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prototypelq · 5 months

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The Most Unreliable Narrator I Have Ever Seen

soooooo I had a Cyberpunk-obsessed phase pass recently, and this time Johhny Silverhand's character caught my eye. His story, more specifically, and how... inconsistent he seems, depending on each source.

In the game, Johhny acts like a bastard for most of the game. He panic-rages on his first meeting with V, throws many threats around, but is later beaten into the background with the blocker pills Misty gave to V. Even Johnny's friends' are well, they react Loudly to his return. Y'know, make it known his presence alone provokes a lot of anger from them.

Even during his first appearance, when V gets thrown into Silverhand's memories of his SAMURAI concert, the only real thing V recalls is the all-consuming rage that he felt, which he tried to shout out through the microphone, but it never felt like enough.

And doesn't this sound weird then, that the only thing Johnny does throughout the game after that first meeting is help V out? He learns about the Smasher guy hideout at the docks (he does that through dubious means but that's Johnny for you), he helps V out when the seizures become worse, he calmly agrees to Any decision V makes, despite V clearly Not being in any real state to oppose him in the finale of the game, he plans the whole thing with "Alt" so V can get his body back at Johnny's own expense, from the beginning, and he doubles down on that claim at the end of the game.

Do you see the dissonance? The egoist rockerboy that admitted to using his friends to getting what he wants, and the downright self-sacrificing hero and a friend that is Johnny at the end of the game? People change, sure, but this divide is very massive and too sudden, so I wanted to dig into that. And what I've stumbled upon, with the help of canon Cyberpunk materials like the Red sourcebook (or, more specifically, LayedBackGamers' reading of the canon books and his lore videos on different topics), is that

Johhny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077 is the Most Unreliable Narrator I've Ever Seen.

Count with me here:

Johhny's personality in general. No matter what your interpretation of him his, it's impossible to ignore that Johhny is very much a people person and he exploits that knowledge and charisma to suit his own goals. If you choose to trust him, then you might have already been played.

2) Johhny has been alone, only his lovely self for 50+ years inside the Arasaka chip. Don't ask me how he is still even remotely sane, I haven't got a clue (hopefully the time as a construct without outside stimulation flies differently and he hasn't felt those 50 years in real time). The thing to mention here, however, is that, being alone with your thoughts and emotions for a long time, having nothing else for entertainment, is a great opportunity to rewrite your own memory of events or emotions you've felt.

3) Lack of a body. The aforementioned constant rage, that was the dominant emotion is Johnny's life (before Alt, at least, if Never Fade Away is anything to go by, and I mean, that's literally a love ballad), is a symptom of his PTSD from his too-young years serving in the corpo war, same as his signature silver hand. I'm not a specialist here, but I do know PTSD, especially for war veterans, is a physiological illness just as much as it is a mental one. Johnny's body literally had trouble living normally after that experience, and knowing this bastard - he never managed to treat that. Existing as a personality construct frees him from the many bonuses of being corporeal, but it also free him from the physiological side of PTSD. His day-to-day existence is fundamentally different from that of the Johnny Silverhand that the world knew 50 years ago, so yes, as a 'time traveler' or a source of information and comparison about the 70's and 20's of cyberpunk world Johhny is not a good source.

4) The chip with Johnny is literary inside the head of another person. The characters in game question, multiple times, just which decisions is V making on his own, and which of them might be Johnny's doing. Not consciously, no, but V and Johnny are clearly not your simple neighbours. They are not your 'close friends that start subconsciously copying each other' too. It is quite possible that the chip with Johhny is adapting to the 'hardware' it is running on, so it is specifically implementing parts of V's personality into Johnny, to minimize the 'friction' between the personality and the body it is supposed to inhabit. Everyone say hi to existential horror)

5) How does Soulkiller ever work? Is there data on how much the resulting engram actually resembles the person it tried to copy? How did the process of copying Johnny go? I can answer the last one - very badly.

Death of Johnny is told in excruciating detail in the Cyberpunk sourcebooks. Johnny died on the floor of Arasaka tower, torn in two by a shotgun blast from Smasher. There is no information on how much time it takes Soulkiller to create the engram from the brain, but it better have finished doing that before Johnny's brain started dying from a lack of blood and oxygen, and he clearly didn't have much time either, considering bisection is not the best for bodily fluid preservation, so it's a wonder the engram even works properly. Plus, during the initial heist to steal the chip with Johnny, the chip was damaged further before the idiots decided to stick an unknown harddrive into their heads to preserve it. Basically, it's nothing short of a miracle, that engram-Johnny is actually a whole damn person, that he can function, think and feel properly (well, as much as Johnny can do those things)

It is very sad that V can't talk to Johnny about this, as the man does blame himself over things he hasn't even done, and he had done enough emotional damage to himself and people around him without that kind of burden on top of it.

6) Johnny's memories are literally false. The attentive reader had to pick this up in my previous point - didn't Johnny die in the hands of Arasaka after they interrogated him? Nope. Nope, and I can say that confidently because,

(drumroll please)

Cyberpunk tabletop sourcebooks! Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk universe and the TTRP series of games, has worked closely with CDPR writers during the production of the 2077. He oversaw everything, and he says that 2077 is in the same cyberpunk universe too, it's not an 'alternate reality' or anything.

Johnny Silverhand died while trying to buy time for his friends to escape, from a shotgun shot from Adam Smasher. That's it, he died on that floor, there was noone to interrogate, no rooftop helicopter he ran for.

The sequence of 'memories' we see from Johnny's POV in the game is a mishmash of two different assaults on the Arasaka towers, yes towers there were two of them. There is a great video explaining all the small and Major details Johnny's version of events got wrong, because we have the sourcebooks and the text inside. You may accuse me of holding a 'holy canon' argument ... and well, yeah, this is kind of holy knowledge, as it was written for gamemasters.

