!" she exclaimed, realising the significance of what had been uncovered.

The trio were deliberating on the next steps when Lizzy came back to the group. "We think we know how to..." all of them now grappling with the dual desires expressed by Sarah and Lizzy: to "get you back" and to "make them stop." Recognizing the complexity of their situation, they agreed to sleep on it for the night, allowing time for reflection and planning. Sarah felt a sense of accomplishment and progress, hopeful that they were finally moving forward.

Taglist:

@victoryrollsandredlips @bobparkhurst @prettyinlimegreenboots @ginabaker1666 @thedeviltohisangel

#John Egan x Lizzy Waterfield #Masters of the Air #Major John Egan #Lizzy Waterfield #Major Gale Cleven #Major Harry Crosby #Major Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal #Mota #mastersoftheair #mota fanfiction #sarah taylor (oc)#come home to me

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teecupangel · 5 months

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desmond would definitely be the type to accidentally woo the og fm/otome protagonist AND the harem + bg characters. with the ikemen sengoku, it would be funny if desmond’s route is only unlocked after the mc finishes the entire game and gets all the ending cue the twist of video game protagonist! desmond getting isekaied. His bad route is probably going to be desmond sacrificing himself again :/ …. normal route is desmond just booking it and never finding the truth of who he actually was, rip pov outsider.

Let’s add @artduringclasstime’s reply to the previous post

Those four or so years where I played the Ikemen series religiously just came out of the woodwork to smack me in the face. Sasuke renamed himself after a fictional ninja the moment he went back in time, the STARS he'll have in his eyes upon meeting Desmond. ... and I can definitely see Kenshin going after Desmond. Whether it's for a fight or otherwise, even he doesn't know

Desmond had no plans to do such a thing in the first place. He has no idea why the hell any of these was happening to him.

He doesn’t understand that, because he’s an unknown character, whatever system is in place in the world sees him as a ‘player character’ which means… people have easier time to fall in love with him because of his personality.

I like to imagine that Desmond was given a buff in their affection rating like in the normal mode of “Villains are Destined to Die” where the ‘player character’ gets a 30% affinity already to the possible love interests like a “we’re sorry you’re stuck in our world” kind of apology buff from the ‘gods’ of this world.

Of course, that additional affinity is just there to make sure Desmond doesn’t get on the bad sides of the powerful men from the get go and can still go down or up, depending on Desmond’s action.

Sasuke would be the one to talk about Multiverses and such and how Desmond’s existence could mean that they themselves are a work of fiction in a different world.

Desmond is like “yeah, I get what you’re talking about but that’s not really helpful to our current situation?” which would embarrass Sasuke because he got too fired up about it.

So in this one, they sorta know Desmond’s true identity because Sasuke played Assassin’s Creed (for the history) so Sasuke gives them the idea that maybe a POE is also somewhere here since Desmond’s here.

It’s a long shot but it’s a possibility that they can’t just dismiss.

And that is the start of Desmond’s route. Depending on the player’s actions, the player character would later switch to Desmond for the secret BL route! (Which has a harem ending because why not?)

(Kenshin’s route is more on the side of enemies-to-lovers route with Desmond actually getting a headache over how ‘devoted’ to fighting Kenshin is).

His bad ending is them finding the POE and learning that it can be used to bring them back to their proper time and dimension BUT they will come back to it at the exact time they left so Desmond will return to his world only to die from the device ‘again’. He still goes through with it though because he wants to get Mai and Sasuke back to their time and he believes he’s been living in borrowed time. The normal ending, I believe, is Desmond not using the POE and finally leaving everyone with the idea that, if he’s stuck in this world, he’ll build a Brotherhood somewhere he’s more familiar with: Italy. In other words, the normal ending has Desmond alive but alone in a whole other country with no idea what happens to him afterwards.

The part where Desmond books it and no one finds out who he truly is would work as the ‘failed’ event of unlocking Desmond’s route.

To even unlock Desmond’s route, there would be two conditions:

(1) Finished all the endings for each route.

(2) Start a new game and go to a specific event that lets Mai walk in town (this will show up as a new ‘option’ during one of the early parts of the game)

(3) Choose the “Don’t scream” when Mai wakes up one night with a shadow looming above her after the previous event on condition (2).

If all conditions are done, Desmond is unlocked as a possible route but to get to the Desmond’s route, the choices to develop his affection must be chosen.

The condition to change to Desmond as the main character and enter the BL route is to actually develop his affection up to 30% only but keep all affections to other characters at 29% or below before Sasuke appears and tells Mai and Desmond that Desmond is a character from the franchise Assassin’s Creed.

#this answer is a bit all over the place #sorry #ask and answer #assassin's creed #desmond miles #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #fic idea: crossover #fic idea: ikemen sengoku #ikemen sengoku

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nymphacae · 2 years

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A LEGEND in the Rymin fic community loves my fics?? I’m gonna cry /lh /gen

Also might I ask what your headcanons for the silly lil guys are? It’s always interesting to hear how other people interpret these lovable music dweebs.

ahhh i have a LOT of headcanons and it feels like a lot of them vary based on which AU/story i'm working with, hc's are a lot like trying on clothes at thrift stores for me — sometimes you just wanna try a new one out for size and think 'hm!' @ the mirror, it's what makes community engagement so much fun imo !

but i will ATTEMPT to narrow down some of the constants i find when working with rymin and ones that aren't, yknow, confined to specific AUs — although i'm sure if you're familiar with paper trails, you know some of these already lmao

RYAN

HE LOVES REPTILES. You HAVE to know this about me by now but i push ryan lizard propaganda like my life DEPENDS on it!!! He loves bearded dragons in particular – his favorite girl is named Spitfire and she’s a proud lesbian (min in the bg telling ryan to stop pushing a sexuality on her, but he’s ignored). But he loves snakes too, and spiders and lizards…I imagine he names them all after musicians for funsies, spitfire just happened to break that code for me bc i liked the name too much lol

Second thing people probably know about me is how hard i push anti-beatles ryan akagi bc it’s true

He picked up a habit of smoking on the road and he’s since then quit – going cold turkey after getting abducted by a train will tend to break that habit

His sibling’s names, in order, are Alexa, Miya, Ethan, and Eikoh. Both his sisters kinda had to mother him; though he’s closest to Miya (who’s an interior design/textiles major, also engaged) bc Alexa had a severe case of eldest daughter syndrome and it made her pretty snippy – she also fled the nest the second she could and only really calls to yell into the receiver about her job and secret girlfriend

Ryan’s a Schrodinger’s Gender situation for me, so it fluctuates often just based on what story i’m telling. In the AUs/stories where he’s transmasc, ryan names himself after a homeless guy named Ryan who’d sit outside his family’s local supermarket and play a sick riff. One day baby ryan spotted him throw a banana peel at a police officer was chasing him (for dignity’s sake, he always tells friends he was just inspired by ryan roxie, the guitarist)

(also in these AUs, he has insanely intense cycles due to the cursed cocktail of anemia/endometriosis, which leads to minor complications when he’s on the road and can’t afford T/birth control anymore. It’s a whole Thing, he had to be hospitalized for it at age 13 and the doctors basically shrugged, as doctors do. I’ve wanted to explore this caveat before but never found the time, oh well)

also shoutout to prism who engraved 'pt ryan transfem' into my brain you were so real for that

his specific mental diagnosis is also a roulette wheel based on what story im working with, shrug. idk who said that min is adhd in an autistic way and ryan is autistic in an adhd way, but whoever said that changed my life so ty and you're right!! i also lean towards him having/on the watchlist for forming bpd - looking back on pt i believe he showed signs of bipolar disorder

Tulip and Ryan are bffs. I’m not budging on this. They make friendship bracelets and play mario kart and sing karaoke and ryan does her hair bc lake won’t do Femme Things™ with her anymore and they love each other SO Much

Ryan’s acespec; I touch on this whenever I can, but this plays a Big role in his relationship with the music industry. Sex Drugs And Rock N’ Roll is a subculture he could never fit into for a plethora of reasons, and it was another way he felt isolated while going solo due to all the aggressive expectations. He’s sex-POSITIVE, bc it’s important to me to shed the stupid ‘asexuals are all sex-repulsed puritans’ agenda i see being spread sometimes. He thinks it’s fun, and with the right person it is!

He's the one who gets carsick/boatsick and is terrified of flying

He's really into boozy cocktails but he'll pretend he isn’t — he likes tequila and vodka which is funny bc i picture his favorite drink to be like a hurricane or sex on the beach

He's lost a lot of friends by reviewing their mixtapes

He really gets into making pastries and desserts farther down the line! Depending on the timeline this could be a hobby encouraged by a therapist or just an interest he picks up naturally, with min always finding comfort in food and cooking himself

MIN-GI

His mom’s name is Soo-yeon and his dad is Tae-hyun. He visits Jeju-si in the summer since his mom has two sisters living there

Min loves helping his mom around the kitchen/folding laundry. His parents have a huge garden out back with flowers and some veggies, and he likes harvesting from there when his mom lets him (she’s very picky about who touches her flowers!)

Plants are min’s comfort item; they’re basically to him what reptiles are to ryan! He’d cover the entire van/flat with them if he could, he loves succulents in particular and he likes to sing to them

He’s a HUGE dog person!! Whenever he’d come visit the Akagi’s he’d make an IMMEDIATE beeline for the family dog; however when his mom bought a Pomeranian to cure her empty nest syndrome, he despises it (for comedic purposes he only addresses his mother's dog as The Dog)

He leans more on the side of whiskey in drinks; he also likes gin. His taste in alcohol is definitely WAY stronger than ryan’s, less diluted with flavors, but both have the same level of tolerance. he enjoys a good sazerac

He’s a dark chocolate kinda guy

He won the spelling bee in grade four

Once he travels with Ryan and becomes more comfortable with his identity, I think he'd experiment with gender and appearance. while i enjoy seeing gender hc's for My Lads, for me and my writing it's nice to work with a min-gi who embarks on a gender journey and comes back deciding he likes being a cis guy just fine. not that this affects him playing with makeup or clothes lol, also if he were to wear skirts at all they'd be long and loose

Wherever I can apply it, Simon and Min are always gonna be roommates who are stuck in a perpetual loop of basically reenacting that always sunny ‘mac and dennis move to the suburbs’ episode

He looks up to Grace a lot; she’s kinda The Mentor Friend who intimidates you just enough for you to get your shit together, and outside of Kez he'd consider Jesse his closest friend

He loves cooking! He likes making hearty meals for his friends, and he especially enjoys teaching them how to cook if they’re curious

Big ol ADHD mess over here, an icon

He’s the one that most comfortable with his identity, which is very funny to me seeing how he’s the one that casually accepts ‘queer’ as his label while Ryan keeps picking terms out of a hat and then furiously stomping on the slip of paper lmao. Mins just chillin, he likes who he is and he’s not about to challenge that 🤷‍♀️

FOR BOTH:

-ryan's got the cold hands and min's got the warm hands

-they’re both qpps with kez bc it’s important

-min's the one who chugs down coffee like it's water, and ryan likes fancy coffees, but he's more of a tea person lmao (lots of sugar though)

-they both have bad tattoos

-in modern era, they’d do the neurodivergent Thing of assigning everyone they know pokemon teams – they’d be HUGE pokemon fans and would trade cards/art all the time (to discuss their pokemon teams with me would initiate an entirely different conversation……..)

