Akium

Currently hyperfixating on ZENO. I post random stuff, including analyses and discussions. Header by @gavinom123 or @gavinom123-main PFP by @BEROCHOnnuy on twt

[akiumzeno]

going onto this tabitha and stella reconciling video and seeing these comments is cheesing me

[akiumzeno]

it's funny people saying "i got toxic yuri on my first playthrough" or "i fumbled tabitha on my first playthrough" when like i don't even know what i got bc i was a bitchass that didn't even decide to go to tabitha. (mayhaps did it bc i was a coward and was forced into distrusting tabitha bc i may or may have not kissed a certain someone)

although i think i probably delayed the inevitable bc who knows wtf will happen once my mc does see tabitha again

[akiumzeno]

glad to be validated by the devs lol

[confusedhostage]

Impasse Tabby in the farm dilemma: Who cares about all this! Stay out of it and let what happens happen! Do NOT do anything stupid and try and be a hero!

Meanwhile Burn Tabby:

[akiumzeno]

I finished playing Jackpot Crash Course: Chapter 1 and...

This is going to be a negative take, I'm sorry. I really wanted to like this game and I'm going to keep playing it, but after finishing the chapter, it was hard for me to feel positive about the game.

SPOILERS AHEAD

My big main reason for why I cannot feel positive after playing this game was solely because of the kind route. (Idk what's the proper name, but that's just what I am naming it.)

And my main gripe is how it straight up punishes you for your kindness and makes you feel like not only your selfless desires were punished, but your sheer choices. And it feels shitty and in a way that detriments the game rather than adds to it. Because a game can definitely have me feeling horrible and sad and it's fine because it's done well. But here, I feel cheated and not in a way that feels understandable.

Like, I thought the entire point of each group was that each reward would help you out later down the line so neither choice is bad per say and you see the value in all routes. An example of this would be Scarlet Hollow and how each character trait provides a save in each episode to give others a happier outcome. And no trait save feels objectively better than the other, just that what they provide is different.

But here, the reward for doing the good thing was gaining trust from Sandbag and Sailor, which I thought would then lead to them helping you later down the line. But then I'm forced to either kill myself and end my game entirely or kill them to keep the story going? What was the point of it? And I literally spent so much time trying to get an alternative route, thinking I did something wrong, but it turns out that was the inevitable outcome.

And if your response is "Well, they're living in a dystopian society where people constantly do crimes, of course kindness won't be rewarded" Then why develop a system to foster relationships with other characters with the presumable intention to form connections with the characters? If the message is for me to only look out for myself, then why bother with all the guilt-tripping and trying to even bother getting character cards if I can't even trust for the two people who has an exact path for getting them in the first chapter to just die in the exact same chapter? It just makes me retroactively wish I didn't go out of my way to play that route in particular and my time was better spent elsewhere. I genuinely feel like I'm being punished for devoting more time to playing the game.

Maybe people have different takes on this, and maybe I'm judging too quickly and there is later value. But for now, I just end up wishing there was extra time put into the game to create a different outcome, even if it means having to entirely rewrite the blackjack sequence because that would've made me feel like my choices and overall kindness would be rewarded, even if meant like Benny died or something. Or an outcome that felt more natural than just "Haha, fuck your kindness and wanting to actually help these people"

[northflowerowo]

i do wonder what stella's original plan was

[akiumzeno]

the commonality between me and my brother playing scarlet hollow is that we both picked our love interests just based on the most arbitrary shit

my choice is wayne and i just chose him bc he had achievements relating to phantom of the opera and i needed that toxic romance in my life and went for him

and my brother chose dr kelly bc he decided to shower and picked "think of someone special" and saw dr kelly was there and laughed and picked it as a joke. now he's serious about her

[akiumzeno]

How would you feel about a dating sim where you could pick your gender but it ended up locking you out of certain options because of love interests' sexuality?

I'd love it!

I wouldn't mind/don't care

No! I want every option to be available no matter what my gender is!

Other (Please comment)

Voting ended onMay 18

[pukicho]

I am the tsar of Tumblr now if you wanna do something you gotta ask me

[pukicho]

I am no longer the tsar or tumblr 

[blacktabbygames]

"the baby choice is soooooooo easy, they shouldn't have done a big decision where there's such an obviously correct—" shut.

[akiumzeno]

what would happen is the narrator from the stanley parable and the narrator from slay the princess swapped places

[xx--coded-colors--xx]

Wonderful question.

In this essay i will-

[akiumzeno]

do it

[akiumzeno]

what would happen is the narrator from the stanley parable and the narrator from slay the princess swapped places

[agirlking]

I wonder if Wayne's true form looks similar to a dendrogaster?

[akiumzeno]

that freeze frame with the entity and doll enoch reminds me of the veins of a leaf

but if i had to guess, i imagine he looks like the wild in stp

[bridge-arsonist]

I've been seeing some people say that Stella doesn't really know Tabitha/know how to handle Tabitha, and, having just replayed both the toxic Yuri and Stellamance variations of the confrontation, I can now confidently say that is not the case. Because honestly, it is an art, the way Stella is able to easily and effortlessly shut Tabitha down.

Tabitha is so good at gaslighting, putting her walls up, and pushing people away, but Stella manages to put an end to all that crap with a beautiful efficiency. Take this interaction, for example, in Stellamance.