Still, some of the things in Johnny's version are Major, and while the media certainly covered the whole story extensively with corpo propaganda (oh, btw, Johnny didn't bomb anything, he probably didn't even know there was a nuke involved, he is literally just a scapegoat), there are some holes that a citizen of this world might know and wish to poke. The aforementioned Two Arasaka towers, or the absence of the legendary solo Morgan Blackhand from Johnny's story. Interestingly enough, there is a radiostation of Maximum Mike in-game, who is actually just pretty much Mike Pondsmith, and he does propose a couple of questions the 'official' version of the attack doesn't cover (like, where would a rockerboy even get a nuke, he might have been popular, but that's not just something you find without military contracts, and that means corporations). Another thing is that since Arasaka owns Soulkiller and has had the engram for a couple of decades, it is quite possible they are the ones responsible for messing with Johnny's memories.

So uh, yeah, Johnny is the Most Unrealible Narrator I have ever seen. Johnny of 2077 is most certainly not the Johnny of 2020's, but this might be a good thing. Maybe the 'real' 2020's Silverhand could never have made the progress the engram did, or become such a good friend and companion for V, or maybe he could have done those things too. We'll never know. I really love this story anyway.

#thanks for reading #johnny totally deserves a second chance at life after this why cant he and johnny show alt the finger and delta out of there #so v could live out his days and then johnny would take over #on the other hand johnny is a great example that being an engram is not the end so maybe v could come back in some sort of form later #after giving alt the finger #btw thats not alt either that's probably just an ai that caught little wind of actual alt and just calls itself her #also alt herself might be alive but that story is WEIRD so no idea #cyberpunk lore is great i had an amazing time listening to it and discovering new things #mike pondsmith is also amazing heard a cyberpunk red campaign he mastered and listening to him has been a blast he is a true storyteller #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk red #legends of night city #mike pondsmith #johnny silverhand #phantom liberty #this is the first and last time I praise cdpr after that back to hate for the ps4 version of the game i go #and for refusing to update the game for that platform and for not releasing the dlc for it and for upping the system reqs even higher #ill live to see actual 2077 before I get access to hardware that can run that shit #btw existential horror enjoyers I sure do hope you have heard of SOMA )))#oh i also dont think johnny was that bad in life either like he was bad but rogue and kerry are clearly happy to have him back so the game #must've shown just a very low time for him he had to be a good friend to earn that kind of loyalty still could behave like a bastard tho

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uncanny-tranny · 11 months

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It's always tempting to debate bigots about their bigotry, but honestly the best thing you can do is often to directly help those affected by said bigotry.

Bigotry doesn't exist to be debated. People who are bigots do not care about debate - they care about humiliating their opponents. You cannot outsmart somebody who doesn't give a flying fuck about their position being incorrect. You will be playing a completely different game by trying to debate somebody out of their bigotry.

The best thing you can do is to show up for the marginalized. Check in on them, talk to them, and engage with them as people. Ask them if they would like help and then respect their answer to the best of your capabilities. Oftentimes, that will be sufficient enough and will go a long way.

#ally advice #the bigot will not rely on trusted peer-reviewed sources. they will rely on charisma and charm and humiliating and degrading the other team #because a bigot doesn't believe in 'you go low and we go high'. like... they're bigots because they choose to go low #so they will use dirty tactics in order to absolutely obliterate your point because you aren't going to be playing the same game #this is why i don't debate transphobes. i will engage in conversation but i do not debate bigots anymore #like do y'all remember in 2016 when the online alt-r*ght started to grow exponentially? that's the same sort of thing #many people argue that debating bigots has the chance of bringing them over to your side but...#...personally i don't really value that as a *sole* strategy or something we should focus our energy on #i absolutely will never debate a bigot because i know the stakes and i know that they'd play dirty (especially if it is in front of others)#inspired by a conversation with my dad where he surprised me with his outlook and views #(i'd assume that we would disagree heavily but no... he actually pretty much completely agreed)#(which isn't a huge achievement BUT we are pretty different people with very different views at times)#(i'm a carbon copy of him but if he came back Wrong)

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stupidrant · 3 months

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you know, girls of color in media don't really get the chance to have complete character arcs, be fully realized love interests or able to be hold her own and vulnerable & soft, i'm so happy that our girl angrboda is getting so much love 🥺❤️ she deserves the princess treatmen and fully spoiled. i'm talking fluffy tulle gowns in a giant ballroom ala bridgerton being courted by a young man who looks weird in the face at first but he's actually very cool and nice!

When i first saw angrboda i was shocked like REALLY shocked since i had no prior knowledge of ragnarok coming out until like days after it came out. (Her design is immaculate imo) And then going through the game i became even more shocked and then the ending came and i was just like… WHAT? Her being his first or ONLY love interest wasnt even my first thought until like a month later bc i was quite in awe with the game in general and then it kinda hit me thats what was happening and i was like oh. OH. I was rooting for her and.. they was end game. You guys i was like wtf…

This is probably a little sensitive for me to say but i dont usually fret over representation too much anymore. The reason for it is bc honestly its very hit or miss and more misses than ever before. Alot of it feels like “here, damn” like just to do it to satiate people, mocking or a set up and its like ok. Whatever. I cannot force people to do smth they dont want to do and i think if you dont wanna do it then just dont tbh. But even when it is genuine or even good you dont see it being popular. I think of a few examples ofc but 9/10 they are either terrible characters, die later on or are flat out ignored (if they had no arc). The difference with angrboda shes none of that. They didnt even put her in a stereotypical place im genuinely shocked about that. I dont like her bc shes black but bc i actually like her. Her being black is just a plus for me and I dont project myself onto her because honestly if i do itll put me in a shit position and i dont really feel the need to do so anyways but i do appreciate everything abt her and i do recognize that they took their time with her and i applaud them for that. All of that just for her to end up being the most hated character. Lol. im always gonna be a little bitter about that. Again, I really hope sms continues on with her regardless of the hate bc they did it with atreus.

