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royalnugget42 · 6 months

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The God of Stories and the Nowhere Man

A Post-Canon look at the characters if Loki

In the years (weeks? decades? seconds?) after the birth of Yggdrasil, there was no mention of the TVA in any part of history. Such has always been the case. The TVA prides itself on anonymity and secrecy, almost as much as it values bureaucracy.

The same cannot be said of some of the figures involved.

———

Also majorly fuck Disney corporation for funding genocide. Go here to support humanitarian aid for Palestine.

B15 has a seat in the war room, defending Loki’s branches against the coming storm. Incredibly skilled tactician, yet humble enough to seek counsel from others, it isn’t long before she’s the de facto head of their little council. She insists that no one stand on ceremony though.

Casey, for his part, finally decided to look into his past. Reading history pages and conspiracy theories about his sacred timeline self is a little unnerving, but also very cool. In his branch he was Frank Morris, a criminal mastermind and an incredible escape artist. He’s always been a desk worker, but even if he never does any field work, he’s gained the confidence to become a proper analyst, a spiritual successor to Mobius.

O.B is recursive as always, but after finally leaving his basement level room, he came up with some improvements to the TVA headquarters. Their tech is now more reliable, their processes more streamlined and efficient, and the wifi has never been faster. He publishes the second edition of the TVA handbook. Victor Timely works well with him, and also suggests that they make better temporal radiation suits, even if they hopefully won’t have to use them anytime soon.

Most of the hunters still haven’t read the new guide, but Casey finally works up the courage to ask for an autograph. O.B writes his phone number as well. Of course, neither of them actually have phones, O.B was trying to be romantic, but the gesture goes over Casey’s head for a bit. Eventually they figure it out. O.B takes him to a bookstore.

Brad is left to go back to his own version of the timeline, but it’s bittersweet. He can’t forget the faces of the people who were depending on him in that cube. Can’t help thinking that it should’ve been him in there, not Dox. They all still exist somewhere on the timeline, but it’s not the same. They’re not coming back in a way that matters. When he goes back to being an actor he uses as much money as he can on humanitarian aid and charitable donations. It doesn’t erase the screams, but they get quieter.

Ravonna is lost at the end of time, and constantly on the run from various Lokis that she pruned a long time ago. Alioth never hurts her though. Even though she stood before it, choosing death instead of a life constantly on the run, it passed over her like a normal mist. In her heart she knows it’s Loki. She thinks he’s being vindictive by letting her survive. Eventually she’ll learn that he’s being gracious, allowing her the chance to change. She reminds him so much of himself sometimes.

Sylvie works at the McDonald’s, and it doesn’t pay much, but she never cares about it. What she wants she can summon or enchant someone into getting it for her, and what she doesn’t want she just doesn’t bother with, because she doesn’t have to anymore. She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do ever again. She smiles. Maybe she’ll go on a date or something. Maybe she’ll go on vacation just for the Hel of it. There’s something so beautifully divine in being a creature of habit, a goddess of chaos finally settled, like a puzzle piece rattling into place. Privately, she calls herself the goddess of freedom.

All of them find their places, and make names for themselves, but their stories do not reach far, by intention. They are little things, twining with the rest of the branches.

There are two that find themselves in many branches; The God of Stories, and the Nowhere Man.

The god of stories is an ornate title, and a little dramatic. It’s accurate though. He weaves the lives of many into new branches, shifting with each misplaced footprint. The sheer multitude of the branches is their protection; The Conqueror won’t find them if he doesn’t know where to look.

This weaving has consequences though. One of the branches Loki touches is near the genesis of his own people. Heimdall is there, and he sees the tree, and its branches, and all the nine realms. It bothers him that he cannot see into the center, but alas, some things are beyond even his sight. He knows someone is there, though, and the legend grows in Asgard of the one who sits in the world tree, spinning the threads of fate into stories. Over time, the legend turns into the three frost giantesses known as the Norns.

And he is not idle in his throne either. At length he discovers that he can leave his seat at the center of the tree, but it’s dangerous to do so. His power is tied to the tree, and without him it begins to wilt again. It’s a while before he can leave it for more than a few seconds.

He manages though, and even while separated from the tree he can reach into the fabric of the branches he travels, unwinding them and twisting them as he sees fit. Legends arise around New Asgard that the brother of Thor has returned, with an unknown power in his hands. SWORD looks into it, but they find nothing out of the ordinary. Darcy looks into it and finally meets Thor’s brother. She slaps him, like Jane Foster once did, but she grows to like him eventually. They bond over a shared love of snakes.

And he doesn’t always appear as…himself. Sometimes the god of stories is herself, or theirself. They’ve appeared as a snake, a wolf, and once as a horse, but that story doesn’t need to be elaborated on. The snake is most common though, and some begin to call him Jormungandr. The world serpent.

Eventually Steven Strange takes an interest in whoever has been crawling through the multiverse. Loki drops him in a perpetual fall for an hour, and Strange decides it’s none of his damn business.

Legends of these types have echoing similarities. Solitude is their main theme, occasionally countered by the figure of the nowhere man.

Some stories say he’s the only one who dares to stand against the god of stories. His fate is his own after all, because he exists in no time at all. No story to twist, no time to pause, a Mobius, with no end and no beginning. Once they learn of him, they decide that he must surely be the greatest adversary of Jormungandr. Loki, for his part, finds it absolutely hilarious.

Other types of stories do crop up, though. The nowhere man walks among the people, and can erase your fate with a mere touch. Relentlessly the Norns pursue him. Some say it’s because the god of stories wishes to have his fate pulled away from him, like stars into the void. Some say it’s because Jormungandr craves total authority, and only when he consumes the nowhere man will he be sated. Some even say that they’re partners, companions, a yin and yang of sorts. They say that without one, the other would fall to ruin. This version of the tale emerged after too many instances of someone threatening Mobius where Loki could hear them (and if they’re on one of his branches he can always hear them loud and clear).

The Nowhere Man is a being of pure chaos. The God of Stories is order incarnate. The two of them cackle about the reversal of their roles, as they walk the branches of Yggdrasil. They laugh together often these days, and these days are now all the days, for all time. Always.

#loki season 2 spoilers #loki spoilers #lokius #sylvie #mobius #aftermath #norse mythology #headcanons #casey x ouroboros #this is my vision of what comes after #one part headcanon #two parts folklore #three parts gay #free palestine #fuck disney #yggdrasil

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hypertextdog · 2 months

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whats ur fav video game(s)?

OOOOOH THATS A GOOD QUESTION ummm lets see. im kind of ass at a lot of games that require a lot of speed and precision so it's mostly story-based and puzzle games. ok im bad at favs but here's some good ones and brief sales pitches in no particular order ...

