#tbh i almost think this game will have very little npcs and will be mostly focused on like REAL open world exploration

[ganondoodle]

i know i said i wouldnt be ranting about totk anymore, but i realized i didnt really count the sage dungeons as story (dont ask me why) so i thought im gonna write a better summarized version of my opinion about totk (i have around 60% of the game, all lightroots, not yet all shrines (missing like .. 20 or so, know the reward), not all krogs (dont know the reward), not all mayoi (half know the reward?) )

(in no particular order)

good stuff (in my opinion)

the. MUSIC! god the music is good, it was good in botw too but now with much more different bosses it really is probably one of my fav soundtracks of all time (most fav are all three phases of the end fight, the pre-fight to that, the build up one before all of those, Frosgeira (wind tempel boss) the glorious mASTER KOGA and more tbh)

the build up and end boss fight(s) are fantastic, i dont think im ever not gonna have my heart racing when approaching it (despite now skipping almost the entire way bc i set a teleport thing right before it) just bc the build up is so well made and the music(again) is such a banger and the fight(s) itself is so fun too, tbh i keep wanting to play it just bc its so fun

i LOVE how many themes play into the music (endfight alone had so many layers, fav probably is ganondorfs classic theme and calamity ganons both in the same piece among much more, and daruks theme in the fire temple)

(edit) YOU. CAN. TOUCH. DA. DRAGONS!!!!

ganondorf

ganondorfs design (x3)

ganondorfs weapon designs

ganondorfs voice (japanese)

everyone elses voice (japanese)

all voices (german)

thE YIGA!!! i love everythign about them and am so happy they got to be more than just some mini mission

(edit) also the fact that they get zonau tech to work without any special ghost powers is so ????

(edit) koga can summon and use zonau tech unlimited?? hes so cool

NO stealth mission!! (as far as im aware)

bosses are very different from each other

main dungeons are not too short and not too long and mostly fun (mostly bc i personally didnt like the gerudo one), i love that you can still somewhat cheese them and do them your way

sages felt like they got a bit more involved

(edit) you gotta do more stuff before getting to the actual dungeons and i really like that, feels less like a fetch quest but that you are actually helping

(edit) each sage is actually there in the dungeon and is required for it, which is great!

each settlement saw a much bigger danger/change (tho that has more impact if you have played botw) and its problems felt much more real

shrines are well varied tho i think overall a little easy (only got stuck on two so far and later solved them easily bc when i first started them i was tired and exhausted, no brain left lol)

NPCs felt less flat + more bigger sidequests that felt like they had more impact

cool new monsters + designs

the underground was pretty appropiately creepy

the sages abilities are neat

you can refight bosses!!

stable points system is a neat way to encourage you using them

weapon fusing is neat

(edit) the forest of the krogs being corrupted like that is both creepy and a neat nod to oot

(edit) the vai gerudo outfit being gone!! (one) evil has been defeated

(edit) the health bar going so far off the middle in ganondorfs second phase is honestly just funny hnjdfdjk unfortunate that you only need the master sword and with a few perfect dodges his health melts like butter in the summer

(edit) the music when dragondorf transforms sounds so sad .. its probably meant as a oh no world is actually ending sad but i like to think of it as a oh god what did he do to himself sad

the scene where rauru seals ganondorf kinda fruity

(graphic, animations and the overall world is still fantastic)

bad stuff (in my opinion)

everything zonau they feel forced into every bit of the world and its history (i know them being somewhat alien is intentional but not like that) it feels crammed into places they werent before and shouldnt be and it makes it all feel very artificial

the glyphs/dragon tears/memories really ruined alot for me, while it gave you insight as to what happened, it felt like it showed you too much and too little at the same time and i think it would have worked better if it was all in text for once if even at all, so the past stil stayed a mystery and youd be left wondering

timetravel .. really wasnt necessary and felt more like an excuse to get rid of zelda + make her the poor little sacrificial girl again + and to make her turning into a dragon as tragic as possible, like nothing but a stepping stone to the big reveal tm

shiekah tech being not just fully irrelevant but practically erased, wiped off the world (i know about the literally last guardian parts in hateno, it feels more like an oversight tbh, purah technically using it ... tho i dont think she ever calls it that, the purah pad is jsut the sheikah stone but worse), there being no good explanation, no remains, nothing as to why it would suddendly stop working and why even the titans and ESPEICALLY the shrine of life would be destroyed, if anything why wouldnt you enshrine it as a memento to history it was such a focus in botw and so well integrated into the world that it being fully gone, not even old overgrown, or visibly reused to build homes etc., or remains of how they built the og shrines in the underground feels like a HUGE missed opportunity (seriously it would have been so easy to make the ancient shiekah base their tech on old zonau tech, without stealign the gocus but buildign a connection)

all of the continuity problems, totk feels like botw didnt happen and the excuse of 'they didnt want to confuse new players' doesnt make a lick of sense in my eyes bc; its supposed to be a sequel, if you want it to be a standalone game then dont call it a sequel- if you start to play a game with the sequel instead of the first part its your own damn fault if you get confused; if anything, it would have been a good opportuntiy to make people interested in botw so theyd buy and play that one too

ganondorfs character is very flat, you basically get to know nothing about him (yuno even calls that out midgame but its never elaborated upon nhgfrdfhkk)

the zonau and their kingdom of hyrule is presented as this so perfectly good thing to such a degree it turns creepy, the end cutscene with mineru going poof was kinda uncomfy to watch tbh

the reward for all shrines being essentially a reveal as to who the hero in the tapestry was and it being, of course, some weird half zonau is the lamest answer to a mystery i didnt want an anwser too, it doesnt feel like it came naturally either (again my point of the zonau being forced into everything)

the shrines (zonau) feel so much more unnatural than the shiekah shrines, alien in a bad way and not in a good way + really are like a bad reskin of them, their sudden appearance and use is so much less logical

back in botw i was doubtful of if the shiekah tech wasnt going to far too modern tech and cause it all to feel like a bad mix of modern tech and medival fantasy, but they balanced it perfectly (tho the eponator zero was very much the limit imo) but the zonau tech .... oversteps that line i think, it really does feel, more than anything else, that it was just bc they wanted the stuff to be in there bc it might be fun to play around with, im not against that kind of stuff mind you im all for fun, but it feels a little like they thought of a box with endless stuff to play with first and a zelda game second (if you get what i mean)

quite a few quests or things in the game seem like they are more and then end in a dead end (the worst of all is impa saying she wants to go research what could help zelda turn back, and i was excited and convinced that shed give me a quest to find some mcguffin that would do that after i beat ganon but there wasnt anything you could actually do; less bad one but disappointing nonetheless the dongos were mentioned and treated like this big awesome thing from alot of NPCs all around the map and then when you find them they are bascially just gem vending maschines)

the way zelda turns back and link gets his arm back is incredibly unsatisfying, none of them even have something like a scar, or mark from it all, zelda spent thousands of years as a dragon (a transformation that was said to cost your soul but i guess that wasnt true) and link had his arm bascially eaten by miasma and he gets it back like it was never lost, zelda returns all intact as if nothing happened, getting blasted by some magic tm by two ghosts that were supposed to be long gone is the solution to all problems!!

(edit) link losing an arm wouldnt just be super intersting but also lend itself well to lead up into the next game where his prothesis is the focus and source of abilities

(edit) zelda got done so dirty, instead of her actual interests and character to shine she just gets shoved into yet another crisis surrounded by strangers in a world that looks like hers but isnt, and all she does is beg the ancient sages to swear to help link and sacrifice herself again (can you call that fridging? bc she sure feels like she got fridged) i like zelda and i dont like how much i didnt care about her and tbh im angry at the game for that

(edit) both link and zelda not even slightly changing in the years btween botw and totk kinda boring, like a haircut can only do so much

(edit) sonia really is the wife that dies to make husband sad thing isnt she? i get that gan had to get his hands on an enigma stone but i feel like there had been better ways to do that, the fact that she dies that easily is almost funny honestly, why does ganondorf even have weapons when he can just one punch people to death (tho i find it funny to imagine he can literally just kill people in one punch but hes too prideful to do it most of the time so he always uses weapons to look more cool)

(edit) so many new characters that you barely get to see or interact with, i really ... couldnt get myself to care much

(edit) zonau tech being so irrelevant to the games story while its also the focus is .. weird, its really just play doh for the players and nothing else honestly

(edit) monsters mining sonanium feels strange bc ... they dont do anything with it? the best thing i can think of is that they were told to do that so link cant .. upgrade his battery thignies? but then again you could just destroy the mines and remaining constructs to stop it .... also you really dont need anything zonau tech related to beat gan?

(edit) ganondorf beign so utterly uninterested in their tech is weird considering how he dealt with shiekah tech (and we KNOW it can get corrupted) he should be a tech nerd tbh

my twitch VoD of the first time beating the game getting muted at the credits despite me talking over it

nitpicks (in my opninion)

(edit) ganondorf should have a bit more of a boar inspired design, as treat, i think

(edit) the enigma stone wandering back to ganondorfs forehead even after transforming is? weird? i guess an excuse for da epic last stabby but still? (how cool would it have been to have to plunge into his mouth and break it there or something)

(edit) the underground gets a lil old after a while, the fact that its pretty much the same everywhere aside from some .. very strange flowing magma is a lil boring

(edit) ganondorf could have gone way more crazy with abilities and all that, imagine hed spwan multiple miasma arms on himself when you get him to a certain level of health

(edit) i miss unique weapons, there arent even normal axes around anymore, everything is about fusing really, i miss the cool shiekah tech weapons

(edit) the forest of the krogs being largely irrelevant is kinda weird

(edit) mineru being the sage of spirit still is kinda meh, the robot is neat but i thought tauro or purah would be the surprise sage tbh

(edit) the bosses were a little easy (i did boldo gohma rather early and did it without even getting hit)

you cant talk to koga normally :(

you cant find koga again after the last fight :(

you cant refight him (to my knowledge) :(

i find it very strange that yuno seemingly lost daruk shield, despite him having inhereted it in botw

the sage powers are not .. very great integrated, while its fun to haven them run around and help you fight, to actually use their powers you have to chase after them, something that in the heat of a battle is very annoying to do, constantly activating the wrong on or them losing their charge up when they get knocked over is like trying to herd a wild pack of geese while a three headed dragon is shotting laserbeams at you

some widlife just disappearing all of the sudden is very strange (like the rhino in hebra)

some new houses or settlements would have been cool, that the material things at the sides of roads are really only for you to play around with and not to build anything that lasts

you cant fight ganondorf (non dragon, even the dragon is locked to that evening sky) in the sunlight, night or rain, i would have loved to fight him at various times of day

their refusal to show any kind of blood is honestly turnign serious scenes into very awkward ones, sonia just getting punched and she dies with not even like, losing some spit from the force or something, or the fact when you defeat ganondorfs second phase he acts mortally wounded but doesnt even look scratched is just :/

amiibo stuff while neat being included its really mostly just bloating your inventory, if i wanted 5 vaguely different link outfits then i would have gotten the amiibo for it

why hide the -now-totally-not-phantom-ganon-armor- behind such a long questline and then .. have that NOT be upgradable

they put in a house building thingy and then not let you have a roof or a tree or something :(

at some point stable points jsut get you more and more of those free staying over night tickets that i maybe used .. once at the very start and now its just accumulating in my inventory

only one new horse coat pattern :(

satori now only being a thingy that shows you caves is kinda boring, i loved the mystery around it in botw (additionally, that it shows you caves you have completed already kinda sucks)

the end of the shrines isnt that cool anymore, speaking to a mummified monk that gives you essentially his last remains of life energy is so much cooler than a statue of the oh so awesome god king and his wife

the many references and reuse of old names is neat but together with timetravel etc. it easily leads to confusing and fighting among fans for who is more 'right' and its just .. tiring

(edit) considering how much of the advertising was about the sky islands i wished there were more and bigger ones, the underground (that was a little one sided after a while, it all looking the same rly) could have been alot smaller if the sky was bigger instead