#This is smth ive thought abt for a long time but i never really got the chance to talk abt.#like laya said at the baftas “you dont get that many characters like her”#the only time i care abt that is character creation games and thats really it tbh everything else is like ehh #Angrboda #god of war ragnarok #god of war #gowr #gow #asks #my stuff #Rant #sort of?

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adozentothedawn · 18 days

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And the final four clips! Admittedly I did almost forget about them. To be honest I find it a little difficult to do actual writing right now due to having to write university papers that kinda steal my brain, but I'd also like to contribute on here a bit more, so if any of you want any particular voice lines feel free to drop me an ask or something and I'll have a look.

#pillars of eternity #kana rua #voice lines #audio #despite my inability to read this game is much easier to get clips of that rt #they are nicely sorted by character!#it's a still a bunch of clicking and listening to find it but i have a reasonable chance

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devilfish-landing · 7 months

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Pittyober Prompt 2: Puppet

Some would say they were "utterly incompetent together" and "some of the least feared pirates in all of the Spiral".

~~~

yeah so this one ended up being another episode of me playing with art styles LMAO but i saw the "puppet" prompt and IMMEDIATELY the idea of imitating the style of the in-game puppet shows came to me and i ended up doing it with my two main pirates, Orion and Brynn (i never post about the latter because im not running through the game with her atm SORRYYY) you WILL look at my silly guys

also this is where i come out and say ive already failed to stay on the 30 day schedule but whad ever. ill get these done when i get them done. im having a blast about it either way. xoxo

#pirate101 #p101 #pitty101 #pitty fandom #art #OC: Orion #OC: Brynn #i actually havent drawn any of my pirates in a hot minute since i've been on such a huge companion art streak BJHGBHJEGBHJ #but these two... ough... these two (blows up)#i'll make a post or something of the sort explaining the relationship between these two since. ive got a lot. but now is Not that Time #maybe ill get a chance to make smth about it during the challenge HEHEHE #also pretty much every color in this was colorpicked from a giant ref collage i made of screenshots from the in-game shows #t'was fun to play around that :3

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gayemeralds · 1 year

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Whats your honest opinion aboutnthe fandoms love for sonic and tails brotherly bonding biven that canon is not as strong on that regard

sorry for waiting like. months. to answer this question i’ve been pondering the best way to answer this for literally. months.

i guess the thing is i’ve never really thought about the domesticity of their relationship? a lot of fan things that depict them as brothers are very domestic, the little interactions between them living together and all that. sonic brushing tails’s fur. sonic telling tails to eat his vegetables. them shopping together. things like that. like, i do think they are brothers, and that they view themself as brothers, but i guess i don’t see them as conventional brothers? i’m not quite sure how to articulate this. like they ARE brothers, and they care about each other, and have a different sort of relationship than knuckles and sonic, and sonic and amy, and sonic and cream. but i wouldnt say they’d be anything like ed and al from fma. hm. it took literally thirty years to hear sonic call tails his brother in a game.

like, when i think of them, i’m inclined to think of my sister and i’s relationship. we’re about six years apart, no siblings in between. we love each other a lot, but we don’t see each other a whole lot, because we’re just in super different parts of our lives. i don’t live with her, but i’ll crash on her couch every once in a while. i don’t see her often. i am excited to see her when she visits.

so like, i think sonic did raise tails, in a sense. i think sonic probably took care of him when they first started hanging out and tails was literally just four years old. but sonic’s independent by nature and older by a good chunk of years, and i don’t really think he’d actually enjoy taking care of someone. sonic CARES and loves tails but i would not say he’s a nurturer, and he doesn’t want to be tied down. so once tails got a workshop, assumedly around sonic adventure (at least, a stable one), sonic ditched. i don’t think the two of them live together. sonic’s literally homeless and loves to wander the world for like, months on end. i don’t think sonic and tails do chores together. i don’t think sonic’s at tails’s workshop for long periods of time. maybe to crash on his couch and read a book every once in a while.

sonic visits, yeah, but i also think there’s just long periods of time where they don’t see each other. early sonic games from adventure to the “dark” era of sonic games indicate they don’t see each other for long periods of time (”long time no see!”) and when they do see each other, its often because of a new scheme from eggman or a danger to the world. like, sonic 06- they didn’t even plan on meeting each other, they just happened to cross paths.

i don’t know if this particularly makes sense. i just don’t really see them being particularly domestic together. neither of them are conventional people, and sonic especially is the type to enjoy alone time and adventuring; tails is a little more inclined to stay in place so he can work on his new machines, traveling usually for research or to help sonic. they’ve got different motivations and hobbies so i think they don’t actually spend a lot of time together. it’s probably similar to how much time sonic and knuckles spend together, since knuckles is almost always stuck on angel island with the master emerald.

(plus, if we consider the timeline sega’s been trying to tell us, where every game seems to happen in the span of a year, and tails has always been eight and sonic’s always been 15, or something similar, where tails isn’t a literal toddler when they meet, i really don’t see them doing anything domestic together at all. sonic’s always on the road and tails is off doing inventing or occasionally helping sonic out. if tails wasn’t four-ish when they meet, i don’t really think sonic would... like, take care of him the same way a “parent” would. amy rents her own house in station square, and she’s like twelve. it seems to be the norm, at least in our perspective, that young mobians are allowed to be left to their own devices; like, we still don’t know what’s up with charmy and the chaotix. sure, he could ahve been adopted by vector i suppose, or are his parents just super chill with him hanging out with a bunch of detectives? lmao. and besides, tails is a pretty smart cookie. he really can take care of himself, and sonic would just leave him be since he seems “old enough”, at least in the sonic world, to do so.)

