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stemmmm · 5 months

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Close to a year and four rewrites later, I present to you...

Stem's Thoughts on the Game Design of Harvest Moon on SNES

I’m not going to lie, if you don’t like farming sims, you won’t like this one. At their core, every farming sim (at least in the rpg genre) is nearly identical, and that’s because of this game. In a way, I might dare to say that Harvest Moon for the SNES is the perfect farming sim because it has every one of the usual elements in their most simplified form and it just works straight from the get-go. It works so well in fact, that after this game came out in 1996, four more entries to the series were released before the year 2000.

If you are someone who does like farming sims, I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s simple and to the point, with a fast pace and enough random events and points of intrigue that the game kept me relatively engaged for my whole playthrough.

Also, by nature of this being the first game and therefore hard to cover concisely and by nature of taking so long to write this... it's long as hell! Enjoy! :) <3

I can’t say my appreciation of this game doesn’t come with a few caveats. I’ve intermittently played HM games all my life, starting with the GameBoy port (GB1) all the way to Pioneers of Olive Town, so while I don’t know exactly how the series has evolved, I’ve seen it at some of its earliest and at its latest. My vague childhood memories of GB1 (a game I didn’t own and didn’t play much of) were that it was pretty sparse and bland, so knowing that this original game was allegedly the same thing but with a little more content, I was expecting the bare minimum. I was prepared to never even be able to leave my farm, but the first thing the game did was shuttle me off to the nearby town and blocked the exit until I talked to everyone there.

(Maps of the town, mountain, and farm via The Spriters Resource)

You learn everything you need to know about the game right here at the beginning; Firstly, that this town is small as all hell and has hardly anyone in it aside from the five girls you can marry and their immediate family members. The next thing you’ll learn is that there’s a fence on your farm, and you need to be taking care of that. Of the few repetitive lines of dialogue any given person in town has to share with you on any given day, a fair amount are devoted to reminding you to fix your fence, to make sure it’s in good repair. There was just a big storm so watch out! Remember to check it every day! Are you chopping enough wood? Because you’ll need it for that fence!

I’m being dramatic of course, you aren’t reminded about it that much, though the thin variation of dialogue means it comes up a lot. The emphasis on your fence does exist, and it isn’t for nothing: while it doesn’t matter as much if all you do is grow crops– if you keep animals, the game tells you that the ideal thing to do for yours and the animal’s happiness is to put the animals outside to graze. Animal feed bought from the livestock shop will keep them fed, but it's nothing compared to fresh grass grown on your farm. You can’t even buy animals without a certain amount of grass planted! And sure, you can cut the grass to store for later, but it’s at its best straight out of the ground. However, the way the game is programmed, the animals only eat when the day rolls over, so putting animals outside for the day and taking them in at night isn’t an option, and on top of that, there’s things that come out at night that can hurt your animals. This is where your fence comes in.

The Utility of Fences

At the entrance to your farm is a cluster of buildings: your house, a small lumber shed, a barn, coop, and silo, a tool shed, and an old, dried up well. Just barely surrounding all of these is a little wooden fence that looks more like a row of upright logs than anything else. Despite this farm having presumably been abandoned, the fence is in perfect repair. You’ll quickly discover that the fence as it is won’t work out; there’s hardly space to plant anything within it, and with the well dried up, you’re forced to hop it to get to a water source to fill up your watering can. It’s pretty clear that you’ll need to expand your fence, and it’s easy to do with all of the tree stumps littering the massive field that it’s blocking off.

On top of needing to expand the range of your fence, the individual planks eventually will rot away and leave useless stumps. They show up more frequently after rain or a large storm. The posts don’t rot away completely so they have to be manually removed, but replacing them is as simple as smashing the old post with a hammer or ax and popping a new post in its place. It becomes a very natural part of your daily routine to run a lap around the farm’s perimeter before you go to bed to make sure everything looks safe and secure. It’s a good way to ensure your animals are put away and debris is cleared out, too! It slotted very nicely into my daily schedule until a certain point.

With how much time you have to spend hopping over the logs to get to the rest of the area too large to fence in, you might be tempted to leave one out of place for easier traversal. When night comes, it’s clear why that would be a mistake. Sometimes when you go to bed, you’ll hear your dog barking. It’s a small detail, one that took me a long time to notice because I didn’t always play with the sound on. There are wild dogs that prowl around the wilderness surrounding your farm, and only at night do they dare to come close. Your dog, if left outside, isn't able to do anything other than warn you of their presence if they show up. There’s nothing to notice during the daytime if it happens, unless you happened to leave one of your animals outside. There was one night that I left my chickens outside, having thought my fence was in perfect order and repair. I went to bed and heard the dog barking, followed by a horrible crunch. When I went out in the morning, I saw where my chicken had been before, it had been replaced by a pile of feathers. On the north side of my farm was a rotted fence post I’d failed to fix.

The Reality of Fences

After losing my chicken, a cluster of pixels on my screen it may have been, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my animals outside. I didn’t want to take a risk again, the sound and sight of feathers was upsetting enough. On a more logical note, the chickens didn’t even lay eggs if left outside so there was no value in it. Cows were a pain to put back inside the barn too, because of some silliness with the game’s collision. As much of a disappointment as it was to not have my animals roam around, it was just easier. At the time, I was focusing on upgrading my house anyways, so I didn’t have time to take care of my animals outside where time would pass when I could use that time gathering wood, and everything I had was being saved up for the house so I didn’t have any extra materials to repair my fence with. My fence was all rotting away. Because it was inconvenient for getting to my crops, I started smashing all the old posts as they went, too. That’s when I noticed something: the wild dog wasn’t coming anymore.

I didn’t pay much attention to it until I was looking up a completely different mechanic and discovered a forum explaining how the fences were broken. Rotted posts attracted the wild dog, they said. It didn’t matter if you had gaps in your fence, or even a fence at all–in fact no fence was the best kind to have because the mere existence of posts that could rot was a liability.

I was hesitant at first to test this concept, after all there wasn’t much I could gain from it. My chickens wouldn’t lay outside, and my cows would be too challenging to get back in if the forecast called for rain. The thing that got me to finally try it was when I was trying to hatch more chickens. My coop felt like a nightmare to navigate due to its current population. I wanted less animals inside that I had to feed, so I threw a couple chicks outside–they weren’t laying yet anyways. Lo and behold, the dog didn’t come. More days passed and more animals were left outside, and it never came. My fence had rotted until there was nothing left at all. No dogs could ever come to my farm again. And I realized that the game’s own insistence on its mechanics was all a lie.

How You’re Told To Play - How The Game Lies

Of course, my animals didn’t stay outside. For a minute it was fun having a crowd of cows milling about while I tended to my crops, but letting them wander free and uninhibited made it impossible to find and milk all of them without any trouble, and there were the rainy days to watch out for. After the novelty wore off, they went back inside and stayed there. The thing is, that didn’t make a single bit of difference in how much they liked me compared to how they were living in the barn. On top of that, they didn’t seem to care whether I was feeding them grass or store-bought food either, though I mostly stuck to the grasses since they were cheaper and easier to get. Nothing about how I was told to care for animals really mattered past feeding them every day, petting it and maybe brushing it, if it was a cow.

It gets worse. The most basic aspect of the game is the fact that time passes. The story takes place over 2 and a half years, running through each day until the end, and these days last from 6AM to 6PM according to the game’s own internal time setting. After 6PM, all of the shops aside from the bar will close and you lose the ability to sell anything as you’re told it would rot in the shipping bin overnight, so there’s nothing to do but sleep until the next day. Issue with this is that when the days stop at 6PM… they just stop. Time doesn’t flow anymore. The game doesn’t give you any kind of clock to know the exact time it is until after you’ve upgraded your house, so all you have to go by before that is the color of the environment and whether or not your character has played an animation to eat something (you’re automatically fed when you wake up, at noon, and at night). I discovered this because I was curious if I could actually see the wild dog by staying out, and left the game running for probably 20 minutes in real life only for nothing to happen. Because of the time freeze, the time after 6PM actually becomes really valuable for farm logistics. You can’t sell anything, no, but you can pull up all the weeds on the farm, water your crops, fix your fences, feed and care for animals if you hadn’t already, and harvest wood for fences and house upgrades which would have taken a lot of valuable time to get during shipping-hours. The only thing that gets in the way of doing all that is you running out of energy.

Your energy is what allows you to use your farming equipment like your ax or watering can. Running out of it doesn’t mean you fall unconscious or anything, but your character will play an animation of them stumbling over and will fail to use any tools. The most obvious fix to this is to simply go to bed, as sleeping gives you a full recharge. You can also, however, recharge it by going to the hot spring on the mountain, or by eating food bought at the restaurant in town or foraged for in the forest. You can’t tell easily how much is refilled, as there’s no visual indicator like a health bar, but you’re able to eat more than once, and jumping into the hot spring seems to count whether you did it or not more than how much time you spend in there, so you can hop in and out a couple of times and call it good.