-i've gotten into Agree To Disagree disputes with mutuals over this but i stand by 'min's the one with the 13-in-1 wash and ryan has 12 different hair care products' bc Neurodivergence(tm)

-they both smoke weed and will ruthlessly roast your spotify playlists

I’m hosting a friend rn so uhhh hopefully this suffices

#min gi park #ryan akagi #ask #there are CERTAINLY more but i had to mull over this question for a couple days so i could remember everything i could LOL #im good with having specific scenarios and hcs though which i take pride in. catch me at the right time and ill go in depth for hourrrrs #also lmk if i need to tag anything since i briefly touch on like. weed n transmasc menstruation #rymin

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the-firebird69 · 2 years

Text

Watch "Five Finger Death Punch- Bad Company" on YouTube

youtube

It's just becoming night time and there's not less is more Firebirds and roadrunners and she says it's my car I'm the firebird he says I'm the road runner cuz I'm running around I'm not flying. So they started of laughing and said we should switch. And Hera did not even move and he didn't either said I'm sitting here flying all the time and you're grounded no. It's a woman's car cuz the lead sled he started smiling you're pretty Swift there buddy. We're going to have to race cuz you won't let me drive your car. I'm making a drag strip should be finished at 9:00 Vegas time I have a bunch of races breaking in finished curing it. It's on buddy we're racing and for each other's titles it says okay if you really want to what if one of us wins both races those things started laughing no no we just switch titles if we win I said either one of us wins and we switch titles she said yes so what does the winner get. The win against the title of the other car and you have to win it back so how do you win it back if you don't have a car well there's a question buddy how about we race for the other title okay okay so what you're saying is you don't have anything you don't want to put it up so find out one of us wins we swap cars or you can decide not to. What I think is we're losing viewers... No no hear me out we're going to race for each other's title at the same time so if I win I get the title of your car. Okay but if I win I get the title of your car. Okay buddy the race is off. Why don't we race for something else. Kim says oh God it's her. And Garth an ugh ouch. And his brain hurts. So we're going to race for something or something like you're condominium what condominium when you supposed to move into okay that's good. Now I'm going to do that what are you going to be racing in .lol. my car of stupid you don't have the title..lol. Okay okay wait till you clear the track. Stop with this stupid talk we got work to do just sitting there doing nothing. Well it's going to be Conan and a whole bunch of Arnold Schwarzenegger then it's going to be a bunch of Neo but there's a bunch of goals to reach. And the movie is that Schwarzenegger was in they're all pertinent to what's going on and the same is with Christopher Walken but he gets blown up completely but then again he might come back so here's the thing the head was forced to be made by Mac and we're going to hold the hand into New Zealand and that's what we're going to do. And it's nice to hear that you finally made a decision so I got another idea they took the head of Sarah off so I'm going to hold it down in Australia and playing macaroni then Tommy f. But right now the head is probably still in Spain and I would imagine that if it moves it would be by bja aboard Tomorrowland. The threaten Trump. And all this is happening now and they're going to go to Spain shortly. He's like don't disable the sewer because he's going to kick you out and the saying this he kind of said it to us. And they're listening and they hear it so good.

And there's other things happening they're going after the lasers and I know how many there are there's probably 35 left no it's 45 left and 35 are off planet three are under siege no three are disabled and soon to probably be on fire so that leaves 32 and seven of those are under extreme siege and that would leave 28 that are being attacked but they haven't reached it yet but each of those 28 has some serious weaponry held on it there's only 10 left on Earth what's those tender done focus will return to space there's also a question of death stars and the question of the starkiller base which is really a common Empire ship is below the ground and several of them are found on Earth to in Bavaria below the chocolate factory is which they visit almost once a day. Brad says his will be up tomorrow and BG says his will be up tomorrow and they fight over it and they brought in supplies today and my husband says I want my candy bar pronto and low sugar or no sugar but no sugar alcohols for Christ's sake so they're making a chocolate bars for the recipe and there's some sugar but not tons no please and it doesn't make you poop and they're not using process even though it says to and it does have bleach in it that's why unprocessed cane that's perfectly healthy it's probably brown sugar and they tested it and that's what it is it tastes great it tastes better it takes a little bit caramel flavor. Now they tested it and made some candy bars and they're going to start selling them it's going to be fun

Thor Freya want to talk. I had a lot of fun today he did too but really it's kind of aggravating him it's like fighting everybody off and doing it he doesn't get to have too much fun with it it's still the same thing you said it's good that I had fun because he's a man and kind of can go through it and I noticed that.

Hera

Zues

They ns people hear it too but they can't tell her reaction and her name is jane too it's one of her aliases, and yes she is the Sarah. And it's on a whole bunch of biogenetesists say. We have two cars in the way into Florida no there's millions will pull them all out it's way too many trying to get here and intercepting and building our forces up and we're going to keep them here permanently we have a huge base I just went in and I'm putting in another one it's still not big enough I need massive massive ones and we need them now and we have to do something and we really need to have him well and suffering and telling us please don't happen I need people to just do it and hes saying it now. So I'm putting a request for volunteers for duty here were getting help. I'm going to stop doing this harping it's not helping him or me. Now there's a ton of people that want us to sit here harping. This is what are we women and we'll just sit here harping. So we'll stop them come and get to work. There's a lot going on and we don't need the interference and I'm ordering troops in and I'm telling my people now stop having me complain about it and getting there and do the job if you want to complain back at you and you just sit there doesn't do anything.

And her father and mother say don't complain if you keep doing it. And also you not to draft and conscription now and follow it and put a schedule together you have a meeting tonight and I'm scheduling it now and Freya is sending it out and says what to bring and why now we're going to be organized it's the schedule and racing troops and why and when and why we need them. And he wants to raise face defense and we do have big weapons and we're making more and that's hiring tons of people and he wants to have a big push and he wants our people to have Starfleet and we probably should call it then I'm not sure. What we say is that's a bad idea I was going to be gibberishing so maybe it's something I already have a name but I understand what he's saying I'm going to open up a lot more academies and a lot more cores and a lot more commands it's a matter of fact this is an easy idea to follow right now we have buildings you're sort of not being used and we're going to use them as Starfleet Academy to coin a phrase. And citizens can enter like the national guard and will vet them at a certain point and they can go to school there it's a matter of fact they have to be vended pretty much immediately but they can go to school there and train and still do a regular life this is great and we started doing it and we're building them all over the place this is the best. We have the racers and security versions it's really nice. And they're building tons of weaponry in order to repel anything and we also going to use it and we know why and put it somewhere I'm going ahead with this this is huge let me start building it and I understand something it's starting to work a lot

Thor Freya

What was the conversation and frustrated you

Nuada and Ariana

I help him with the ignoring you kind of stuff but really this is terribly annoying but not now it's great

Hera

That's what she's like everybody so if you want my job good luck you'll never survive her lol

Zues

True too

Hera is my man and I'm his and that's all it is. That's the way it is I said the last way that the first way this numbskill can't do this correctly it's a smear campaign on purpose damn it all he says

#Youtube

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moonandsunwoo · 2 years

Text

“just best friends” with txt

# — pairing: txt x you (no pronouns mentioned)

# — genre: fluff, kinda best friends to lovers <3

# — warnings: noneeee, lowercase intended

hiiiiii i am back after 6 years hehe :> i might post something for nct dream soooon if yall dont mind hahah im in a bit of a dreamie-hole again…anywhat have a lovely day !

soobin…bet he has the reddest cheeks whenever someone remarks that you two would go together well, just waves it off casually, heart beating out of his CHEST tho. Soobins unofficial love-language is little acts of service throughout your day, that does not limit itself to brushing your hair out of your face randomly and stuttering after intense eye-contact. so yeah soobin thinks youre cute xoxo and he will make you breakfast every sunday if you ask him to and he will help you with all your homework (even math) and if he does not understand the subject you bet your cute ass he will sit down and do the research about it. but just friends!! maybe.

yeonjun…hes a flirty fella as we know, with everyone but especially with you. winks as often at you as you roll your eyes back at him (which is: a lot) but you would be lying if you said it didn’t make your heart skip a liiiittle bit. would have a habit of picking you up from everywhere at any time of the day, maybe with your favourite drink ready just because he knew which one that was and he could. likes to link arms with you, likes to match clothes in a subtle way, likes showing off how well you go together — because he knows that you do. you just wait :>

beomgyu…can you imagine a beomgyu unhinged but with a tinge of red on his cheeks, pulling you around at your hand, intertwined pinkies and matching friendship bracelets that actually mean so much more than just friends but hes too shy and youre too shy to do anything about it. (I can hear “vibes” by chase atlantic play in the bg tbh) its so many giggles and late night stargazing and trips to the end of this world just to find out that home can be everywhere as long as the other one is with them. oh also: HANDSHAKES. Idc if you think thats childish, you have one with beomgyu and its beautiful okay.

taehyun…the two go together so well that ot4 just assumed you were dating the first time they met you. its the kind of relationship where the two parties balance each other out just perfectly, a beautiful harmony. he makes you feel calm and you make him feel brave. you would visit every concert of theirs and he would always find you within ten minutes no matter where you were standing. he would come over late at night to watch a stupid boring movie with you that you both would abandon for a conversation about space and the importance of peppermint tea. Of course you loved each other. taehyun just needs that final push (bet that push would turn out to appear in the form of choi beomgyu)

hueningkai…ah yeah, so much teasing you both over the obvious puppylove you two shared. It was so innocent and pure and really built on a deep and trusting friendship and maybe that was what made huening (and you) so insecure about admitting feelings because what if the other person didnt feel the same and then everything was ruined??? scary thought right? So in the meantime (yeonjun would get kai there, dont worry yes) there would just be 3h phonecalls and matching plushies and shared clothes and jewellery and maybe handholding??? maybe…on a bold day hihi

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yawnjunn · 2 years

Text

TXT's efforts as your boyfriends

☆ YAYY XDINARY HEROES ARE BACKK im happy yayayya but anywaysss beomgyu fic is 80% finished lmao n taehyun's is still 60% finished but yeah

╰┈➤ txt x gn! reader

╰┈➤ pronouns used: they/them

╰┈➤ warnings: uhh none i think

yeonjun:

•man would cook you anything, well he TRIES to make them

•if youre craving for anything hes unfamiliar with, he'd either; 1) learn from youtube, 2) ask his mom, 3) just go with the flow

•most of the time youre craving for ramen, he'd definitely cook u some since hes a ramen expert

•he may be busy 24/7 but he really tries to balance things between his work and you

•when youre mad, hes gonna shut his mouth to let you cool off, after for a while, he'd apologies to you like a scared puppy

•"im sorry y/n, youre not mad at me arent you?"