STORIES UNTOLD is a ~puzzle game that unfolds in four parts with mechanics varying from those of the text-based adventure to full walkaround horror shit. over the course of play you gradually get a sense of what's really going on and how all of the parts are connected. it's extremely extremely cool and feels like a weird dream sequence it's great

HYPNOSPACE OUTLAW is some kind of exploration game that takes place on a fictional second internet circa 1999. play feels not dissimilar to surfing wikipedia. it's incredibly elaborate and vast and was crafted with a lot of love for the cultural phenomena of the internet both then and now. its soundtrack is also like 6 hours and incredible

THIMBLEWEED PARK was my first ever point-and-click adventure game and it's so cool. it's a very funny game and has a lot of fun puzzles ... it's shorter but it's also got one of the best soundtracks on this list check this out

KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO is probably the most beautiful game i've ever played. i completed it earlier this year. it's so beautifully written and there's not a character in it who isn't in competition for most compelling motherfucker there. its visuals are also just so perfect dude. i really like itttt

DISCO ELYSIUM i nearly forgot to include because i was like nah everyone in the world already knows how amazing and immersive and vast and well-done de is. it is probably the best game on this list. it takes place in the most fleshed-out fictional world i've ever interacted with and every second of it screams "this is The work of someone's life." there's also a fantastic novel "sacred and terrible air" which takes place in the same world, which i also suggest ...

PATRICK'S PARABOX is one of those really mind-fucking puzzle games like baba is you if you're familiar (which would probably also be on this list if i got further in it than i did.) it's one of those games with an extremely simple premise that contorts into one of the most complicated things you've ever tried to wrap your brain around. recursion is so fucked up dude

THE PROCESS OF ELIMINATION is a pretty good free web game that irs umm i hear its author is a pretty cool guyy and uhhh i ummmm. it's pretty good ...... it's a hypertext-based adventure about a piece of spyware which an architect uses to monitor local crime and which his son uses to stalk this redditor he's crushing on. ibwill make another one eventually

HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY GAMESLIST ... 👍

#this is as many images as it let me post

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a-crow-with-rights-and-anxiety · 8 months

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Today on Heron rambles about her interests.

So what am I talking about?

A puzzle hunt is a collection of puzzles where the goal of each puzzle is to get a word or phrase as an answer. The actual content of the puzzle can be anything, from normal stuff like crosswords or sudokus, to ridiculous stuff like IMO Papers, AO3 fics or a picture of a herring. Often no explicit instructions are given for how to get the answer, figuring them out is part of the puzzle itself (often through noticing patterns in what you're given or through recognition of common puzzle hunt components).

Here's an example (Recursion from the 2021 MIT Mystery Hunt):

There's not much information here to go on but we can presume that we need to fill in the blanks somehow. Although the number of phases matches the number of blank lines, there's no way to logically match them up one-to-one. We'll need to find something else.

After some quick searching (or music knowledge) we can find that all of the phrases at the top are song titles. From there we can other things like lyrics or the albums they're in, but still nothing fits. We'll have also found the artists to these songs.

Ain't That Peculiar is by Marvin Gaye

Like Flies on Sherbert is by Alex Chilton

Live Like You Were Dying is by Tim McGraw

Love and Mercy is by Brian Wilson

Peggy Sue is by Buddy Holly

When I Sing About You is by Clint Eastwood

Woman in Love is by Barbra Streisand

While the artists can't be matched up to the blanks, we may notice something:

The title being "Recursion" suggests repeating an action

Barbra Streisand is also a song by Duck Sauce

Duck Sauce fits in one of the blanks

It turns out that each artist of the listed songs is also the name of another song and that the artists of those songs fit in the blanks. Finding the artists to these songs gets us this:

Ain't That Peculiar / Marvin Gaye / Charlie Puth

Like Flies on Sherbert / Alex Chilton / The Replacements

Live Like You Were Dying / Tim McGraw / Taylor Swift

Love and Mercy / Brian Wilson / Barenaked Ladies

Peggy Sue / Buddy Holly / Weezer

When I Sing About You / Clint Eastwood / Gorillaz

Woman in Love / Barbra Streisand / Duck Sauce

And the final artists fit in the blanks like so:

CHARLIE [P]UTH

B[A]RENAKED LADIES

GOR[I]LLAZ

DUCK [S]AUCE

THE REP[L]ACEMENTS

W[E]EZER

TA[Y]LOR SWIFT

Taking the boxed letters gets us the answer of "PAISLEY"

That's the basic outline of how a puzzle hunt puzzle works, but the contents of a puzzle can be extremely varied. I haven't even talked about meta puzzles (I may talk about that in a follow up if people are interested). These hunts are full of creativity and interesting surprises and I hope that I have demonstrated at least some of that in this post.

If you want another puzzle to try out, I think tumblr will enjoy this one.

#puzzle hunts

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knotty-et-al · 29 days

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Weeds of hydra

[2024/03/30]

Memory clot - unresolved and ever-returning - deafening echoes of the past - midst the nightmare carousel - as if time is standing still - mental short circuit: the occasional temporary collapse of mind, please reboot, try again later

I do not know what I drew here. Spilled thoughts and feelings on paper...

Entangled in nonsense, occupied with fighting the weeds of hydra, drowning in utter effort while zero effect could be achieved.

... fragments of imagery like jigsaw puzzle pieces...

multiple imageries. it is not just one picture that emerges, but many.

I did not want to have all these jigsaw puzzle pieces of my own life in front of me.

What I have seen - in retrospect - left me speechless.

In attempts to speak, to communicate, only surreal imagery, figurative speech and abstract metaphor can depict what cannot put in concrete words.

Concrete words could never do justice to that "nightmare carousel", as I call it. There are no words available.

And here, as I patiently dig out all these splinters of myself that I bled out in every diary entry, every note, every quick doodle, every piece of paper I have left my mark on, I hold on.

Do I really want to dig out these splinters? Or are these splinters slowly emerging from the soil as I start to wake up from the recursive nightmare of my past?

These splinters, these memories cut deep in my flesh, they strangle me.

Like a blood clot in the brain these memories strangle me, cut off important life recources, keep me distant from effectively pulling myself outta that trap of current situation. The misery continues, different, but still perpetuating in its intensity of pain.

I feel like fighting the weeds of hydra.

I'm tired, but I'm on my way.

One day, hydra will eat their own tail,

and I will be free from their perpetuated torment.

One day the weeds of hydra will be fertile ashes.

#weeds of hydra

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oneefin · 4 months

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hiya! so this is a long one:

during december, i ran a daily puzzle recommendation column in a music discord server where i sent one cool puzzle every day for 31 days. those puzzles drew from basically every corner of puzzling that i've been sinking into for the past couple of years, so i'm going to dump them all in this singular tumblr post as a quick way to jot down where i've already been. maybe you'll enjoy one of them also!

logic puzzles

1. nonbinary masyu, designed by walker for the 2023 puzzler pride edition of the griddle. link goes to the pdf of the whole puzzle pack, where this puzzle and its rules can be found on page 5.

2. recursive masyu, designed by fleb, with a super unique variety mechanic. link contains the rules. (fleb had a stellar youtube channel going in the past with really well made breakdown videos of various puzzles. all of it is worth watching)

3. rush hour sudoku, designed by chameleon, which adds an interactive mechanic to a sudoku. link contains the rules and a playable solver that they coded themselves

4. the miracle sudoku, designed by mitchell lee, which at this point is incredibly famous. link contains the rules and a playable solver.