Individually, time freezing at 6PM and energy being endlessly replenishable aren’t bad things. Even together, they’re not the worst. Having free time to focus on profitless chores is nice, and I think it’s important to be able to replenish your energy in case you have a limited amount of time to do things like for example, cut all of your grass before winter kills it. What makes an exploit out of these is the fact that the resources in the forest will never run out. Every time you re-enter the forest, all forage items and tree stumps are respawned. The infinite amount of forage makes for infinite energy refills, and could also make for an incredible money exploit if you didn’t have a very limited amount of time to ship things. You don’t have a limited amount of time to cut up tree stumps though. If you wanted to, you could run up to the forest after 6PM, chop every stump, then simply reload the area, and everything’s back. You can get all of the wood you would ever need to fully upgrade your house in one night. It’s a bit of a grind to do all at once, but it’s a grind you’d be doing over time anyways. It’s not the worst exploit in the world, since you still need money to pay for the house upgrade, but arguably because of how you have to focus your energy elsewhere for most of the game, the wood is the harder thing to get. Additionally, when the game has very little to do in both fall and winter due to the lack of crops, this exploit takes away just about any reason to play those two seasons other than to take care of animals. It’s an optional exploit of course–as all exploits are–but once you learn about it, it’s hard to resist the desire to get the grind out of the way all at once and mess up the pacing of the game.

The Charm of the Game

Learning that the fences were completely broken as a mechanic was a huge disappointment for me. From the moment I got a grasp on how the game was supposed to work, I wanted to eventually surround my whole field with fencing and keep my animals outside so I would have some life on my farm while I worked. I didn’t just want this, I was excited for it! This was something I’d never done in a farming sim that didn’t already manage putting animals in and out for you like Stardew Valley or newer Story of Seasons games do. My routine is always the same: I go into the barn and coop to tend to each of my animals, I take care of my crops outside, then run straight to town to talk to everyone, and go to bed. The change in routine that would come from taking care of the animals outside and patrolling the fence every night felt fresh to me. It made me feel that even though this was the first game of its kind, it was different and required new things of me. But in the end, I played it exactly the same.

Harvest Moon is still very different from all of the games that followed it, though. In many ways, it’s because it has less “stuff” in it– both in terms of items and things you have to do. But I wouldn’t say that it feels incomplete. Harvest Moon runs over the course of 2 and a half years before your work is evaluated. Until that happens, you have the ability to farm four different crops, you can raise both cows and chickens, you can upgrade your house to have more features, upgrade your working tools, build relationships with the townspeople to a small extent, go to town festivals that happen each year, and you can get married to one of the five girls living in town with whom you can have up to two children. Everything that you would come to expect as a fan of games like this is already here from the very first iteration. The most notable lack this game has, and one that seems to be completely unique to this game, is that there aren’t any crops in the fall or winter, which means that unless you have animals, there’s a whole half of the year that you don’t have anything to do. The game is clearly aware of this though, because in an average playthrough, this is where you’ll start to run into the story events.

There isn’t much of an overarching story in the game, past the general concept that you’ve run away from home to work on an abandoned farm. The conclusion rests on how good of a job you actually do. In between those two points are smaller events, usually tied to when you get tool upgrades or special ones for each of the romantic interests. The first event you’re likely to run into happens on the very last day of summer, where one of the woodsmen comes to your house in the morning to ask if you’re okay because he heard a huge crash at night and you should check your farm. What I found was that a tree in my field had fallen over, and its remaining stump had a big empty hole in it. When I inspected the stump, I was suddenly underground in a cave filled with loud and industrious music, and I was faced with two, little green people–Harvest Sprites, though I don’t know if they’re called that yet here. One asked me if my scythe worked well, and when I said yes, told me that they had made it and that I should check my shed tomorrow for a better one. Other tool upgrades are obtained in similar fashion; one comes from feeding a starving sprite a mushroom and another comes from another hole in the farm opening up to reveal another part of the cave system that has a couple of hints on how to unlock other things.

The events for romantic interests happen at less scripted times, as they’re tied to how strong your relationship is with each girl. Each girl only has one event, and it only triggers when your relationship is high enough that you would ask her to marry you. The events usually take up a whole day, and don’t necessarily add much to each character. Ellen’s revolves around how she’s no good at keeping pets– something established on your second day at the farm when you get your dog from her, Eve’s hammers in her fraught relationship with her grandpa, and Ann’s is about losing the chicken weathervane, or “weathercock” which sits on the roof of her workshop and goes missing every time there’s a storm. Conversely, Nina and Maria’s scenes bring up entirely new events that bring up a number of questions while providing no answers. Nina disappears while looking for a medicinal plant because her mother is apparently sick, and Maria vanishes for days until you find her hiding away with the woodsmen for some reason. All of these events, whether they share new information or not, manage to add some greatly appreciated depth to each character by giving them more room to speak and be sincere than their short and repetitive day-to-day dialogues do.

The dialogue in this game is simple, to the point, and sparse– probably because there was only so much memory that could be reserved for approximately 15 people who all have multiple lines of dialogue, and only so much money to pay someone to write more. There is simple dialogue that doesn’t tell you much more than “hello, how are you” would, more dialogue that I’d label as tutorial text, and a few lines that I truthfully couldn’t understand well because of the sub-par translation this game received for english. The dialogue that exists to inform the world really manages to create a unique vibe though. Nina’s dialogue, almost always about plants, goes into forays about how they’re creatures with wills to live, too. Ellen’s uncle who runs the ranch shop tells you that it’s much better to feed your animals fresh grass if you try to buy any from his store, and if you decline to purchase he laughs as if he’s won something. There’s even dialogue referencing the silent player! Multiple lines exist to comment on him not paying attention, and inspection prompts have people telling you not to touch something rather than being an item description. It was the last thing I expected, to get the same level of personality out of the main character as I did from each of the girls, albeit very subtly. He went from a kind of nothing, self-insert into being what I perceive to be a hyperactive boy, akin to a border collie who was let out into a field of sheep for the first time–the exact kind of person crazy enough to take on an abandoned farm and succeed.

It’s these short little character details that bring life into the game. Each day, you’ll really only see one line of dialogue from each character, be it new or old, with that dialogue usually only changing if there’s a change in season or festival coming up. The repetitive, pretty mindless routine of the game can turn into a sort of meditation if you let it, where you spend your time working thinking about the folks in town and what they had to say to you the previous day. The developers took this concept in stride and gave the side characters loads of dialogue about life, about God and religion, and about… very basic morals, but morals nonetheless. It’s a children’s game after all. When you take the thoughts, questions and prompts the characters give you back to the farm to do your long and tedious routine, you have to ask yourself– what are you working so hard for? For the feeling of accomplishment? Recognition from your peers? For the sake of some higher power, if you worship one? For me personally, it was to write this essay, but it was also for a good grade on the high score screen at the end, so to be honest a lot of this stuff was lost on me until just now when I was reviewing the game to get screenshots.

Setting The Standard - Why You Should Play HM SNES

You may read all of this and still think, well, it doesn’t sound like the game has much in it. And you would be right, it’s a very small game, but it’s also extremely quick. On average, my days only lasted about three minutes of real life time. Everything flew by, and I think I finished the game in 20 hours or less. I barely got a chance to notice that there wasn’t much going on because every second of my day was spent busy doing something, and when I wasn’t busy, the break was appreciated. I didn’t start to run out of things to do until I was finished with the second year, and when I looked up what I needed to do to get a decent ending, I was already most of the way there. It was easy to push through those last two seasons to get to the end, and it was so, so worth it.

As I mentioned earlier, the game ends with a high score screen, meaning it has to track all of your accomplishments. These include, but are not limited to: the number of things you ship, number of each crop you grow, number of animals you have and how much they like you, how upgraded your house is, who you married, how much all of the girls in town like you if you didn't get married, how many kids you have (which basically equates to how long you were married), your happiness score (increased by going to festivals and decreased by having animals die), and how many times you’ve pet your dog. In addition to these being tallied up and presented to you, you get special cutscenes not just for each one of these accomplishments, but additional ones for if you managed to do even better! I got a cutscene for having a cow, followed by one for having lots of cows, followed by yet another for having cows that loved me! Watching them play one after the other felt like taking a victory lap even without getting the best possible result. Seeing all of my numbers come up at the end made me want to try again to actually get those other cutscenes, not to get to see them, they’re so easy to find on Youtube, but because the game made it feel like an accomplishment! If I weren’t following this game up by immediately playing its GameBoy port, I absolutely would have started a new file right away. I’ve been playing the Harvest Moon series since I was a little kid and this was the first time I’d actually managed to beat one of these games. I struggle to think the finale of any game following this will feel as good as this one did.

I started writing this whole thing about the fences because it was an easy and silly entry point to get into my core issue with the game, and so I could have an opportunity to dig into game mechanics and the way the knowledge you have of them will completely alter your playstyle, because that’s all fun and interesting for me to talk about. Another reason why I focused on that was because it was near impossible for me to pick any kind of focus point when talking about this game. After all, I’m trying to study a whole series of games that spans multiple decades, and this is not only the first game in that series, but a game that created the whole genre of farming sims and defined that genre so thoroughly that you can see its DNA in every single game that followed.