•the moment you give him the 'im still mad at you' look, he'd just look down and let you chill off a bit more

•goes out to buy your fav snacks as a way of apologising

•although, you always said its a waste of money to buy unnecessary snacks as an apology but other than that, youre thankful that he makes those efforts

•helps you do the chores

•helps you on cooking too!!!!

•buys you LOTS AND LOTS OF GIFTS

•after work, he'd always come home bringing your fav snacks or sometimes flowers

soobin:

•this dude is a leader ofc hes gonna be busy most of the time

•BUT he makes sure to make time for you

•lets say, you both are one of those long distance relationship couples

•after work, during his lunchbreak or any break in general, he'd always call you

•makes sure you get enough water, youve eaten well etc.

•would literally be a mom mode when you told him you havent ate anything

•sends pics of odi lolol

•refers to you as 'odi's 2nd parent'

•would plan out cute dates :(

•wouldnt let you eat junk foods before bed cs he knows you'd get very hyper

•(unless you manage to convince him, he'd let you)

•checks up on you 24/7 through texting whenever u both are not with each other

•cant sleep unless youre on call with him 👍🏻

beomgyu:

•relationship w/ gyu would be chaotic but fun

•teases you 24/7

•TRIES helping you cook

•but you'd be the one scolding him cause cooking w/ him is a no no

•you cook? he watches, like sitting on the countertop swinging his legs back n forth while you cook his fav dishes

•but when youre sick, he tries to make a simple porridge or soup for you with the help of his mom (or maybe taehyun he can cook too lols)

•"i made this porridge for you out of love, you better eat that, its my mom's recipe" (i can imagine beomgyu saying this 😩)

•isnt afraid to play wrestle with you. like fr.

•wrestling with you would also means him kissing your face everywhere just so he can distract you and win

•supports you no matter what

•you failed an exam? he'd say smthn like "its okay, failing and failure is 2 different things, youre for sure not a failure"

•you feel like you need space? he'd understand. just as long as youre taking good care of yourself

taehyun:

•effortlessly romantic

•he'll be holding your hand everywhere like its natural to him

•doesnt let you carry the shopping bags, not even your purse/bag

•would be your shoulder to cry on

•sends selfies for you and only you

•gives personal space for you only if u need to

•yall know this man doesnt like to do aegyo for people, but for you he would 😩🧎🏻‍♀️

•lets you RANT about...EVERYTHING

•if you wanna rant about your fav gg/bg SURE he'll listen

•if you wanna rant about your problems OFC he'd listen and tries his best to comfort you after that

•lets say, youre a fan of other gg/bg, man would buy albums for you 😟

•just be prepared, he'll hide those bg photocards away from you so only HIS pcs matters

•protects you with all his life

•fr like if theres someone bullying you, its over for them

hueningkai:

•buys you plushies like LOTS of them

•likes to plan out cheap but cute dates

•dates like painting with each other, picnic dates, ice cream dates etc.

•even tho hes your bf, he still gets shy around you

•blushes really hard when you kiss him so passionately

•tries his best to comfort you when youre in your depression episodes

•also, he'd try making you laugh cause seeing you smile makes him smile, seeing you sad makes him sad, simple as that

•(for female) he'd ask his sisters about periods cause he wouldnt know what to do when youre crying over period cramps

•TAKES CUTE POLAROID PICS OF YOU and sticks it on his wall

•asks his hyungs (most likely soobin) on how to become more romantic

•i think he'd make a song about you tho, this guy knows alot about music

•spends most of his free time on you :))

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tezzbot · 3 years

Note

appledash headcanons? i need more of them in my life tbh </3 [also i love the way you draw ponies,,, they're just so,,,, shaped and cool,,,]

i have been thinking a lot about dash moving in with the apples a lot recently, like her getting accustomed to their little traditions and like trying to like find her place in the household n stuff, maybe confiding in sugarbelle since this was a process shes already been through getting used to living w the apples?

i just like to imagine little domestic scenes like at night when its dark and theyre all in like. the living room or whatever just sitting together chatting, telling stories n jokes and stuff n its all cozy and warm, maybe the couples cuddled up on the couches, granny knitting or smth in Her Chair, and in the mornings when everyones getting up its like they all have to figure out how to weave in and out of each others way cus like, adding sb and rd to the house its more crowded than its been in decades and it ends up looking like some kind of weird dance up and down the stairs on the landing and in the kitchen lol

i also like to imagine they have a little like firepit maybe a little bit in the orchard behind the house and if they sit out there long enough it starts feeling like an at home camping trip... if youve ever been sat outside though sundown around fire you know the feeling qwq.. maybe aj brings out an instrument of hers and gives little personal apple chord performances or they do a little family singsong w tunes that have been passed down through generations apple to apple or she just mindlessly like lightly plays it giving a little bit of bg music

and then eventually, after getting used to her living there, when dash has to leave for however long for wonderbolts excursions her absence is absolutely felt, maybe the house is slightly quieter without her rowdy ass hovering around jokingly whining about all the work she has to do now lmao

and oh man having rds parents over for dinner or something would be a laugh and a half for fuckin sure omg everyone just swapping stories embarassing each other like families are supposed to do

i feel like dash would be good helping bring in the harvests, i dont think shed buck i dont think pegasi are built for that lol shed probably just fly from tree to tree and just shimmy and shake the apples down, i feel like sugarbelle would like help w the finances n stuff and do little bake sales in the ponyville market from time to time or maybe the cmcs take her stuff to the schools to help w funds to keep the farm going, though i think dash's celebrity paycheck would help cover anything that keeps them out of the red :P

god can you imagine how excited dash and aj would be to hear that theyre going to be aunts to big mac and sugarbelles foal,,, i feel like theyd be like omg congrats thats so cool :)!! but like in private theyre like OH MYG OD WE ARE GOING TO BE THE BEST AUNTS EVER IN THE WORLD fghgjgkhfhfg

ANYWAY sorry this got long and was more abt the apples as a unit rather than just appledash lmao i just have a lot of feelings about domestic shit it makes me so so so soft<3<3

and thank you so much!!! i love drawing the horses :P

#tezztalks #pony talk #apple family #appledash

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juni-ravenhall · 3 years

Text

20 things i want really badly for sso to update / add

1. regularly scheduled main story updates. this is THE most important thing for a game that is quite story-based, but something sso has problems with. it makes us feel disconnected from the story and main characters and makes players lose interest, not knowing when we will get more story, or if the story will ever go anywhere.

2. work hard on fixing bugs and improving functionality - QA testing a lot more on their own. i know the game has a crappy engine and that theyre trying to improve stuff, but yeah, theres just a lot of stuff that needs to be worked on. (i think they should just move to a good engine. a huge investment, yes, but worth it in the long run with the potential benefits from selling a higher quality game and being able to work on it more smoothly?)

3. ability to use photomode and control the camera properly when our character sits down, at cafes, etc, basically just being able to go into photo mode at all times.

4. weather system. rain, snow, fog, etc. preferrably random aside from during quests that need specific weather ofc. possibly with an ability to turn off weather. optional: updated skies for more variety in colours and clouds and all that to go along with the weather.

5. new areas to be released of the ones that have already been hinted at for ages! north link goes where???????? ashland, etc. and also, ofc, for the new areas to be unique and interesting in design, and to bring related main story updates - or “big side stories” like the nightdust storyline etc. i am just longing to interact with npcs for long storylines again and see some drama :(

6. new tack and equipment, specifically more halters (simple not fancy ones, but cute and colour variety!), would be nice with lead rope too, and ofc blankets, stuff like this. but also more new good designs for tack in general and more colour options for saddlepads and legwraps, it drives me crazy that most pads are ugly and old and hard to match to anything. i want realistic pads with dark, vivid, pastel and natural colour options.

7. new mane and tail styles that are available for all horses (aside from too old models). it makes horses feel more individual and unique as well as giving us options to dress up our horses for photoshoots, eventing, etc.

8. updated player model with new animations and everything, diversity and good representation in the design options. facial expressions, blinking. i would also love if there were more animations for the player character to pet and groom the horses.

9. our own place to live (something theyve been working on but we dont know exactly where it stands) that we can also customise and decorate. i would prefer if we can choose where we live in the way we choose homestables, for example theres this little house between the rescue ranch and the lighthouse on south hoof that would be lovely to live in. id like to be able to choose wallpaper and flooring, curtains, stuff like that, and furniture. we should be able to invite ppl in as well. optional: the pet that’s in your saddlebag shows up in your home and you can pet it. also ability to choose music from lisa, miscreants, etc to play in our home. it would also be great if when it was raining outside you could hear it from inside your home and see it outside the window. oof actually when i say that now im imagining seeing city lights in the distance on a rainy evening looking out the window while acoustic sso music plays in the bg. can you tell how much i fantasise about living on jorvik by how long this paragraph got

10. customisation in our home stable, to be able to choose designs and colours of the interior, etc. i would love to be able to choose decorations like the ones we see during holidays (light strings etc). i would like the tack room and feed room to be more cluttered and stuff too for better realistic rp purposes.