5. foggy twilight kurotto, designed by menderbug. good if you've done a twilight kurotto, or a normal kurotto, before. link contains the rules and a playable solver via penpa+.

6. choco banana, designed by tawan sunathvanichkul for the 79th issue of tambox bulletin. link goes to the pdf for the whole puzzle page, where this puzzle is on the left side.

7. litherslink, designed by michael3.14 for the snakes on a plane series in the cracking the cryptic discord server. i've played slitherlink before, and this messed with my head. link goes to a puzz.link solver with the rules in Help -> Rules.

8. star battle, designed by jack lance (rest in peace). oh, is there no link for it? that's weird.

word puzzles

9. bagel shop caption puzzle, a rows garden published by the new yorker. link contains a solver with the clues.

10. printer's devilry, a crossword by kyle dolan with printer's devilry clues. link goes to a solver on amuselabs with the clues and an explanation of how to solve them.

11. safe cracking, a crossword by noneuclidean with an unorthodox theme. link goes to a solver on crosshare with the clues.

12. japanese braille, a sample puzzle from the international linguistics olympiad. link goes to a pdf containing all of the sample puzzles, where this puzzle is on page 4. note that the pdf version of the puzzle (as opposed to the above image) contains extra information that makes the puzzle easier.

13. the 2023 puzzmo holiday puzzlebook, published by puzzmo. link goes to a pdf containing the above puzzle and so many more. if you like what's inside and you're not already playing puzzmo, now is a great time to hop aboard!

hunt puzzles

14. paint by numbers, designed by brian chen for the 2023 galactic puzzle hunt. link includes an answer checker.

15. extreme anagrams, designed by yannick yao for the 2022 galactic puzzle hunt. the above image is a curated selection from the puzzle that i found the most interesting. link goes to the full puzzle.

16. make your own math quiz, designed by azalea weisblat and josh alman for the 2020 galactic puzzle hunt, which was one of my favorite solving experiences of all time. link goes to the full puzzle, which is interactive.

17. worm search, part of a puzzle designed by adeline wong and thomas gordon for the 17th shard puzzle hunt. note that knowing which puzzle from the hunt contains this subpuzzle is a small spoiler, so if you're sure you want to see the full puzzle, it's here.

games

18. 0123456789, an instructionless puzzle game designed by matrix67 that defies explanation. link goes to itch.io

19. the blot thickens, a puzzle designed by scottg for the 2023 confounding calendar. i previously wrote about it here! link goes to itch.io

20. a level set from INSIGHT (or "Insight"? or "IN?IGHT"? or "IN⸮IGHT"? the name isn't stylized consistently), a game designed by maou. this game is instructionless - your goal is to split each shape into two pieces following some rule. the rule for this level set can be inferred from only the image, but the game expects you to toy around with possibilities to figure out why certain solutions are right and others are wrong. the link goes to the full game on steam, where if you'd like to try that, you can buy it and reach this stage yourself.

21. klifur, a bouldering simulator designed by torfi that's so like and so unlike real climbing. link goes to itch.io

22. frog finder, a cute game designed by poobslag. it got updated with more content since i originally played it! link goes to itch.io

tiny tricksies

23. make oo, a puzzle designed by beekie. link goes to itch.io

24. addition puzzle, designed by beekie for the 2021 confounding calendar. link goes to itch.io

25. snow walk, a gif-based puzzle designed by patrick traynor (the maker of patrick's parabox) for the 2021 confounding calendar. link goes to itch.io

26. ペンギン迷路 (penguin maze), a japanese puzzle designed by qrostar. you don't need to know japanese to solve it - the goal is to place one right arrow (->) in an empty space in the grid such that starting from the marked arrow in the top right and moving in the direction of each arrow you pass eventually leads you to the flag in the bottom. link goes to the full puzzle on their twitter ("""X""")

variety

27. an unusual chess puzzle, originally designed by raymond sullivan in "the chess mysteries of the arabian knights", sourced from this blog post on chess.com. this is not a conventional chess puzzle - the goal is to figure out how this position happened. ie: it's currently someone's turn, and you have to figure out what the board looked like 3 moves ago.

28. five houses puzzle, designed by jack lance. i've embellished the problem statement to make the goal more clear:

there are five houses on a street that all have different prices and heights.

let's say the prices are $1M, $2M, $3M, $4M, and $5M, and the heights are 3m, 3.5m, 4m, 4.5m, and 5m, in some order.

given the following constraints, identify the price and height of each house:

1) The house that's taller than the house that's more expensive than the house that's shorter than the house that's cheaper than the house that's blue is red.

(i came across this from a blog post by jacob cohen of puzzles for progress discussing jack lance's passing. worth a read honestly - jack lance was too good)

29. the cursed dice riddle, designed by dan finkel and presented by ted-ed. link goes to the video, which contains the problem statement and the solution.

30. round 2 of s19e6 of the british quiz show only connect, reformatted as a puzzle. this is honestly worth its own blog post, which i'll make later - for now, you can find the full episode here.

31. last but by far not least, LOK, a very artful puzzle book designed by blaz urban gracer of letibus design. link goes to itch.io

i had a great time fishing up all of these during december, and i'm hoping to find even cooler stuff this year and beyond. send me cool stuff if you've got anything!

#puzzle #puzzles #logic #crossword #puzzle games #thinky puzzles #riddles #puzzle hunt #sudoku

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mareenavee · 9 months

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Last Lines Tag

Hi! I was tagged by @greyborn2 and @archangelsunited to share the last lines of a few WIPS. I do have some of those!

tagging the amazing and wonderful @paraparadigm, @changelingsandothernonsense, @tallmatcha, @thana-topsy, @thequeenofthewinter, @dirty-bosmer, @gilgamish, @snippetsrus, @elfinismsarts, @rainpebble3, @rhiannon1199 and an honorary tag to @kookaburra1701 in case another WIP snuck up on you while you weren't looking (:

Without further ado, small tiny snippets below the cut! 5 active, 1 inactive, with two more collabs in planning stages and too many more of my own with plans but no words yet.

So not quite as unhinged a deal with the Daedric Prince of Unfinished WIPs as KB has going(💖), but a deal nevertheless.

(The thing about that Daedric Prince is She always wants more words, but never grants more time, sigh.)

From Chapter 29 of The World on Our Shoulders:

Teldryn carefully placed everything he carried on their desk, content to be ignored and eavesdrop. Neloth was explaining something he’d been able to puzzle out — he pointed at a rough diagram depicting a cross section of a skull and brain. Unnerving, but nothing anyone who’d studied Restoration wouldn’t have seen before. Nyenna reached out and touched his wrist without looking up from Neloth’s notes. It was a silent thanks, or perhaps a reassurance. He could see the set of her shoulders; the conversation was stressing her out in equal measure to how much it calmed Neloth.