I didn’t expect much to come out of my experience with this game. My expectations for it before I even picked it up were that it was going to be basically featureless, as informed by my experience with one of the first games I ever played as a child, Harvest Moon GB, which I will get into next. This game was not that at all. I think that everything it did manage to get working right came together just about perfectly. Harvest Moon is exactly what it wanted to be, and where it wasn’t, it lied about how it worked to try and make you play the correct way anyways. When I believed that lie, my time playing was even more enjoyable. Maybe if farming worked just a little bit more like how you’re told it’s supposed to, and if there was just a little bit more story, those would cover the things I felt wanting for the most. But maybe a little flexibility and ambiguity is a good thing. Maybe actually maintaining a fence is just too hard, and maybe if the girls were more fleshed out, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy filling in their gaps in my head.

There are many more things I could say and wanted to say about this game, but this has grown far too long already so I'm cutting myself off here. I'm sure my later entries aren't going to get near this length. If you managed to get to this point, thank you so much for reading!

#harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon snes #hm snes #game review #m.txt #hm posting #i think i hit the image cap also? it wouldn't let me put in more even though i dont think there are that many. maybe it was a different cap #im happy to answer questions about things i didnt cover here too lol and i have notes from my playthrough if anyone is interested in those #those notes are the only reason i was able to keep all of this straight given how long it took me to write #anyways finally hitting post after like 3 days because i keep forgetting until weird hours

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autistichalsin · 1 month

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I tried to have this conversation a few weeks ago and it didn't go well, so after giving it time to calm down I am bringing it up now on my own page, about the importance of allowing fans who can't afford the game, or who otherwise can't play for themself due to disabilities, etc, a space in the fandom. And in particular, this involves deconstructing the idea that Let's Plays aren't a valid way to experience this media, and that people who didn't purchase the game don't belong here, both of which are harmful, classist, ableist ideas.

(Tone: genuine. Not angry or aggressive, but passionate.)

I want to say that as much as I enjoy playing BG3 and am glad I bought it, there really isn't anything that I have gained, in terms of understanding of the plot, lore, characters, relationships, etc, that I didn't already have when I was watching Let's Plays and using the datamined dialogues exclusively. Nor has my emotional experience been significantly different in any measurable way. I mean, I WAS very happy to recruit and romance Halsin in a way that I didn't feel when I watched a Let's Play, but that's it. It didn't change my understanding of, or feelings towards, him at all. I knew Halsin's entire story before, and I knew his entire story after, too. My feelings on each and every one of Halsin's scenes has remained exactly the same.

There wasn't any character I thought was a bad guy who I saw something new in when I played for myself, or vice-versa. I didn't have any paradigm shifts in my understanding of the plot. The bad guy was still a Nether Brain controlled by the Chosen of the Dead Three in each playthrough. The good guys were still a group of traumatized weirdos (/affectionate). Astarion was still a victim of rape and slavery, Shadowheart was still a cult escapee, and Halsin still struggled with the burdens of leadership. There were still choices that could make the companions bar Jaheira and Minsc fall in love with you, and choices that could make them despise you. There were still choices that could push some of the characters to be better or worse versions of themselves. There were still a lot of notes and books to pick up, some of which were important to the lore, some of which provided random factoids about bit characters you may find interesting or may find useless, and many of which were completely useless and a waste of inventory space. I didn't learn anything new in the informational sense, about the plot, the characters, the flow of the game, nothing.

(Well, there was ONE different thing, which was that I ended up being an edge case where I accidentally shot Lae'zel with my arrow when trying to free her and got yelled at by her for it. Does that actually count as a unique-to-playing revelation though? Everyone who watched me stream that day would have learned about it too.)

I didn't experience some overwhelming emotional shift in response to the events onscreen that wasn't there when I watched Let's Play, either, which is also an argument that has been made. There's been a case presented that it's not so much that the events themselves change but that playing somehow alters your emotional response which affects how you view the plot and characters. But that didn't happen for me, either. I didn't go from "I do not care one single solitary fuck about Barcus Wroot" to "oh my god I will give this poor liddol guy the world." I still do not care about him. I didn't go from "yay, the moon lesbians are free!" to some sort of more intense emotion like "omg I'm going to cry now!" I still love them and am happy they're free, but hardly moved to tears. I didn't go from "fuck Orin" to "MEGA fuck Orin." Making the choices and fighting the battles myself didn't change anything for me in that sense. There was no emotion I hadn't already felt before that came to me in my own playthrough. Every emotion I had when watching a Let's Play was almost exactly the same when I played the game for myself.

If anything, the only real change was that I started to have annoyance as a sort of background radiation for about 90% of the companions because I kept accidentally talking to them when trying to click on items and things, and I got really fucking tired of hearing their greetings? "Shut up, Astarion, I wanted to loot the corpse, not talk to you, please back the fuck up. Why is my party always halfway up my ass? Personal space, guys?" Otherwise nope.

My understanding of canon, my understanding of the characters, my emotional resonance to the events that happened, those were all exactly the same. I literally don't know what people are referring to when they say that there was some magical new dimension of feeling that can only be unlocked when you are the one playing. Whatever that magic was certainly wasn't there for me, and that disproves the idea it's "impossible" to fully experience the game through LPs, because having played the game, I can say that I DID get the full experience through LPs. Maybe some people can't get the full feel of things by watching, which is 100% valid, but some people very much can. I did both, and I can tell you that they conferred 98% similar intellectual and emotional experiences.

In fact, I'd argue that there's more of a difference between playing as a Tav or an Origin vs playing as a Dark Urge than there is between playing yourself vs watching an LP, but I don't often see the case made that people who haven't completed a Durge playthrough don't understand the game properly and therefore can't/shouldn't contribute their analyses/interpretations of canon to the fandom. And I mean, there is some HEAVY lore you only get in a Durge playthrough. You would have a FAR better case that completing/watching a Durge playthrough is the event that marks you as understanding/having a complete knowledge of canon than you would that playing the game yourself instead of watching someone else do it is, though I still wouldn't ultimately agree that it's a prequisite.

People who watch LPs are valid, your way of experiencing the game is valid, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise because honestly, people who gatekeep are never worth listening to in the first place. The idea that your understanding becomes more complete when playing yourself isn't true for everyone. You can say they weren't the same experience for you, and that is PERFECTLY valid and understandable, but that's only you. You can't say what others are and aren't able to feel when playing vs watching Let's Plays. The only correct statement here is "some people are able to fully comprehend the plot through Let's Plays, and some aren't, and the mode of consuming the game ultimately doesn't determine whether a person belongs here. Both groups still belong in the fandom and have just as valid opinions to contribute as the others."

Further, I have seen absolutely brilliant, on-point analyses from people who only watched Let's Plays, and absolutely horrible, nuclear hot takes from people who spend all day playing the game. Just the other day, for example, I legitimately witnessed a Redditor VEHEMENTLY argue that 1. There was a scene in the game where Halsin called Thaniel "beautiful", 2. This nonexistent scene was ABSOLUTE proof that Halsin was a pedophile, and 3. Halsin's time as a sex slave had clearly caused him to become a pedophile. People who had seen only the intro of the game on an LP would STILL have a better understanding of canon than this person who claimed to have played dozens of times. If we're going to judge people's understanding of the game, it should be based on the understanding their posts convey directly, not based on assumptions about who can absorb what amount of information through what mode of consuming the game.

So I repeat: LP watchers, you're fine. Enjoy fandom in a way you can experience. You shouldn't be locked out of discussion of the game just because you can't afford hundreds of dollars for a game system. To suggest otherwise would be appallingly cruel and exclusionary behavior, on the level of saying bootleg watchers can't be part of discussions about Broadway shows. You all belong. You don't have to buy your way into a fandom space.

And bringing it to that issue: yes, Let's Plays ARE an absolute necessity for both poor people and for people with certain disabilities (blindness, since the game doesn't have a narrative-only mode, and severe disabilities affecting the hands being the two that jump to mind right away). Gatekeeping fandom from poor people based on whether they've bought an expensive game and gaming setup, much like being an anti-bootleg Broadway fan, serves the sole purpose of shaming and punishing poor fans for not properly engaging in the capitalist system. I know the intention isn't to gatekeep the poor and people with certain disabilities from the fandom, but that ends up being the effect when this particular argument gets made.

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bananasfosterparent · 26 days

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Very strange to me that some people who hate AA seem to think “abusive” and “toxic” are interchangeable & synonymous relationship dynamics. Everyone has toxic tendencies in a relationship, especially those healing from trauma (Spawn Astarion can also be toxic at times, it’s not exclusive to AA). But abusive?? As a DV victim, I don’t see that in AA & for people to try and force that narrative down our throats is gross.