11. more groundwork type of gameplay, like the working equitation races that have been added lately, but not just “races”. maybe possibility of training for xp in different ways than just finishing a race quickly enough. just realistic groundwork stuff.

12. dressage gameplay, and more arenas for it ofc.

13. for jumping courses to keep being better as theyve been lately! theyre more difficult and interesting now and the designs are better! i want for this to continue and im really enjoying the obstacle designs.

14. pasture - i’d love to see my horses run around and eat randomly out in the field without me controlling them, being able to go up and pet them or give them snacks. it would be cool if a paddock near the homestable was just used for this purpose (where you see your horses, but other players see their horses, etc, and we have the ability to hide other players). maybe it would show 3 of your horses at a time, out of the ones that are kept in the field in our stable manager.

15. new (and regularly added!) quests at south hoof rescue ranch, as well as other places where it makes sense like jorvik ranger quests, etc. stuff that doesn’t necessarily relate to the main storyline (but it might!) and is just fun dramatic quests, but it can also have character developments for hugh and others on south hoof, for jorvik ranger characters, etc. it could also be a way to introduce new pets and horses that are adoptable after rescue quests have been completed, as well as unlocking new equipment related to rescuing, rehabilitation and ranger work.

16. more shops, cafes and other things to do at jorvik city mall alongside the mall being updated in general, and to jorvik city which i really love and just hope aideen’s plaza and governor’s fall will also be updated with more shops etc. (add a dance club to the mall like the fort pinta disco! cafes with different aesthetics and menus, a fastfood restaurant, a fancy restaurant, a photo studio for professional horse photos and for our character, a cinema, a theatre stage like thalia’s idk, that whole fashion week catwalk thing, theres a lot of different things i think you can add aside from more shops which could also be added)

17. updates and additions to the cafe food menus and foods we can feed our horses, goes along with adding new shops and stuff too. seasonal event food being sold in cafes like gingerbread at christmas, chocolates on valentine’s.

18. make archaeology more fun - i still haven’t got all the things after years because i just can’t be bothered to do it, it’s too hard to find all the things and it’s not fun.

19. if fishing is going to stay at all, it needs to be improved and be fun.

20. overhaul of all the prices in the game so it makes sense. there are clothing and tack items that just make NO sense when you compare them to each other both in sc and js costs, or when you look at how meh quality they are. and, i dont think it’s reasonable to make individual equipment items (clothes or tack) cost more than like 50sc at the most (look at the real life cost when you buy sc!!! should we be paying that much for a low quality pixel sweater, really?). a good time to do this price overhaul, would be leading up to the player model update being released, since ppl will be buying lots of new clothes after that.

bonus: give us a ferry from south hoof to mistfall PLEASE. PLEASE

bonus 2: updates to every existing area and npc model, this is obvious and will most likely happen given enough time

bonus 3: 500000 pages of backstory and character development quests and bonding with mc scenes for all my favourite npcs. i would also like to take rowan on a date. thanks

#long post #text post #sso #star stable online

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birb-tangleblog · 3 years

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Hello! I've been wondering what the origins of each of the members of the Brotherhood could be. Like, if they are native to the Dark Kingdom, if they are noblemen/peasants... What do you think?

Hi anon!! Thanks for the ask!

I tend to headcanon that Adira and Hector are both orphans in some way, and probably share pretty similar backgrounds- just with Adira having more social/community support, and at least some people who looked out for her, while Hector was left on his own.

And I think that's prob a pretty common take, but like with Hector in particular (and Adira, to a lesser extent) I think it's honestly just hard to imagine someone with a well-adjusted, stable upbringing growing to be so extreme and intensely dedicated to their cause.

(Like if you assume Edmund or another royal took Hector in, gave him a home, fed him, and made him into who he is, then of course he's going to put him on a pedestal and not want to go against him. In comparison, Adira and Quirin having more external support and a wider perspective gives them more to base their sense of identity off of. And you can kinda see how that plays out w/ where they each ended up.

+ I think Hector having that added emotional baggage to unpack is interesting. ANYWAY-)

So my take is that both Hector and Adira were orphans, who became wards of the DK after someone saw a spark of potential in them and gave them the offer to begin training as squires.

Before that, I think Adira did have people in her life who loved her- parents, extended family, or other members of her culture/community- but they just weren't able to take care of her, or they passed away. Maybe she left so as to not be a burden on them? With Hector, idk if I think his bio parents even died early on so much as they just didn't want him- him being a street kid is my hc.

They lived at the castle (where they met Quirin), received an education, and worked their way up to knighthood/formal initiation into the Brotherhood. I imagine Brotherhood training is... a very encompassing and rigorous process, so that exp prob brought the three of them together, and their bond helped them to succeed. :>

I think it'd make sense if they met as little bby knights adjusting to their new lives, but I'm also very fond of the idea that Adira and Hector knew each other prior? And were this pair of urchins scraping by together. Only ever having each other to depend on really just adds to that childhood best friends, "nothing will ever come between us" dynamic that I'm a sucker for. And it makes for an enduring bond- there's obvs still a lot btwn them even so many years later.

The Flynn book also gave us Maeve! And I'm totally here for her being this figure in their upbringing later on- a matronly lady getting after them for being scamps, but still slipping them extra bread rolls and pulling strings for them on the sly. Maybe teaching life lessons or helping them out socially, too.

Based on Adira's Korean-inspired char design and the presence of Hector's binturongs (which are native to South and Southeast Asia) I actually kinda lowkey HC that one of the DK's neighboring countries or trade partners is analogous to SE Asia? And that Adira's family either moved to the Dark Kingdom from there before her birth, or she's mixed! (Maybe they moved due to war/sickness/famine and that's also how she lost her parents?)

Quirin and Hector both have that archetypal DK look, like Edmund- tall, dark hair and eyes, widow's peak, prominent cheek bones- so I assume they and their parents were native to the DK.

Re. Quirin, I've said this but I like the thought of him coming from lesser nobility? Maybe a distant cousin of Edmund's. Or just having a background of more privilege and stability relative to the other two, with his parents there for him, and that giving him a bit more emotional distance from the Brotherhood and moonstone, along with more of an ability to envision/want something else for himself in the future.

Quirin’s family name is on the side of a building somewhere in the DK, and Hector and Adira are the scholarship/grant kids of the Brotherhood.

(And I think having that bg in addition to being a knight also adds more meaning to him rejecting all of it, and choosing instead to settle down as a farmer later.)

Though, even if his parents weren't nobles and were... craftspeople or merchants or what not, I can still see him being a bit closer to Edmund/having more of a peer relationship with him, and just naturally picking up on court life + focusing on studies/politics more than the others, which eventually leads to him becoming a leader and Ed's advisor/right hand man.

I hope this whole thing wasn't too disjointed lmao. Everything about the Brotherhood's origins is pretty much fanon and personal pref, and I'm p flexible w/ HCs! But I'm always gonna go for the origin story and beats that have the most emotional pay off to me, yk?

I'm pretty picky abt the popular trend of treating the bros as literal siblings, but I do get a kick out of how much speculation and different ideas there are about their pasts- it's prime free real estate!

#as an aside re. pre-series Brotherhood I'd like to say #the timeline is really odd with Ed??#like he references training H + Q and I want him to be like this paternal figure for all of them #but... THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME AGE...#If you lowballed H + A's age as early 40s or 45 tops #and assume Ed is just really spry/had Eugene later in life #then he could possibly be like late 50s or early 60s #which WOULD line up better #it's... so hard to make the DK timeline make sense I think tweaks/supplementary HCs are kinda mandatory lmao #also pardon me if I ever repeat myself #I try to talk abt diff things even if it's the same topic #but I also don't know who's read which old asks and I have a terrible memory askdfj;adfj #the brotherhood #hector #quirin #adira #text post #my post #discussion and theories

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siren-virus · 3 years

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It's time for asks :D Luckyboy!Ben AU is the theme for today :P This time I'll make one asks that would encapsulate everyone and give a little speculation on each character a paragraph each :3

How would Ben deal with his fans? considering he already has a fanbase I imagine there would be a lot of aliens that would get out of their way in order to get an autograph and a photo with him, as well as have a chat with him if possible. How often does that work? Who knows? Not everything that is said in the internet/extranet is to be believed, and Nekomata's already a cryptyd, Have you seen the amount of theories there are about him? Some are crazy, like, who said that he was the ancient representation of the future version of an alternate universe of all cats that once were gods of the human race? Jimmy definitely didn't write that one, most definitely not, he's better than making a theory without evidence (He totally did a crack theory that everyone else started taking seriously because it's the internet/extranet) Also cosplayer, there would be so many cosplayers of Nekomata that I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually managed to make a Nekomata Convention in Undertown one day XD

Gwen 10 and her fans, which are mostly kids because, let's be real, they are the only ones who would not consider the ramifications and severity of being a child soldier, wouldn't understand it, or would just gloss over it because "That lady is SOOOO COOOOOOOOL (☆▽☆) ". I imagine that she would go to a lot of events, conventions, fundraisers and more only to be able to be there dfor the children, because let's be real, despite being the most stoic and down to earth of the OG trio, she still has a soft spot for a lot of things, and I wouldn't be surprised if children were one of them. I wonder what other kind of fans she would get over the time, like, she wouldn't get cosplayers because that shit is hard with how many aliens she has (though she would still have some dedicated fans that she HAS to promote because DAMN they did it really good), but fanartists and merchandise collectors for sure I think.

Would Rook ever have any fans out there? I imagine that he would have some rookie Plumbers that would look up to him and ask him for some advice on different things, or to ask for some stories of his, after all he's one of the few competent, functional and future magistrate. Would he have any humans fans though? I'm not sure how often he would be in the public view, but I imagine he would get some fans out there, and I feel that those fans would think something similar to us with OG Rook (or I think of him at least), that he's a sunshine boy that must be protected yet can and will kick ass.