From an Untitled (so far) Sequel to Little Dragon:

Teldryn heard the crackling of Magicka being pulled over the sound of the Familiar – soft, like embers on a log. He turned, and watched as Anisa, cheek still pressed to the bench where she sprawled, curly hair cascading down, untucked her arm from underneath herself and lazily cast Magelight with a small grumble. Shalnouada reached up and scooped the ball of light into its mouth in smooth, practiced movements. The Magelight passed through it, causing its body to glow a myriad colors, throwing glittering light across the walls and ceiling. The happy chittering of mudcrabs filled the room. Teldryn blinked in shock, then ran his palm over his face. He cast another instance of Magelight and pushed it toward the spectral crab. Its eyestalks rotated, locking onto its food source. Again, faster than anything, it scooped the magic up into its mouth, then made a contented sound as the glittering erupted and faded, just like before.

*Shalnouada = Dunmeris for River Spirit (Shaln (Spirit) + Ouada (River))

From Darkest Before the Dawn (A Varlais extra chapter):

Varlais jumped back as it expelled a stream of bile and blood. Ancarion had resummoned his Atronach, which crashed into the side of the dragon’s head with the full force and weight of its whole body. There was a sickening snap, likely somewhere in the beast’s neck. It was just a beast, after all. It had to be. Its bones still broke the same as everything else’s.

From Recurse, an upcoming Ondolemar fic for a prompt challenge:

He thought back to the revelations the odd Dwemer machine had given him. Each moment was recursive, trying to tell him something, puzzle pieces clicking into place. Things he’d forgotten, or not seen in the right frame of mind. It could have been a blessing, had things not already been so complicated.

Untitled Sideways Sequel to World, featuring Athis:

"Think of it like this," Farkas started. He paused and tapped the edge of his fist against his forehead. Athis snorted. Farkas grinned, but squeezed his eyes closed. "We'll be founding members of a new guild, kinda, right? And I know how much you hate vampires. It'll be fun to bring a bunch of 'em down. You won't have to think about, well, all of this. We'll be too busy." Optimistic, really. Athis did appreciate it, though. He looked over at his friend and managed a half-smile. "That's the idea, Farkas," he said. Farkas nodded and grinned widely and returned to his task. "I miss Nyenna, too, though," Farkas said after a moment. "A lot, actually." He pulled a long piece of grass taught and carefully braided together another ridiculously tiny row. "I'm sorry it all fell apart like this. It wasn't fair. But I'm with you, whatever you want to do." Athis looked at his friend who pointedly did not look back up from his work. This time it was the right thing to say. He felt marginally better. Maybe just halfway not as alone as before. He sighed again. "No turning back now, I suppose," he said with a shrug. "We'll be at the fort in no time at all."

and BONUS! The last lines of my writing from a secret, untitled prompt fill collab I'm writing with @changelingsandothernonsense.

You cannot stop it no matter how you rail. No matter how hard you pull back against destiny. You scream, and once again, the sound is lost to the Heart. And then – She is there, her golden skin a balm in this place of terror. She approaches, gilded form languid and graceful. Unbothered by the mountain. Untempted by the heart. She is real, and she is not. You are not. And still she approaches.

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strange-destinations · 7 months

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Just finished antigone. Loved it! Do you have any recommends for other free itch.io games?

Thank you!! and unfortunately not a lot, I've only just been looking through itch.io for the last few days after I got back to using it for this project. But here's a few, of varying forms and genres, that immediately came to mind.

What Did Veronica Dream Of? - puzzle game. lovely, weird, and surreal. opened my eyes to the possibility of using RPGmaker with a different aesthetic and style.

One Last Game - short visual novel about playing a game of checkers. hits hard.

We Become What We Behold, Adventures With Anxiety, and Coming Out Simulator 2014, all by Nicky Case.

Butterfly Soup - a really fun visual novel about gay asian girls playing baseball. The characters are great and the vibes are impeccable

game inside a game inside a game inside a game inside a game inside a game - recursive puzzle game with fun mechanics

Growmi - another very cute puzzle game with clever mechanics and fun visuals. essentially Snake but make it cute puzzles

I also really like the demo for Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers, which is super fun to play - the full game will probably not be free, but the amount that is out right now is super enjoyable. Blackjack but make it roguelike!

If anyone else has any favorite free games on itch.io, please feel free to add onto this, I'm always looking to play more games.

#game recs #antigone will take the stairs today

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art-of-mathematics · 1 year

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Some new illustrations/word art for my project "Iteration book"...

"The whole is more than the sum of its parts, as it contains both the parts as well as the interaction patterns between the parts."

"1. Life is like a jigsaw puzzle…

2. Every puzzle piece is an entire jigsaw puzzle on its own…

3.1. Each iteration of puzzling alters the big picture slightly…

3.2. and renders the big picture with additional details... "

3.3. and corrects errors along the way of rendering the big picture."

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aliatori · 6 months

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Trust and Defying

Lavender washes over the contours of the mortal world, a dull haze muting its vibrant colours. They’ve docked in one port or another—the Enclave, if the echoing sensation of Vidakai’s dedicants and their memories through their consciousness is to be believed—but they couldn’t care less about which territorial waters the physical ship rests on. Form over function, forever their favourite.

Vidakai’s focus, their entire reason for manifesting here in the still-dreary permutations of this coil, belongs to the captain of said vessel and the ongoing game of wits and wills between them.

BORING. HAVE I GIVEN YOU THE IMPRESSION I CARE FOR SUCH THINGS, WHEN EVERY PLACE MY BONDBREAKERS AND SECRET EATERS CALL HOME BELONGS TO ME AS WELL? IF YOU’RE TRULY TRYING TO INTOXICATE YOURSELF WITH AN EXCESS OF MAGIC, YOU’LL HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN LIES ABOUT MERE GEOGRAPHY.

(.are they who are They .sake s'amusement for ,own their of lie little A)

The lack of a First blunts Vidakai’s sensation in this realm. But they do so adore piecing together a puzzle, and the clues draw an inevitable conclusion of torrid summer heat: Hugo reclines on his bed at the stern of the Tide, stripped down to only his breeches and little else, sweat-drenched tendrils of greying hair clinging to his neck. Vidakai’s taunt draws his gaze from the windows to their form, a rearing serpent from a half millennia ago.

“If land won’t suffice, what about the heavens?” Vidakai’s irritation ripples their form, an invisible hand waved through a cloud of amethystine smoke. If it weren’t so charming, they’d unravel Hugo’s smirk with the point of a claw. “Xeheia’s constellation Rises in the winter season. The Enclave bases their calendar on the twin stars they’ve named for Rhohnas. If you measure the distance between the sun and the horizon while in the Unchartables back-to-back, you get the same figure each time.”

They’re lies by the most pedantic definition, petty falsehoods in spite of truth. Each one plunks pathetically into the bond like a pebble into a rushing river. Agitation curls Vidakai in on themself, their serpentine curves coiling in a prelude to danger… that is, until a stronger ripple draws their attention.

A single stone dropped into an ewer can still make it overflow.