(edit) i wished there was more of a sense of .. lost life in the ruins you find, from all races, the ancient ruins are jsut some bridged and ceremonial stuff and i wished there were more like .. houses, like people actually lived there and it not being all around beign a platform for you

(edit) the fact that the half zonau hero exists mean either rauru and sonia had kids but those were clearly not important enough to ever show nor mention, or there were other mixing of them before they all mysteriously died out the fact that the ancient hero was half zonau means their genes survided till then but somehow it never came up? the tapestry still exists and impa and purah say like its a well known fact that the hero looked like that (not at all close to any modern species) when you talk to them while wearing it (the fact that the hero armor thingy is very reminiscemt of ganondorf is like some backtreading bc we were theorizing about the hero having been ganondorf once and they wanted to stop that .. but the more funny thing is the HC of its a descdendet of rauru and ganondorf nhjdfknhdgkfnhkfd) (edit to add to the HC; the game being a big battle about child support is funnier than it should be idk if nintendo knew what they were doing adding details like that)

all in all it just feels like missed opportunities, lost potential, and more a game build around some game mechanics they really wanted to get into than telling a neat story, espeically so bc they called it a sequel, most of my complaints wouldnt be there if it was some alternate thing instead

i probably forgot stuff but if i think of more i will add them later with a little note that it was added in an edit (sidenote, i find it funny how much more nuance that whole conflict would get if rauru and ganondorf were bitter exes bfdrjfbdfndk)

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #totk #totk spoilers #i felt like i was beign a little unfair #so i wanted to make a summary #tha took me hours to write #and is again long as shit #whoop #long post #this isnt a complete list iether bc that would be even longer and take even longer nhdjkkd #i wanted to do comic works damn it #anyway this is the last long post about this #bc im moving on now #...its half inspired by people respondign to me with -what how can you not like totks story but then like botws lol wtf- #well i do #*shrugs*

[depresseddepot]

i've given up on waiting for es6. starfield is my new lover now

#'create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom' ok. im intrigued. #please bethesda please please give me romanceable robots #tbh i almost think this game will have very little npcs and will be mostly focused on like REAL open world exploration #like finding hints that take you from planet to planet and only occassionally interacting with people #but even if thats the case im interested #i wont be buying console anymore so here's hoping itll work w an xbox 360 controller lmfao #cyberpunk was not my brand of sci fi so i didnt and wont play that #but the isolation and gritty dusty landscapes with happy and philosophical and existential endings? #that shit is my FAVORITE #nov 2022 is a long time from now but i can wait

[white-tulips]

well, since it’s 5 in the morning I think now’s the perfect time to ramble about my thoughts re: OMORI vs Yume Nikki game design, Black Space, and how trying to copy something successful kind of sets you up for missing the mark 

these are thoughts I’ve been stewing in since january, I don’t want people to forget that I have a lot of opinions about OMORI as a game

(firstly, I’m sorry if this is all over the place or not worded well. it is 5AM)

I’ll preface this by saying that these are merely my opinions. I’m specifically going to be focusing on one aspect of game design here, so if you’re curious about any of my other OMORI game design opinions they’re scattered around my blog and are not hard to find tbh

okay so my thoughts about this are mostly Black Space exclusive, and considering that’s one of the climaxes of the game this might be a bit of a spicy subject to talk about KJFGHKFJG but I am passionate about good game design okay. especially in psychological horror RPG games. (also throwing out there jic that I don’t think OMORI is a bad psychological horror. pls reference this post) 

(also want to say that I genuinely like Black Space. okay? okay)

so this was something that I was talking about with a couple of friends back when I first finished OMORI around the beginning of january. actually, at this point I hadn’t even played Yume Nikki yet, but when I did finally play it recently my thoughts on this were 100% solidified

essentially, our thoughts on this can be boiled down to how Black Space was trying too hard to be Yume Nikki, but didn’t grasp exactly what made Yume Nikki so impactful in the first place

obviously taking inspiration from something you like and wanting to rework it into your own creation is normal, good, and even encouraged! however, the most crucial thing with that is the “reworking” part.  when being inspired by something, the goal is to take what you loved, and didn’t love, and mold it into something entirely new. it shouldn’t be “well I like this thing, and this thing did it like this so I’ll try to do it like that too” because it’s just not going to work. (this is actually an all around issue I have with OMORI, not just Black Space, but more on that later)

so to me, a good 50% of Black Space came of feeling kind of... eh...? it was like... you have 50% that feels so well thought out and meaningful, and then 50% that’s there just to. be there. and be like Yume Nikki, I guess. even before I played Yume Nikki, I couldn’t even remember some of the rooms in Black Space existed until I replayed it again, which is a shame because Black Space is the type of area where everything should leave an impact

now I want to talk about the game design itself-

Yume Nikki is a game about experiences, and atmosphere. there’s limitless area to explore, so much so that it feels endless. there are so few things to interact with that sometimes it feels like you’re doing nothing at all. all you have is aimlessly wandering these huge areas, taking in the sights, and listening to vague sounds and music in the background that are often just a few seconds of audio played on loop. (this is one of my favorite OST in the game. having this be all you hear for 30 minutes as you walk around in a looping forest really does things to your head)

it uses all of these elements to make you feel lost, confused, and very alone. you’re just trapped in a dream, where even with all the space in the world to explore, the lack of anything to do makes it feel suffocating. even the small area you have in the waking world is designed in such a way that feels cramped and destitute-

Yume Nikki is a perfect example of “less is more” and “show, don’t tell.” 

then take OMORI, which doesn’t really know how to balance those things with it’s tendency to try and shove too much in. for instance, think about the over abundance if NPCs with irrelevant fluff dialogue. it was all too much and so dull it got to a point I stopped reading most of them altogether

(and something important to note I think, is that the general feeling of Yume Nikki is the same throughout the entire game. the tone never really changes, and neither do the expectations. OMORI, however, tends to just drop things on you out of nowhere. and that’s not necessarily a bad thing! it works for a lot of different sections of the game, I’ll say. 

however, Black Space was different. it’s kind of like, it just drops you in there and expects you to understand the way it works, despite the fact that all of the other horror segments lead you to have a completely different set of expectations for what you should be doing/feeling. it’s like shifting you into another game entirely, and it’s almost immersion breaking. up until this point, OMORI was not the same type of “show don’t tell” type of game, so suddenly jumping to attempt to do that can make it lose some of it’s impact)

like I mentioned before, Black Space is designed in a way that’s meant to mimic Yume Nikki. and I think we need to ask ourselves “just because we can do this, does it mean that we should?” again, taking inspiration isn’t a bad thing, but it’s the execution that matters

and here’s where my biggest issue actually lies, I suppose. it’s the fact that OMORI has multiple instances of trying to take inspiration from other things, and failing because it’s trying too hard to copy, not rework. it’s just most obvious because of Black Space, I think. because, like I said before, a good half of Black Space is just trying to be Yume Nikki without giving it any OMORI original flavor, and the fact that it’s trying to be something else is immersive breaking as hell to me

for example, take the red mazes. I don’t think the idea to incorporate it into OMORI was bad, but. you can plainly see when you compare the two maps that nothing was really reworked, made more interesting, or even given a OMORI flavored twist-

(Yume Nikki-1 ; OMORI-2)

another instance is less about the game design itself, but surprising/not-surprisingly, it actually has to do with OST

this is something my friend was telling me, because I myself have not read Umineko, but there are OST in OMORI blatantly trying to mimic songs from that VN, even down to their names

the biggest offender imo is GOLDENVENGEANCE which is a decent song, I won’t say it isn’t, but compare it to it’s Umineko inspiration, Golden Slaughterer 

it’s just another unfortunate instance of “this thing I like is good, so I’ll try to copy it!” with no clear grasp on why it’s successful and it’s disappointing. that’s really the only word I have for it at this point, disappointing

and the reason it’s most disappointing is because of things in OMORI that are obvious inspiration, but were reworked so well

let’s take this other Umineko OST, Worldend Dominator. this is a brilliant song, and it’s really fun to listen to. and, it very clearly inspired beloved World's End Valentine

World’s End Valentine slaps. it’s great. it takes aspects of Worldend Dominator and shifts them around to be a unique and fun piece of music that also fits into OMORI perfectly. 

something important to note about this, is that World’s End Valentine and GOLDENVENGEANCE were written by two different composers. what this makes clear to me is that there were people on the OMORI dev team that were better at reworking ideas than others. because, despite a lot of the criticisms I was talking about, there are things in OMORI that are obvious references that I love and think are great!

like this one, the most pointed out nod to Yume Nikki-

I think it’s great. it’s taking a very memorable bit of imagery from Yume Nikki, and giving it a reference while also giving it it’s own deeper meaning beyond just the aesthetics of it. it’s just good, I love it

and yeah, not all of Black Space feels like one giant copy of Yume Nikki. there are plenty of doors that I think take the same aimless, empty, and unsettling feelings and use them in a new way that feels more grounded in OMORI. my personal favorite door is the “Sunny... I love you.” room. 

actually, funnily enough, the area in OMORI that felt the most like Yume Nikki to me wasn’t in Black Space at all. it was actually the snowy area right before Snowglobe Mountain. something about the vast empty space, simple yet atmospheric OST, and little things to find scattered around just gave me a nice Yume Nikki vibe, but mixed with the OMORI style (hell, the OST there and the one for the snowy area in Yume Nikki even have a pleasantly similar vibe, and not in the “oh this is a copy” way [X] [X])

gosh, I feel like if I keep talking I might end up going in circles more than I already have

hopefully my words made sense!! I’d love if anything I said resonated with anyone aha. I just hope that I’m not coming across as hating on something because I’m biased towards something else or something... almost all of the critiques I have about OMORI come from a place of genuine interest

thank you if you read all of this!

#text #omori #omori spoilers #oh no tumblr user white tulips made another opinion post that took 3 hours to type #meta

[orokin-made]

1, 2, 7 and 10 for the Deadfire Ask Meme, please (Though of course you're more than welcome to just rattle them all off too if you'd like)!

Thank you! You are too generous with your enabling, really.

1.What did your Watcher make of the Deadfire Archipelago? Was it their first time there, or had they been there previously?

Elehal was born there! Though not quite in the section the game takes place in. It was kind of a shock, suddenly waking up back “home” after having been away for so long and having so much happen, but mostly he was excited to show his friends around and take them to all the cool places he knew. He spent most of the voyage from Port Maje to Neketaka talking about all the times he’d been to the city previously, and how wonderful it was, and all the things they should go see while they were there. After spending so much time exploring and learning about other people and places, it was kind of nice to be the local expert for once.

2.Did they have a favourite location?

He loves Neketaka. A big, exciting city full of exciting people and beautiful buildings, all built to his scale so he doesn’t have to bend over every time he walks through a door and the whole thing is built on top of the sprawling ruins of a different, ancient city?? It’s almost enough to make him settle down in one place for a while.

As for non-hub city locations, Motare o Kozi also has all of his favorite things all in one place: wilderness exploration, hidden ruins, mysterious machines, a connection to the Huana, just everything he could possibly want.

3.How about a favourite companion? Or a favourite NPC?

Elehal and Tekehu get on amazingly. They know all the same stories and songs, (at least the Huana ones, Elehal has a much wider knowledge of folklore/music from the rest of Eora) Tekehu is probably the best at getting Elehal to lighten up and laugh out of all the companions, and Elehal still gets to feel needed as someone to give Tekehu some direction and guidance. They have different experiences with being godlike, and that is a source of some tension between them at first, as much as Elehal tries to avoid it, but that’s a topic I'm exploring elsewhere atm.

(tbh it’s a good thing Aloth got in there first because I think Sharkboy and Lavaguy Elehal/Tekehu would simply be too powerful for the world to handle.)

4.Was there a companion or an NPC that they just couldn’t stand? What was it about them that irritated your Watcher?