Jammie, I imagine that with all the theories and conspiracies that he would've done in the past, he should have a blog online where he posts them and has a following with him, many of whom would share his interests of said theories, sharing their own; a fraction would be there only for the interesting facts taht he could display as well as the once in a blue moon crack conspiracies that he would post (let's face it, despite everything, he's still a teenager, of course he does crack stuff once in a while). The latest hit, what's up with Nekomata? Is he a cryptyd, and alien, a human with neon hair dye? And why does he loves Mr.Smoothie so much? Also on a tangent. Mr.Smoothie, is there a secret ingredient behind their tasteful beverages?

Ok, this'll be the last luckyboy thing ngl, I'm dried up and out of ideas ;;;

I do have a new idea tho just a lil outback (not australia lol, outside) and explorative thing. I've been playing a lot of BOTW and I forgot how much I love adventure shows. Mainly an excuse to learn BG's. I've managed to finally figure out 2-point perspective!!

Maybe I draw art of it, maybe not. I'm busy fighting people at the moment. (and drawing hefty BG's)

Ben, being the illusive fellow he is wouldn't deal with his fans, I mean he'll entertain them sometimes, but he knows he'll get a big head if he does it too much. So he just poofs away when the crowds get too big.

Jimmy would most deffinitely belive that at some point cat people roamed earth. His evidence, the Egyptians. Cat statues, portaits with cats. Cats are descended from aliens! Therefore. Jimmy might be a closeted furry too, but he'll never think on it.

Perhaps not a nekomata convention, but maybe an alien hero convention, so all the big heroes known throughout the universe are celebrated.

As for Gwen, cause she's a well known hero, I'd believe there'd be conventions not extactly shaped around her, but she'd be included, artists would sell portaits, figures etc.

You'd most likely find her stuff at a Sci-Fi convention.

Rook, not known to the medias eyes, would not have any fans, just a few kids that wanna be plumbers when they grow up.

Jimmy would deffinitely have a blog, like that one guy from Stven Universe. His blog was somethn about keeping Beach City Weird

#Lucky boy! au #ben 10 #answer

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yunsoh · 3 years

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'a sohma man'.... kyokeru???? kyokeru????? is this a thing wait they wld be SO funny please elaborate

kyokeru absolutely has a handful of diehards out there (i’ve only seen them on twitter but i’m sure they’re lurking somewhere here too) but i would be lying if i said that i haven’t thought about them LMAO.... okay first of all i think kyo would loathe kakeru on principle -- he’s loud, annoying, invasive, and yuki’s best friend. the only reason uo gets a pass at being loud, annoying, and invasive is that she’s tohru’s best friend. yes he thinks about the fact that he does consider uo a friend and that maybe maaaaybe it’s shitty of him to completely disregard kakeru altogether just because he’s best friends with yuki but then kakeru says something like “wow, no wonder you and yun-yun are related, you’re both so serious and moody lol” that he’s officially like, fuck this dude.

kakeru on the other hand is super fascinated by kyo just on the basis that he’s another sohma enigma™ and that he finds him hot, and is not put off by kyo not wanting to have anything to do with him like, whatsoever. he kind of sort of knows he and yuki have beef with each other, but he’s not exactly sensitive to that -- yuki isn’t thrilled or anything talking about kyo, but he’s very much like “if you want to be friends with him, fine” (it’s the principle of autonomy, but also. he doesn’t exactly say this kindly. kakeru knows this but runs with it). kakeru tries again to talk to kyo but kyo has more or less put him on the dni list and is pretty aggressive about not wanting anything to do with him. cold, brushes him off, tries (and fails lmao) to ignore him, etc. finally he just has to snap and tell kakeru straight up that he doesn’t want anything to do with him, and kakeru’s just “?? why? because of yuki?” not rlly understanding at all the depths of their baggage, and kyo -- at this point being more mindful abt his anger but still so fuckin sensitive -- more or less snaps like “don’t fuckin talk to me about him.” meanwhile i just imagine uo hana and tohru chilling in the bg watching all of this unfold, hana and uo being like “oh tasty drama” and tohru being like “um!!! 🙃”

oh my god anyways so kyo and kakeru do not start out on the right foot whatsoever BUT kakeru is nothing if persistent and even though he’s a little mad at kyo for shutting him out completely just on the basis that he’s friends with yuki, he is still really intrigued by him and has seen with his own two eyeballs that kyo isn’t always so prickly and standoffish -- he’s seen from the sidelines that he acts esp different with tohru (which by the way, i’m ignoring the whole kakeru and tohru knowing each other thing, i do not care for it so away it goes) and honestly seeing just how gentle and different kyo’s whole aura becomes maybe makes kakeru a little.... piney.... he tries not to question himself too much but he does question for just a moment WHY exactly he’s trying so hard to get to know this guy only to fall on his face over and over, and while he can chalk it up to stubbornness he does also chalk it up to finding him attractive. he tries to leave the thought cut and dry there and tbh. succeeds lmfao.

sooooo how does kakeru make things right and can he...... okay so in this universe i think it would make absolute sense that he has a rapport with uo and i think they would be really fucking funny together as friends, so he ends up getting a moment with her to just be like “what the hell is up with kyo and why does he hate me” and she tells him straight up that he’s just Like That but he’s especially like that because kakeru’s so close with yuki. kakeru brings up that tohru’s also really close with yuki, and tbh uo straight up laughs in his face like “okay but tohru’s a tranq and you’re like a bomb in the middle of the room” and she more or less tells him that kyo will come around if he wants to comes around. but for kakeru, that’s a hard “if.”

kyo meanwhile has been extremely broody about kakeru if only because he’s aggravating the part of his internal dialogue that is soooo so sensitive to the fact that he can’t justifiably blame yuki for all of the things he blames him for and that it’s something he’s been aggressively avoiding thinking about because i mean. it’s his lifeline basically. like he knows he doesn’t want to allow kakeru into his circle for the sole reason that he doesn’t trust the fact that he’s so close with yuki, and he knows that this is directly combatting the fact that tohru’s also close with yuki (+ was arguably friends with yuki first), and that who yuki chooses as friends cannot by that logic be terrible people. he also can’t reject him on the basis of being an annoying asshole because over half of his friend group is made up of annoying assholes. so he spends more energy thinking about kakeru than he wishes to admit to and this ofc only makes him crankier every time he sees him.

all things considered kakeru is able to maintain a fair amount of distance from kyo being that they’re not in the same class and don’t usually bump into one another unless kakeru is specifically seeking him out, so kakeru does take some time to consider what he should do (he feels that maybe he should apologize but he’s also finally getting the gist that kyo’s on edge whenever he comes around, and he doesn’t want to just waste an apology yk). at most he tries to give kyo a “totally inconspicuous” stare across the room when he comes along to grab yuki from class for a meeting but kyo just pointedly stares out the window instead so it’s a no-go. during this time kyo has been battling between “am i being an asshole to this dude for no reason” and “who gives a shit if i ignore him he’s annoying” and this is made prominent by the fact that his friends chucklefucks #1 and #2 have decided, suddenly, to be annoying to him specifically about why the vice president keeps looking at him funny and uo stoking the flames by saying kyo keeps rejecting him. they then go on to say how cruel and mean kyo is and that he’s breaking their vp’s heart and he’s actually about to triple frontflip out the window again before tohru pipes up like “i think he’s probably really nice actually!! :)” because of course she does she has essentially entrusted kakeru to handling yuki’s heart and soul and. i think she wants kyo to have more friends. i mean i think we all want kyo to have more friends. kyo ofc only listens to tohru but man is he mad about it. he consoled only by the fact that if he gives kakeru a chance and he still doesn’t fuckin like him he can drop him for good.

i’m getting so fucking carried away with this anyway kyo actually kind of runs into kakeru after school and. there’s a funny thing abt kakeru where when he’s completely alone he’s actually just quiet and non-abrasive and normal, and this seems obvious but kyo just realizes he never considered kakeru has any semblance of an off button. it’s awkward on kyo’s part (as usual) and kakeru is both delighted and confused as kyo makes his way through a very gritted apology for being an ass, to which after waaaay too long a contemplative pause he just says sorry in return because he knows he pissed kyo off in one way or another and that he’s kind of an idiot sometimes. which i think is a level of straightforwardness and self-awareness that kyo doesn’t expect from him LMAO so he’s taken slightly off-guard, but still it’s just. awkward. for him anyway. kakeru though is feeling a little bit of a win for himself and just says he has to bail and that he’ll catch him tomorrow, which kyo just kind of absently agrees with...... by the time he considers taking it back and going “this doesn’t mean we’re friends” or smth the moment’s long passed and kakeru’s way down the street, walking off to the station alone........ pause for quiet scene.......

so i just realized i wrote like seven paragraphs about just the leadup of them becoming anything close to friends BUT i do wanna say that i think a big breakthrough moment for them actually becoming friends is really just about kakeru being very obviously his own entity who is actually not like yuki in the slightest (yk how friends take on each others mannerisms and mind-meld and shit like that........ yeah this is something way more apparent for yuki in their relationship LMAO yuki’s influences on kakeru are much much quieter). which is another thing that should be obvious, but considering kakeru is someone who willingly and overtly befriends yuki (vs other people like haru, who has a long family history w him, and tohru, who literally lives with him and is. well, tohru.), and considering kyo never gets to know him prior to this, i want to imagine that he’s just plainly biased and had more or less disliked him by association more than anything. so getting to know him as an individual and carving out a space for just him in his brain.... yeah.

i’m a big sap for friends-to-lovers so ofc the real pining doesn’t start until they’ve actually started to become better friends, which i think is very much full of stupid bullshit instigated by kakeru begging kyo to teach him how to fight (after asking yuki a quarter million times and getting rejected every time. kyo does not know that this is because kakeru is a power rangers fanboy but absolutely wants to use this as a moment of “fuck that guy i’ll show it to you better than he could anyway” which has this unaware flirty tone to it that kakeru wants so badly to comment on but doesn’t want to lose his chance to learn how to defeat evil with his own two fists so he just. stores that away for himself 2 think about later). kyo trying to teach him would be intimate if kakeru had an ounce more talent and concentration and kyo had an ounce more patience. anyways they play wrestle instead bc kakeru is bored of the basics and it’s actually fun for the both of them until kyo pins kakeru and they have this mutual moment of. uhhhhh. bro? haha. bro?? at which point kakeru finally has to admit to himself “oh this isn’t just normal attraction this is some real shit” and kyo is in full “what the fuck was that” mode.

i have no resolution for this post i’ve decided i’m just going to leave it at that because as u can see it’s mad easy to run in circles with these two. they’ve got a good hypothetical chemistry going on and have the nice lil kick of drama a la “this is my rival’s best friend/my best friend is friends with my rival” and a good ol sexuality crisis. and what more could u ask for really

#oh my god i wrote this for so long that i started it drunk and finished it sober #anyways ty anon this was fun and i honestly love thinking about other kakeru ships...... probably bc i just love He #kakeru manabe #kyo sohma #kyokeru #headcanons #Anonymous #answered

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felassan · 4 years

Text

Dragon Age development insights from David Gaider - PART 3

This information came from DG on a recent SummerfallStudios Twitch stream where he gave developer commentary while Liam Esler continued playing DAO from where they had left off in Part 1 and Part 2. I transcribed it in case there’s anyone who can’t watch the stream (for example due to connection/tech limitations, data, time constraints, personal accessibility reasons, etc). A lot of it is centered on DAO, but there’s also insights into other parts of the franchise. Some of it is info which is known having been put out there in the past, and some of it is new. There’s a bit of overlap or repetition with topics covered in Parts 1 and 2. This post leaps from topic to topic as it’s a transcript of a conversational format. It’s under a cut due to length.