Their flirtations with falsehoods have succeeded. Somewhat. Hugo’s bare chest rises and falls as he scrutinizes Vidakai’s form, and Vidakai recalls enough of mortality to know it for the clue it is. More relevantly, the reserves of his magic—magic Vidakai continues to feed him with glee each time he lies—competes with the oscillating, shadow-pulse aura of the ring around his middle finger, an obsidian circle of carved teeth and the most subtle facet of the puzzle box in his possession. Vidakai senses it less in ‘sight’ and more as a resplendent beacon of whispers, a recursive waterfall of their own essence pouring back into them. A gift from a gift. The tether of the secret they share, of their deepened bond, tugs at Vidakai wherever they are, in this realm or their own, reeling them toward a fixed end.

It breathes a life Vidakai only half remembers but craves intensely into Hugo, painting him in a vivacious palette, his edges sharp as his tongue.

IF YOU INSIST ON WASTING MY TIME WITH SUCH PUNCTILIOUSNESS, I CAN SIMPLY LEAVE AND FIND A BETTER BOUNTY ELSEWHERE. YOUR IMPUDENCE AND IRREVERENCE AMUSE ONLY TO A POINT.

Speaking of things they adore. Their favourite, their would-be First of the Forsworn stares at them, direct and hungry, a feast of emotions writing themselves on his unguarded features. They are all too aware their divine fluidity is magnificent complicated spLENDID TERRIBLE MARVELOUS—hard. Hard to behold in this realm.

Hugo’s eyes (twins of different eyes, in a different time, sea green and spilling salt as Vidakai sinks their teeth into their sun-drenched bond, tongue coated with bright betrayal) narrow. A fond affection surges like storm-tossed waves through Vidakai at his constant suspicion. “And here I thought you couldn’t afford to be so particular about your vintages. Not yet, at least. Never mind the quality of your company.”

Oh. A mortal exclamation for a distinctly immortal phenomenon. Clever, clever, clever Forsworn. The subtle sweetness of the lies rustle through Vidakai, all the better to be savoured. They want to be across from-near-INSIDE-next to Hugo, and so they are, a stolen shape of a dedicant long deceased their form as they mimic a human’s cross-legged pose.

BETTER. MUCH BETTER. BUT IT TAKES MORE THAN A SIP OF EVEN THE FINEST VINTAGE TO ACHIEVE OBLIVION.

“Best to approach the challenge on two fronts, then.” Hugo waves what remains of his right arm to an adjacent shelf carved into the Tide’s timbers.

Vidakai intends to follow with only their sense of sight but ends up beside the shelf in the form of a sleek ermine, claws braced on the wood. This close, they can read the script, their newfound multitude of bonds supplying the meaning of the label: Luminous Age. Vidakai deems the smaller subtext cramped beneath it irrelevant.

I RECOGNIZE THIS FROM YOUR SPECIAL CABINET, THE ONE YOU ONLY OPEN IN TIMES OF GREAT SUCCESS OR CELEBRATION. WHAT CAUSE DO WE HAVE TO CELEBRATE? Vidakai says, borrowing the aromatic whistle of wind through wildflowers to make their point. Hugo gives them a look of such affront that Vidakai dissolves—literally—into their mirth, reappearing across from Hugo in their sailor’s form. WHAT? YOU DIDN’T TRULY THINK YOU COULD KEEP A SECRET COMPARTMENT HIDDEN FROM THE DEITY OF SECRETS? PLEASE. YOU MAY MANAGE TO OFFEND ME IN EARNEST.

The affronted expression melts into a warm amusement, underlined by an easy laugh, Hugo’s baritone a rich music in Vidakai’s perception, all the more beautiful in its rarity. He takes up the bottle, tips the elongated neck to his mouth, and takes several swallows of clear liquor before returning it to the would-be nightstand.

“Nothing,” he says, his smirk gone lopsided. “I’m celebrating nothing.”

Another lie, and an enticing one at that, a lie that promises delectable truth. Vidakai rewards him accordingly. They pour magic into the overflowing vessel Hugo has made of himself, the seed from which Vidakai themself grew back into the world, the flesh-and-blood dendritic heart of their divinity.

Mortals have differing reactions to an excess of Vidakai’s power, most of them pleasant. Honey instead of vinegar, like the human expression. After all, Vidakai was once the shepherd, the guardian of those who found their oaths to the other Exiled or Exalted too much to bear. Why make serving them another torture?

Judging by the flush in Hugo’s cheeks and chest, pale skin shot through with pink, and by the groan that blossoms low in the column of his throat, his reaction to a superfluidity of Vidakai’s gifts certainly proves pleasurable.

It awakens a divine hunger in Vidakai. They want, as they did in Xeheia’s collapsing Heart, to crawl into his skin, to make his breath their breath, their power his power. They want to rip out the broken shreds of Xeheia’s touch from his butchered soul and make him truly theirs and theirs alone.

They want (time, always more time, the lives of their devotees spending drop by inevitable drop like sand through the turnglass yet faster than they can count, their spirits snatched to realms they cannot follow to, hollow ruins like empty graves left behind in their lavender-drenched world) Hugo. They want (seimene sih fo staorht eht dner retteb yam eh os wodahs dna terces ni hteet sih nroda ot ,raw ot gniydaer dna srebmuls rieht morf gnikaw sdog eht morf mih dleihs ot ,mih retlehs ot sterces fo sisoehtopa eht eb ot) to feast on the magic emanating from him in lush waves, like a stonefruit juices dripping down a jutted chin.

Waves crashing against the cliffside, the cracking of the earth beneath the seafloor, the heady desire of a courtesan in the Imperial shadow-harem: LIE TO ME AGAIN, FORSWORN. GO ON. YOU KNOW I DON’T MIND. I’M CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Delirium outlines the edges of Hugo’s laughter, and were it any of their other devotees, Vidakai would deem it a giggle. “Assume your true form and I might consider something better.” Hugo leans back against the Tide’s skeleton, eyes half-lidded, knees falling open like the gentle fan of butterfly wings as he stares at Vidakai. “A secret for a truth.”

ALL FORMS ARE MY TRUE FORM. Vidakai assumes the manifestation of a shadowkraken and circles in the air above the bed, waiting, Hugo’s too-vivid colours blurring as distraction fragments their concentration. ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT DIRECTLY, OR DO NOT BOTHER TO ASK AT ALL.

And here, the iron spine of him, resilient even through an overabundance of power so intense Vidakai finds him difficult to focus on directly. “You know exactly the form I mean.” That the words are softly slurred with desire-liquor-longing-lust only makes them all the more appealing.

Vidakai is here, everywhere, nowhere, and now they find themselves in their favourite deific form, floating horizontally above Hugo, all four arms reaching for him, claws extended. They match claws to scars—the two crescents beneath his chest, the pulsing lavender beacon where Vidakai plucked a secret from his soul to swallow, the knot of jagged white flesh where Xeheia’s chosen son electrified him back to breathing life.

HERE’S MY TRUTH. NOW, MY SECRET. I’M WAITING.

Hugo’s chest rises and falls beneath the four pinpricks of Vidakai’s touch. To be able to touch him at all, to not be driven away—were the intention different, it could almost count as a secret. He beholds Vidakai with a complex awe, pupils blown wide, grappling with whatever hidden truth he’s about to sacrifice on their altar.