Getting along with everybody -- and I do mean everybody-- is sort of Elehal’s whole thing, so people he actively dislikes are few and far between. That being said, he’s not fond of pirates or the Principi as a whole, both for the obvious reasons and just because he thinks their obnoxious and rude and kind of gross. Out of the companions Maia and Pallegina are probably the two he has the most difficult time building a relationship with, largely in part due to all three of them supporting different factions and having different visions for the future of the Deadfire. He and Maia could probably have done alright if the situation was different, bonded over a love of exploration and affectionate ribbing of her brother, but Pallegina and Elehal were rubbing each other the wrong way all the way back in the Dyrwood. I’m still trying to work out why specifically the two of them don’t get along, but I think part of it is their both so firm in their principals and values they just can’t find enough common ground when those values are in conflict with each other.  

5.Was your Watcher glad to have Eder, Aloth and Pallegina back again (if indeed they did)? Was there any other companion that they would have liked to have back in their party?

Eder and Aloth have always been important anchors for Elehal, keeping him grounded while he’s dealing with whatever Watcher nonsense he’s found himself in this time. Eder is so solid and unflappable, doesn’t complicate or overthink things, and is just all around the most reliable person Elehal knows. He trusts Aloth’s judgement and opinion more than anyone else’s, knows he doesn’t do or say things without giving them thorough consideration first and respects that. He’s also....real cute... just absolutely the most wonderful thing since sliced bread... how is he so small... a perfect man....

There’s a -- quietly -- longrunning joke between the rest of the party that Hylea and Magran got their godlikes mixed up when Elehal and Pallegina were born, which the two of them could bond over being offended by if they ever found out, but so far it hasn’t happened. Elehal felt pretty guilty for the whole mess Pallegina got into after she went back to the Republics, and really wanted to make it up to her somehow, despite their difficulties with each other. It didn’t exactly work out, but he got to apologize at least  

 6.What was your Watcher’s ship(’s) name(s)? Did they enjoy being Captain of a boat? Would they rather have been back at Caed Nua?

Yes and no. He loved being the Lord of Caed Nua, and still feels homesick for it from time to time, but having his own ship has been one of his dreams since he was a little kid watching boats come and go from his island. Ships are like castles but you don’t have to settle down in one place to live in them! Best of both worlds.

The Godhammer was a beautiful ship. Her name had earned him no shortage of incredulous and scandalized looks, and more than a few sharp words from Xoti and Edér, but he had been insistent. A private joke, of sorts. Magran had killed Eothas once before, now her chosen hounded him across the Deadfire. The goddess of trials and fire finished what she started. One way or another. 

7.Did they have a favourite quest or side quest? How about a least favourite?

Everything about the Black Isle was absolutely intolerable for him. He likes digging around for secrets as much as the next guy, but come ON. This is ridiculous. And awful.

He probably got the most satisfaction from the questline helping the roparu in the gullet, getting to just... help people without having to worry about consequences or compromising morals or anything.

8.Did your Watcher find romance, or close companionship, in the Deadfire? If so, who did they get close to, and how did that relationship develop?

While he and Aloth both had badly hidden, un-admitted to crushes on each other for the majority of their travels together in the Dyrwood, they were both also going through Some Shit and just. Not in any kind of place to be getting into a relationship. So their five years apart were difficult, but necessary, I think. Elehal is still going through Some Shit during Deadfire, but it’s less “My sense of self is being destroyed and I can’t sleep because of ghost whispers” so it doesn’t impact his personal relationships nearly as much.

Things are a little awkward in the beginning, trying to figure out if the other person still has feelings for them or if the whole thing was just, like, trauma bonding or something. But they get there eventually, and end up being very good for each other, in the end. Aloth understands how seriously Elehal takes his responsibilities and does what he can to make the burden of them lighter without downplaying the importance of what their doing, and Elehal encourages Aloth to find his own direction after having all his decisions made for him for so long, while still offering him support, and guidance if he wants it.

9.Which faction did your Watcher side with in the end, if any? Was there a particular reasoning behind their decision?

The Huana. There wasn’t really any other option for him, in the end. Letting any of the other factions set foot on Ukaizo, of all places, would have been simply unacceptable. He struggled with having to blow up the powderhouse and then lie about it, it’s not what he does, it feels wrong, but accepted it as another unfortunate but necessary action that he’ll answer for when the time comes. And, well, Onekaza is still technically his queen, and having her recognize him as Huana and earning her respect meant a great deal to him.

10.Where do you imagine your Watcher’s life takes them after the events of Deadfire?

HHHHHHHHH are we talking the depressing canon ending or the real one? Because in the real one he and Aloth take like, a year long vacation to Aedyr and spend the whole time going to libraries and museums and --safe, publicly accessible-- historical sites and Aloth finally gets to show Elehal that nice spot in the Cythwood by a waterfall. THEN they can start tackling the whole rebuilding the Wheel and hunting down the rest of the Leaden Key and all those other extremely important responsibilities.

#orime-stories #... why did it put the readmore....THERE #how do I fix this #poe #Elehal #Watcher Wednesday #replies

[oodlyenough]

aight... here’s a pretty long yet tip-of-the-iceberg collection on my overall thoughts on bl3 now that i’ve finished the damn thing, every main mission & every sidequest (dynasty dash don’t interact). 

obviously mega spoilers

the good

aside from that one infuriating difficulty spike when i arrived on promethea, i had a lot of fun playing. i found the gameplay a lot smoother than the others in the series (as it should be), i liked being able to climb stuff, i liked having an easy mode tbh!!

i really liked playing amara and i like the flexibility of action skills and being able to swap on the go without having to respec. the brawl tree ended up being very well suited to my type of play, it hindered me only during boss fights and even then at least i could switch to phasecast y’know

i had a lot of big fears about what this game would do and it managed to not do anything that makes me want to, like, burn and salt the earth, so that’s a win

i thought it was pretty funny! or at least on par with the other main games, which always kind of ride the line between funny and obnoxious and sometimes misstep

i enjoyed a lot of the cast, both new characters and characters who were returning but who i had no particular feelings about before, hammerlock, zer0 and ellie as particular examples

hammerlock and wainwright were cute af and it’s nice to see a gay couple in a triple-a game 

thought the twins were fun and funny af i liked them. because fandom is Like That i was a little exhausted by troy before he even showed up but even then, like, idk i liked them as a duo and i liked the break from jack honestly 

a lot of the new gun quirks were fun. i’m not like a big... gun person... but i found some cool ones i enjoyed playing with. 

loved getting to see different planets, it was a nice break from pandora all the time. and skywell was super fun! love the low-grav playfulness from TPS without the infuriating oz kit nonsense

the little quality of life improvements from previous games were great, like fast travel from anywhere, auto-refilling ammo, etc

some of the side quests were really fun. i liked the ratch quest for rhys, the birthday party quest for mordecai, the claptrap dancing quest was sweet, the buff movie buff quest was fun, the quest where i killed grandpappy 2 seconds in and got a reward was funny as hell esp because i drove off a cliff by accident, etc

lots of people had really bad glitches and stuff but... honestly can’t relate the game ran very well for me. advantages to not marathoning it before they’ve released their first couple patches, i guess, lol 

the less good

i played a solo amara and there are some bosses that seem like they would’ve been pure hell to do alone... i was lucky and able to phone a friend for a lifeline in those scenarios (shoutout to @heavybreathingcatt and @valoscope) but if i couldn’t do that idk i would’ve just broken my controller in rage i guess lmao 

why is resurrecting each other so hard? i don’t think i’ve ever done it successfully, because it takes too long and more importantly bc while i’m doing it some enemy will just toss a grenade or punch me and i get knocked away from the ally, rendering it useless

rest in peace maya, the best res AI in the whole damn game, got me through the rampager fight her damn self

there were a lot of characters and themes and ideas that i liked in theory more than in practice... because in practice they felt like a first draft. very often i felt like i liked a thing, and then on reflection thought about nine hundred ways it could’ve been better, deeper, more emotionally resonant, more developed, whatever. 

the angel stuff was kinda nice but... also... my longest deepest sigh ever @ Poor Sad Jack Some People Terrorize Entire Planets And Abuse Their Daughters To Cope With Their Fridged Wife

like the siren lore... wish i coulda heard it without having to backtrack across every map post-game

while i found the game generally pretty funny,  almost all the emotional scenes fell completely flat for me and there were a number of scenes that SHOULD have been emotional that just were not 

for eg i am actually not upset about maya or lilith dying (or turning into the moon as it were) -- i am ok with those beats for those characters, especially lilith getting a heroic sendoff. however... both of those scenes could’ve been more impactful than they were. maya’s i think was better than lilith’s, but both of them felt flatter, either in the moment or in the aftermath, than those characters deserved. 

related: NPCs reacting to major events is fun. i liked to do the tour and check in with all my buds to get their couple custom lines after a big plot thing happened. HOWEVER... those lines are obviously timed which is *mostly* fine but in some cases really, really weird? the lines about maya should stay in rotation for a lot longer. ava shouldn’t go back to LOL LET’S STEAL two seconds after maya’s gone. i missed zer0′s maya lines entirely bc i didn’t track down zer0 on time lol. stuff like that 

the bad

i miss my girls :( we really did keep only the white men huh

the last act felt severely underbaked. i have to wonder how many rewrites this game went through, and how much the back end was slapped together last minute, or cobbled together from various drafts. a lot of this felt very first or second draft, where the characters and themes are *there* but not refined at all, or they contradict each other. the family theme that goes basically nowhere and says nothing. the way the story handles atlas vs the way the story handles jakobs vs the way the story handles corporations writ large. 

for the twins -- lack of proper emotional resonance or development for them is one of the biggest failures imo, because i think they WERE very enjoyable villains and the core concept of like... evil video game streamers is honestly on-brand and funny af for the franchise... but as soon as troy died everything went downhill? tyreen’s non-reaction to her brother dying isn’t even a reaction, it’s not even “tyreen doesn’t care she’s evil lol” which would’ve been a boring direction to take anyway) it’s just.... “we barely wrote a response don’t worry about it”. her endgame is to be a big monster because... she’s ... fame hungry? huh? her motivation fell apart.w whether they went with “troy and tyreen are shitty people who get caught up in a power struggle but ultimately love each other” OR “troy and tyreen are shitty people who turn against each other in individual bids for power” could both have been interesting stories but they did neither. 

i’m def missing some echos on the twins which brings me to another thing i hate although it’s endemic to the series and not to bl3 specifically -- hiding important lore and characterization in random echos in random places on the map without even an indication of how many there are total, how many you’ve collected, where to find them... frustrating as hell. a lot of those echos are some of my favourite material in the game! at LEAST tell me “1 of 5 echos on this map” if you don’t wanna tell me where they are! why is major lore like the twins’ backstories hidden?????? 

and bc i haven’t heard them i don’t know if it’s fandom doing what fandom always does, or if it really is the game implying tyreen is The Evil Mastermind and troy is poor manipulated brother, but either way fuck that entire noise lmao of course the women of colour in the series are just Born Evil but jack and troy and whoever else are just Sad :( fuck off actually 

typhon... sucks... what an irritating character. irritating to retcon him in as The First Vault Hunter, irritating to have him talk about shit and sex all the time, irritating to have every established NPC be like oh wow my HERO typhon deleon what a HERO i LOVE him, irritating that we skate over his parenting failures, irritating that he has a fridged beloved wife, ESPECIALLY irritating he gets a memorial sidequest and maya didn’t . just. bad.

aurelia is evil now cause reasons... bad... 

vaughn also bad lmao i can’t believe they made amara yell “blood feud”... disgusting... 

the playable had no role in the story. they’re just a fly on the wall in every cut scene. this is whack in general, and a crit i can apply to all of the main borderlands games, however it is extremely jarring to play amara in a siren-heavy game and have no one acknowledge it. 