The stream can currently be watched back here. Next week LE will be streaming a different DAO playthrough with commentary from another guest. Two weeks from now LE and DG will return to continue this playthrough for another stream session like this one.

(Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)

[wording and opinions DG’s, occasionally LE’s; paraphrased]

The Battle of Ostagar cutscene is one of the first big cutscenes that got made during production. When it was shown to the team for the first time, it was one of those moments where DG felt like “Awesome, this is a game!” Context: During the development of a game it feels more like doing a series of disconnected tasks and assets rather than working on a game, so seeing stuff come together at times like this is rad. The first time it was shown, it had temporary placeholder voiceacting.

Pathfinding is always a nightmare to do, especially in games which involve a party of NPCs. As soon as other characters are involved alongside the PC, it’s exponentially more difficult and takes up a lot more resources. The PC is the most complex thing going on visually on-screen, with so many moving pieces, and in party-based games you have four [etc] of them. So, some critique that’s made of the DA games in regards to this subject which compares it to games like The Witcher doesn’t really make sense, as The Witcher has a solo PC.

‘Weird mage hats’ didn’t really become a trademark ‘DA thing’ akin to their place of random pieces of cheese around the world until later games. For DAO, someone probably asked the artists to create “mage helmets”. Mage hats actually looked better in the concept art than they did in-game. What happened was that they were already modelled and then they didn’t have time to re-do them.

DAO was made for PC first. The plan from the get-go though was that it would be an all-platform release (PC/360/PS3). Games like these are always made for the “lowest common denominator” from among the various platforms that they’re being planned to release for. Games have to be made for the most stringent/basic of the platforms because this makes for less conversion rate. At the time of DAO’s development, the PS3 was getting weak graphically and getting old, and this was quite a limitation: “Why do we have to limit [crowds?] because of this one platform?” “Well, we just gotta”. The original models were a bit too detailed. Later on, the artists started making models that had lower polycounts that they could put in a bit more of. DA was never really focused on making environments realistic in an ambient manner (making environments less “gamey” and more lived in, like having crowded places). They could have put more emphasis there but this would have led to a resources issue. Ambience basically wasn’t a high priority. As a writer DG isn’t keen on this decision and naturally he wanted the world to look more realistic, but he noted that it’s easy for him to say this when this would be work that he didn’t have to do personally.

During DAO development, they might have just had a dev sphere originally that was called “tech design”. DG thinks this was later broken up into systems design, combat design and maybe level design. Level designers are the people that are the implementers of the plot. Narrative design is a branch of the level design spoke. System designers respond to requests from lead designers. Narrative designers and writers don’t interact with system designers much unless they have to. As an example of interaction here, system designers might come to writers and say, “Alright, so we’re doing combat, what are the sorts of things a mage can do in this world?” The writers would be like “Ok, these are the sorts of spells we imagined.” The system designers might then come back with “Ok, that fulfills 2 of the 10 things we need mages to be able to do in combat. Is it possible that mages could do [this]?” Sometimes it is, and other times it would be like “No, that’s really outside of the lore”. Still, sometimes said original-lore-breaking things would be added to the game a week later due to necessity and DG would be like “Oh ok”. This kind of stuff is an insight into how some aspects of the lore came to be or changed over time during development.

The system designers on DAO got a better idea of what could be done and what could not be done according to the lore as things went on. At first, DG had to keep telling them things like “It’s not that big a deal, but in the lore mages can’t teleport. Instant teleportation isn’t possible in the world”. The system designers needed a spell where someone could get from spot A to spot B really fast on the battlefield. DG said that that’s fine in itself, “have them turn into a cloud of bees or have a light that moves between the two places. We can use magic as a transition or as a speed thing, but what is against the lore is instant teleportation, to traverse distance like that”. At first the system designers weren’t on board with it, but they got on board with it later.

This sort of thing doesn’t just depend on the system designers. It also depends on what the tech artists are willing to do. Sometimes a certain request made of them was too hard and they said they weren’t able to do it. Other times it was a matter of DG not communicating the request properly, or the tech artists had already done the work and so throwing out all their work to re-do it just because he didn’t communicate clearly wouldn’t have been cool. So sometimes the originally planned lore got contravened, and sometimes things other parts of the team implemented in the game became the new lore.

LE made an insightful observation at this point: You can’t think of game development as a cohesive series of decisions that everyone on the team is involved in. This simple isn’t how it works at all, especially on large complex projects. There are processes at some studios for decision-making, but most of the time, a bunch of decisions get made by system designers. Others get made by level designers, still others by narrative designers. Situations then arise where someone notices a certain decision and that that decision and another one contradict each other. This is where conflict arises and a solution has to be negotiated. This is why often in games we get elements in the end product that are dissonant, because it was discovered too late or by the time it was realized, it was too difficult to change. It’s actually a miracle that on a game of DAO’s depth and scope that all these things largely hold together. [My note: With this insight and the context below on documentation, it makes sense how BW sometimes appear to ‘forget aspects of their own lore’ or end up contradicting parts of the lore in different parts of the franchise]

Sometimes such things would be noticed in time and DG would go and say, “Can we not do that or do something else instead?” and the relevant parties would be totally accommodating and do it (depending on how much time they had or how much time it would take to remedy). Sometimes this worked out and sometimes it didn’t. For the most part, everyone wants to work together. DG couldn’t be involved in every aspect of systems design “like some kind of All-Watchful eye of lore”, so he had to rely on the people who were there knowing enough from the documentation. Not everybody reads every document however. There was so much documentation even back during DAO. DG can only imagine the sheer amount of world/lore documentation that now exists now in the run-up to DA4; he said he thinks that nobody at this point on the current team has read it all, as editor/lore-wrangler Ben Gelinas isn’t with BW anymore. Lots of legacy documentation accumulated very quickly. Sometimes, the old document would still be there. Over time it became harder for people to discern which was the most recent version of a particular document. Sometimes people didn’t update the relevant documentation after changing things. Lore documentation was particularly bad for this issue. BG wrangled all the documentation and created an internal reference wiki (essentially acting as a lorekeeper). He was constantly coming in and picking DG’s brain to clarify conflicting aspects or obtain the correct, in-date information etc (“Good on him”).

DAO was the first time DG was involved in voice-recording. Prior to that he was only on the receiving end, in that the recordings would come in and he’d review them as they did so. DAO is when BW set up their own VO department and where Caroline Livingstone came on. CL wanted DG and Mike Laidlaw to be more involved in the casting process. As a result, the writers then were to write casting scripts: like, ‘For Morrigan, can you write a 1 page script that goes through 3 big emotions? [like regular talking for a bit, then here’s a bit of heightened emotion such as anger, then here’s a part where they’re being funny if they were a comedic character] These scripts had to be kept short so that the recording that was made from it wouldn’t be more than 30-40 seconds in length.

For the initial VA sessions, DG and CL flew down to Technicolor studioin LA and they had all the major castmembers there (later on, recording sessions were done a lot more remotely; this became easier as BW’s setup got more sophisticated). The idea was that they would both be present live in-person for the first 2 or 3 sessions to help each VA find their ‘voice’, and for DG at the first session to sit down with each VA and walk them through who their character was, what DA was about, and help them figure out how their character should talk. Claudia Black was the first of these sessions and he was “a wreck” going into that one. It got easier after that however. CL gave directions into the soundproof booth and DG was present to give notes on things like pronunciation or the intentions behind some lines. He says he learned everything he now knows about VO direction from CL. The things and tricks CL can do to get a performance out of an actor are amazing. Sometimes an actor would get a bit fixated or stuck on a particular way of delivering a line. CL had atrick to help them past this; “I want you to clear your mind, and I want you to give me a version of this line that’s more yellow”. The idea is that they just had to break out of where they had been stuck in that mindset, and the thing was that it doesn’t matter what “yellow” meant, but what was important was what “yellow” meant to the actor. They could then take that new varied delivery and progress from there.

Alistair’s dialogue when the PC talks to Flemeth outside her hut was the first complex conversation DG wrote for DAO. It was the first one that had a lot of branching and fiddling to it. The hardest conversations to write are the ones with a lot of exposition, and when they do have exposition still making this interesting and natural. At this point in the game, the player has no agency, just reactivity. The devs talked a lot about this subject when they wrote the origin stories. Some of the stories allow the player to initially say no and refuse to join the Wardens, but you always end up being railroaded (the devs here ended up doing a form of the trope ‘But Thou Must!’). Do you give the player the option to say no? Is it important to allow them that option? At some point, writers have to accept that the player has some level of buy-in and is game to play. They discussed a lot where they sat on this and what is agency. “Maybe don’t worry about offering the player every possible choice, but about having reactivity.”

Loghain wasn’t okay with letting Cailan die. He didn’t sit and angst about it openly where the player could see, and once the decision had been made, it being Loghain, it was Made and Had To Be Done (he felt that it was something that had to happen). But he didn’t kill the son of the woman he’d once loved dearly as a random off-handed thing.