“I’m not a fool. The bond, the outings, the games, the gifts. I can recognize flirtation, such as it is coming from a once-mortal deity. You’ve been courting me.”

A delicate, precarious position. Not quite a secret. Not yet, not yet, not YET. Push too hard and Hugo will retreat—they learned this lesson after the Heart, when they took their transgressions too far, got too greedy in their eagerness to have him as their First.

FINALLY. I WAS BEGINNING TO WONDER IF YOU WERE LESS INTELLIGENT THAN YOU SEEMED. OR RATHER, LESS INCLINED TO MY SERVICE. I DON’T TEND TO ATTRACT FORSWORN WHO REQUIRE MY INTENTIONS SPELLED OUT IN BLACK AND WHITE FOR THEM.

“Then allow me to spell it out for you,” Hugo says. A tension gathers in the air, a prelude to magic. “I’m too old and have lived through too much to waste more time. I want you, everything you have to offer save being First, and I’ve never been afraid of gods, and I’m celebrating because I already know you’ll give it to me.”

The magnitude of the truth explodes through Vidakai, tearing through the fabric of their manifestation and dissipating them back to their own realm for an instant, or an eternity, or one in the same. The succulent power of such a tender secret fills them upon their return, rendering the entire mortal plane in perfect clarity for a crystalline moment. It brings them the beautiful recollection of what it was like to walk the world alongside their devotees—and the yearning to do so once more.

Language, humanity, shape abandons them, leaving only an ancient tongue and primal hunger in its wake.

ፕⶴቹክ ረቹፕ ፕⶴጎነ ፪ቹ ፕⶴቹ ቻጎዪነፕ ፏጎቻፕ ፕዐ ጮልዪኡ ፕⶴቹ ዐርርልነነጎዐክ.

Vidakai redoubles the magic through their bond with Hugo, with the Forsworn who heralded their return to power. They turn him into an eternal loop, a fountain designed to overfill and spilling lavender floods over the edges, more than any mortal could reasonably bear.

The ruination it wreaks on their most adored devotee… astounds. Vidakai commits this memory to the few, the precious, the treasured fragments they’ve maintained.

Hugo’s back arches from the sleek embroidered covers of the bed, mouth open in a long, unabashed moan of pleasure, hips questing in miniature arcs towards a physical sensation that doesn’t exist. A dark stain of desire colours the fabric between the open vee of his legs, spreading more and more as he spends and spends and spends. His bare toes mirror his fist, curling in the sheets as he gasps, jerking as helplessly as a marionette.

And Vidakai supposes, in a way, he is that to them. They are that to one another. They cherish the strings tied tight between them.

It takes Vidakai whispering his name, a redolent rustle overlaid in a hundred different voices, for Hugo to open his eyes. They expect to see shame, but full of spiritual fortification and earthly liquor, all Vidakai gleans from his expression is a decadent covetousness. He reaches between his legs and unbuttons his trousers deftly with one hand, peeling the drenched fabric down, and the secret of it—exposure of such sacred skin, a private act performed for their pleasure—scatters Vidakai’s awareness once more. Hugo’s fingers circle against his flesh, his breath quickened, chin proud.

Vidakai moves their hands, making a delicate cradle of their claws for his jaw, their other hands feather-light on his thighs.

TELL ME YOU WANT ME GONE. TELL ME YOU’RE ASHAMED. IF YOU’RE CERTAIN I’LL DELIVER ON MY PROMISES, ANY LIE AT ALL WILL DO.

Hugo laughs, breathless, euphoric. His eyes are faerie fire, ancient fields as he holds Vidakai’s gaze. “You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you? But no. I expect you to watch—to appreciate this for the gift it is.”

An audacious order and a secret. Far better than a lie. Vidakai rewards Hugo with a torrential flood of power, drinking down every drop of magic Hugo pours back into them as it surpasses his reserve. The urge to possess, to rend, to be as one nearly overtakes them. Hugo’s hips roll beneath the bounty, rutting into his own hand as paroxysms of pleasure overtake him again, his throaty moans thick enough to taste.

They grin, exposing all the many teeth of their most well-known visage, then place a clawed finger of a new, fifth hand to their lips in a shushing gesture.

I’LL DO MUCH MORE THAN WATCH, FORSWORN. Then, then—they begin to demonstrate.

#the forsaken and the forsworn #hugo melançon #vidakai #hugo melançon/vidakai #F&F kinktober 2023 #my writing #this is absolutely canon and I am not apologizing #well you know #canon in the context of its in the trans not-AU

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shinyjiggly · 3 months

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what is sbarb dungeon crashers? it sounds v cool and like smth id be interested in but i wanna learn more :]

Brief History:

SBARG 2.5 dungeon crashers is a mostly discord based roleplay thing with both casual everyday stuff and occasional scheduled events. It's the most recent iteration of SBARG canon, which had begun with the SBARG arg/rp that had started over ten years ago, continued with a more session-focused campaign with SBARGv2, and continued on with the interquel SBARG 1.5 lost pawns, past claiming the ultimate reward to fill in important parts of the plot that hadn't been fulfilled.

Lore:

SBARG 2.5 dungeon crashers takes place after the events of all those past campaigns, and is largely focused in the Gene universe, which had been cursed to either never have a succeeding session, or only have sessions with a recursive ultimate reward that only leads back to Gene.

It is here that the ex-players of SBARGv2 (and those that have allied with them) live, trying to be responsible adults and protect their home together.

Standing against them, is the hellish corporation VoidCo, which has placed countless soul draining "dungeon cores" across the cosmos, to leech off of the countless civilized worlds that can be found in Gene. Based in the furthest ring, they are lead by their CEO, Dylan, a thousand year old grimdark page of void. He is known for his erratic and often violent behavior (and it's honestly a miracle that he hasn't made the company go under yet)

To counter the evil acts of VoidCo, the Dungeon crashers organization was formed. Their de facto leader is a Witch of Time by the name of Katyleen Kitten, who is also the president of the Desertia system. Under her leadership, the dungeon crashers seek out dungeons where the dungeon cores have been placed, in order to destroy or otherwise deactivate them.

When not crashing dungeons however, the crashers have their daily lives to attend to. Many of them have day jobs, some of them should positions of power, some of them train pokemon, and some raise families. Some even do a bit of interdimensional travel on occasion. No matter what though, the Desertian government usually provides for those who ally with the organization.

Gameplay:

During non-event times, proceedings are largely freeform, with dicerolls optional unless requested. Time runs in realtime or adjusted realtime, with time on Desertia assumed to follow Central time zone. Various common locales have different amenities, such as food, shops, lodging, and methods of long distance travel. much of it is flavor or narrative table dressing, but can be leveraged for slice of life scenarios.

During event times, there will be an event runner, which is a role that anyone can potentially take on if they schedule an event. do note that events must be scheduled at least 24 hours in advance, and have a description of expected significant contents, especially if they are expected to have significant effect to anything that has been narratively claimed/defined by another person. Dungeon crawl events are one of the types of events that can be ran, but they are certainly not the only kind.