#i don't know #like im not trying to be negative? i think the little domestic interactions are cute!#im just not inclined to say it happened all that much in the games? i don't know #i guess i've just never thought abotu the domestic aspect of their relationship #i like aosth and the relationshipo they establish. im just not sure that game sonic and tails would really have something similar?#idk i like the narrative that sonic raised tails.#but i'm also slightly inclines to believe sonic just dumped tails on knuckles when he'd be gone for super long periods of time #because sonic needs his alone time.#? i don't know....#master emerald brothel #the more 'intimate' aspects of theri relationship are totally valid i jsut dont think about them much i suppose #?????#the thing is that sonic's inherently selfless in his persuit of like #saving the world and stuff #but sonic's also pretty selfish. he seeks out adventure for fun. if the adventure isn't fun he doesn't usually help out #so like i dont think he'd exactly jump at the chance to raise a four year old lmao #like. thats sort of the issue he has with being with amy you know #he doesn't want to be tied down. marriange and a white picket fence and 2.5 kids just is NOT something he wants #so i don't know. i guess i just don't see him as ahving actually RAISED tails. in like #the conventional way #i mostly see him as the cool but kinda distant older brother #he's there during the first part of your life #but eventually he kinda moves on #because he's older and he's got a life to live too.#idk? i don't know if i've worded any of this right.

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sicksweetcreamy · 6 months

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@magitober MAGITOBER 2023: Kamihama Magia Union - Sasara Minagi is SAO still a thing or

#my art #magia record #pmmm #madoka magica #magireco #magitober #magitober 2023 #sasara minagi #she's sort of the straight man to asuka so she doesn't get a lot of chances to shine #but hey that's being a start of the game roster filler unit for you ngl

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rohirric-hunter · 11 months

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Okay so I was going to do a really involved review of the Unhinged LotR Mobile Game (otherwise known as LotR: Heroes of Middle-earth) but I'm tired and don't have energy for that, so here are the quick hits:

It's a gacha game, and it's published by EA. Draw your own conclusions.

This review is based off of 100% free gameplay. I have paid $0 for this game.

Lore: Good. 8/10. Game is based on the book and plot elements were clearly designed by someone familiar with the source material. Hero lineup consists of characters from the book, characters that were mentioned in passing in the book but have been a little bit fleshed out and expanded upon, and completely original characters. The latter fit in well with the lore and have convincing names that are, for the most part, based in Tolkien's actual languages or borrowed from elsewhere in the legendarium. Dialogue is lifted directly out of the book in general; when it deviates from these the language used is noticeably different. Minus one half point for that, minus one point for using a ring of power as a leveling mechanic, and minus one half point for female dwarves not having beards.

Gameplay: Typical. It's a gacha game. 6/10. There's never enough energy to actually get anything done in one sitting, as per usual, purchase packs are WAY overpriced, and no particular effort has been expended to make plotlines coincide with the combat mechanic especially well. There has been one special event since I've been playing, where they released Arwen as a hero. There were six stages to the event and I was able to complete five. The sixth required me to have leveled Arwen to five stars in order to complete, and in order to do that I would have had to have either paid $20 for the real world money Arwen pack or got incredibly lucky with the RNG on the in-game gems Arwen pack. However, I am not torn up about this as there was no plot to the event and the rewards were gold and upgrade materials; nice to have, but easy enough to get elsewhere. I am unsure if there are any plans to repeat this event or whether Arwen and other event characters will be available after their events have ended, and this information does have a significant impact on my final opinion of the game. However I'm overall satisfied; it seems to me that the highest levels of this character are locked behind a paywall, but I got a good solid hero that I'm actively using on one of my teams. Points added back for not locking auto-battle until you've manually completed the battle already and for forwarding uncollected daily rewards to your in-game inbox, great quality of life features that other gacha games would be wise to take note of.

Graphics. Fine. 6/10. This rating will doubtless go up over time, as the game is currently plagued by graphical glitches. No apparent impact on actual gameplay but there's quite a bit of A-posing (Frodo and Sam have a combo attack that seems to cause all goblins to A-pose), the Mordor Taskmaster/Úzhan occasionally interacts with the wrong character during one of his skill animations, sometimes when closing out a gear inspection window and going back to a hero's main page will cause them to sprout a second head, which is a bit terrifying, and a few other minor gltiches that are really weighing down the score in this department. But as I've said before, the art style is really fun and unique, I love almost all the character designs, and there are a lot of really good artistic choices (for example: the homepage link to the events page takes the form of a stained glass window, with a really pretty image of whichever character is in focus in the current event). The only probably permanent issue that drags this point down is that some of the combat backgrounds are a bit silly; the heroes are standing on water, or obviously about to run into a wall as they run from one combat stage to the next. But overall the game is really nice to look at. The music is nice too.

Plot. I'm not gonna give the plot a number rating because I like it, but it's not for everyone. You, the player, find a random ring on the ground and put it on because you're not genre-savvy I guess. This ring gives you the power to influence characters from LotR in order to direct them as heroes on the battlefield. How this works is not expounded upon, and it doesn't matter because it's a leveling mechanic. But some other nefarious person is also influencing characters from LotR and they're trying to change the plot, and you have to stop them. Or at any rate, that's what I was told? It seems that sometimes I'm also helping them -- but as this is all just an elaborate excuse to pit completely random teams of heroes together I expect it wasn't thought out quite as thoroughly as it it should have been. Or maybe I just haven't got far enough in the plot to understand it yet. I'm always open to that. Anyhow, I've gotten invested in the subplots mainly through the mechanics of 'it's really mean to Aragorn' and 'they made Uglúk really funny.'