If you wanna interpret AA as emotionally abusive sure, but then they have to admit that SpawnAstarion is also abusive because he’s ALSO manipulative! It’s so hypocritical

Don't you know? You're supposed to be a perfect model person of health in every aspect of your romantic relationships. Nothing you do should be able to be perceived as toxic or abusive to anyone, especially to strangers on the internet who do not know you or your SO and you should feel guilty if you fail to be perfect and healthy in all ways. /s

It's all just parroted buzzwords to make a point. As someone who has also been through DA, I did not even THINK of that. I had ascended him twice before I got deep into the fandom enough to know about the arguments, and the thought of him being "abusive" never crossed my mind a single time until someone else said it! And it only confused me, and continues to confuse me because I STILL can't see it. And to your point, if they're going to crusade over it, it would be nice if they'd at least learn the difference between toxicity and abuse. Abuse is toxic, but being toxic in a relationship (or being in a toxic relationship) doesn't inherently mean abuse. And neither of those things are even present in the game canonly. That's all based on personal perception.

I mean, I can see how people can roleplay and headcanon it to go that direction narratively. But I do not see any abusive actions in any of the canon dialog or events. And I probably never will.

I also dislike how no one wants to talk about Spawn Astarion being abusive.

Spawn Astarion is just as potentially abusive and toxic as AA.

To anti-AA people: Do you think because he was convinced to not ascend and that he's finding happiness where he is, and that since he's aligning himself with morally "good" choices that he no longer has any darkness in his heart? That he can no longer harbor feelings of rage, anger, resentment, hatred, or evil? Or express them in dark ways?

It's so bizarre. A lot of people seem to think the Spawn ending is him either becoming a different person who no longer desires to do such dark and evil things ever again, OR they see him as someone who was always "good" but just being influenced by Cazedor/using survival tactics/needed to learn better coping skills/fill in the blank. When neither of those things are true. Astarion does not change much. The difference between Spawnstarion and AA is confidence, power, and position.

There's so much untapped dark angst potential in the spawn ending. If I could get my AU playthrough together, I would draw something of my ideas for it lmao

#ask #anon ask #ascended astarion #astarion #astarion ancunin

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the-depths-au · 5 months

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FAQ

*this post continues heavy totk spoilers

How did it start?

A lot of people started posting some really cool art of a TotK ending where Zelda returns as a hybrid dragon creature thing. I saw a few that called it a “bad” ending and I noticed she was often portrayed with dominantly human-features just like, with horns or a tail, or the purple eyes, etc. I love to play video games(clearly) and I enjoy the challenge of seeing various endings, not just “secret endings” (think Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, The Witcher 3, Drakengard- anyone else play this?) I got to thinking about how her coming back didn’t really like a true “bad ending”. To me, a bad ending, really, would be one in which she didn’t get to magically, miraculously come back in any form. A bad ending to me would be Mineru’s warning held true. And in doing so, it would become The Legend of Zelda because she becomes the stuff of myths. Of true Legend. Fulfilling destiny (botw-era and the series as a whole). My brain sort of took off from there regarding the implications this would have on Hyrule and specially, our boy Link.

How could you! A Bad ending? Is this story at least hurt and eventual comfort??? Does it have a happy ending??

I could tag this hurt and comfort, but usually people who read these types of stories have certain expectations of what “comfort” is (and that’s okay!). Same with a “happy” ending. I don’t need stories to be wrap up in a bow with warmth to enjoy them. Honestly, some of the stories that have touched me the most over the years have had “sad” endings/negative character arcs/tragedy. That being said, I don’t particularly enjoy pure whump, either. What I feel is most important and what I am to do with this story, is to make any suffering meaningful. With purpose. And hopefully- maybe- you’ll see the “comfort” that is possible even in these types of stories.

Wait! So Zelda remains a dragon?

Yes. They defeat the demon dragon. Rauru and Sonia appear in a silent thanks, then they disappear and Link falls from the sky alone into the water. The Light Dragon continues along in her flight above him.

Link is also the only one who can see/has ever seen the Light Dragon.

Are there any other major changes from TotK?

It follows the game pretty closely. It’s just hard to say exactly what is in this story from TotK because there is just so much. In BotW, I headcanon Link took his time. He doesn’t remember anything. He is alone, lost, and the world is a vast, broken place. Therefore, it is plausible/ realistic in my head for all the side questions to be done prior to the ending being reached. In TotK, especially with the headcanon he and Zelda were together in the time between BotW and TotK, I had a hard time imagining Link would waste much time on anything unnecessary to save Zelda. So, with this in mind, I’ve had to justify the side questions to include in the story. Link’s journey is a bit different than my own. Whereas I actually spent 80% of my playthrough exploring the depths, this Link only went down when necessary. Meaning many of the lightroots have not been unlocked and he only has part of the armor of the depths. In the Linktober and the early concept, he has the entire set but this has been changed for the main comic.

How far after the events of TotK does this take place?

Five years.

Is it completely planned out?

Yes. I have a complete rough story outline done. It’s 17 chapters. I am anticipating some editing as I go, but regardless, it’s a big project. A huge shout out to @zeldaelmo and @fioreofthemarch for helping me get the story set. They are both phenomenal writers for the LoZ fandom so be sure to check them out!

What happened to the comic?

I made the decision to tell this story (initially) in writing. I have a very specific style in mind for this story as a full comic and honestly, I just don't feel like my artistic ability and overall proficiency is where I want it to be at this time. I'm still learning! I will be continuing to post art, concept art, and some comic panels here as I go and eventually, I would love to adapt the story into a full comic, but for now, I'll be telling the main story in writing.

How long have you been drawing?

I’ve been drawing all my life. Just for fun, although I took a few classes in school. Digitally, self-taught, since fall 2022. Still very new to this with lots to learn! I have a minor in creative writing and feel much more confident and comfortable with that.

Feel free to send me a DM with questions anytime! I plan to update this periodically.

Last updated 2/26/24

#FAQ

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macchitea · 1 year

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pssspsps *hands you my skyrim werewolf oc*

(cring lore dump below so my brain becomes normal again)

nirin's my bosmer werewolf dragonborn oc :D!! she's skilled in archery; sneak; and fire magic!

she's selectively mute!! and uses sign language; as well as a (very) limited version of dragon language to those who can understand it; namely paarthurnax; miraak and the greybeards.

she's also feral; an absolutel creacher; lives in the woods; and rarely interacts w/ society;

nirin; or 'nir in' is dragon language for hunt master!! its a name she came up for herself after paarthurnax suggested it. she doesn't actually remember her original name;

i like to think that when the events of the games start; or the moment someone is at the right place at the right time and gets picked to become the 'hero' of the games; they forget their name and a majority of their past life. she still retains her personality; skills and any uhhh;; adverse;; effects of her past!! she just can't remember it! one of these adverse effects being that she's a werewolf (meaning i have to use console commands to make her a werewolf immediately on every playthrough lmao).

as her name suggests she's VERY good at hunting! that's her full time occupation basically lmao. she sometimes visits the drunken huntsman in whiterun to 'sell' her catches, but its rlly just the concerned shopkeepers giving her normal people food and supplies to help her survive.

she has 2 main followers! lydia and miraak.

lydia is her first friend (technically caretaker) in skyrim. i like to think that jarl balgruuf assigned her to nirin out of concern for this Child being the dragonborn and tasked to slay Alduin of all beings, so lydia was tasked at making sure she becomes a well-adjusted person and doesn't bite as much sdfdffdjkl. lydia taught her the basics of reading and writing!! :D they parted ways a bit further into nirin's journey, specifically when she travelled to solstheim

oK SO a BIG part of nirin's character is her struggle w/ her dragonborn identity and the burden of her dragon soul. she 100% rejects the call to adventure, HARD. i hc that the dragon souls a dragonborn absorbs Stays with them in more ways than just making them more powerful; like,, the dragons' personalities, wills and their desire for domination stays with her, with the latter especially getting worse the more dragon souls she absorbs and it certainly doesn't mesh well w/ her werewolf nature fskfs. she comes to paarthurnax often for advice and companionship, but there's only so much he can do, seeing as he only has one (1) dragon soul and never interacts w/ human society.

this is where miraak comes in!!! :DD i've always thought the fact he's the First Dragonborn is Very cool, and that he can have some very interesting dynamics w/ the Last (nirin)!! like, the fact he's been dragonborn for thousands of years!! has killed MANY dragons before and very skilled w/ using the thu'um for combat!! in her story, miraak acts as nirin's (reluctant) mentor. she initially pulled him out of Apocrypha so he could take her place in defeating Alduin, but because of permanent injuries and a curse inflicted by Hermeaus Mora, he's been locked out of Sovngarde and isn't rlly in peak fighting shape to take on a giant dragon god. so he's stuck trying to make sure the last dragonborn doesn't die before she saves the world fjsflkdsjf.

nirin isn't happy about this, miraak is even mORE disgruntled about this.

in conclusion, nobody is happy in this story except for me >:)

if you've read this far uhhhhhh, ty for listening to my unhinged brainrot rant and also i am sorry fjsdlkfjsldkj