Running a VoidCo dungeon:

There are countless ways to build and run a voidco dungeon as a dungeon master. the main thing to remember is that a dungeon is defined by the presence of a dungeon core. Everything else is variable to your needs. Will there be puzzles? will there be combat? will there be an inexplicable timeshare meeting? that's up to you to decide when you act as a dungeon master. is it part of an established location? is it an introduction of a new one? what did the place used to be before it was a dungeon? what sort of financial quackery did voidco inflict upon those who called this place home? These are all questions worth finding answers to.

Combat and confrontation:

Combat is rather fast and loose, but often makes use of a d20. fancier rolls (such as those that involve advantage rolls, slight additions, side subtractions with additions that somehow add up to 20) are recommended to be figured out by the players, as rolling a raw d20 is often going to result in action failure. The exacts of how rolls work largely depend upon narrative reason, and can be discussed as needed, due to the sheer open customizability that cannot possibly be handled by any amounts of tables while still focusing on writing. usually, one must roll at least over a 10 or half maximum roll to succeed, and descriptions of actions taken are expected, taking any applicable rolls and scenario details into consideration.

As of note, less violent methods, such as persuasion and such, can be handled with or without dice contest (dependant on the discretion of the event runner or other person involved), and likely will focus on the content of the significant speech or actions in order to determine results and reactions.

If an event is being ran on Plit, refer to dnd 5e rules and hope that you brought a filled in character sheet.

Pokemon battles:

These can either follow the fast and loose style, or make use of an online framework, such as pokemon showdown. because pokemon of all kinds are potentially allowed (yes, including glitch pokemon, fakemon, pokemon from the card game, custom formes, and whatever else within narrative reach), those that cannot be defined in an official game will likely need to use the fast and loose combat scheme. a pokemon may only have selection of four different moves during a battle, and ability to dodge is determined by move accuracy/pokemon evasiveness. some details can be fudged as agreed upon by your opponent, but concrete things such as type advantages, move effects, and the like are set in stone. don't be afraid to play up terrain effects, however. as expected, a winner is decided when all but one side are unable to battle or have otherwise forfeited.

If you wish to battle a gym leader, please schedule with the one playing the gym leader. 24 hour event wait need not apply, but the gym leader's personal schedule should be respected.

Any other questions?

Feel free to reply to this post with your questions.

Links of note:

SBARG 2.5 Dungeon Crashers website (has a bunch of information, as well as the server link, has both an in-setting and out of character mode.) None Pizza with Left Beef (a custom homestuck epilogue that also delves into introducing the dungeon crashers in a visual medium, updates roughly every week, written in-setting. Highly recommended reading.) The Charcherry Weekly (The weekly newsletter which covers many of the events and happenings with the dungeon crashers, written in-setting, usually drops every friday/saturday.) Let's SOSL forums (contains mostly past forum-based stuff, as well as some rate recent posts. the newsletter is also mirrored here.) SBARG 1.5 Lost Pawns website (has information regarding the completed campaign of the Lost Pawns, as well as past pesterchum memo logs. largely for archival use.)

#sjmun #SBARG 2.5 dungeon crashers #sbargv2

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prokopetz · 2 years

Note

It might still be too early for this kind of question, but what have been your favorite video games you've played in 2022? :3c

Given what the release schedule over the next three months looks like, yeah, it's probably jumping the gun, but what the hell. I'm going to arbitrarily restrict my consideration to games actually published in 2022, or else we'd be here all week, though.

(I make no apologies for the high concentration of sequels on this list. I know what I like!)

Amber City is a spiritual sequel to 2017's Flood of Light, and its gameplay is in much the same vein, being an atmospheric walking sim with light point-and-click puzzle elements. If you enjoyed the idea of The Witness but wish the puzzles didn't hate you personally, this might not be a bad one to check out.

Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince isn't going to break any new ground for those who’ve played its predecessor, though it's somewhat more adventurous in its dungeon design; if you enjoy casual 2D Zelda-likes, you'll probably enjoy this. Fans of 1980s fantasy media may also get a kick out of its pop culture pastiche elements – let’s just say the narrator is definitely taking advantage of the fact that his grandkids have never seen Labyrinth!

COGEN: Sword of Rewind is a Mega Man Zero style hack-and-slash platformer that does one of the first interesting things I've seen in years with the time manipulation formula, essentially merging your "mess with time" gauge with your health bar. The damage-boost routing in the speedrun is something you need to see to believe.

Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils is a retro platformer from the makers of 2020's Zelda-like dating sim Prodigal. Comparisons to Celeste are, perhaps, unwarranted, as the mechanics are very different, but I felt something familiar in the role of momentum in its flow of play. Visually, it's incredibly pink, which is something I always appreciate in a game.

Dungeons of Dreadrock is a short logic puzzler that one could be forgiven for mistaking for an old-school roguelike at first glance. Each level is a set-piece that borrows from the conventions of the grid-based roguelike genre to create situations where only one sequence of actions leads to survival, and challenges the player to find it..

FAR: Changing Tides swaps Lone Sails' landship for, well, an actual ship. The engineering sim gameplay remains largely unchanged in spite of that. Some of its elaborations on the previous game's formula don't work as well as they might have, being challenging more due to the limitations of the physics engine than anything else, but the frustration factor wasn't high enough to ruin my fun.

A Game with a Kitty 1 & Darkside Adventures is me flagrantly breaking my own rules, since everything in this anthology actually came out in 2005–2008 – it's just the anthology itself that's a 2022 release; I'm mostly throwing it in because this list was otherwise light on free-to-play titles. It all held up remarkably well on a replay earlier this year, though.

Gunborg: Dark Matters is a run-and-gun precision platformer that seems to have flown entirely under the radar, having just 11 reviews on Steam at the time of this posting. I'm not sure why – I mean, it's got a great soundtrack, and you play as a woman with a sword the size of a surfboard. What else do you want?

Jack Move is a JRPG-style title that blends self-consciously silly 1980s cyberpunk with contemporary anime aesthetics. I have to confess that I'm cheating a bit by including this one, as it's been out for all of three days at the time of this posting, and is the only game on this list I haven't played; I have, however, followed its development for some time, and I've had a lot of fun with the various demos the dev team has put out over the years, so I'm confident in plugging it here.

Recursive Ruin takes a page from 2019's Manifold Garden and basically asks "what if it was super fucked up?" The recursion here is fractal rather than directional, with progress "inward" eventually leading right back where you started. The story is naturally pretentious as hell; whether that's a criticism is a matter of taste.

RUN: The World In-Between wears it Celeste influence on its sleeve, but really takes more from classic endless runners like Canabalt. The "procedural generation" is just the same dozen or so puzzles for each zone being strung together in various orders, and the story is thinner than the trailer makes it look, but if you're a fan of the "running from left to right set to awesome music" genre, you could do a lot worse.