MC (With Booksmart): " We're just stating the facts, Tabitha. Why does it upset you so much if you have nothing to hide?" Tabitha: "Because I'm a private person! I know that's a foreign concept to the two of you, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped acting like that makes me some kind of monster. Stella: "We never said it did! You can't keep putting words in our mouths so you can justify being angry with us. We're friends, Tabby. MC is family. If you can't tell us what's going on, who can you tell?" Tabitha: "I don't need to tell anyone." Stella laughs. Tabitha: "Hey. This isn't funny. You came in here to interrogate me, it's not funny!"

Stella: "Yes, it is. I know you, Tabby, I know this whole 'upset cat' routine. It's never worked on me. Now come on, let's talk. For real this time."

Tabitha tries to put her walls up again, and twist the our and Stella's words in order to put distance and establish an air of hostility between them. In response, Stella immediately calls her out on doing just this and refuses to engage—she laughs off Tabitha's attempt at being hostile and doesn't take her seriously. Every attempt Tabitha makes to re-assert control is shut down.

For all that can be said about her blindness to Tabitha's faults, let it never be said that she doesn't know Tabitha. When she's not emotionally vulnerable (such as in the lead up to toxic yuri), Stella is actually exceptionally good at navigating Tabitha's bullshit, and not afraid to call her out on engaging in obviously manipulative or self-destructive behavior (as shown in the snippet above).

Stella: "You know being a Scarlet hasn't been all good, Tabby. You're always sulking around, talking about how hard it is to keep the whole town going the way you do..." Tabitha: "Sulking?! I don't sulk! I'm just... tired! I don't need your pity, that's not going to change anything. I... I just need to get this week over with. I need everything to work out, then things will go back to normal, and people will stop barging into my office to accuse me of... whatever you were going to accuse me of." Stella: "Tabby... we're not attacking you. I'm your friend. MC is family. If you keep pushing us away... are you going to have anyone left?"

This is again showcasing how Stella is able to do something that we are actually unable to do ourself for the most part—which is calling Tabitha out on her hostility being a method of pushing us away. We are able to push back against Tabitha's hostility (which is actually very good for our relationship), but Stella is able to go a step further than this by specifically calling out how Tabitha is trying to push us away and just how detrimental this could be for her.

Stella is very good at shutting Tabitha down—the real reason the Stellamance version of this confrontation has worse outcomes by default doesn't lie in Stella being bad as pleading her case, but in the fact that Tabitha fears you've turned her only friend against her. That's what does you in. Not Stella's handling of the situation. Not your inability to get a word in edgewise. The fact that, as far as Tabitha is aware, the day after getting together with you is when even Stella has turned against her. Because she can't handle having the last supportive person in her life give up on her too, and with you there, she's got someone to blame.

In conclusion: Stella is a very good tabbymaxxer and we should all give her her flowers. MC was the dead weight there, not her. Give her a second or two and just a little more emotional stability and she could've had that woman in tears, I tell you.

[akiumzeno]

i'm not sure how much i really take to that the mc is a deadweight and stella could've got shit done. because the truth of the matter is, stella makes things EXTREMELY HARD to reconcile with tabitha on our end. maybe the thing is that both the mc and stella can break down tabitha, but they thrive alone than with each other. because otherwise, the mc is walking on a razor's edge because stella has the advantage of not being the one at risk and having a history with tabitha.

and it kinda needs to be said but stella is so concerned on trying to prove tabitha is innocent and keep her mental image of her that she completely neglects concern for the mc and what might happen to them. like the mc will literally get arrested if they don't have the highest relationship with tabitha they possibly can. whereas the mc just by themselves often has the capacity to be much more calculated and calm by themselves because of the present danger and can succeed in lower relationship levels than they can with stella present.

and in toxic yuri, stella's not just compliant but straight up enabling what tabitha is doing. and i'm not going to say she's completely evil for this, she's likely convincing herself it's for the good of the town. but it still shows a lack of concern for what happens to the mc.

i'm not going to throw out the idea that stella could've broken down tabitha if given the chance to do it by herself and actually have the motive to do so but as of now, i'm not betting on relying on it

[akiumzeno]

it's funny people saying "i got toxic yuri on my first playthrough" or "i fumbled tabitha on my first playthrough" when like i don't even know what i got bc i was a bitchass that didn't even decide to go to tabitha. (mayhaps did it bc i was a coward and was forced into distrusting tabitha bc i may or may have not kissed a certain someone)

although i think i probably delayed the inevitable bc who knows wtf will happen once my mc does see tabitha again

[akiumzeno]

my blog is 5 years old

happy bday to my blog

[akiumzeno]

also something i wanna contribute to the scarlet hollow fandom that i didnt see anyone else talking about (yet)

CHAPTER 5 SPOILERS

but while my brother was playing his file in scarlet hollow, when he got to the farms and saw the entire situation with the parasite pumpkin baby, he immediately drew comparisons to aborting a child when it risks the mother's life

just putting that out there

[grouchythefish]

It's finally done! My Scarlet Hollow character profile template!

The idea with this was to make a template that I could apply to any MC by just showing and hiding layers (302 layers to be precise) I tried to represent as many things visually as possible to make it so this wasn't just a list of choices and more of a visual representation of each MC based on the journal in the game.

If anyone wants to use this, I made a png version or if you want to join me in the weeds you can download the psd here (as well as a png of all the in memoriams!). I hope you like it!