OVERALL... I guess like a B-? Maybe a B. I had fun playing it and I’m still having fun running around in Mayhem Mode and I am def looking forward to the DLCs. Gameplay is great. But while I had hoped this installment would take the storytelling of the main games a step further, it actually felt like a step back in virtually every respect. 

#bl3 spoilers #borderlands 3 #borderlands

[sims2trash]

I got 1 note in my last post so imma keep goin’

Oh boy, oh boy, so much stuff happened in the

GOTH HOUSEHOLD

pls excuse the pause lines. So poor, idiot Cassandra married Don, I was lowkey hoping he would left her at the altar, but no, they did got married.

They went down to business since Cassandra desperately wanted a child, Don was like “sure, hon, whatever you want”. He was so ready for the woohoo, and i bet all his worries disappeared after marrying into the richest family in all the uberhood.

Mortimer felt romantic after watching his daughter get married, so he called over Dina and popped the question. Dina didn’t thought it twice, her lifelong dream finally happened: she’s rich now.

lulz

Not short after, Cassandra got sick, and, you know that can only mean one thing in simworld: she’s preggo now, yaaaay!!!

Legit the genetics system in this game is what keeps me playing, I love breeding my sims with each other.

These two marriages are sharing one house, mind you. While Don is spouse to Cassandra, now he has his lover Dina with him 24/7. I was expecting some drama, but apparently both decided to be good spouses, at least until the honeymoon phase is over. I feel Dina is genuinely trying to be committed to Mortimer, and she’s not that into Don, but who knows what the future holds. Don is not trying anything for now, but he won’t stop if something happens...

Dina and Don were having dinner with Alexander, who was paying close attention to what Don was telling about his job. Alexander is a bright young man so he was really curious. Meanwhile Cassandra is over there, swooning after Don, oblivious of what’s happening between him and Dina. :(

yikes

Then the one and only BELLA GOTH called the house, and MORTIMER answered!!! he didn’t seem to notice who she was, i refuse to believe he just didn’t care. Like, yeah, he’s married to Dina now, but Bella was taken away from him and his family. She was asking for Alexander :( awwwwww

I don’t know what she’s doing, but I don’t plan to play her since I don’t really like playing with NPCs or townies. I like to think she’s regaining some of her memory back and is trying to get back in touch.

The Burbs randonmly came over and had dinner with the Goth women, it was nice, but they didn’t became friends.

Shortly afterwards guess who became sick now? omgggggg

I wish there was mystery if it’s Don or Mortimer’s baby, but it is Mortimer for sure, like i said, they’ve been good spouses so far.

i thought this was funny, lol, can’t wait for him to die

wow, this is dark out of context

Victor Aspir came over with Don after work and they had a little bromance moment. Don kept getting many wishes involving Victor.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Cassandra and Don’s baby is here! Look how happy her grandpa is <3 <3 <3 Her name is Agatha, I felt that was a very Goth name. (yes, the ‘th’ is probably what made me think of that)

The same day Agatha was born, Dina got her belly bump. She had to have some attention as well.

!!!!!!!

Maybe she heard about her grandaughter??? omg

I though this was sweet, Nina called her sister and were talking about make up. Dina never mentioned her pregnancy, lol.

Oh, yeah this kid grew up too. New sensations came with puberty it seems.

I know she’s just out of the womb, but time goes fast and Agatha grew up. not the prettiest child tbh but we’ll have to wait and see when she grows up.

Alexander was very attentive to his niece, he was very sweet. So far he’s been the one who’s mostly feeding her, teaching her skills, like, idk why Cassandra wanted a baby so bad, she spends her freetime on the piano.

Almost by the end, Bruno was born! I like to think Dina picked the name.

I was expecting more drama in this rotation but still I had a lot of fun with how things went by. It’s a tough household with so many sims but can’t wait to get back to it.

#s2 #sims2 #sims 2 stories #uberhood #pleasantview #mortimer goth #cassandra goth #don lothario #alexander goth #dina caliente

[gem-quest]

[ E N T H R O N E D . . . ]

“i will not be another flower picked for my beauty and left to die. i will be wild, difficult to find, and impossible to forget.” -erin van vuren

real name: selah dufay-paoli

age: twenty

f/c: (young) natalia vodianova

species & class: sylph + rider

guild: moonstone

description of in-game powers: sylphs are the game’s air-type fairies (not to be confused with water nixies or fairies of the courts). sylphs have the ability to utilise magic, but almost exclusively “elemental” magic. therefore, while neddy has the imbued ability to wield wind, she has also been able to learn the ability of murmuritium. however, some darker, tougher mage-type spells/abilities give her some difficulty. generally, sylphs (fairy-kinds) are considered on the weaker side of all the game species- they do have standard fairy abilities like flight (has to be learned but neddy has a dragon for that so she doesn’t feel the need to expend her time with it), “light of foot” (which is essentially the ability to balletically levi-glide through the air), persuasion (all fairies have sky-high charisma points), and sufficient-level light melee.

as a rider, neddy’s able to more easily command animals in the game, and her chosen “mount” is a fully-grown dragon- officially, jack, but she’s more likely to call him “cha-cha” (even she doesn’t know- it sort of grew out of baby-talk.. which she realises she uses to an annoying extent with a mammoth beast that spouts poisonous gas from it’s maw). jack’s abilities are in his weight (though decidedly willowy), his noxious-floral breath, and his wings. other than that, he’s an overgrown puppy (very often relegated to lap-dog status when neddy shrinks him down with drink-me potion).

place of birth: sartène (corsica)

appearance: sylph skin in the game is usually somewhat translucent or pearly, but neddy forewent that option. her only sylph-y features are pointed ears and pale lilac-toned hair. she does have wings that appear sort of glassy when visible, but for the most part she keeps them folded away since she doesn’t use them for flight. neddy also likes wearing dangly, jeweled earrings and silvery collars and circlets. most likely to wear some sort of tits-out, diaphanous number (see: john galliano rtw autumn 2oo9).

"you are like the snow only purer fleeter, like the rain only sweeter frailer you…”

-e. e. cummings

places most likely to be found in-game: 100% on level 10, the gardens of finvarra is her home-base. it’s where she picked up jack (her dragon mount) after she was dropped from her ex-boyfriend’s party. finvarra is flirty and annoying but he really just likes a good time. (no, they have not slept together- he’s an npc and.. neddy is mostly certain it’s not possible.. . not that she’s thought it over or anything.. ) she does like to hang around and help the odd moonstone player out of the prince’s clutches- if that’s what they want.

otherwise, she’s likely hanging around in the midwinter level since it never ceases to bring her joy- and jack loves the snow. or she’s pushing through to clear levels. she’s not yet been on the frontline, but she’s nearing them.

current inventory:

dragon balm x 5

dragon pep potion x 2

medi-elixir x 3

basic light throwing axe x 2

black pearls x 3

blue pearls x 2

madame bellio’s char truffles x 9

ventium scroll

murmurationium scroll

summoner scroll (learning)

drink me x 2

armoured helmet

songbook: dragon chants

songbook: dragon lullabies

rosy shell panpipes

dragon-shaped sugar cubes from the tearoom x 4

apricot tartlets x 2

fig wine

strongest character trait: diplomatic

strengths: caution and understanding are her personal strengths. observing and listening first have rarely ever backfired on her. a desire to make peace around herself and exist in beautiful environments are the only things keeping her sane at the moment. in game, jack is her greatest strength. neddy knows that, on her onesie, she would be gobblin fodder in a fight. however, her ability to talk her way into and out of situations benefits her /greatly.

weaknesses: she’s a textbook over-thinker which hinders her ability to progress through levels in a timely manner. as well, she doesn’t handle being alone very well- she feels she might be too attached to jack who doesn’t even really exist. in game, both her species type and only moderate ability with weapons are really her two weakest points.

player stats: (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the weakest, 10 being the strongest. try to balance it out!)

STRENGTH: 2 (8 w/ jack)

DEFENCE: 3 (8 w/ jack)

CHARISMA: 9

PSYCHE: 4

WILLPOWER: 8

CAUTIOUSNESS: 7

AGILITY: 9

ENDURANCE: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 7

LUCK: 3

personality: libra .

biography: selah’s parents divorced the year following her birth, and as a result, her mother took her from corsica back to her lenox hill childhood home in manhattan to live. there, selah was raised by her mother, aline, and grandmother, vanessa, who each nurtured her desire to be a singer- more specifically an opera performer. but by the age of fourteen, selah had developed a new interest in dance, having hung around at her friend’s mother’s dance studio for a few months in the summer.

at eighteen, due to family tension revolving around selah’s new boyfriend, selah left home to move in with her boyfriend, callum, and his roommate in a shitty flat in brooklyn while she awaited admission to barnard college to pursue dance. since callum and his roommate played gq from its inception (and had taken to staying in the helmet for hours and hours), selah was interested in joining him on adventures so that they could spend more time together. so, she bought her own vr helmet and instantly fell in love with gq world. in particular, she loved that she and callum could stay together and bond through whimsical quests and battles with other players and monsters. it was like living together in a dream.

until, a few months later, callum (username: plagueis) announced that selah would have to leave their party as he and another mage-knight in their party- a girl called bloodbriars - were “involved”, whatever that was supposed to mean. they’d never met in person, and selah /lived with him, so it was very hard to understand the situation. and by this time, the word about everyone being trapped in the game had come down, leaving selah no means of escaping the awful situation. callum and bloodbriars disappeared with the rest of the party shortly thereafter and selah has not seen them since. she was suddenly trapped and alone.

selah took to camping in finvarra’s gardens to deal with her emotions, and there, she met jack- a then-untamed queen of poisons-like dragon with sleek violet-black scales, willowy limbs, ears like aconite, and inky venom eyes. she liked him instantly, but for him, it took a little more effort- lots more dragon-shaped sugar cubes from the tearoom level than any one player could stomach. after a few days of coaxing, she was able to secure him as a mount, and the new duo was born.

since then, selah’s rededicated herself to clearing levels and locating callum, aka plagueis, at the same time- whether to kill or not, that remains to be seen.

“artemis knew better than all of them. her only love affair was with the moon. my heart understood this. profoundly.”

-lola ridge

**note: selah’s heard a rumour that plagueis and bloodbriars have the supernova scroll in their possession. 

relationships: (OPTIONAL, fill out whenever you want to)

PLAGUEIS . aka callum king, neddy’s live-in boyfriend and former party member. recently booted neddy from their party to- neddy supposes- lessen the awkwardness of having left her for another party member (that he’s never even met in person). callum and the party disappeared weeks ago and neddy hasn’t seen or heard from him since. however, she ends up hearing a rumour that he might be in possession of a supernova scroll- which, given his mounting instability since becoming imprisoned in the game, is troubling to neddy, to say the least. f/c: charles melton

BLOODBRIARS . real name unknown, plagueis’ new girlfriend and neddy’s former party member. all neddy knows about her is that she’s a moonstone guild member and a mage-knight. f/c: unia pakhomova 

INFERNA . nana o. to neddy’s nana k. neddy met her on ten amid a feast of steaming mystery meats with sweet wild berry sauces and fluffy raspberry rose cakelets- which inferna might have eaten had neddy not had the knee-jerk reaction of batting the red-headed girl’s fingers away from the fairy food. she and neddy got along right away despite being from opposing guilds- after all, neddy was very isolated at the time and she needed a person to interact with (outside of finvarra and his tittering harem, of course). inferna and jack took a shine to one another, but as inferna’s one to keep moving, neddy hasn’t seen her since that day. she does, however, think of her often.   

MORNINGSTAR . 