The Solas twist was planned from the beginning, from the DAO dev days. Such big things/broad strokes have stayed the same. However, some of the details have changed or been added along the way. They didn’t know for instance that Solas was going to be a companion; that was something they came up with when they were planning DAI. Flemeth’s true identity has never changed.

Zevran says Rinna was an elf, but WoT says she was a bastard child of a noble in line for the Antivan throne (the Antivan royal family being human). When asked if this was an oversight, DG said yes she was a bastard, but she may have been really far down the line of succession, i.e. technically in line, but would probably never have been allowed to take the throne in practise had that scenario ever actually arisen.

DA was maybe inspired a bit/some by ASOIAF. This was way before it was on TV of course. DG at the time had read the first book or so. He liked the fact that it was a fantasy setting but low-magic, and was about the people in the world and their politics rather than magic, prophecy and other high fantasy stuff.

It was only by DAI that the system designers decided that it was okay to think of banter as an “activity that players engaged in”. In previous games, the devs had inadvertently managed to ‘train’ players to immediately stop when companion banter fires so that they could hear it all (because if you do something else, it gets cut off). When the level designers put together the spaces, they accounted for what players would be doing i.e. how much time between combat. They didn’t however account for like “You’re travelling down this hall and there’s a banter for half of that space. This is an activity, so it’s okay not to put anything in there”. This is how the inadvertent training happened, when originally banters were supposed to be a thing that ran as you move around the world (as opposed to stopping and standing still).

When asked if the Blight resulted from the creation of the Veil or pre-dates it: “I think you’ll probably have to wait on the game[s] for that answer, if it ever explains it”. He was also asked whether Arlathan is the Golden City. He won’t answer such questions naturally because they are “DeepLooooooore™~~ ♫”.

DG isn’t sure that he will play DA4 when it comes out. It’s not that PW and the team won’t do a good job, they will, it’s just that when DG plays RPGs he has an analytical mindset going on and finds it difficult to slip into the game and just enjoy. For DA4, as he was previously so involved in DA, there’ll naturally probably be an extra level of that with feeling like “What would I have done [for particular parts of the game’s design]?”. Alternatively he might instead feel like “Wow, this is awesome, here’s a game I would have made but didn’t have to do any work on!” DG stressed that it’s important to him to be fair about the work of his former colleagues - he wouldn’t want to come out and be like “I wouldn’t have made [this or that] choice”. He also noted that just because something might be a call he personally wouldn’t have implemented in the game, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad call. There are people out there where if DG intimated at all that there was an aspect of DA4 that he wasn’t keen on, he’s worried that they would pounce on it and use it as ammunition against the current team (who are his friends that he really cares about and wants to do well). He walked away from DA voluntarily and is happy his game will continue on. PW popped by in chat at this point and agreed that it’s definitely hard to play something that you used to work on.

Other assorted tidbits:

DG really opposed the part at the Battle of Ostagar where mabari are set to charge the darkspawn horde - “That’s not how you would use dogs [in war]”

There was supposed to be a cutscene where Flemeth rescues the HoF and Alistair from the top of the Tower of Ishal in her dragon-form. This was cut. DG remembered being angry about this like “nobody is gonna buy that you fall unconscious and then wake up in the hut totally rescued. [...] I guess I’m not always right”

When DG went to Beamdog there was a period where they thought about making a Baldur’s Gate 3. They put together a pitch and had a long series of discussions contemplating things like “What do we need from BG3? What do we expect it to have in order to have the BG name? What is needed and not needed to connect to from the previous games?”

DG isn’t sure who designed the DAO inventory system

PW in chat recalled a game writer from another company who was really ragging on DAI on the Christmas Day after release

Narrative designer and system designer are very different positions/roles with very different responsibilities

Simon Templeton as Loghain did all his voicework stuff in one take, which was very impressive

It would have been the marketing department that chose 30 Seconds To Mars for music. DA was really good at choosing up-and-coming acts for this that weren’t huge when they used their songs, but became huge afterwards

During work on Baldur’s Gate 2 was the most DG has ever crunched. He slept in the office a few times

“As soon as you get both Alistair and Morrigan in the party, that’s when it’s like ahh yes, this is a BioWare game”

Were Flemeth and Morrigan’s interactions with each other and the PC when Morrigan is being told to leave the Wilds and go with the Hero an act, considering that Morrigan did know about the OGB plan? No. That was The Plan, but said plan wasn’t like “Ok, she’s going to leave Right Now”

The elves and the inversion of the traditional elven trope are DG’s favorite part of the world/world-building

One of the original intentions for DAO was to make it so that the player wouldn’t need a healer in the party, or that there would be different kinds of healing, or that healing itself wouldn’t be a thing, but this just didn’t work out

The Imperial Highway used to be a really important part of the lore but it kind of got forgotten a bit

It’s kinda funny that after release some players expressed that Corinne Kempa’s accent as Leliana was “sooo fake”. It’s not fake, she’s actually a Brit that moved to France when she was young, so she has the exact type of accent that Leliana would have (Leliana was born in Orlais and is culturally Orlesian, but her mother was Fereldan and she considers herself as such)

They talked some about the need for documentation and how doing this can feel beurocratic and uncreative and how like you’re not working on a game or writing. PW in chat expressed that there was a year where they spent a lot of it working in PowerPoint and Excel, “so I feel this”

When they switched art directors to Matt Goldman, his first big complaint was about all the brown. He came to DG like “Is there a lore reason for or are you particularly in favor of the brown for story reasons?” DG was like “Uhh no” and Matt was then like “Ok good”

Console codes/commands aren’t usually stripped out of a game before release, they are usually still in the built, just disabled. The system itself is not removed but how to access said system is

BW doesn’t crunch as bad as we hear some companies do, and kind of prided itself on “not being terrible at crunch”. But BW’s “not terrible at crunch” is still crunch. We obviously don’t commend abusive family members for only abusing people on certain days of the week or whatever

Kate Mulgrew is American but she at times did the same thing a lot of the British VAs did, which was that the devs had a lot of struggle with getting them to say “darkspawn” correctly, with the emphasis in the right places. They’d say “dark SPAWN” as if it was two words with an adjective, and the stress put in the wrong place

Lack of children in DAI was a resources thing. They only had time to make a certain number of models. There was a series of meetings where they had to decide what things to cut. In the last meeting it was like ‘Here’s a bunch of things you don’t want to cut, we need to cut 4 of them’

They decided to put horned qunari back in DA2 because then they had the resources to do so. They then ended up having to explain why there were hornless qunari at the same time, and make this an in-world explanation as opposed to just ‘We didn’t have the resources, that was totally intentional’

Lots of players missed out on recruiting Leliana and/or Sten on their first playthrough and didn’t even know they existed/could be recruited. “Apparently we weren’t that great at pointing players in the right direction”

Tevinter is inspired by the Byzantine Empire (which wasn’t called that at the time incidentally, this is a name given by historians after the fact), what used to be the Roman Empire after the western part fell. This is the era Tevinter today is meant to encapsulate: decadent but clearly in decline, far away from the heyday and the heights of the former empire [source]

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 4]

[Part 5]

[Part 6]

[‘Insights into DA dev from the Gamers For Groceries stream’ transcript]

#dragon age #bioware #video games #morrigan #queen of my heart #alistair theirin #fav warden #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #solas

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mimiri22-6 · 4 years

Text

DUCKTALES (2017) ‘LET’S GET DANGEROUS’ LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

It’s here! It’s here and it couldn’t have come at a better (and worse, but I’m not worrying about that rn) time! This morning(I stayed up till...7? I don’t remember just how long I stayed up earlier, BUT this morning, I found out some shitty stuff about some youtubers I thought I could trust and I felt really betrayed. I won’t lie, I cried, or as much as I can cry cause I apparently can’t even do that right-AND this is a lot for an intro that isn’t needed! Onto my source of escapism today!

IT’S HERE!~

Bradford, more like Bitchford!

BULBA WORKS FOR MCDUCK ENTERPRISE!! HOW MANY MOLES DOES SCROODGE HAVE!?

That awkward moment when you insult the person that does your finances to his face when you can’t hang up

Oh my god, they’re so bad at secrets. That and Louie and Huey are smart, well, Huey’s smart, Louie’s clever

OH HE HAS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GLIDE! THAT’S GONNY BE A PLOT POINT! I BET GOSALYN WILL HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THAT!

NO INTRO! WOO, IT’S GOING TO BE A LONG ONE!

OH, I’VE HEARD ENOUGH ABOUT THIS BITCH TO KNOW I SHALL HATE HIM WITH EVERYTHING IN ME!

As a great snake once said, ‘Sssssssssssuuck up!’ Taurus Bulba, more like Taurus Bitcha!

Man, no one likes Bradford. Like, no one...Nice

I hate this bull bitch

OOH! TOWER!!! YES! AND MORE MONOLOGE CATCHFRASES!

Oh, LP, never change

Careful Dewey, he has a limited supply of those

HE DOESN’T KNOW! HOW DOES HE NOT KNOW? FENTON IS SHIT AT KEEPING HIS IDENITY!

WHAT!? CANARD HAS NO CRIME!? HOW THE HELL-WHO’S THE MAYOR!? HOW!? (I hope it’s Owlson)

Ooh, the computer has some sass!

THE RAMROD!!!(I really need to watch the OG series)

Haggis. I’ve heard of that. I don’t hear much else about that. Scrooge, you have bad taste. Does all of the UK have bad taste?! It seems like it.

HEY! I’M WITH HUEY, HOW DOES IT WORK! If I was presented with this kind of technology, I would be asking the head scientist everything I could rap my head around!

WHAT!!?!?!??!!!! SHEEP’S WHAT!?!?!!!! NOOO!!!!! NO, I REFUSE

They’re movers. I’m calling it, they’re movers.

Called it.

He face planted! where was his pillow!

GOSALYN! IT’S HER! SHE’S HERE!

She’s So Cool!

Really Scrooge?

BITCH! CARASMATIC BITCH!

OWLSON! YES! SHE’S SO GOOD!

HOW does Huey fit all that under his hat!?

Also, Huey’s right

SHE’S BACK!

KEEN GEAR!!!

HE IS NOT UPSTANDING! HE’S A MURDERER BITCH!

AWW, DEWEY! Looking for someone you love duo!

LP talking sense! THAT’S YOUR FUTURE DAUTER, DRAKE!