#skyrim #tesblr #skyrim oc #the elder scrolls #oc #help girl i accidentally looked into the tumblr tags for my fave skyrim character (miraak) and briefly got stuck in the tes brainrot #dw this blog won't become a skyrim/tes blog i swear; my brain's just in a silly goofy mood atm

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arcadekitten · 1 year

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A small but special drawing to say THANK YOU for 100k downloads on It's Not Me, It's My Basement! I really, truly, cannot overstate my appreciation for the outpouring of support I have received for this game & my works in general! Thank you!💕💖🏡⭐ I've said it before but when I first made and published INMIMB, I never expected it to get so big. I figured that some people would play it and that maybe it'd get a few playthroughs. It was short, spooky, and free, so I figured it would attract a few eyes to it! I had no idea that it would attract so MANY eyes to it! I want to thank everyone who has downloaded, played, supported, or otherwise enjoyed the game. It was a short story I had in mind for a while, and being able to make it into a perceivable medium made me very happy. And I was just as happy to see how many people enjoyed the game! That it was able to resonate with so many people, that it piqued people's interests, that people were able to share all their interpretations of the events that transpired and so many of whom have been kind enough to tell me just how much they enjoyed it!💕 So thank you so much, for the support you have shown and continue to do. There is no better feeling than knowing my art meant something to someone out there. I hope I can continue to make even more works you'll enjoy all the same! Thank you💖

#its not me its my basement #itsnotmeitsmybasement #it's not me it's my basement #inmimb #embry #art #my art

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generalluxun · 2 months

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My TotK experience and how it shaped my TotK shipping.

I'm writing this out because I got static on a random post for mentioning my headcanon, and I figure my own blog is a safe place to write it all down and get my experience in one place for better or worse. I'm a mutishipper by temprement, so you can and should ship what you like. Do not think by outlining my experience and thoughts I am trying to invalidate your own. Totk and BotW are both games with amazing emergent gameplay. The written narrative is only a fraction of the tale as you write your own version of events by what you choose to do and in what order you do it.

My wife is a huge Zelda fan. I enjoy the games, but she is the one who keeps them coming in. She's got a Triforce Engagement Pendant(try putting that on a ring!) we saw the Symphony of the Fates on our wedding night(and our first not-date years before) Zelda is a thing.

So I played BotW, and I played TotK. I enjoyed them both! At the end of BotW I was sure Zelink was a cute sure thing. I was happy! (My wife was frustrated Zelda didn't tell Link how she felt 😆)

Then we played TotK. Six years later, Zelda and Link are spelunking and boom the game yeets Zelda away. Couples-time, we barely knew ye. Now, both my wife and I play our own separate saves. We generally avoid spiling for each other, and we play quite differently. (In BotW I went right for the castle, found the basement, and ended up fighting the Stalnox that protected the Hylean Shield with 4 hearts. In TotK she mapped the entire underground early on)

My TotK experience began with me making a bee-line for Gerudo town after talking to Purrah/Robbie and exploring the castle a little. I liked the Gerudo plotline in BotW and wanted to see what was going down over there these days.

The Gerudo plotline is definitely fun (uh spoilers I guess?) Seeing Riju grown and trying to be a strong leader was awesome. (I have a headcanon she's still short because she met Link. She knew exactly how tall the strongest warrior in all of Hyrule was, and so why get any taller than that?)

I completed the temple, got my first sage power, and now several things converged.

1)Okay, so Riju's crush on Link in her Diary is cute. Not unique, everyone crushes on Link!

2)I decided to explore after completing this quest. Checking out the corners, completing my map, gaining some shrines, etc. This means I spent a lot of time with Riju as my only sage. We crossed Hyrule and back time and time again, checking on people, visiting old haunts, and fighting enemies way past my weapon's abilities thanks to her lighting.

3)Riju is the most interactive of the sage powers. Activate the power, and then you have to actually work with her to trigger it. It's not temperamental like Yunobo's either. Riju will hold ready for you for quite some time. It's also very versatile. Explode enemies, blow up mining points, and one of my favorites- Light the underdark. There's something deeply intimate about being surrounded by darkness with only your partner's power to light the way for you.

It made Riju one heck of a travel companion. Just having someone *anyone* along with Link, him not being alone, felt so good after being alone in BotW. The Warrior of Light and his Sage companion. Little tales wrote themselves, like an epic saga.

Still, Zelink was still a thing, right? Then You run into Link's old home in Hateno. It's changed, definitely. You find Zelda's lab. You find her Diary. -Now, here I know the Japanese version has a very different tone, but I didn't have that version so I only got the English- reading Zelda's words painted a picture of a close bond, but also not a classical 'ship' one. Combine this with some of the other tidbits and memories collected on the journey and it just painted a very different picture for me(and my wife) There may have been dialogs we missed too, it's a vast open world game, and this is a retelling of my playthrough, not a comprehensive thesis based on all the lore available on a wiki.

This Zelda, being Aro/Ace. Or at least if not, being so immersed in her work and duty that something like a traditional relationship isn't on the radar for her. She's got her Science. She's got her Kingdom. She's got her curiosity. These things Matter to her. A romantic relationship? Just didn't feel like it did.

Link is still the most important person in the world to her. He's her Knight. He's reliable, supportive, dedicated, brave. He's as vital to her as her own two hands. A respectful Link could easily be seen accepting this role. Zelda's vital to him too. He cares for her and will always be there. It's his duty, and his passion. The two are inseparable. They're just not a *couple*

So, where does this leave us? Link and Zelda will travel together always. Riju is Queen of the Gerudo and cannot just leave her people. She's also someone who my TotK Link spent time with (in my writer's brain the sage-mirages actually sent impressions back to the Sages in their dreams, and as time went by the link between the two could be two ways, like a form of active astral projection in a crisis)

So a RiLink relationship that is built on respect and trials together, but that understands the duties placed on both just seemed cute. He's still with Zelda, she's still with her people. She'll eventually end up with a hero's child, and the one male ever allowed into Gerudo town will be able to visit his future child and maybe even pave the way for a more open Gerudo society in the long run.

Zelda and Link are still constant companions day-to-day though. She's the Queen(eventually? Still princess?) he's her Knight. Their relationship is still built on respect and shared hardships(much like RiLink) They're just not an 'item'. They're liege and retainer.

I did the 'Wait how old is Riju?' thing as this was starting to come into focus, because she was young in BotW 😅 She's 17... I think? Fantasy setting, it seemed fine to ship. I mean, everyone thinks Mipha crushing on Link is adorable, and she saw him first when he was a little tot! 🤣

So, that's it really just kind of laying out my ship and why I think it's cute. I welcome any and all comments provided they're couched politiely.

#the legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #Link #Zelda #Riju #totk #headcanon #relatonships #emergent narrative gaming rules #tloz

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fareehaandspaniards · 1 month

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Oh so your baby squid hunter got a happy end too?? 🥺 Could you share more details?

Yes! To make a long story short, it's a Modern AU, but with a link to the past. I didn't think the idea through in detail, just a couple of things and the basis of it.

When I completed my playthrough of the game, the ascension of our own hunter gave me a great hope, for this is essentially the beginning of a new life for Yharnam as well, which they will now protect!

My idea was that a hunter (in my case, my Guillermo) has had his heart broken by the story of Old hunters, so as the Great One, he watches the passage of time - as Yharnam empties out completely, becomes a dead city, and then people - foreigners, settlers, and others - return there. Our new Great One simply watches the natural course of events, with only a little influence on people's fates to prevent something like previous Yharnam tragedy from happening. Eventually, most references to the Great Ones disappear from Yharnam again, knowledge of the Blood and Eyes is lost, and normal life begins again. Laurence's theory of healing Blood is preserved in passages of his manuscripts, so in part people use it in medicine, but it becomes something commonplace rather than innovative. The new generation doesn't know about insight.

And eventually, after so 400-500 years, Yharnam becomes more or less a modern city similar to our reality. (Modern world + ancient beliefs + old medicine)

In our hunter's soul there is still sorrow for the past times and for the people who died. The souls of many of them have remained untamed and have found no rest, and the New Great One decides, as it was in your post, to give them a second chance! The souls of hunters, scientists are reborn in the new reality, the only difference is that most of those who were separated by years - now exist in the same time and have a small difference in age, about 10 years or so (for example, Edgar in my interpretation was 26 when he died in a Nightmare of Mensis, Micolash was 43, and Damian was 55. In the new version, Edgar could be 18 y.o., Micolash - 24, and Damian - 29 y.o.)

Guillermo himself also takes on the guise of a human being to observe the new lives of his charges, who take on roles in their new lives that are similar to their past! And many hobbies they have retained even after death lol

But because people are incorrigible, something strange starts to happen again, because they are all in one way or another drawn to the forbidden, the secret, and even delighted when they find references to themselves in the past (only they don't know it's themselves)

The task of our Great One, however, is to prevent a new apocalypse from happening, but to do it as a human being - affecting them spiritually and physically.