TSESAREVNA . fellow moonstone,

playlist:

the magic place by julianna barwick

winter circle by balmorhea

rodeo by lil nas x, ft. cardi b (in regards to being dumped for another girl- but also i kind of just can’t get this song out of my head so.)

white rabbit by emilíana torrini

violence by grimes, ft. i_o

fairytale by enya

var det du by ensemble galilei (which i just imagine as gq “menu” music tbh)

alone by halsey

overture ii by sleeping at last (sappy but: aka the song in neddy’s head when she gets to be on the midwinter level and watch jack play in the snow~)

favriel by grimes

pinterest: { oc. ENTHRONED } 

#written by fanfan #character info #enthroned #selah #moonstone

[lanamemories]

TASK #004

FULL GIVEN NAME — lana rose jameson

NICKNAMES & WHO CALLS THEM THESE — lana banana jst…by the masses…. lala by her teachers when she ws younger bc she wld always b daydreamin n in lala land n not focusin. straight up jst. banana. by her dealer rod. cherry is what she went by when she cammed too bt she doesn’t do tht rn

AGE & D.O.B — 21 (june 2nd)

PLACE OF BIRTH — albany, ny

TOWNS THEY’VE LIVED IN AND FOR HOW LONG — albany, ny until she was 18 aside from a year long gap when she was 16 in which she jst kind of… slept anywhere she cld that wasn’t home. mostly local to her area tho bt sometimes not. then she moved to rochester fr lockwood n has pretty much been there since Babey! she’s travelled a bunch too bt no stays longer than a month so

GUARDIANS NAMES & LOCATIONS — richard jameson is currently in LA i feel like… primping a new label sign bc he’s trying to get the company bk to the Former Glory it had in the 80s n victoria jameson is probably in albany ny doing freelance music journalism stuff bt nt rly… as often at all…. she’s jst in the social circuit nw doing charity stuff to look like she cares abt ppl bt it’s All For Show

SIBLING NAMES, AGES & LOCATIONS — caleb jameson, 24, location unknown. he went off the grid abt a month ago n hasn’t been properly sighted in a full week now bt. doesn’t stop lana frm calling up everyone they kno as well as local hospitals 24/7 Just In Case! 

WATERSHED.APP STATUS —  sheep

DO THEY HAVE ANYTHING QUESTIONABLE ONLINE? —  Boy Oh Boy…… lana literally…….. has abt 12 vids online frm when she did camming of various…. pornographic stuff like…. all sorts honestly jst. wild stuff. threesomes galore. u name it. bt i think that might b the main one….. other than………. a bunch of nudes n stuff like tht. also has probably genuinely. had her tits out on abt 20 ppls snapchat/insta stories at some time bt she jst doesn’t rly care abt tht much. a #freethenipple advocate u cld say

BANK ACCOUNT BALANCE — $4,287

DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE ANY CREDIT CARDS? HOW MANY? DO THEY HAVE A BALANCE AND LIMIT? OF HOW MUCH? — her old ones were frozen when her dad cut her off so nw she just has one with a 10k limit tht she’s a third to the way off hitting

CRIMINAL RECORD — public indecency, public intoxication, also once gt flagged for wasting officers time when her brother put in a missing person’s report bt she was found at a local motel n they didn’t reprimand her properly given the circumstances in which she was found (the man she was with got arrested due to his age). tht wld probably be on the system i think as like…a note perhaps.

HOSPITAL & MEDICAL VISITS / RECORD — she broke her collar bone when she ws younger jumping out of a tree n trying to fly n it ws like. quite a bad break bt she wasn’t taken to the hospital until rly late in the afternoon when it happened in the morning. she’s broken a few bones tbh she ws a very adventurous child n had no supervision. she also underwent like… 3 months of therapy last yr i would say n she paid for that privately. plus i feel like she’s probably had her stomach pumped at least three times especially… in the yrs of being 16-18 bc she rly went hard then. also once did so much mdma that she almost went into serotonin syndrome n had to be admitted then. OH n she almost died once when she ws little like.... 9 yrs old mayb bc she took bites out of a bunch of house plants after watching land before time n they were poisonous if ingested 

PRESCRIBED MEDICATIONS — 100mg ritalin for adhd bt. she doesn’t take it. she’s had a whole bunch of prescriptions fr it over the yrs of her trialling diff ones n seeing how she feels on them bt she never takes them fr long n now she jst has like. 5 prescription bottles lined up mostly untouched in her drawer

DO THEY USE ILLICIT DRUGS? — ya she… hs honestly done most drugs at least once bt. her fav is mdma/pills

DO THEY DRINK ALCOHOL? — Big Ya

DO THEY SMOKE WEED AND/OR CIGARETTES? — weed ya bt cigs no

SUBSCRIPTIONS THEY HAVE — netflix, spotify, cosmopolitan, rolling stone.

FAVORITE BOOKS — she read a lot as a child to fill her time bt she doesn’t rly any more her attention span is too bad. younger she loved the hungry caterpillar bc she related to tht need to jst… metaphorically consume everythin in sight to try n feel full of something. never rly had A Favourite Book aside frm tht tho. preferred tv/film

FAVORITE FILMS — moulin rouge, mamma mia, rocketman (this musical theme…), coraline, anything wes anderson probably :/, edward scissorhands, black swan, gremlins.

FAVORITE MUSICIANS — the velvet underground, the beach boys, robyn, donna summer, wild cherry, chromatics, fleetwood mac, anything like… disco/70s or upbeat rock or like… synthy electronic pop she… listens to kind of a diverse range bt. mostly 70s/80s stuff on her record player in her room bc thts the kinds of vinyls she seeks out

FAVORITE GAMES — she rly jst doesn’t hv the attention span fr games bt….. she has a red nds n she plays princess peach sometimes on tht. used to like the old lara croft games too bc they were the only ones of her brothers tht she was ok at playing bt. she never did any missions she just ran around n had a crush on square titted bad video game graphic lara

PAST ROMANTIC / INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS THAT MAY HAVE AN ONLINE PRESENCE — literally so many i–…. ok….. danny nielsen (ex-boyfriend npc/the anti-christ), teddy lawrence (ex-hookup), benji gates (honestly dnt kno wht to call them bt there r texts n pics galore there), syd morrissey (ex-boyfriend), zeke van doren & leo fowler (both current hook-ups n i’m putting them together bc i feel like they probably have a gc n it’s probably a bit unholy 2 say the least), saige beaumont (ex-hookup), beau turner (ex-boyfriend), rory vanderberg (ex-hookup), abt 183749794711947 other various exes n hook-ups tht she’s shared explicit texts/pics w too like…. the list is endless i….. can’t even imagine hw much lana has circulating

MOST FREQUENTLY VISITED WEBSITES — pornhub :/ (she genuinely watches sm porn it’s. a lot), twitter n instagram

DO THEY USE A VPN? — no honestly lana prob doesn’t rly get what that is

WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA DO THEY HAVE? — facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, tumblr, jst…… most of them bt she isn’t active on a lot except twitter n instagram

ARE THEY ON ANY HOOK-UP OR DATING APPS? WHICH ONES? — she’s on like all of them…. tinder is her main tho. she also sometimes responds to weird hookup ads on craigslist fr the Thrill of possibly being murdered

#wshedtask004 #ok these tws r only rly vaguely touched upon/alluded to bt #drugs tw #statutory rape tw #better safe than....sry lads! #this is formatted without any pretty graphic n task sort of? doesnt lok like a word to me rn? bt whtever

[soulerflaire]

So I beat the story of Pokemon Shield yesterday, and now I’ve had time to think about everything. Spoilers below the cut. Also super long post.

First I wanna focus on gameplay.

Overall, fantastic Pokemon game. I liked a lot of the new Pokemon, I felt there was a really good variety of Pokemon available throughout, graphics were good, the gym missions were (mostly) clever and (mostly) fun.

I heard people had complaints about the starters, but I like them. I picked Scorbunny and was terrified he’d end up Fire/Fighting, but Cinderace (and all the starters) remained single-type. I think their designs are cool! I love Rillaboom’s drum and Cinderace’s soccer fireball attack. I like Inteleon the least of the three, but I still think his design is neat. It is basically finger guns: the Pokemon, which is funny, but not particularly interesting to me. I’m glad I picked Scorbunny.

I liked the set up of the Gym Challenge, though the pacing was a bit weird. Not sure if that was me or the game, but I felt like there was very little story between each gym. That led to me doing several gyms in rapid succession, then spending 3 hours in the Wild Area doing nothing, then tackling another set of gyms. But the gym challenges were fun! Except the fire one. I hated that. And the battles themselves felt awesome! The crowd cheering (especially in the final part of the music, oh my god that was so good), the huge Pokemon, the dialogue, it all made for a match that felt like it mattered. Even if I one-shot all their Pokemon, the match still felt meaningful. It wasn’t just stomp and move on.

I think the Wild Area was a cool experiment, but either make the whole game like that, or don’t have it. It feels like the Safari Zone; an area disconnected from the rest of the game, with the express purpose of catching Pokemon and nothing else. Except it’s so huge and seems to have every single Pokemon in the game, so long as the weather is right, that I feel like there was no point in catching Pokemon anywhere else. Why bother even touching the tall grass when I’m travelling through the regular world, when I can just catch whatever would be in there in the Wild Area later? And frankly, I never really got punished for that mentality. I can just catch them all in the Wild Area later. The only hurdle is they all turn level 60 after you become champion, which I have very mixed feelings about. I would like to hear their explanation for doing that, tbh.

Max Raid battles feel really cool, but god damn, Nintendo, you have got to get a better connection system. Half the time, I can’t find any raids to join because there are no shout cards popping up and the button to get new cards isn’t there for some reason. Even when I can see the cards, most of the time I fail to join, either because the raid already started or the person cancelled the raid. There’s only a 3-minute window to join, and with the infrequent appearance of cards (with no timestamps) I have no idea if any of the cards I see are even from the past 10 minutes, let alone past 3. And the NPCs are randomly selected and use their moves randomly, so once you get to the 5+ star raids, you cannot use them at all. One of them is a friggin’ Magikarp that uses Hydro Pump for no damage and misses half the time anyway. Why!? That was funny exactly zero times!

The music, however, I have zero complaints about. Fantastic soundtrack! I love the gym battle music, and the Team Yell fight music, and the Wild Area bagpipes, and the legendaries fight music, and just pretty much all of it. If they release the soundtrack, I’m buying it immediately.

Graphics were good. I wasn’t blown away by them, but it’s a pretty game.

One thing I noticed is how rushed things started to feel towards the end. Initially, the world feels enormous. Routes are long and winding, and it really feels like exploring things. But the further into the game you go, the shorter the routes get. And there’s no Victory Road at all. Just an extremely short route called White Hill, with, like, 6 trainers and a couple grass patches. You take a train to the White Hill Station, and if you look at the map, you see you ended up skipping an entire mountain and a stretch of land twice the length of the actual route. Kinda feels like they planned to do something with all that space, but cut it later on. The forest that they did the 24-hour stream of, Glimwood Tangle? It’s tiny. Like a third the size of Viridan Forest. It’s gorgeous, sure, but I spent more time exploring the first town than I did in that place. The final town certainly looks enormous, but then it turns out you can’t access half of it, and a huge chunk in the middle of the part you can access is taken up by the rail station. Which has nothing important inside it. Just a generic mart and some NPCs to talk to. There was honestly a lot of stuff the seemed like it was gonna be something later, and ended up being nothing. If it’s all content that got cut to release the game sooner, that’s extremely disappointing. Frankly, I wonder if they bit off more than they could chew, turning Pokemon into a console game. They clearly were trying to make it worth being on console, but ended up running out of time.

Now for the story. This is probably the first Pokemon game I feel this way about, but honestly: I loved the characters, but found the story to be pretty lackluster.

Hop has a wonderful character arc, where he’s boastful and energetic, but slowly loses confidence as he keeps losing Pokemon battles, and falls into a depression after a particularly hard defeat. He seems to pull out of it after encouragement from friends, but then he spirals into it again when you beat him in the finals. He spends most of the endgame putting himself down and saying he can’t do anything to help, but as you travel together stopping the Dynamaxed Pokemon, he perks up again (thanks in part of Piers being a really good Dad despite having no kids), and all this culminates in him saying he’s realized being champion isn’t really for him; instead, he’s gonna become a Pokemon professor and travel around helping people and Pokemon wherever he can. It’s really sweet, and I like that we see a rival who actually does get upset that they keep losing to you all the time, without turning them into a villain. Hop is never not your friend during all this; he’s just sad and needs so many hugs.