Overall I'm not gonna give it a number rating. Would I recommend it? If you like gacha games, yes. If you like that kind of plot, I'd recommend it just to run through the light and shadow campaigns and look at the pretty graphics.

EDIT: forgot to mention before that this game has been out for roughly one (1) month so that's why I'm so forgiving of the graphical errors.

#unhinged lotr mobile game saga #a couple more notes that i couldnt figure out where to put:#im active in the arena but sort of casually #i regularly win battles and am moving up in the ranks despite not paying for the game #so it seems to me that i can be competitive without forking up #at least competitive enough to satisfy myself #also so i first downloaded this game to make fun of it right? and the tutorial was like 'hey you can open a bonus chest every 4 hours'#'why dont you open one now'#i was like okay yeah sure this is pretty basic w/e right #so i pop open the bonus chest and it gives you usually 2 hero shards although there is a chance for more #and a couple of other things #well it gave me halbarad character shards and to be quite honest that was when it hooked me #good job game you know exactly how to draw me in #i havent unlocked halbarad yet because outside of the chests hes only accessible through supplies with challenge coins #and challenge coins are a PAIN to get hold of #but im almost there! unreasonably excited #might post more about all that later

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even-disco-baby · 1 year

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Heya, I know that given in-game circumstances it's probably almost impossible, but could I request something where you can get both cuno and cunoesse out of there? Or help them both or something. I get so sad about her

CUNOESSE — “FUCKING USELESS PIG!” Her voice echoes across the ice, seemingly loud enough for the whole world to hear. “FUCKING NAKKI! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL CUNO! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” She balls up her little fist and hits you right in your bad leg.

PAIN THRESHOLD — It nearly folds beneath you and sends you sprawling on the ice. Nearly, but not quite. You manage to stay upright thanks to the cane in your hand, but it slips dangerously on the ice.

“What the hell, kid?! I’m trying to *help* you!”

“Fine! Fuck you, too! I don’t know why I even tried.”

“God, I’m sorry, I know I’m a failure. There’s probably nothing I can do for you.”

“Cunoesse, please, listen to me...”

CUNOESSE — She does not listen. She just keeps on trying to slam her trembling fist into your leg. “You’re a fucking liar!” she seethes. “Not even the other *pigs* want you! You’re stuck here, you stupid cunt! YOU’RE STUCK HERE FOREVER! FUCKING NAKKI!” Rage rips her voice violently from her throat. Angry tears stream down her face as she screams curse after curse. Some you understand, some you don’t.

EMPATHY — She is in so much pain. More pain than should even be able to fit inside someone so small.

CUNOESSE — “You’re gonna die alone here, you hear me?! You’re gonna die and they won’t even care!”

“So what if I am?! It’s not like *you* would care!”

“I’m not alone! I have Cuno! You’re just jealous!”

“Nobody ever cared.”

“Is that what you’re afraid of? Dying alone?”

CUNOESSE — “I’m not fucking afraid of anything, pig! Go ahead and kill me, I don’t care!” Despite her words, she sobs as she beats her fists uselessly against your guarding arms. “You can’t even do that, can you? You’re no good to anybody! You just—”

Suddenly, her foot slips out from under her.

REACTION SPEED — Panicked, you reach out to try and catch her. But you’re even more unsteady than she is, and you grasp helplessly at thin air as she slams into the ice. For a long moment, you both seem to hold your breath, the groans and crackles of the ice setting your teeth on edge. But then... nothing. Cunoesse just lies there, and you are just watching her, and the world is silent and impassive.

CUNOESSE — Another sob pushes itself through her teeth. She lays her trembling arms over her face, defeated. Burnt out like a discarded match.

YOU — “Cunoesse...”

CUNOESSE — “Just leave me alone,” she chokes out. “I hate you.”

EMPATHY — She hates everything about you. Hates that you’re a cop. Hates that your bullet missed her. Hates that Cuno likes you. Hates that you let him down. Hates that they left you alone on the shore to die. Just like her.

YOU — “...You scared Cuno away so that he would leave Martinaise with me, didn’t you?”

CUNOESSE — “Who fucking cares?” she spits between shaky breaths. “Shut up about Cuno. I fucking hate him, too.”

DRAMA — Not a lie, but not the truth, either, sire.

EMPATHY — She hates that she is nothing and nameless without him. And she hates that she is the reason that Cuno went this long without running away.

“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault, I messed everything up.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll probably die soon, and you and Cuno can go back to how things were.”

“It’s just life. You’re still young. It’ll get better.”

“I’m just trying to help. Just let me help you.”

“I’m not going to leave you to freeze to death on the ice.”

CUNOESSE — She lets out an exasperated sound, somewhere between spitting and sighing. “Why don’t you?”

“I would feel too guilty.”

“Cuno would hate me.”

“I love you, too, Cunoesse.”

“I just won’t.”

CUNOESSE — A long silence, broken only by sniffles and halting breaths. And then she pulls her arms away from her face, glaring darkly at you.

“Fine. Just help me up and get lost, pig.”

DRAMA — The anger and bravado have sputtered out. She can only drag herself wearily back to the shore.

CUNOESSE — She won’t take your hand, but she grabs onto your coatsleeve and pulls herself unsteadily to her feet. And then she’s storming wordlessly back to the fishing village, her stubborn back to you.

VOLITION — But at least she’s going back. She will leave thoughts of the sea behind for now.

#disco elysium #cunoesse #harry du bois #suicide tw #requests #clowngirl-bebop #THANK YOU FOR THIS ONE. CUNOESSE IS ONE OF MY FAV CHARACTERS IN THE GAME #ig this one and the cuno one are sort of part of the same continuity where harry decides to stay in martinaise after the ''bad'' end #anyway im so curious what went down between cuno and cunoesse but #my assumption was always that cunoesse did smth to scare cuno off and leave martinaise partly out of anger and bitterness #and fear that he would betray her #but also partly so that there would be no chance of him not taking the opportunity to leave with harry #cunoesse u have so many layers...

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countess-of-edessa · 4 months

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“are the girls going to help you make pierogis?” well no one else is fucking gonna are they? no one else in this house has functional fucking hands apparently