This is my seedling! And a couple ideas for this AU:

Micolash is a DnD fan, this I know absolutely, though I've never done such a thing myself xD I even had a sketch of him with glasses and braces, I think he'd be a typical “nerd” that no one would take seriously at first until his creepy weirdness and calm attitude towards dismembered bodies is revealed… yeah… ahahaha…..

In this AU, it seems to me that Edgar could be his best friend and support, and they would both be consumed by the idea of unearthing the remains of an ancient civilization near Yharnam

Ludwig has a big Saint Bernard living with him:

And Logarius has this LOL:

(I really wanted to do a headcanon post on which character would get which pet, but Ludwig and Logarius' dogs are too firmly embedded in my head xDD They fit them xDD)

This AU has titles like Duke, Earl, etc., and Annalise would have been born into a wealthy ducal family, but would have found herself in university with the rest of the characters.

Logarius is a religious fanatic and a member of a blood cult. These are just facts, but I haven't thought about them yet.

Tomb Prospectors, Old Hunters - basically most of them become students at the new university in new Yarnam! But the ones like Damian, Valtr, Ludwig, Willem, for example, are still older than the rest. And Damian is still trying to patronize Micolash and keep him from getting hooked on drugs.

Gremia is a local criminal and hooligan who asks to help Damian with his studies and learn manners from him (I made up a whole romantic story there xd)

Laurence and Rom will definitely get married in this AU

Caryll can walk! Since there was no injection of the Great Ones' blood for him, he has very poor health, but is not limited in movement. And he would most likely be the lever that would have been the one out of everyone reaching for the Great Ones again. He's an empath and would have been led by the voices straight to the Hunter-Great One

Anything else is hard to remember! Honestly, I've left this idea in the “closet”. If it's to be taken seriously, it'll have to be done later and paired with someone else.

AND I forgot to mention that everything will end fine! They all will find peace, happy life (In their special ways) and say sorry to each other.

#bloodborne headcanons #bloodborne AU #bloodborne

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nerdalmighty · 22 days

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hey, sorry for randomly sliding into your inbox but! i just wanted to tell you that i'm about to start act 3 of bg3, would've started it sooner but i didn't get to play for a couple weeks as i was waiting to be able to upgrade my hard drive. and over the course of playing i've ended up changing several details of my tav's backstory as well as really fleshing out their character and getting into the roleplay, and i'm so attached to them by now that i almost don't want to finish my playthrough lol. i'm thinking of starting a gale origin playthrough once i do finish just so i can see more of tara. and i noticed that you're close to finishing the game as well! can i ask how birdie's adventure is going?

AHHHHHH DON'T APOLOGIZE!!!!!! I love talking BG3 :)

I am INCREDIBLY close to finishing the game. Like, about to go to the Nether Brain for the final battle close.

I've been putting it off FOR WEEKS because I'm so incredibly attached to Birdie and the companions and their relationships to each other and I don't want it to end!!

Since last we spoke, Birdie and the gang had just done the Iron Throne mission (breaking people out of jail). She decided NOT to go confront the other Wave Servants; that chapter in her life has closed. I won't spoil more of Act 3 since you're just getting into it, but I did I think maybe three other Big Plot Things and now it's time to actually do the damn thing and beat the game.

I'm a little nervous about some of the endings I may have gotten for myself (I'm concerned I may have accidentally condemned Gale to godhood) and I know there are some things I missed, purely because it was my first playthrough and I didn't know any better (I didn't get to know Rolan, didn't save Minthara, didn't get the Githyanki egg, etc), but I'm honestly excited for the epilogue sequence. Is it mostly because of happy/soft Astarion? YES! I LOVE THAT GUY! SUE ME!

My roommate and I have been playing the game at pretty much the same pace this whole time, so I'm about to watch HER beat the game this Friday. She's playing as a Gloom Stalker Ranger named "Sevyn" (yes, like the number 😂) who's romancing Gale, but we've made relatively similar choices throughout the whole thing.

I'm not too worried about spoilers since I know a lot of the outcomes, I just don't know how it happens or what the final battle looks like. But like I explained in my previous Birdie post, I like to look things up beforehand/during certain events because I like having help. Similarly, I love watching my roommate play and learning from/with her so I don't feel as in the dark when it's my turn. Granted, I played a lot without her during Acts 1, 2 and 3, but since we're getting to the end, I've slowed WAY down and have let her go first with most big things. It's not for everyone, but it's how I like to play!

I'm so attached to Birdie and this save file that I'm thinking of creating an entirely new account on my PS5 just to start a new game so that I don't have to save over previous Birdie saves.

Like, what if in a new patch, they add a new scene to Astarion's plot line? A new action (hug/kiss)? New camp idle animations? I want to be able to go in with Birdie and do those things, should they ever come up. Yes I COULD romance Astarion again (and probably will because I'm a weak woman) but as you said about your Tav and I've been saying about mine, I'm really attached to Birdie and I'm invested in who she is and how she fits into the world of BG3.

ALSO! Apparently they're adding mods at some point to the PS5 version? It's been taking everything in me not to buy it on my computer just for some of the mods even though I LOATHE sitting at my desk for hours on end. If mods come into play, I'll definitely want to see what kind of fun things I can make happen for Birdie and the gang. Additionally, one of my friends told me that people modded Skyrim to the point where they were adding new plot points and quest lines? If that happens, and they add like some sort of masquerade ball or event where I can dress up like a princess? You bet you're ass I'm going back to Birdie to let her do that 😂 I'd want to play new paths with Birdie in general, but I'm a sucker for a royal ball sequence 🥸

So basically, Birdie's story in Baldur's Gate may be coming to an end fairly soon. I don't know exactly when yet, but I've been having a blast and can't wait to play the game again and again and again. Right now that's hard to imagine, but I know I'll pick it up with a new Tav eventually because it's such a good game and you can't help falling in love with the world and the writing and the characters. I shall grieve the loss of this particular story, but I plan on keeping Birdie around for as long as I can.

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lacunafiction · 1 year

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Progress Update: January 23 2023

TFS: Book One Masterpost | TFS Patreon 🌲

Hi Everyone!

I hope you’re having a lovely week! 💚

Well, I learned something that I kind of already knew about myself. If I say: ‘I’ll think about it’, then I really think about anything other than ‘it’ and procrastinate until someone asks me the same question again. (Yes, it’s an utter joy deciding what to eat for dinner with me. /s 😌) It has been 15 18 (I meant to post this earlier) days since Book One’s release, and it sometimes still feels like the first day of release…

…But, I’m also seeing more comments/reactions from people finishing up their first playthrough or even a third/fourth, which helps to cast off that feeling and makes me eager to delve back into where I left off with Book Two. I’ve also been playing Book One—a few select pathways to ensure that foreshadowing or links I have outlined for future chapters neatly dovetail. There will be plenty of a-ha moments within the series because I love giving little details big meanings!

Re-playing Book One has also helped me further isolate those variables I mentioned in the last update that should be called on in Book Two and beyond. I’ve also been studying the random test readouts and color-coding them to make sure I’m not letting any slip through the cracks. All of this legwork is important when building the recaps and the level of character customization at the start of Book Two. I know not everyone is going to want to pick with exacting detail what flower the MC’s grandfather gifted them for school graduations/events, but some of you might want to since many of you have experienced how it does come up again. 💐 The levels will let readers who don’t choose to import set their own degree of detail; some might want to get right into Book Two’s story, while others will want to mold their MCs.

(I recommend eventually importing saves, but that’s in the future since Hosted Games enables this feature closer to the next book’s release!)

It’s more than 80 distinct story variables that can be filled in multiple ways (e.g. the flower is a single variable, but it has 6 different potential fills for it from a daisy to a forget-me-not) without counting the obvious gender-setting, height, aesthetics, personality stats, etc. It’s a lot! But, I’m proud and happy to account for them all so you get a meaningful experience while in Fernweh.

Some variables will naturally be called on more than others, but I wanted them all coded-in and largely accounted for in the recaps to not tie my hands while I’m writing. (*hint*: that one choice in Chapter 6 that earned a lot of reactions will come up very early in Book Two. 👀) I can always go back and adjust later. I’ve been re-familiarizing myself with all of this^ to get back into things.

Thank you all for your support and kind comments/asks! 💚 If you’re enjoying Fernweh, please consider leaving a review/rating on the platform you downloaded from; they do make a difference, and I appreciate each one. 🥰

#fernweh saga #progress updates #who do queue think you are?#weekly updates #(it's a progress update; not a weekly one. I post them whenever but that is my old tag; etc.)