Marnie was a lot more fun of a character than I was expecting. From the official art, I thought she was gonna be the super reserved, stoic character who gets angrier and angrier as she loses to you over and over. But she’s actually outgoing and fun, and loves battling the player even if she loses. And her brother Piers is just as good at subverting expectations. He’s all dressed up as a super punk rocker who’ll be a terrible influence on everyone, but he’s definitely the Tired Adult of the group when you’re travelling around trying to fix things, and he’s a good Dad friend. Team Yell is much less creepy now that I have context. Piers is a gym leader, and Team Yell is the gym staff that he asked to go help cheer Marnie on during her gym challenge. They’re overzealous, but they’re just trying to help her. Some of them even start cheering for you instead, once Piers acknowledges your skill.

Bede can go fuck himself. I know they tried to give him some kind of backstory or whatever, and some vague punishment/redemption with Opal making him the new Fairy Gym leader, but dude’s a dick, through and through.

I could go on and on about the characters, but this post is already getting too long, so I’ll talk about the story itself now. Through most of the game, you get hints that something bad is happening or going to happen, or something is going wrong, but every time one of those hints pops up, the adult say “Let us handle this, you focus on your gym challenge.” And that kind of bothered me at the time, because it’s like if you get the guard station outside Saffron City and start to argue with the guard, then Lance shows up and says “Hey, why not skip down to Vermillion City? I’ll take care of this.” And that’s the end of it. Next time you try to pass through, it’s open and there’s nothing wrong. You know something is going on, but no one will let you near it, so you just keep going on your gym challenge.

Later you find Leon (the champion) in an argument with Chairman Rose (owner of every corporation in the region) about an energy crisis. Rose says we need to start dealing with it now, Leon says it won’t happen for a thousand years, why do we need to bother right now. Then of course the Chairman triggers the Darkest Day right before your championship match with Leon, ranting about the energy crisis and whatnot, then you have to go stop the super powerful legendary Pokemon he released for Real Reasons That Definitely Make Logical Sense And Don’t Need Explained No Sir. At first, I thought this with a super shitty take on the energy crisis, that we’ll run out of fossil fuels and not have renewable energy ready. But if that’s the case, it’s extremely clumsy, because 1) no owner of a corporation gives two shits about anything a thousand years from now and 2) they had the guy warning everyone about the future crisis also be the guy who almost destroys the whole country. I chalked it up to being rushed and tried not to think about it too hard.

But now I’m thinking differently. There’s something Leon says, after the whole Darkest Day thing is averted: he’s gonna start thinking about the future now, and start working on ways to make the future better (or something to that effect). I think maybe the “moral” of the story is that we shouldn’t just let problems be until they come to a head, and we shouldn’t rely on others to take care of the problems. We relied on the adults to handle things in a reasonable manner, and it nearly led to the apocalypse. So maybe that’s the point? Don’t rely on others to take care of things; if you see a problem, try and fix it. And likely specifically talking about climate change and the destruction of the environment. Galarian Corsola is a bleached, dead coral for a reason.

If that’s the case, then A+ for message, D- for execution. But it’s Pokemon, I know they can’t get too serious about things. But it mostly led to a story I didn’t really enjoy, full of characters that I loved. While I would prefer to finally have the remake of Gen 4, I wouldn’t be sad to see a Sword and Shield 2.

#I really did enjoy the game #and I'm still enjoying it #gonna complete that Pokedex and play through my Sword version #though preferably after I have some way of transferring pokemon between my two versions #fingers crossed for pokebank

[soughtout]

i’m almost me again, she’s almost you ..... ....  i laugh like me again, she laughs like you

Merlin’s beard, what is ( CHO CHANG ) doing out at this hour? For a ( HALF BLOOD ) who is ( 17 ) years old, ( SHE ) really ought to know better. You know, I hear that they’re aligned with ( THE ORDER ), but that could be just a rumor. I do know that ( SHE ) is ( CIS FEMALE ) and a ( RAVENCLAW ) alumni though. They’re very ( RESOLUTE ) and ( KIND ) but also quite ( RUTHLESS ) and ( DISTANT ), which could be why they remind of ( FALLING ASLEEP UNDERNEATH THE STARS, SLOWLY REALIZING THAT THE WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN KIND, A GLIMMER OF HOPE IN THE DARK AND THE WAY YOU ALWAYS SMILE, EVEN THOUGH YOU’VE NEVER FELT MORE ALONE THAN YOU DO RIGHT NOW. ). Some people say they’re the spitting image of ( MING XI ), but I’ve never heard of them. 

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS.

Cho was born in Kinsale, Ireland, to a muggle father and a witch mother. They divorced when Cho was four years old, but remained on amicable terms, for Cho’s sake.

Her parents originally came from China, but they came to the UK during the 1960s as children (along with Cho’s grandparents) due to the economic regression and the famine that took place. Cho has visited her parents’ birth place a couple of times, but she has never lived there herself. Cho’s parents also never met while living in China.

They lived in a small cottage in the middle of the town. Her father was a shopkeeper, selling herbs, antique books and candles to the locals. Her mother was a mediwitch as well as a registered nurse, and tended to both the muggles and the wizards of their little town.

Cho is an only child, technically, but her mother was in the habit of taking in foster kids when Cho was growing up, so their house was always full. Cho considered and considers some of the ones that stuck around for longer periods to be her siblings, and refer to them as her sisters and brothers. If anyone asks if she has any siblings, she will say yes.

She spent a lot of time playing Quidditch growing up, and was always careless, reckless. Bruised knees, scratched skin and black eyes were common occurrences. Cho was always ‘one of the boys’, and was eager to prove herself. Often a little too much. She’d push herself too far, and have to run home to her mother, to get stitched up.

HOGWARTS YEARS.

She shows up at Hogwarts and gets immediately sorted into Ravenclaw. No one in her near vicinity is surprised. It makes sense, and she’s relieved. Cho likes when she can make sense of things, when she can understand. When things add up.

But the truth is, Cho would have done just as well in any other house, like  a true chameleon. 

During her second year at the school, she joined the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, as their seeker. From that moment, she lived and breathed Quidditch. It was her lifeblood, the thing that motivated her. She constantly pushed herself harder than she ought to, and kept ending up in the hospital wing. But she played a good game.

Was very popular while at the school. Cho was known as easy going, and kind. She was sweet-natured, bright, optimistic, always smiling, never went looking for a fight, softness personified. So what if she was slowly becoming a walking, breathing stereotype of a girl? She was all too aware of that, too. But it was a comfortable thing to be ---- well liked, well protected, well looked after. 

She would change, during her fifth year at the school. It would be the best and worst year of her life ---- she’d fall in love, but she would also let other people to destroy her, piece by piece, little by little. 

So, Cedric Diggory was her first love ----- and like all first loves, it was intense, electric. Cho would have done anything for him.

But would never be allowed to. And his death left a hole in her heart, a sliver of ice in her soul. Some of that inherent kindness, that warmth that came so naturally to her, was extinguished that day. 

She went home for the summer, spent most of it in despair. Refused to leave the house. Not even Quidditch excited her, anymore.

But Cho Chang had always been a girl of determination and resolution -- so she picked up the pieces, tried to put herself back together. Went back to the school for the autumn. To find out that everything had changed.

The people who she had thought were her friends, the people who were supposed to have her back, be there for her ( like she had always been, for them ), barely seemed to notice her, anymore. They stopped saving her a seat in the cafeteria. Made plans without inviting her. Whispered behind her back ( ‘ why is she still crying, like all the time? ‘ ). Pretended not to see her when she waved at them from across the room. A few people remained in her corner, but her former girl gang (most likely NPCs) wanted little to do with her, now that she was such a downer.

So Cho sought comfort elsewhere. Tried to find new friends. Buried herself in books. Wondered where the hell her popularity went. 

So she entered a relationship with Harry Potter. Her feelings for him were chaotic, tumultuous. Unsorted. Throughout their short relationship, her feelings were clouded by guilt, by sadness, by the way other people whispered behind her back, confirming all her worst fears. 

Mostly, Cho just longed for closeness, for comfort. For hope. 

During her sixth year at the school, her grades and her Quidditch performance suffered terribly. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t concentrate. But she pulled through, by the skin of her teeth. 

She still joined Dumbledore’s Army, mostly for Cedric’s sake. And in the room of requirements, she found some of that hope she had been looking for, so desperately !!!!! She came alive again, little by little.

But then someone who had remained loyal to her, throughout everything, was thrown out. And everything was turned on its head once again.

So she came back for her seventh year, right? At this point, she was kind of bitter, and less trustful of people. She kept everyone at an arm’s length. She no longer cried, no longer woke up screaming from nightmares. So her old friends let her back in, as if nothing ever happened. As if Cho could ever forget, what they did to her.

That year, Cho was mostly just fueled by a silent rage. She had never played Quidditch as well as she did that year, and she had never been quite as ruthless on the court ( or off the court, for that matter.... ) as she was then.

She had learned something about loyalty the year before. It’s earned. So Cho didn’t feel particularly bad about backstabbing several of her classmates, that year. If they’re cheating on their exams, that’s hardly her fault. Or if she just happened to know who’s cheating on who, and somehow just happened to have that leaked to someone she knew couldn’t keep their mouths shut. But who would suspect Cho? She had always been a shoulder to cry on, a sweet voice, a warm hug.

Was kind of.... fucked up..... by the way she was frozen out during her sixth year at the school. Refused to cry at anything. Was always smiling and laughing, trying to emulate the old Cho, the trope that she had once been unable to shake, but was now desperate for the comfort of. 

AFTER HOGWARTS.

Cho graduated with good grades and with talent scouts from two major Quidditch teams showing interest in her and her talents. So on graduation day, she signed with Tutshill Tornadoes, and became their new aspiring seeker.

She moved into a flat in London and adopted two cats and a toad.

Spends a lot of time painting, and probably isn’t particularly good at it, but she finds it peaceful. It quiets her mind, makes her less tense.

Joined The Order on a whim. It’s not really the type of thing one should do on a whim, of course. But Cho has always had a bleeding heart, one that’s made of gold, and as the war became more and more imminent, Cho could hardly sit by and do nothing. So despite her reluctance towards using violence, Cho is now a member of The Order. 

PERSONALITY / PERSONAL STUFF.

Let’s talk about the duality of Cho Chang !!!! On one hand, she is so so soft, so sweet, so kind. One of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. But then there’s the other side, that probably shouldn’t be there. The determination that had once been selfless has been poisoned, become entirely selfish, entirely self serving. Cut throat. Ruthless. She has been thrown under the bus enough times to know how to do it right.

On the one hand, Cho is loyal to a fault. The ride or die kind of loyal. The would die for you if you asked me to, kind of loyal. But only if you return the favor. If not, she’s fickle. 

Knows that she has a pretty face and a sweet demeanor, and isn’t afraid to use it to get what she wants. 

Kind of in the bad habit of keeping people at an arm’s length these days. Reveals little information about herself that’s of any real importance and is always questioning other people and their motives, even if she technically knows, deep down, that she can trust them. A seed of distrust is rooted deeply within her.

So so brave, but also so so tired of having to be !!!

Has never killed anyone and suspects that it would ruin her, if she had to. Cho always tries to disarm, disarm, disarm. 

Her patronus is a swan and I love that for her !!!!!!

Hasn’t cried in almost a year !!!!! Just can’t !!!! Do it !!!!

Bad at visiting her parents but thinks of them a lot and sends them weekly owls !!!

Feels the most alive when she’s up in the skies, flying.

Would fight a man for her friends.

Mostly finds comfort in books and art. Finds equal comfort in poetry and pretty words as she does in facts and knowledge.

Very bisexual !!!!! Has also found that she prefers girls to boys, these days.

Kind of sarcastic? 

Pitch black humor. Gallow’s humor always.