#every Christmas i think about the time we came home from mass and my father said “finally! now we can relax.” and sat down at his computer #and played video games for the next three hours while my mother and sister and i stood six feet away from him in the kitchen making #200 pierogis.#it’s crazy considering the amount of stuff he gets done for him on a daily basis that I would never even think would be done for me by anyo #like bed made for him/all meals/all dishes/food put on his plate for him because he refuses to do it himself/pretty much all errands #whenever he wants tea he just says that want out loud and it gets brought to him by magic #i mean or anything else! he once said “did you say we were having cappuccinos today?” just to no one in particular and we all knew no one h #had said anything of the sort. and then he was given one!#of course he goes to work from 8-6ish every day but other than one day a week it’s remote and has been for years and i can hear him #he is pretty much never not on the phone gossiping with someone #and i don’t begrudge him having a not physically intensive job or anything but im just trying to think of the things he has to do #he makes my mother mow the lawn. i do it when i am home because i think that’s disgraceful.#if my mother begs hard enough he'll do the least amount of yard work possible if it’s something we can’t physically do by ourselves.#but on a daily basis it’s just go to work/eat the breakfast brought to you/eat the lunch brought to you/come downstairs eat the dinner made #for you/play video games until you go to bed in the bed that was made for you in the morning #and on non work days it’s just eat/video games/bed #and like all this to say #he complains more and has a worse attitude than anyone I have ever known in my life #whenever he encounters a minor inconvenience he's talking about how it never ends and he never gets a chance to rest for once #literally any day that’s not spent in complete and total stagnation is considered a failure #he hates when my mother and sister and i are happy like we can’t even play music and laugh in the kitchen while we cook and clean up after #meals because it distracts him from his video games and his YouTube videos about video games and the war in Ukraine #he gets mad when we laugh too much lol like dude you’re pretty lucky you have daughters who can have fun while doing the dishes #considering you haven’t done them in like 20 years #word to the ladies out there btw: my parents used to clean up after dinner together when they first got married. so watch out lmao

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pebbledrat · 11 months

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The longer I'm around the more convinced I become that Jill and Michael also had some kinda codependent-besties archetype thing going on?? they may or may not even have been aware of it, but like. they're kind of a matched set, you know? Frequently purchased together, do not separate them

#this is based more on vibe then evidence but like. boy oh boy is there evidence #you could look at how the Lovers archetype affected Raven and Lloyd when they got split up and then compare that to Michael spiraling #idk. obviously there are a lot of factors at play here but like. sort of chronologically-#they were trapped in the tower together and had to stay sane for each other. making up games together. trying not to crack.#she was his first friend. you know?#they show up to the dinner party together. they bring wine and scotch! (she taught him to drink)#(they used to laugh and drink and party together until suddenly they couldn't anymore)#jill takes the chance to admit to lloyd that she worries about michael. to which!!!! lloyd says!! at least he has you #jill and michael's well being has ALWAYS been interwoven #or like. or like. in act 6 in the final battle jill follows her own melody line bc she's ticked and this is personal #compared with michael who doesn't have a personal stake in this other than the playhouse crew being involved!#michael doesn't have his own melody. he sings to the love and a dream playhouse tune bc that's his motivation for fighting #UNTIL jill is in danger!! when Michael jumps in to save her he finally gets his own musical flavor in the song! then it's banjo boy time #idk. there was a lot of loss and multiple different traumas Michael went through after that. but suddenly he's alone again #at least he's not stuck in a swamp or a tower for years but. he's all the way back to square one. he's alone. he doesn't cope well with that #and while he misses all of them he really misses jill. at the worst of it he doesn't even want to reunite with lloyd and david #but like. he's in a real bad way. he's hit rock bottom and he carries so much guilt over not being able to help jill #to the point where even hearing that there's hope is crushing to him bc it means that there Was something he could've done #and he did nothing #he's devastated all over again not just bc he lost her. but bc he abandoned her. he failed her.#we don't have nearly as much about how jill is doing but we do have her song titled Michael about their early relationship #and the way they rely on each other #go listen to that and tell me the narrative wouldn't just eat that up and link their destinies and mental stability #they spent years in level five. you can't tell me they got away with all this unscathed #i definitely think losing son mi was a big part of why michael spiraled but this essay is about jill and michael specifically #hdhjdfhrjrdgtsg how long can post go (challenge mode)#pebble speaks #shaperaverse

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hella1975 · 1 year

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went to my first local d&d night and had so so much fun. me and my mate kept rolling natural 20s and all the more experienced players were genuinely freaking out and then i got to be the one to kill the Big Bad Guy at the very end. we're going back next week

#BOOM PSPSPSPSPS #i had so much fun #just drinking wine with some sort of taverncore playlist in the background and a load of us playing d&d #and they were all so nice!!! like they genuinely were just enjoying sharing the game even tho me and my mate knew literally nothing #i was a bard <3 and i kept picking random shit up and pocketing it which is how i killed the guy #bc i just by pure chance had this magical robe thing that i could use as a weapon lmfao?#im still mainly v confused by it all but it wasn't nearly as intimidating as i thought #we were there for four hours though i was HUNGRY #hella goes to uni

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hershelwidget · 3 months

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I’ve been playing PLvsPW and for some reason I always thought that in This Certain Scene, Phoenix decks Barnham in the face. I did not realize until I actually got to that scene that I got that impression from fanfiction and I feel like I’ve been played

#my DISAPPOINTMENT when he did NOTHING but yell #i think phoenix deserves to punch someone. as a treat #professor layton vs phoenix wright #sighs. to be safe #plvsaa spoilers #in case you want to wait to know that phoenix has a CHANCE of violence and doesnt take it #also ive noticed hes like. some sort of Creature in this game. i cant explain it #maybe its just because its him in a new situation and he doesnt know how to handle it #but hes just. hes so Feral. Unhinged. we only saw that in words before. that man has some Kick in his step and its fascinating to watch #.im having normal thoughts in the 3ds tonight