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egg-emperor · 5 months

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It's so insane to me that there was ever even a suggestion that Eggman would stop being a villain after Frontiers. Like no sane person would ever come to that conclusion after playing that game, there is literally zero material to even suggest that. And yet it was just crazy take after crazy take, people saying "time skip" this and "Eggman will be softened by Sage's presence" that and it's like bitch where? I don't even know what to attribute it too beyond the usual, these people just hate Sonic

I knooow, I still feel like a dumbass myself for not properly getting it for a while just because of what a mass majority of the fandom was saying based on leaks and jumping to the wildest conclusions. With so many stating it like absolute fact, I didn't even consider it not being the case and it killed all my interest and hype, ruined my first experience with the game, and made me not even bother to pay attention and analyze to make sense of it the first playthrough. But to my defense I literally wasn't mentally okay for a multitude of reasons that year then that destroyed the last straw of my sanity and rational thinking at the time so lol

But hey I've learned to avoid and ignore the entire fandom's opinions until I've experienced it myself and actually thought about it carefully and analyzed it properly to make sure they never have a say or influence in my perception of it ever again and things have gotten so much better! And yeah it was crazy how eye opening a few explanations and a second playthrough of the game was for me, when I actually paid attention and didn't believe that all the desires and wishful thinking that the fandom projected onto it were genuinely true. There were no hints to Eggman's character massively changing and being ruined whatsoever.

How the tables have turned that I'm now obsessed with and thinking about and analyzing it constantly and want to help people understand it. I now wish more people would realize how great Eggman's portrayal in it was but not for all the reasons those that claim to like it are saying because those reasons don't actually exist. XD It's so much better when you realize that the game is actually what I want out of Eggman (for him to just be who he's always been) and to no longer entertain people's made up ideas about it over the facts by acting like it's true because it's not. There's so much fun to be had and things to like for what it really is.

It was instead just a really cool exploration of his already existing characteristics that he's always had and how they affect and play a part in writing him in situations he's never been in before, further developing those aspects further without changing a single thing about him at all. Proving he can be deep, complex, and require some real thought and analysis to understand despite his simplicity as a character in terms of personality and motives. It actually just proves you don't need to change anything about him to explore interesting themes and that he has tons of potential the way he is. It's actually great how there's so much to analyze and think about.

A whole lot of the fan speculation and theories about this game directly contradict the actual events of the game, actions of the characters, and even the writer commentary. And with each piece of official media that has been releasing since, it's been proving it more and more in various blatantly obvious and undeniable ways. And in Eggman's case I realize I shouldn't have even been surprised since most of the people that were so adamant that he was changing drastically into someone else literally don't like him being evil and a villain and admitted that, so there is absolutely truth to that. They let personal bias and desires affect how they saw it.

I'm really happy that in the end the game canon really just further solidified his already existing characteristics and explored the scope of them in a fun new way and only proved that they can stand the test of all new experiences he has lol. It really just showcased all the things I love about him in a different way besides his usual active villainy and then went right back to that after it was done in all official media since and it has me looking forward to the future of his character with many more interesting things to analyze and think about and classic entertaining villainy to enjoy 🥰💜

#asks #dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #sonic frontiers #my post

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dinoburger · 2 years

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LGBT Yume Nikki fangames to check out for pride month

As you're all probably aware, I recently submitted Okami no Yume for DDJ 6, in the time leading up to the jam I started digging around to see what kinds of fangames are out there - the pool is so vast. These are some queer games I found that inspired me.

For this list I've tried to focus on games that are explicitly queer rather than ones that are maybe more abstract, games that might have effects that alter the character's gender expression may not truly pertain to the queer identity as much as they're trying to be "quirky" in some way. That or the queer identity of the character is not really explored as much as it is just presented as a tidbit or side note.

This may also be a list I update at some point, but I wanted to showcase these while it's still June since I've managed to finish - who knows? There may even be more candidates for it by the time the week's grace period for DDJ6 has concluded. I'm also very happy to take suggestions for new games to try that might apply!

Madotsuki's Closet

Required reading in my eyes, and one of the better known of this list. If you haven't experienced Madotsuki's Closet please check it out. It's both a personal recount and a very interesting study on how games allow for a means to explore identity. Also gets points for making me cry at the end.

Reach

If you're looking for something horror geared, rich in lore, fascinating puzzles and charming characters look no further than Reach. Sewa and Hiru's relationship is a pivotal aspect of the game - in ways the player might not even realize at first.

The prevalent themes on persecution and having to conceal one's identity in order to survive prove both compelling and cathartic, this game is really a treasure.

The game was also just completed for this jam and is now in 1.0! It's been really exciting to watch Saibibi work on it and be making an entry alongside them! ^^

Dialogue

It's not a secret I have a soft spot for Dialogue, although there are aspects of it that elude me still. Dialogue is a traditional fangame that ironically has no dialogue to be found, mostly focusing on gathering effects. However throughout the game, you will also find events that give the player windows into the lives and relationship between the main character, Ai, and the girl who appears constantly in her dreams, Yui.

Dialogue is a poignant look at troubled love and stage fright. I would love to see more people play this game.

Change

This deserves a shoutout at least because it's one of the most explicitly trans themed traditional Yume Nikki fangames out there, and even in it's unfinished state has fascinating concepts. Change has a mechanic where you must choose selves to sacrifice in order to progress to the deeper parts of the game, one of which fascinatingly involves choose-your-own-adventure style branching rooms with associated dialogue paths.

Would love to see this game fleshed out but I appreciate it for what it is.

Re:flexion

Honorary mention, even though this fangame didn't go far, there seems to be some heavily implied themes of identity and trauma relating to it. What I've seen of it really makes me wish there was more.

Album

Another honorary mention for the bridal event. Unfortunately the current version of this game is a very early prototype and there isn't too much else to say about it except that it looks very promising. Whether there will be an update of any kind has yet to be seen.

Strange Memo I also thought worth a mention at least, probably the most obscure one on this list as it's not publicly available anymore.

While it doesn't quite fit the criteria, I've been watching a playthrough of this one and I really wish it was still available because this fangame is just so lovingly weird. I know the fan favourites tend to be the more eye-candy fangames, but Strange Memo's strange and surprising mannerisms are very endearing to me.

#ynfg #yume nikki fangame

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aliquistis · 8 months

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Hi! ♥ I hope you're having a wonderful time wherever you are!! I am here to sing your praises and ask some questions about your writing process! First of all, Witch Ways is such a great piece of writing. Every 5 minutes I'm like [origin character name here] would totally do this! or that's so [origin character], and twirling my hair, giggling like a 13yo with a crush. I can't help but be endlessly amazed at how well you write each character: the way you depict actions, feelings, analogies, etc., like you're aware of what's going on all the time and direct our attention toward the important stuff. It's all very cinematographic and painterly. And that awareness guiding our attention feels like you're shaping scenes with just enough detail, or broad enough strokes, that reading becomes really pleasurable, and not dense at all or like everything is up in the air. It's a perfect balance. Gale, as written by you, is *chef's kiss*. Also, an honorable mention goes to Astarion; your portrayal of him is so on point I'd jump at the opportunity to read anything you write with him in it. Chapter 11 has Astarion pull some emotional 3D chess stuff on Gale to make him open up about his relationship with Echo, and I think that is so ingenious! Another thing I've noticed is that you're really good at knowing when a relationship/character has had enough time in the spotlight and it's time to let other relationships/characters into the picture - all in a very natural and reader-friendly manner. And I'm a baby writer, but I know our characters/plotlines can only be as developed as we are experienced/well-read, in a way. Naturally, I've got some questions and they are as follows: 1) What are some of the things/techniques/approaches that help you with characterization/keeping characters effectively in character? I just feel like, you're so good at reading characters and knowing what they'd do next. Developing that skill probably took you time and effort!!! So, any words of wisdom, book, webpage, or anything to help guide me a bit through the process of acquiring the skill? 2) is there anything that's helped you become a better writer? Especially in terms of developing and maintaining this 360° awareness when you write (they should be doing that with their hands, they should be feeling this but also a bit of that, this is the right amount of [character/relationship], this explanation/description is ok and if I add more to it I risk being insecure/overly preachy, etc.) Thank you so much for sharing your writing!!! ♥

Thank you so much for your kind words! I really am having a great time writing this story and I'm very happy that people are enjoying it. The best general writing advice I can give is simply to stick to it. Don't get hung up on comparing yourself to other people. It can take a long time to find your own voice and it took me personally a long time to realize there isn't one "right" way to write. Writing is hard and you have to try and be kind to yourself. Don't be afraid to make mistakes or to get crit. I cannot tell you how much time I wasted being terrified of showing anyone my writing, when I could have been using that time to grow as a writer.

Specific answers under a cut bc I babbled on for awhile!

1) So for characterization, just play through every possible conversation you can have with a companion/npc. I look up videos for choices that I can't make (like late game evil playthroughs) and I have like a million saves before conversations, events, and areas that I might need to revisit. When I'm looking for a certain reaction (like how does Wyll talk to you if you're mean to him? If you're nice to him?) This is probably why I'm so comfortable writing Astarion, since I romanced him on my first playthrough and I got to see a lot of content for him.

So I load up a conversation with the emotion I'm looking for, and really pay attention to their speech patterns. Then, during writing, I do two passes: the first time I write out what I need from the conversation, then the second time (during editing) I read the conversations out loud and try to see if I can hear it in the character's voice. During this second pass, I change a lot of wording and inflection to better fit how a certain character speaks. Reading dialogue out loud in general is a great idea bc it helps you make sure you're writing in a way that people actually talk.