Speaks with a slight Irish accent !!

CHARACTER INSPO.

sansa stark, izzie stevens, meredith grey, every song written by hozier tbh, taryn duarte, willow rosenberg, queenie goldstein, elena gilbert. 

SOME CONNECTIONS ( i’ll elaborate on this tomorrow ).

a roommate !!!!!

quidditch rivals???

old quidditch team mates!!!

a couple of best friends !!

ex girlfriends !!!

enemies !!!

ex friends !!!

#potter intro #injury tw #divorce tw #hospital tw #death tw #depression tw #bullying tw #✦ ° • ☆ ◣ ▽ ┊STUDY • remember: softness is a honey trap. it will tear you open and toxic the wound. ) #im too tired to proof read this but i want to !!! post !!! it !!!!

[muckkles]

furnacelayer replied to your post

“this is the week of me barfing up andromeda critiques at anyone who...”

please tell me why to not buy this game

here’s something wild: im not actually gonna tell u not to buy it? i think if u wanna play and make ur own opinion thats good. its also still a mass effect game so even if u just wanna play to see some of ur favorite aliens or get to know the new characters thats good. i also have friends who are enjoying the game more than i am so its rly a matter of personal preference/taste. 

that being said, heres a long long LONG list of my Andromeda Opinions, under a cut for major spoilers. some are big things and others might seem nitpicky to u. keep in mind that i havent finished the game yet! but i have completed a good bit of it and i think im close to finishing the main storyline. i may add more to this list as i play more or as i remember more so maybe check back in a couple days for edits?

im gonna start with a list of things i actually like about the game cuz thats shorter and less spoilery. its mostly aesthetic/minor things tbh:

its a pretty game even if some of the textures dont always load properly. nice landscapes and whatnot to look at

driving the nomad is an upgrade from the mako and very fun. ive never gotten stuck somewhere in my vehicle. jumping around is also fun and the height u jump makes sure its hard to get stuck as well

u can give the nomad a paint job!

i like learning about the angara’s history and culture (angara are the new aliens. jaal is an angara) and i like that half of them have australian accents

theres little things that help u get to kno ur crew better. they send u emails and theres a crew message board in the common room that they talk to each other on. theres also plenty of convos to overhear on ur ship and in ambient dialogue as ur out n about. also ur crew has a specified spot that u can find them at for cutscenes with them but other times youll find their hangout spot changes around the ship which is cool it makes them seem more like real ppl

drack is good and my grandpa

theres a good amount of female turians, salarians, and krogans hanging around. also a larger variety of skintones (cute purple salarians!!)

explicit confirmation in an overheard conversation that some asari use he/him and/or gender neutral pronouns. angara also apparently have a range of pronouns they use to identify themselves (although u dont hear them of course :/)

when u look out the windows of ur ship u actually see the planet ur orbiting which is a neat addition. also the layout of ur ship is one map so no more elevators!

if youve never played the first three mass effect games (And thus have no basis for comparison) i can see how it could be a decent and fun game on its own

ok now on to things i dislike. i guess i’ll divide it by category? less spoilery stuff first but youve been warned:

general glitches - im sure youve heard of some or probably most of these. im only going to list the ones ive personally experienced. some of them have been almost game breaking and not in a good/funny way. im mostly mad about them cuz im playing on ps4 and console games are supposed to be, in general, much less glitchy than pc versions. And Yet..

npcs will randomly appear out of nowhere or slide into place from off screen

often characters skin textures lag or dont fully load

suvi has been sitting in midair instead of standing in a couple cutscenes for me

twice when kallo has stood up theres just been a giant dent where his right ass cheek should be???

the classic bioware “ur character is drinking but the cup is missing or in a weird position” glitch. im actually sort of fond of this one

i dont think they developed animations specifically for the angaras’ skeletons cuz when they cross their arms it just.. doesnt work right. they cant reach. their hands just sort of phase through each other in the middle of their chest.

one time i entered the escape pod room on my ship and the door closed behind me and wouldnt reopen so i had to load a save

a couple times ive had to talk to ppl for quests but the person isnt there when i get there. its just a floating quest marker. so i have to reload the area/my save

theres a side mission i cant complete cuz im supposed to kill all the kett in this one area but one of them just disappeared out of existence before i killed it so. the quest is just still there unfinished and its driving me crazy. 

on a planet named havarl which is a jungle world theres a layer of darkness at the forest floor indicated by how when somewhere is rly dark ur flashlight will automatically go on. one time i emerged from an area and my frame rate fell dramatically and i started moving rly slowly. at the divide where the darkness starts there was just a textureless black sheet across the whole world that looked like solid ground but i could fall thru it to the real ground. i tried reloading the area and my save multiple times and it didnt fix. i thought my save was permanently broken but then i restarted my ps4 and that did the trick

i rly dont think these can be explained away as andromeda being an open world game cuz like dragon age inquisition was open world and made by the same company and has similar sized areas with very minimal glitching (on console). the only major one i can even think of that ive experienced with inq on console is the one where if u start dialogue with someone in the middle of a jump u start hovering in the falling animation after but that is resolved quickly by just jumping again (i believe. i do remember its not permanent) 

combat - its pretty typical of an open world over the shoulder shooter tbh. theres plenty of cover and enemies can flank you. theres more options for melee which is cool. nothing else of note on that front except ways they messed it up which include:

for some reasons bullets move rly slowly?? might be a glitch but i have a friend whos complained about this too and i rly noticed after she mentioned it to me

you can only “equip” three different powers at a time?? u can save ur fave combinations and switch between them but honestly it sucks

u cant order ur squadmates to perform certain powers or if u can i sure as fuck havent figured out how

ryder is always on the left side of the screen which means ur always facing right in cover and cant peer around corners on the left of boxes and things?? its rly annoying

this one is just personal preference. i happen to dislike it overall but i understand why other ppl ive talked to like it: you no longer are set in one class. you have the ability to change at will any time. you can also spec in every single biotic, tech, and combat power. pros: u can respec and experiment without starting a new game. if u care more about taking ur fave characters along than strategy, u dont have to worry as much. which brings me to cons: if u enjoy the aspect of picking ur squad to make up for ur characters weaknesses and use strategy in that sense, this kind of renders that unnecessary (unless u just choose to purposefully limit urself). this also means that every single ryder is technically a biotic which sucks storywise imo cuz some ppl will choose not to ever use their biotic powers and that? doesnt make sense to me from a story perspective. i like the idea of choosing whether or not ur character is born a biotic so that its integral to ur individual roleplay/story/etc 

dialogue/writing/general story stuff - hoo boy. suffice to say this game does not live up to the original trilogy and fails in some areas where they Tried to make it better. more details:

a lot of the dialogue just Does Not Flow in the way im used to from having convos as shepard. ryder is bad at transitioning topics 

speaking of the way ryder talks, how awkward they are is like painful. major secondhand embarrassment and not in an endearing way. like in a wincing at the dialogue way. 

you cant choose to not be an awkward buffoon?? there are very very rarely dialogue options that make u seem competent or confident which sucks if thats the kind of character u wanted to go for. ryder is also kind of a weenie. they dont have the complete respect of their crew (good example, the argument cutscene on the tempest after u recruit jaal)

90% of ur decisions are boiled down to two dialogue options the “logical” one and the “emotional” one altho sometimes they seem to be flip flopped?? even in the paragon/renegade system u often got a third more neutral/sarcastic dialogue option and in dragon age inquisition (i kno i kno different series but same company and dialogue wheel mechanic) there was always multiple ways to respond to things with different personalities/characteristics

ur decisions straight up dont seem to have any consequences. like worse than usual for a bioware game. theres one cutscene where two of ur crew are arguing and u have to pick a side. i expected to have to cajole the one i didnt pick into being my friend again after but nope they just went on talking to me like nothing had happened. 

theres a couple times where the game doesnt allow u to disapprove of something that seems like a rly bad idea/thing depending on how u want to roleplay?? spoiler example: peebee reanimates a remnant observer to fight for u and ur only two dialogue options are in support of it and ur not given the option to say ummm what the fuck were u thinking??

ur introduction to the angara ppl rly rly lacked the significance it should have had. like u discover a new species, land on their planet, are there for all of 5 mins, and then suddenly youve recruited one to ur crew and ur on ur way again. then if u go back the nexus literally no one says anything or makes any sort of big deal about the fact that u made first contact with a new species!! like wtf!! i think theres like one line of brief congrats from tann and thats it

speaking of that. theres a real lack of diversity among sentient/sapient life in this game. theres a handwavey reason for the quarians/volus/batarians/elcor/etc not being there (their ark was delayed) and then the game only gives u two new species and only one of them is peaceful. so overall its just humans, salarians, turians, asari, krogan, and angara. plus the violent enemy, the kett.

god the cutscenes leave so much to be desired. the other mass effect games were so cinematic and engaging in comparison. im sure youve seen ppl complain about the lack of facial expressions and body language in literally any character (most noticeable in humans tho) but like. i just started a new me3 playthrough a few days ago and the first 30 mins of that game are so much cooler than any cutscene ive seen in andromeda so far even with the worse graphics

the trans npc that just. deadnames herself out of nowhere. to u, a stranger

the fact that gil is the only fucking gay man in the game and a major part of his personal story involves his best friend who is a straight female fertility expert/doctor/whatever who apparently constantly guilt trips him about not having biological kids and i guess bioware didnt see how this could possibly be homophobic or just generally offensive

miscellaneous - just general pet peeves i guess:

why the fuck do all the asari in this game have the exact same face

the sexual dimorphism in the angara just. kills me. at least the women dont have boobs.

u can choose music for ur room on the tempest but it wont fucking keep ur music on so u have to turn it back on every time u enter

god the game just dumps so much shit at u at once at the beginning of the game. its very overwhelming and honestly i still barely kno what the fuck im doing

i liked the cc at first cuz i think my ryder is good looking but after listening to one of my friends i actually agree its very restricting for a roleplaying game in 2017. u can rly only adjust preexisting features rather than completely switch them out. this is somewhat fogiveable tho since theres the issue of ur twin and parents having to look like u

personally i feel like peebee is very annoying which is a major disappointment cuz im rly gay for her whole aesthetic

the game is supposed to be all about exploration but two of the main worlds u explore are just a desert world and an ice world so. not much to see tbh. i will say that i had a lot of fun exploring and traversing habitat 7 (as brief as that is), havarl, and kandara so far tho. theyre the ones that actually feel alien but habitat 7 and havarl have relatively small maps

bioware decided to only create like 6? maybe? i havent counted but around that many different alien animal species to populate the worlds and be predators and theyre the Same on every fuckign planet even tho theyre all in different solar systems. i would have preferred it if there were even just like 2-3 animals that were unique to each planet cuz at least that makes sense.

have i said ryder is a weenie and a buffoon already

why can i still not kiss any salarians or krogans. bioware im comin for u

#reply reply #meggie speaks #furnacelayer

[thegeminisage]

TODAY’S ZELDABLOGGING, which has ENDGAME SPOILERS (yes i beat it):

all right i got about ~3 hours to get my shield and beat zelda lets fucking do this

the temple of time music is breaking my heart

this is one place where i'm mostly ok with them not using a classic tune for it tbh

like this music has so much grief and tranquility

i used to think the plateau was SO huge and really it's almost miniscule

i know it's a bit of a waste of time but i'm making the final trek on foot, no fast travel, temple of time to the castle

So Many Guardians

i can fight them now but only if theyre in the right place too close or far away and i cant do it

on a side note: yesterday (?) i found a beautiful pink spring i took many pictures of

today i saw that glowing spot on the map and realized i'd never figured out what it was!

dropped a pin bc i was curious, and it's the pink spring

temptation to warp over, check it out, and warp back: astronomical

but i'm on both a mission and a time limit, so it'll have to wait

ok. ok. im Here. its Time. lets go. shield first. that is My Shield, and the stalnox Cannot have it

there's a door i can't figure out how to open :/

ah, i see the stalnox

but i want that door!

google isn't helping me so i guess i have to leave it??

ok, all abilities fully charged, 3 fairies, plenty of food. i can do this. i almost killed one by accident once. that is MY SHIELD.

oh my god its got SWORDS stuck all in it jesus FUCK

my first shot did a lot of damage! but im wearing the atk+ armor which i can't keep on, it's a glass cannon

oh my god that was so EASY?

i kicked its ASS LMAO

YESSSS THERES MY SHIELD OH YES

holy shit when my swoprd strikes something in here it sounds like cannon fire! steady glowing too

i don't think there's one right way to go here so i'm gonna try to explore as much as i can

i've been spoiled by the fact that zelda has a diary laying out somehwere so i wanna find it for myself

ohhh the remains of the red carpet in here

i'm actually next to the tower i climed before, apparently i was just shy of exploring all there was to see up there...i'll see if i can have another look

lol i decide that and it IMMEDIATELY begins with the lightning storm

i found it!!! oh god was this her bedroom ;_;

AAAH SHE TALKS ABOUT LINK

he's quiet and persostent and can't resist a good meal

and it talks about why he never speaks ;_;

I LOVE THIS HE HAS A PERSONALITY!!!!

omg she even talks about her mother ;_;

A WOMAN NOT OF THIS EARTH

the goddess hylia or was it fi?? oh my god.......