Huey knows somethings up

Jesus Christ, Drake just can’t get a break with getting absolutely crushed by everything and everyone

HE KNOWS!

...Good acting, murderer

Two faced bull.

wat

HEY! That’s how I imagine a lot of fiction. It’s cool to think that those worlds exits out there as far away universes

YEAH! GET STABBED, BULB!

DRAKE COMING TO THE RESCUE!

The action in this show is actually Really good

YES! GOSALYN ID THE REASON FOR THE GLIDING! You hear that? It’s symbolism

That shot with LP holding both of them is going to be A Lot of people’s BGs now

YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY THAT!!!

OH! That’s such a smart way to have the OG villains without it being more people living out their childhood dreams from watching the show

C’mon DW, you can do this.

FENTON-oh bye Fenton

Gosalyn has two idiot dads

Drake acting like a dad already, so good

I’m not sure what to make of Launchpad’s family assignments

‘Let’s get dangerous, it the safest way possible’ because he cares. And Launchpad putting the helmet on Gosalyn? *chief kiss* Funny stuff

BRADFUCK!

He’s on board with killing because he already has it in him and has no capacity to care.

Oh my god Launchpad. Never Change!

C’mon Huey, you can do better. Figure ‘im OUT!

Oh boy, Louie knows how to pick locks...

HAHA! She’s also sassy, man she’s good

He remembered the commercial, but not the giant robot? Relatable

‘You know who else banters? Family.’ Oh my god, Launchpad NEVER CHANGE

BUDDY! OH MY GOD THEY’RE FREINDS THIS IS HILARIOUS

NARUTO RUN! YEAH!

Am I the only one out of the loop as to why Bushroot is...like That? He’s so...grey...like his colors have been drained. He was apparently a lot of peoples favorite because of his backstory. Why is he a shadow of his former self??? Why Am I Always So Far From The Loop?!

WOW. The boys are really starting to ware on Bradford.

‘You guys have other clothes?’ LAUNCHPAD NO!

‘young lady’ Drake unknowingly falling into becoming a parent is just great

OOH, Lanchpad and Gosalyn interaction! Yes Please!

‘Nice night.’ 100/10 THE BEST FUCKING JOKE I HAVE EVER WITNESSED!!! HANDS DOWN!

DW NO! SLEEP IS IMPORTANT! *shoves the fact that I slept from 7am-2pm less than 3 nights ago behind me* Also, IT’S BEEN DAYS?!!? I have to admit, that was not executed clearly enough. Probably the only problem I have with the episode

‘das unexseptible, i cant excempt tat’ Drake. Drake, you’re so sweet. That line made me soft.

THAT’S THE SONG! THE SONG OF LEGENDS TOLD! SHE’S HUMMING IT TO A SLEEPING DRAKE! GUYS! GUYS! GIVE ME ALL THE REASONS WHY I SHOULD WATCH THE OG SHOW! PLEASE! I HAVE SO MANY OTHER SHOWS I NEED TO WATCH AND I SO WANT TO MOVE DWD TO THE TOP!!!

I A SOFT! I AM LAUNCHPAD! AND HOW FUCKING LONG IS THAT LIST ON HIS HAND AT THIS POINT! As someone that writes on their hand for reminders, he just has a bunch of words grouped up and extremely smudged on his hand.

I love how the tv show villains are confused about DW’s lack of showmanship

And then he died. Damn.

Gosalyn’s immediate concern and switch to stealth is A+ storytelling. I didn’t even catch it the first time through

Launchpad’s face and rise to what i will assume was a yell of glee was precious! That look just screams ‘FINALY! SOMEONE ASKS ME ABOUT SOMETHING I KNOW AND LOVE WITH MY WHOLE HEART! AND IT’S SOMEONE OTHER THAN MY BOYFREIND DRAKE!

Oh my god, it’s lodged in his weird throat. Gross.

Well, even I can tell that’s a reference to something

Aaaaaaannd Bradford has been found out. Yes!!!

And now the kids are dead

I wonder how many times David said that line. I played a character with a catchphrase and I had to try and say is different every time. It was hard...She said it 17 times. Not Groovy.(god I hate myself.)

Oh, B plot villains. Cool.

Launchpad coming in with the pep talk, yeah!

And DW’s back in action!!! WOO!

I found out that the original voice actor for Quackerjack reprised his role. He must of had a blast recording his lines again!

Neverminded, Gosalyn has two nerd dads

ALL OF THEM SAYING THE LINE IS PURE SERITONIN!!!!!

UH. UH! DRAKE IS STRAGHT UP BEING STABBED! MULTIPLE TIMES!! IN HIS TORSO!!!

God, they really are nerds

‘Why were our heads so round’ HA AHAHAHAHAAAH!!! *WHEEZE* I LOVE THIS FUNKY DUCK SHOW!

‘unless’ Aw. Aw man. I knew how it would end, but man, it hurts.

Hugs. Soft sorrowful hugs from your future dad

Where’d Bulba go? He just kind of disappeared.

‘Bradford? F.O.W.L??’ Nice going guys

‘Our reality just got a lot more dangerous’ idk why, but I really like that line

Drake out of the suit and Gosalyn Knows Him! YES!!!

‘Look, you got knocked down, beat up, and blown up today, but what matters is that you get back up’ I

I am Soft. Just, So Soft. And it would take too long to describe everything I’m feeling

He’s so nervous and he can’t find his words and they’re so sweet! Doc, I have diabetes now. Cause: Found Family Trope

Launchpad, he hodl.

LP! NOT YOU TOO! SLEEP! SLEEP NOT WHILE DRIVING! GUYS, NO!(Shit, they’re made for each other!)

ADVENTURE FAMILY ON THE CASE! YYEEEAAAAH!!!!!

Altogether, another great ep

...

WAIT! THERE’S ANOTHER ONE ALREADY! i HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN! FU

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steamberrystudio · 4 years

Photo

Hey guys!

Esh here with your weekly devlog!

Summary:

Got Ari and Caissa's script fully imported

Got three new completed BGs and several BG sketches

Made some additional edits to Caleb's route

Re-made all the flowchart graphics (they look similar but are slightly bigger

Designed a flowchart key

Wrote and imported the introductory scenes for Reuben, Quill, and Yuu

Partially coded some assets for those (but not fully)

Remade the common route flowcharts

Editing/reworking Jack's route synopsis (still in progress)

Small sprite corrections/changes/additions

Changed some of the personality trait names

Set up code to be able to adjust the personality traits based on the player's choices.

(So even if you choose "bold" at the start of the route, if you consistently choose choices that are more cautious in nature, your trait might change).

The Ramble:

Another busy week this week!

I ended up taking a little break from importing scripts (because I badly needed it) and did a few other things. But I also completed importing Caissa's script, which was the last one I had to finish.

I did some flowchart work because I was roughing out the flowcharts for Caleb and Ari's routes, which got me thinking about what additional graphics and icons I'd be needing for the in-game charts. At some point I decided I wanted to make the graphics a little bigger than they originally were so I did a minor overhaul.

Now that I have three routes written and imported, it lets me take a look at the overall structure of how things are playing out so I can start adjusting things and so I can think about experience and mechanics.

While I was doing the flowcharts, I decided maybe I should go ahead and put in the introductory scenes for Quill, Reuben, and Yuu. This allows me to put their choices in the game from the start and include them in the flowcharts (which saves me from having to redo them again later on.)

I already knew, more or less, what I wanted their intro scenes to look like so it wasn't that difficult to write them, but I imagine they'll get some edits down the line since I skipped that part of the process before importing them. Even so…

Those guys are now in the game!

I've also been giving a lot of thought to the personality aspect of the game.

For a while now, I've been contemplating the possibility of having the player's choices affect their personality alignment. This is not something meant to be "punishing" - if you swap traits mid-route, it will affect the variations you unlock but it's not going to impact your ending or ability to successfully romance the guy.

It's just a way to make the personality component more interactive and interesting.

I finally started working to set up for this to happen and have been giving a lot of thought to how I will align the various choices. I'm pretty paranoid about it appearing "arbitrary" since someone accused our scoring decisions in Changeling of being random. They weren't - aside from some 'extra' points that were thrown in randomly to make it *easier to obtain them* all points were based on our evaluations of the tone, significance and immediate fallout of each choice. We spent a lot of time considering choices and shifting them around to make more sense.

We want to avoid people feeling we're just randomly throwing things around in this game but ultimately, there's no objective way to handle this. What feels "bold" to one person might not feel "bold" to another. And unless every choice is like "I BOLDLY walked down the hall" it's going to come down to our personal interpretation of the tonal and context clues given in the game.

But since this personality thing does not, in any way, *punish* the player, I think it should be fine to examine each choice personally, look at my checklist and score them to my personal judgement on the matter. As someone on our Discord server very eloquently put it, "subjective and arbitrary aren't the same thing."

Which is true! A lot of game design is *subjective* because it comes down to the team's personal judgement calls on what constitutes hard, or easy, or logical. But that doesn't make it *random.*

ANYWAY...moving on.

A couple of additional BGs came in toward the end of the week so we ended up with 3 new backgrounds total this week! Plus a couple of additional sketches.

So that happened as well.

I did make some small sprite changes/corrections - mostly for Magnus, Quill, and Reuben. I adjusted Quill's hair colour (again), and darkened his eyebrows back to black. So now it looks like he bleaches his hair. LoL. Which...maybe he does! But I just like that look on him.

I re-did Reuben's 'messy' hairstyle. And I made a couple of slight adjustments to Maggie's sprite - one of which required a minor fix to several of his hairstyles.

It's nothing major and, I think, a lot of it will go unnoticed by most people. LoL

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

This week in backgrounds...

And a screen cap or two! =O

Upcoming Week:

I basically have a huge to-do list of things for the upcoming week. I hope to finish up revising Jack's outline and I want to get some writing done. I've kind of put it on the back burner because I'm waiting for some new noise-blocking headphones…

(This whole self-isolating, work-from-home thing, man. Some people need to learn to speak more QUIETLY when working from home. *stares at a certain someone in her house* O_O)

But I have a 10 item strong to-do list (which, to be fair, I've crossed off 4 things since this morning. LoL)

More flowchart stuff, more personality stuff….and Jack's route. So I'll definitely be busy!

See you next week!

#upcoming game #otome #oelvn #indie otome #indie games #gilded shadows #updates

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