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unproduciblesmackdown · 14 days

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tayston au where they're coworkers Somewhere Else that's not like the ideal dream job in theory for either of them, nor in practice, where there's still typical nonsense & the [genderdivergent / neurononconforming handshake] is no less relevant, just like In Real Life. elements simplified &/or amplified by taylor not having any especial rank or power, along the lines of how things presumably would've gone as [premise of having been Just Some Intern until getting mentorship & promotions that made it more relevant to stay a while]. they and winston maybe distantly know Of each other just via working in whatever same physical space, & this is how they both know most other coworkers; they mostly interact with who they interact with for official work purposes, they both keep busy enough, they're both othered by what workplace socializing is going on, with plenty of [shared negative opinion] embraced by people & thus both of them as the targets of that being Not embraced. gd & nnc handshake as stated

so, thinking of them both at some General Coworkers Mostly Informal Event at a bar or something of the sort, like, an End Of The Year thing, end of the [ways specific workplaces divide up time for whatever business events. quarters. some other regular event of Assessment] or any other companywide deal that could spur some peak Across The Board "we're going out, theoretically everyone's invited" and of course both winston and taylor happen to actually go. maybe there are preexisting (also mostly informal) traditions here, maybe there's people just making shit up on the spot (perhaps pretending they're preexisting traditions. winston & taylor not having worked there a full year or anything. or maybe one or both of them has, but hasn't shown up for this perhaps annual deal before. etc) but some "playing with [someone othered] for entertainment" organically crops up around winston where the people involved also spontaneously bring taylor into it as accessory, someone they wouldn't involve as getting to be "in on it." lot of flexibility here but what i've landed on after rotating & jostling ideas is roughly like: people very loosely like expressing a celebratory nature to the event via (again perhaps an actual informal preexisting tradition, perhaps being invented just now while perhaps pretending otherwise, or not) like Awards / Honors / Recognitions being doled out to some specific employees. maybe starts out somewhat rooted in more formal things, hooray for someone's recentish birthday, hooray for someone's preexisting formal recognition for whatever work achievement, then branches off into like haha hooray for [person] for [inside joke about some event ya just had to be there for! / other work wins of increasing informality/jokiness] where that jocularity can easily transition into Using this autistic coworker who's never in the In Group as a joke, of course, while maintaining ambiguity to opacity / Deniability about how the figurative arm slung around His shoulder is not actual inclusion like it is for other people

e.g. set winston up like here's some Ironic Recognition that is ostensibly framed as a compliment directly or that the ribbing / insulting Is in fact totally amicable Inclusion just like it is when we do it to these other guys haha....taylor happens to be proximate enough to be spontaneously dragged into it with people exercising the same attitude of like, well they're an object to be toyed with momentarily for our entertainment just like winston is haha. like oh don't you agree with this compliment towards winston Or this insult, it'd amuse us either way. and an idea being this being dialed up enough for like little a [venturing into harassment] all around of like, perhaps: congratulations winston for us all agreeing you Win at being our office's most eligible bachelor haha XD you're soooo single X'D cue whatever transition into building on The Joke like and how amazing when you're, stifled laughter, you're the hottest person here also three cheers for that too....like a) winston like thee nerd amongst nerds, no matter where he works or what group he's in the [an autistic person...] is Sensed, just like in real life, b) being in the impossible position where ofc he's doomed from the start in being targeted by people who can & are ganging up on him here, him playing along while realizing it may all be at his expense = he loses, him pushing back = he loses, him at least at first accepting like oh people are being spontaneous & funny & friendly to me (such as with amicable ribbing truly equivalent to what other popular enough coworkers are getting) & not realizing it's actually different & disingenous & entirely At His Expense = he loses. but whatever his response at first like, it's Escalated by someone drawing taylor into it b/c they're sitting at the next table or walking by at that instant or coming up to the bar or something & it's like oh Hey, we were just giving winston his due as the sexiest motherfucker here, Do you agree & Wouldn't you make out with him. & this obvious escalation / unusual extension of the [figurative arm around winston's shoulder] that isn't happening with any of the other like more at all actually better-intentioned friendly [just messing with you] being like, making winston More uncomfortable (b/c even if he'd accepted the premise / given the benefit of the doubt to the premise / optimistically tried to believe the premise that it was genuinely well-intentioned up to this point, the "this is just pushed onto him" element inherent to it would not be fun for him) & thus yknow Definitely realizing that no matter the intentions like, this is just gonna be a bad time for him & isn't gonna result in being embraced / included in any way he wants here

also the incongruity in how winston sees taylor here, & how taylor sees winston, vs how whatever group of friends being assholes to both of them sees either of them. the Key Element that makes this "oh, autistic & trans handshake moment, tayston moment" at the core. taylor is experiencing someone just on a whim Also trying to like pick them up for a second & mess with them as a desk toy for one's own amusement, as it were, as the [taylor is out here indeed gender nonconforming even if this workplace isn't As ramped up Cis Agenda as canon's, they're also still Unusual enough in demeanor/comport/means of expression/communication & so forth as to get that "honorary" ableism (still just the same ableism) like how in canon ppl are basically calling both of the r word in different ways, degrees, at different points] like Joke's On Them too, we're Ironic in asking their input, they & winston can still only lose no matter how they respond, Their opinion on [Ideals of gender & sexuality? thus Desirability?] can only Deviate from correctness just as winston can only Deviate from correctness in this [in group]'s "opinion" (they have the Facts!) like hilarious if taylor, weirdo who we could also make fun of by how Undesirable they are, also rejects winston, or doesn't, which would also just be hilarious