Submerged: Hidden Depths picks up where 2015's Submerged left off. The gameplay is substantially similar, though with a heavier focus on exploration puzzles and fewer linear set-pieces. Even so, it's not exactly what I'd call challenging – it's better approached as a pretty walking sim with light parkour-puzzler elements.

System Purge is about as basic as it gets for a precision platformer. No fancy moves here: you run; you jump; you get your face melted off by a laser. There's actually quite a bit of blood and gore, which is something I rarely have the stomach for, but the game is short enough that the lurid bits don't overstay their welcome. Fair warning!

Taiji is... well, remember when I said Amber City is a good one to check out if you like the idea of the Witness but wish the puzzles didn't hate you? This is one to check out if you do enjoy it when the puzzles hate you. There's a lot here that will be familiar to fans of the latter, though the puzzles are somewhat more varied owing to the fact that colouring grids is a more flexible game mechanic than drawing lines.

Vain Ascendance is a a roguelite precision platformer whose art style and mechanics put me strongly in mind of 2018's Overclocked, though the dev teams are unrelated. When I've plugged this game in the past I've been teased that my obsession with games about red haired women who can air dash is showing, but this I must protest: her hair is purple.

As for unreleased games available in demo or early access versions that I've tried out in 2022, I'll keep it brief, since these aren't proper recs, but you might have a look at any of Dormiveglia, Garbage Girl Louise, Gigasword, Keylocker, Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara, Little Witch in the Woods, Rebel Transmute, Rose & Locket, Ruin Valley, Shards of Gravity, Star Hearts: Launch Point, Undergrave, Venus Looks for Jupiter, Vermillion Descent or War Girl.

#gaming #video games #video game recommendations #violence mention #swearing

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ilexdiapason · 3 months

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Hey there!! I'm part of the MCYT recursive exchange event and I was wondering if I could create something inspired by your music au (beloved,,,) by any chance? I just love the different fanarts and fics that have come from this au and I think it would be lovely if there were more of them in the world <333

hi thank you so much! i have a blanket permission statement on my ao3 account, so ANY of my works could be (/could have already been) submitted for this, yes 👍

however i'll say from the jump. i do have the entire rest of the plot planned out already, and the one recursive fanfic i already saw someone write (thank you <3) was not exactly parallel with my secret ideas document. so if you're like me and you like the idea of your spinoff fic being accepted as part of the canon of the actual universe then you're totally free to check in with me and ask more questions about the world/characters/plot progression, as long as it's not like "give me all the spoilers rn" lmao

also i'll use this as time to say that i'm still focusing on yuri week but i'm going to be going back to my other projects starting the 19th and music au is among them, so maybe expect another piece of the puzzle in march? either i'm gonna declare it My Longfic Of The Summer or i'm gonna just post isolated scenes one after the other in mostly linear order, don't know yet, the main obstacle there would be coming up with enough titles. so we'll see 👍👍👍

#music au

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jacksgreysays · 1 year

Note

Always happy to meet a fellow multishipper! Sorry I read you wrong 😅

As I've been trying to write that fic we talked about (which is finally a priority now that I've reached stopping points with other stories), I think I've found it why I struggle to come up with and write DOS fics. I don't think I have an accurate gage of Shikako's character. Have you ever struggled with that?

Also, thank you for answering my asks about more Hail to the Queen iterations. I love that stuff!

No worries! Shipping to me kinda feels more like personality/sexuality/circumstances puzzles as opposed to, like, a hill I’m willing to die on type of thing. A lot of my most interesting fics are the ones where someone prompts a pairing I never considered which leads me to figure out how such a pairing would work and, again, under what circumstances. It’s very fun :D

Oof, there are some fic that live in my head—not even as plot bunnies but, proto-bunnies. They’re not even ambulatory yet, lol—that will never see the light of day. Most of them involve Naruto and Kakashi. Not because I don’t love them, but because ahhhhh their character voices are SO DIFFICULT FOR ME. Naruto is more difficult than Kakashi because at least with Kakashi I have an idea of how he feels/his main motivation (sad all the time and GOTTA MAKE SURE NO ONE ELSE I LOVES DIES BEFORE I DO) but Naruto is just… O_O I don’t know… what… how do you make decisions, bro?

And this is probably a personality failing on my end but Naruto is just so trusting so often even when there have been so many cases where he shouldn’t be and he pulls the weirdest lessons from certain experiences and he loves to fight and loves jutsu that don’t do anything but cause harm but doesn’t believe in killing even though he lives in a world of shinobi and he wants to be Hokage in order to protect his precious people and he hates war but also he hates the things that a Hokage has to do in peacetime so it’s like… WHAT.

It may also be that he suffers from shounen protagonist syndrome which is that he is more of a force/narrative than a person so any contradictions in his decision making process is because that’s just what Kishimoto needed him to do at any given point.

My struggle with Kakashi is more that while I understand him internally, he’s so good at deflecting and zagging that there’s a strange sort of… layering to his dialogue and behavior that I’ve never quite managed to finesse. Like he says one thing and does another thing but what he ACTUALLY means is neither. It’s very look underneath the underneath

I’d like to think I have a good handle on Shikako’s character although it might be a sort of cyclical me reading DoS (literally the first First Person POV fic I didn’t nope out of after a chapter) and projecting onto Shikako turned into me podficcing DoS and internalizing Shikako which lead to me writing recursive DoS fic and going back to projecting onto recursive Shikako, etc.

Also, unsurprisingly given my ever faithful writer’s block and how I’m no longer as prolific as I used to be, there are a lot of other things I struggle with. For me I don’t think it’s the ideas that are the problem—my brainstorm to actual fic ratio on this blog is out of hand—but it’s the execution of idea into fic that is the worst. Or having cool concepts but not necessarily the background/foundation to manifest them.

Like, speaking of current fic idea that just… won't... just refuse to let me wrangle them... absolutely slip through my fingers...

@loveelemental helped me brainstorm a DoS crossover (won’t say what fandom at the moment) and it would be so dope, but I don’t actually know that other fandom very well even though my brain insists this is the fic it should be writing. Another problem is that, it’s PRIMARILY set in that other fandom AND THEN it’s not even Shikako that is the DoS character!

And I’m just like… WHY IS THIS WHAT MY BRAIN WANTS TO WRITE. WE DON’T KNOW THIS. I ALSO CAN’T COME UP WITH STUFF. EVERYONE IS AN ESTABLISHED CHARACTER WITH A DISTINCT VOICE AND NONE OF THEM ARE SHIKAKO!

So, yeah… the struggle is real.

I also very much enjoy brainstorming collaboratively with people. Often I don’t even think of things until I’m asked a question, so I also appreciate you sending in those Hail to the Queen asks. Legit, the She Who Has Divine Right in which Shikako takes over Haido’s failed invasion force because their literal god chose her over both him and the last of the royal bloodline is EXTREMELY entertaining to me and I don’t think I’d have ever come up with that by myself.

So thank you, too, aryaokayfriend! :D

#jacksgreyson #aryaokayfriend #asks #answers #dreaming of sunshine #meta analysis #character analysis #naruto uzumaki #kakashi hatake #shikako nara

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