2) Workshopping helps so much. I majored in English so I had to take a lot of writing classes and just getting another set of eyes on your writing who can tell you "hey this doesn't make sense" or "hey I had to read this twice so it's probably not flowing how you want it to" can really, really help. Since having a ready workshop isn't always possible, writing fanfiction can help in the same way! Really anything that keeps you writing and practicing will keep you developing.

More specifically for picturing scenes, a lot of times I will have to physically do the things I'm writing so I can better see how to describe it. For emotions, I listen to music that evokes the same feeling I'm trying to write out. It sounds weird to say it, but study fiction and the stories you like. Think about why story beats landed how they did or what you'd do differently to flesh something out that you liked, but could have hit better if some things had changed. (I feel like we have all been watching a movie and gone "Why didn't they say/do [this] instead!") Editing is so important, so hard, and so (imo) boring but it is integral to getting the feeling in a scene right. You really can't tell if something is coming off right until you've gone back over it and cut down/filled out the parts you need.

Doing a warm up can help too, especially when the words aren't coming to you right away. Pick a prompt or think of a scene that you're really excited to write and give yourself fifteen minutes to just hammer away at that. In my writing classes, we always did a warm up for the first fifteen minutes of class and it can really help put your brain in the right condition for creating. Another exercise we did in writing class (which might help with the scene awareness) was taking a scene from a movie and writing it out in prose. It can help you pay attention to what movements need to be narrated and how to describe expressions/inflection.

I hope some of this helps! Unsurprisingly, it also helps to write stuff you have fun writing. Even if you think it's a trope or cliche or whatever, who cares! Write what you like. I started both of my big fanfics simply because I couldn't find the ship dynamic I was looking for in the pairings they feature. So if you write what you want to read, chances are there are people in the world also looking for it <3

#fanfic #writing #witch ways

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gamergirlshelby · 7 months

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Alright I just finished Chapter 1 of Rejuvenation 13.5 and I have many thoughts I want to ramble about.

I want to note that I have done 100% playthrough of version 13.0 a few months after it had initially released, so although my memory is a bit rusty, I will be talking a bit about some of the changes between the versions (i want to note that they're all positive imo)

Also should note that be wary of spoilers for new content for 13.5 as well as spoilers for story stuff since I want to talk about how good the writing in this game is. I've taken a lot of screenshots and will be adding them when i think they fit in my little rambles and stuff.

Without further ado my ramblings are under the read more!

To start things off I wanna just gloss over the beginning scene with Maria and the prologue on the SS Oceana. From what I can remember nothing really changed between those two sections but honestly I think they are as close to perfect if not as perfect as they can be. They give just the right amount of information to set up some of the first main mysteries and plot threads, and I think they do amazingly at setting the tone for the game.

Next I want to talk about how East Gearen has changed, having made some small adjustments to the city to help make traveling through it all the more easier. I'm happy that the changes were minimal enough that walking through the city I still knew where everything was, so everything felt familiar but it had been different enough where seeing everything game me the same sort of wonder and comfort that it had in my first playthroughs.

I think the biggest changes being to the designs for the Gearen lab and the Gearen Help Center (I haven't made it to Sheridan yet so I'm not sure if all of the help centers have been changed to be the same sort of layout, or if they all have a unique sort of look to them). The only change I'm not the biggest fan of is the starters all being lined up in rows as shown above. It definitely makes choosing the starter easier since they're all in one space, but having them all in their own little enclosures had this quaint sort of feeling to it. Still I do think that it was a good change overall, it just doesn't pander to me specifically.

Next change that I want to point out is the ability to take on quests right when you see the npc and not needing to go to the help center. Overall I think everything about quests has been changed to be much easier and more streamlined. The little quest notification does a lot in making finding the details for quests and even just finding quests a lot easier. Overall I'm a big fan.

I also adore the additions of finding some relevant story npcs out in the world outside of big story events and areas. It just adds so much to the world and helps make the world feel more alive, like its really worth saving. Whether its just small dialogue that doesn't impact anything, a conversation that can build up on your relationships with characters, or even having a quick battle, I love these small changes.

Next on the list is the completely new content, with the most notable being Mr. Luck's tent. I'm gonna be honest I am a big fan of him, I love this character archetype of just these mischievous tricksters (probably a more common term for this trope but. y'know the sort of characters I'm probably thinking of) Honestly the whole quest introducing Prism Pokemon was very fun! Melia also explains them later on during the Goldenwood Forest section with the fight with the Prism Nidorino, but I think being able to learn about it early through the quest is fun. Also I am just a huge fan of the contracts and items you can trade in. I'm gonna save a bit though for some of the more expensive items though, at least for now. If I can find a way to grind for the Black Prisms easily I'll probably grind for that ??? contract, but I have no idea what it could be (also 999 is a lot,,,).

Next up I want to talk about the update to Venam's gym! It definitely feels a lot more her than the last one, but I do think there was a bit of charm to the idea that she didn't really get a say in what her gym was like, to the point she made a gym grave yard to help preserve those old gyms. The factory is still there and I'm gonna be honest I kinda just walked there first when it was time to challenge Venam and I was very confused-- Not complaining just a silly thing I thought I'd mention.

Next I want to talk about the Zygarde quest. I think introducing it during the main story instead of pushing it to the side in the help center was a smart move, but I did not realize who Ayuda was at first when I saw him in Venam's gym. I'm gonna be honest though, I don't see myself going out of my way to work on completing the Zygarde quest this playthrough, mostly just cause I'm not the biggest Zygarde fan, but also its just very tedious to look for all of them.

Next I wanna talk about the Goldenwood Forest Section and I just. Wow I think how it was reworked was phenomenal. First I absolutely ADORE how instead of having it be a cutscene you can help out everyone in Goldenwood made the trip feel a lot more impactful. I adored that original cutscene but honestly I think having a few quick quests to help everyone in the area made what was once gonna be one of the best days ever into the worst day ever feel a lot more... real if that makes sense, telling a story through gameplay and not just cutscenes, something Rejuvenation never had a problem with, but I'm glad they made the change here.

Also the fishing quest. Oh my goodness the fishing quest. The mechanical Lairon encounter hinting towards the future mechanical Pokemon you have to fight later on even more intense cause like. This rusty old one can give you trouble if you're not prepared for it, and and the fully functional mechanical Pokemon found later on in the game can be pretty rough, especially since there are so many of them in some sections like in the pearl route of chapter 15. That said there was something really funny to me about the idea of this fisherman having the hardest time trying to get a Magikarp haha.

Next I love the information Melia gives about the mural, how she talks about how the squares couldn't be buildings, since the Garufans hadn't been very technologically advanced. Honestly there being so many differing interpretations for the Garufans and how they handled things is so cool to me, cause I feel like its just like how people who research ancient civilizations are in real life, especially when there isn't a lot of information available. This might be partly because I have this stuff on my mind because I am taking a World Civilizations class rn for my college classes. Karen talking about in the Missing Starly quest that the Garufa were a nomadic tribe that harvested the powers from Pokemon's souls to be able to cast magic. Then in the Hidden Library quest we learn that they hated Pokemon, seeing them as vile pests. Even the idea that their technology was undeveloped is something that gets disproved later on in the story. I just find it fascinating that nobody can seem to agree on what the Garufa were like. I may be pulling at straws here though I just think its cool.

Next is the whole redesign for the Silent Grove. First I think the name itself is new but tbh I may just be forgetting and I don't feel like looking up an old playthrough to check (tbh thats just me being lazy tho). I personally was a big fan of the grove being a small secluded area, but I think the big castle builds on the lore that was first established in the Goomy Kingdom quest, that being what the world was like all the way back before the calamity decades ago, and showing that there where even more castles. Also it just makes more sense that this would lead to the secret Garufa settlement that we explore in the Pearl Route for Chapter 15. Also I love the new statue design being based on the Ranger sprite for Arceus.

Lastly I just wanted to say I think the battle with Zetta being changed to take place in a crater instead of the lake front just makes sense. It didn't make sense to me that the park had been closed off for so long after the Rift Gyrados was dealt with. I know it's because the Gyrados wasn't completely gotten rid of, but before it was just overgrown, but still manageable. This level of damage I could see needing to have a full quest line repairing.

Anyways that's it for my thoughts on Chapter 1 and the Prologue for version 13.5 of Rejuvenation. Hope you enjoyed my rambles and thank you again for reading all of them :D

#pokemon rejuvenation #long post #pokemon rejuvenation 13.5 spoilers #pokemon rejuvenation spoilers #pokemon fangames #this game is so good guys i will shill for it forever please if you havent played it please do and also please talk to me about it #honestly id love to have some more people to talk to about this game this game just makes me so happy to talk about and make fan stuff for #if you have anything to add or talk about relating to the stuff i talked about here i'd love to hear it!#i'll probably end up doing more posts like this it was very fun!

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