WORTH IT!!!

found the guard chambers ;_; this all hurts my heart, so much was just Lost

oh my god no THE BLOOD MOON...

huh. no cutscene here

honestly fighting my way thru moblins in hyrule castle...haha man

ohhhh the library ): i bet zelda loved it here

oh my god they even had docks under the castle!!!

oh NO i found the king's journal

he hated being cruel to her and was gonna be kind when she got back but instead the last time they really saw each other they were fighting!!!

still doesn't give him an excuse tbh but i can find a SLIVER of sympathy now

okay so........now i've explored all the insides. i go out?? i.......fight ?????

oooohh god im scared again ))):

oh shit oh Shit i found it oh god

im looking up a walkthru to read after the fight starts i dont need any more surprises

ZELDA?

OH MY GOD HE'S DISGUSTING HE'S SPIDER LIKE I AM SHRIEKING WHY IS IT ALWAYS SPIDERS

YEAAHH BOY HALF HEALTH FUCK YOU GANON

I HAVE COURAGE!!!!

ooh he has guardian weapons

ok yes walkthru

GOD LMAO if you dont free the divine beasts you have to fight the minibosses here

oh god this is gonna be tough

haha "guardian weapons will break your shield" NOT MY SHIELD

i mean yes it can break but its Highly durable and replacements can be made if it does

OH GOD HE'S GROSS HE'S BUGLIKE WHY WHY

GANON THE MAN WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER

i mean i know. they had us fight a manlike thing in ss AND tp but. i miss him

oooh down to 25%

YES FUCK THERE HE GOES

eeeew

im ready for phase 2 baby

there's gotta be one right there ALWAYS is

YES here we go

AAAH I GOT THE BOW OF LIGHT

oh no i dont have epona though just a different horse im sad i should have left her out

BUT HE LOOKS JUST LIKE GANON THAT I KNOW

OH MY GOD THE FINAL BOSS MUSIC IS THE TRAILER MUSIC

THE MAIN THEME AT LEAST

WE'RE ON HYRULE FIELD NEVER DID I SUSPECT THIS WOULD BE OUR BATTLEGROUND

I DID IT!!!!

ZELDA

BEAUTIFUL SWEET YOUNG BRAVE ZELDA WITH HER MUDSTAINED DRESS

oh my g o d

"may i ask, do you really remember me"

oh my god...oh my god

ANSWER HER?

AND NOW CREDITS? IM DYING

ohhh the credits showed a bit of everybody and despite myself when they played the trailer song and showed the old man/the plateau i welled up we've come so far

HEY THERE'S SHIGERU MIYAMOTO'S NAME HEYYYYYYYY

awww that was the last song of the trailer

A STINGER

THANK GOD

ohh my god 

IF THE SPIRITS OF THE CHAMPIONS AND THE OLD MAN WATCHING LINK AND ZELDA WEREN'T AN OOT NOD....

OH MY GOD ONE MORE SECOND AND ZELDA COULD HAVE MET EYES WITH HER FATHER

jesus christ, old man disappeared last too, my HEART

theyre gonna restore hyrule!! they're gonna travel together again!!

okay i GOTTA load my file and see what's what

awww it's the one i saved right before the battle i thought there was post-game content...?

it does have a little star next to it tho

ah well

that was.......incredible

and i cried

so there's that

man!!!!! im so, so glad

what a good game

honest crit: no, it wasn't PERFECT

i could have stood more classic tunes to punch me in the feels more often and give us more of that old #aesthetic since they changed SO much about everything else - at times it didn't even quite feel like a zelda game, though the reminders that it WAS were always heartbreaking and wonderful

also maybe this was just my playstyle but i feel like there could have been more than just the four dungeons since they were so short...i know the dungeon-y puzzle stuff was spread all around with koroks and shrines, but is One big dungeon too much to ask? even hyrule castle had 1000 ways you could have gotten through

could have stood a little more acknowledgement of who you were and what you were doing as the divine beasts started waking up? like from npcs and shit, not even for Glory or whatever but just because the story felt reeeeeeally spread out, even with the memories scattered everywhere

and again a little bias here but some of the battles once you began getting Up There were a little TOO fake-difficult...i saw white bokoblins in old old places so i know it has to do with You, not your location, and i could have lived w/o it tbh

would have loved some form of new game + or postgame content, but maybe i'm just sad bc i misunderstood a spoiler or w/e it was that happened

things i loved:

the music

the cinematics, holy shit

the voice acting

when they DID use classic tunes it was to INCREDIBLE effect, same with the castle style, the ruins, even the nostalgic armor

obviously the open world gameplay was delightful and addicting, i literally couldn't get enough

the final boss battle wasn't too hard but VERY climactic and wonderful, just difficult Enough - could have maybe been a BIT harder but then i did start with him at half health!!

the dungeons, while there weren't enough of them, were EXTREMELY cool, i felt DWARFED by those beasts, after i saw the first one i never called them jaegers again

actually kind of liked the weapon durability thing bc then i could just pick them up during combat when i was running low and steal them or fight with them, throw them, etc

did not like the BOW durability, all my bows broke VERY quickly, that and running out of arrows always was totally urgh...even with my weapons inventory upgraded i STILL couldn't hold all the cool ones the game threw at me, it needed to be like that for players that favored the bow - more of them that were OP, more arrows, etc

anyway i could go on and on but

i gotta sleep, and

i'm so happy zelda is free

it would have been so cool to have her as a companion in post-game, Somehow

or at least see her reunion with all those who missed her

or see link get his memories back

it ended a bit too soon but it was beautiful and i loved it

goodnight

#personal #loz blogging #botw spoilers

[bioshvcks]

da:i + trespasser dlc thoughts

i’m chiming in here three years late with my reactions to inquisition + trespasser after finishing it for the first time. if ur interested, i put it under the cut:

DA:I:

okay what....was that. no really. that game was endless and so BIG. i was constantly impressed by the lore & level of details but not by much else tbh

this game was too long. there was too much. there was no atmosphere except for “big” and “exhausting.” there was so many side quests (or even a few main quests) that could’ve been cut out for all the difference they made. so much of this game was a chore to get through, it ended up hindering my enjoyment of it and just made me frustrated & bored in a lot of parts.

so yeah, there’s really no replay value for me, bc it’s just way too long. it’s kinda disappointing.

i don’t want this to be all critcism - i thought the characters were good - cassandra & dorian were two of my personal faves, but once again the interpersonal relationships between the npc’s were still a lot of fun - varric & cassandra were so much fun, KREM AND IRON BULL, also surprising friendships like sera and blackwall which were rlly sweet

i never felt that connected to my inquisitor or to half the people in my party - there was a certain apathy present even when it was abt characters i cared about. everything was so vague when it came to the inquisitor, i know it’s what it’s about (How did they get to the breach, where did the mark come from, etc) but i didn’t feel too connected to my character unlike in the other two dragon age games and i don’t know why

also the final battle was super, SUPER, anti-climatic (the whole end was really) 

and i never really once ever cared about the plot or corypheus or any of that really

Okay and this is the part that gets it’s separate paragraph: THE ELVES. THE WARDENS. AND WORLD-BUILDING

again....what?? firstly, i played this game as a dalish elf. but.....everyone acted like i wasn’t dalish or even elven. it felt like this game wasn’t rlly made for a dalish elf player & it often disregarded that aspect altogether which was rlly frustrating bc i was looking forward to seeing how that would play out but ultimately....it didn’t. and honestly? just generally i’ve always felt like the politics w elves, and even b/w the chantry, templars & circle of magi (though that’s a whole other topic) has always been handled REALLY poorly. i think da:o came closest to really exploring it in a better way but in this game it was just all over place....

and that brings me to the wardens which i was actually mad about....it feels like EVERYTHING we’ve ever been told abt the wardens was disregarded or thrown under the bus and revamped as “unnecessary agents of chaos.” it was really bizarre & disappointing tbh and there was so much potential there but like.....rlly that’s what they went with? also i thought the wardens were heroes yet suddenly no one likes them??? ughghghgh

also WHERE IS MY GREY WARDEN

some of my “big” choices: 

romanced cullen - which i was unhappy with & regretted INSTANTLY i only did it bc i didn’t know who to go for. like i said i didn’t feel invested in too many characters, and i wish i’d gone with josephine, i didn’t rlly care about cullen. i think this game’s strength was friendships and i enjoyed those way more than any of the romances that were possible tbh

i didn’t leave hawke in the fade, i’m not a MONSTER

i was close friends w everyone, i didn’t have any falling out’s or rivalries

cassandra became divine, mostly bc the decision for leilana to be divine comes way, way later than cassandra. it definitely seemed like the game was pushing for cass, which i was happy with anyway

solas was a character who i could never fully take seriously all that much, but his friendship was really rewarding, way way more than i think a romance would’ve been

MORRIGAN: i let her drink from the well. i regretted it straight away, also i wanna say fuck this game for binding her to her mother after all that and everything she went through??? thank god solas killed her at the end there jfc

i disbanded the inquisition  /shrugs/

my last thought about the main game is that really.....this seemed like basically a prequel to the trespasser dlc. i heard so many people say that the dlc was basically the real ending of the game, which yeah i agree with. but honestly this game was...fine. it was average, but it was a lot of time & effort to put into an “average” game, and most of the praise i can offer is towards the obvious work put in & expansiveness of the game. i don’t think it worked well in the almost open-world-but-not-quite-style, it made all the side stuff meaningless bc the story is so linear, so you spend a lot of time running around for not even a little payoff (or only occasionally). 

TRESPASSER:

okay i’m gonna keep this way more short and sweet:

this was far better than the main game

it was less vague, more personal, the world stakes were still high, the lore was reduced & succinct & easier to take in, honestly the main game felt like it was just building up to this

(which is rlly disappointing tbh)

solas & my inquisitor were bff’s so when i found him it was.....horrifying. the tone of his voice, the way he talked, the way he justified the destruction he’s intent on he was absolutely he convinced he’s right. he absolves himself by “letting” people live and not directly killing them now bc they’ll die later. as a great man, jake peralta, once said:

“cool motive, still murder”

also is he a god? isn’t he? who knows

otherwise the party banter was good, dorian essentially giving the inquisitor his skype address was wonderful & broke my heart a little, taking a SPA with vivienne, etc etc, it was the most dragon age either this or the main game ever really felt

this all seems very negative but at the end of the day i am glad i got play & experience inquisition. not sure that i’ll ever do another playthrough but i did enjoy parts of it, i just think that it was too long for a game/story like this.

#dai #dragon age #mine #trespasser #i did it y'all....................i DID IT #this got so long but it's a long ass game so