meanwhile winston is like oh no this hot coworker being dragged into it :[ don't put them on the spot to either be like "ew god" about me Or else also only be playing along in this specific moment and context such that i'm flying too close to the sun with however seemingly positively they might interact with me, even a smile & a Yeah Nice, don't want them to go "lmfao. imagine. as if XD", don't want them to think he himself is In On giving them shit here....then taylor's obvious Lack Of Being Amused Too if not displeasure at some shitheads being like would you Not want all of that (winston) would you totally kiss him for $50, don't answer that $500, all the money in the world & you're the last people in the world then it'd be tempting right XD just etc suffering as the punchline of bullshit improv out here. to winston's compounding embarrassment at both a) realizing yeah this isn't Just amicable razzing, he's only "included" to the extent he's these people's entertainment, perhaps also picking up on the outright like [just being given shit] / contempt to it, & b) again like not wanting to now be involved in annoying the epic & definitely themself sexy mf coworker who is of course just set up to reject him in this moment & also now going forward....while taylor is also in turn is Seeing Winston in a different context than these others are & like recognizing his [winston's discomfited & withdrawing expressiveness] & just indeed that context of likewise suffering bullshit here

some kind of transition here, like, taylor makes some dry in turn ambiguous enough response about like, well yes i think out of everyone present i'd be most likely to make out with this particular person. b/c these shitheads don't confer especial worthiness to any of taylor's input either it's like ohhh shitttt reallyyyy do itttt XD and you know, tall order to then actually do it in this pretty hostile situation & knowing as much, but this is just a specificass What If vs [only outcome possible, in every au in every timeline] and like the added situation of like, taylor already has been aware of bullshit & nonsense & hostility & their not winning the popularity contest which matters, winston has been too, that neither of them are so committed to this particular job that they can't also both engage in some spontaneity here which could, in fact, include "eh yeah maybe i'll just quit after this. maybe this is me quitting"

taylor also of course not actually kissing winston here if he wasn't also into it. but this is a) mutual recognition of a kindred spirit, if even simply in [both being put into this damn situation / held in the same context by these other mfs] & b) winston is, in fact, flustered about immediate [!! they're hot!!] so yknow.

point is we get to the point of winston like, having this aside directly with taylor of like, embarrassed, flustered, being like "augh sorry :( you don't have to. this is just a joke to them" and taylor can be like "yeah i know and i know i'm also just a joke to them, but." and perhaps a little more of a transition into it like, the mutual question of "do You think i'm a joke" where it is of the essence that a) they both already realize that this person does, in fact, not, and b) this is just further confirmation and rather asking like, is this serious enough to you, do you understand i'm being serious enough. again not seriousness in Gravitas to ""play along"" and make out as effective strangers having a moment at a work function amidst hostile parties, but in sufficient earnestness in doing so. like no i'm not actually trying to agree / go along with any terms as laid out by these other people but yeah i'd have This moment of actual acceptance and recognition with you and it Can manifest as making out a bit, sure, and as a way to at all turn things around on this other party, if They play along, if they find they're actually about it at all, if they're just annoyed & drop the act, they lose a bit, even as again like, of course even if they choose some other route, do the "correct" thing and pwn winston, do what'd "win" and try to pwn him And everyone else here, they can't simply get that ultimate permanent victory (this is not billions canon, where they still couldn't do that anyways)

anyways they have their little exchange of recognition, reassurance like but i'm not messing with you, you're not messing with me, even as we're about to mess around(tm) a minute. they have an exchange of messing around and making out a minute. the "well while we're here, suffering bullshit, may as well get this much out of it / sure fuck it" factor can involve now also being [handshake] in like eh yeah think i might have to just quit after that, think that might've just been me quitting, b/c they can keep being Mostly Left Alone at work but this wouldn't really have made things any better, this wasn't either of their dream jobs in the forever career, this was all an Event marking some annual milestone like well i'm not dying to attend the next one either and i may as well peace out now anyways. and everyone might start just being assholes about it immediately and it's like yeah do you wanna get out of here, in the straightforward way, in the "i'd mess around with you further now sure, fuck it, by which i mean me/you, literally" way. Do So even if people are more like okay lol whatever yeah we'll be about as unfriendly as we were before, just a bit more now. be like lol we've actually never really talked, we can go to some other place and get food, hang out, chat too, exchange numbers and plan to at least be friends or allies in "now Ex coworkers lol" like it's sure a way to meet, it was sure relevant that we were just both immediately aware of there being this Understanding between us

bonus: add ben to this newfound companionship b/c he reaches out like "oh sorry you're quitting, yeah people sure can be assholes since i don't have to refrain from saying so to you as [people who also still work here]" or through some other means. or anyone else. billions au, the characters we like / could perhaps save just knowing each other any which way, Not only existing in [zero sum game] hellzone. where they can actually in fact like experience similar / equivalent shit in some ways But react in ways canon would never allow. What Ifs abound. this has been a possible "oh honey i'm a joke to them too" / "but that / this isn't just a joke to you is it" edition

#sort of an offshoot of ideas of [benston setup like ooh dare you to / you have to kiss ooh] scenarios of yore #& others rotated until it's like ah it could be tayston if not exactly in full canon context b/c that'd hinder / change sm things too much #taylor just out of frame being pretty tired of this job too / only holding on to it quite loosely #where for both them & winston Participating in some ''yippee tfw we all work here'' socializing setup here is like #somewhat that [last chance! / i'll do This differently & see if that makes things work out better] like no it's Nonsense Confirmation #people who might more usually instead ignore them grabbing on to the both of them for entertainment. little a bullying haha whee #like alright let's validate each other embrace our own little Fun & Games for a minute & get out of here #winston billions #tayston

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