Taylor as Yuri. Dark and quiet on the outside, intense on the inside, a bit socially awkward. Knives.
Rachel as Natsuki. Might sound like a strange choice, but I’m thinking about the aversion to needlessly flowery language, the opinion that people are often stupid and the overall tsundere attitude.
Brian as the well-meaning and well-spoken but sometimes dense and clueless MC.
There are exactly six known characters in the game, so I guess by process of elimination, Alec gets stuck with the role of Natsuki’s shitty dad. That seems either very appropriate or very inappropriate given Alec’s relationship with his own dad.
Bentley was more of a bruiser than the other two dogs, with his front half adding up to almost twice the mass of the rear.
It made him weaker at the long distance leaps than any of the dogs I’d ridden thus far, but his powerful upper body also made him a strong climber.
Ooh, nice.
It’s pretty neat that Taylor is getting familiar enough with hellhound-riding to be taking note of their stats like this.
So is this something that’s been accounted for in the plan? Did they specifically go riding Bentley instead of Sirius in case they needed to climb buildings?
It also meant he had the raw strength to carry three of us and the pair of heavy metal boxes that we’d strapped to his sides.
Ahh, that would explain it.
Our progress wasn’t fast, but we did make our way up the side of the next building, Bentley’s claws digging into the windowsills as he slowly and methodically ascended.
Ah, I suppose the climbing part doesn’t hurt either.
From that building It was one more leap and a short climb to the roof of the tallest building in the area. I released my deathgrip on the chains and got the binoculars and walkie-talkie out.
And this is where I once again need to take a moment to process that “the tallest building in the area” is probably pretty damn tall by the standards I’m used to.
Fanart commentary time! Today’s theme: It’s hard to truly appreciate just how freaky Crawler looks before you’re sent a bunch of fan interpretations.
fatsmagoo: Like I was just saying and will likely repeat a lot in this post, Crawler looks freaky as hell and it’s hard to appreciate just how freaky he looks until you see art like this. I love it.
The rest of the Nine also look quite good here – especially Shatterbird with her majestic glass “wings” and Cherish with the most natural pose – but it’s undeniable (for me) that the super-detailed Crawler is the MVP of this one.
(I trust the five-year-olds that surely read this blog about a story that is in no way for kids will take care not to look at Siberian’s naughty bits.)
And then DerTodesbote is here to reinforce it with not one, not two, but three amazing pieces focused on this freak. The shading and details are fantastic, and I love how scary DerTodesbote made him look. 🙂
scarfgirl: I could see this one being used in heraldry. Man, screw lions and dragons, whoever puts this beast in their heraldic achievement is clearly the awesomest noble around.
Also scarfgirl: And there’s the more adorable, relaxed Crawler!
Overall, the style in this one is quite distinctive, with the cartoonish bobbleheads. I like it! Also, I appreciate the inclusion of Hack Job, though he himself seems less excited about it.
Gar-a-ash’s Crawler design reminds me a lot of a t-rex with too many limbs. I suppose that’s not an inappropriate comparison for him – he’s probably just as dangerous, if not more.
Turns out Crawler’s origin story is Jurassic Park.
I like the scribbly style of his surroundings, highlighting that the focus is on Crawler himself.
silentstranger: I feel like this style really highlights the monstrosity of the Nine, with the facial expressions. Even Bonesaw manages to not be adorable here, and that’s just blasphemy.
Still, though, that’s not really a bad thing. This is definitely an important side of the Nine, and it’s good to see that represented as well.
Pabel and Nine: Damn, Burnscar looks badass in this one. That’s a bit different
of a
design than I’ve usually seen, and it’s a really cool one.
All of them look really good – besides Burnscar, I particularly like the expression and hair on Siberian (conspicuously the only one here without a full-body shot for reasons I think I’ve got a good guess at), which is probably the most distinctively Pabel and Nine-ish part of this image.
Abyranss: You know, I think I’ll pass. What’s that, Shatterbird? You say I don’t have a choice? Dammit.
…oh my cod this piece is so adorable once you look a little closer.
We’ve got Crawler with an axolotl face, Burnscar being beautifully crazed (in a way that reminds me of someone), Cherish looking so done, Siberian chomping on a leg in possibly the cutest depiction of non-sexual cannibalism ever, Jack staring into the eyes of Oni Lee’s decapitated head like he’s gonna kiss it in front of an erupting volcano, Bonesaw, and Mannequin having a cute little drawn-on smile (probably done by Bonesaw). This is beautiful and I love it.
So yeah, that’s all the fanart I’ve got for now. This was a good batch!
krixwell-liveblogs: Trigger warnings for murder, depression and suicide. It’s a bit odd to have an easter egg like this in a super cute and innocent game like Doki Doki Literature Club, but hidden in the game files and encrypted with Base64, you can find this really good, dark short story. I’m sharing it on this […]
krixwell-liveblogs: 😮 (Go check out @wyblogging if you’re into Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty, Camp Camp, Steven Universe, Venture Bros and/or Doki Doki Literature Club!)
Trigger warnings for murder, depression and suicide. It’s a bit odd to have an easter egg like this in a super cute and innocent game like Doki Doki Literature Club, but hidden in the game files and encrypted with Base64, you can find this really good, dark short story. I’m sharing it on this blog […]
1. Coil is Animal-themed super-villain, who has underground base and he plans to take over the city, with help of quirky underlings.
2. Dragon is Armsmaster Canadian Girlfriend (TV tropes GirlfriendInCanada)
3. Flachette is a lesbian with asian ancestry, named Lily (Yuri (百合, “lily”)), who has power to pierce anything.
5. Undersiders represent most common fears: Grue – fear of darkness. Skitter – fear of spiders (and bugs in general). Bitch – fear of the dogs (also of giant monsters, more relevant to Earth Bet). Tattletale – fear of revealing of your secrets. Regent – fear of loosing control. Imp – fear of the unknown.
Hah, nice. Got some quality stealth jokes with #2 and #3 there – what with that trope being about fake girlfriends and “yuri” being a term for lesbian fiction.
(I think people were trying to make me realize that yuri joke before, but I’d been thinking of Doki Doki Literature Club a lot around then, so my mind went to the Doki Doki character Yuri first.)
…but yeah, I guess we might be about to delve into Dragon feeling like she can’t have a true relationship because she’s a computer program and no one will accept her if they find out what she is.
(I think that one person with (as of right now) two thousand, three hundred and forty-four hours of registered playtime in Doki Doki Literature Club might disagree.)
She didn’t know if she returned those feelings. Her programming suggested she could love, but she didn’t know how to recognize the feeling.
Ahh… that’s a sad, yet oddly relatable statement, depending on how you read the word “love”.
I think most of us have been there at some point with “is this how love feels, or am I fooling myself?” …right? Or is that just me?
Anything she read spoke of butterflies in one’s stomach, a rapid heartbeat, a feeling of electricity crackling on body contact. Biological things.
Yeah, we’re not very good at actually describing emotions in terms other than similes or bodily responses.
She could admit she was fond of him in a way she wasn’t fond of anyone else.
Good first step, that, whether it’s love or an intense friendship.
And again, is there that much difference?
She recognized that she was willing to overlook his faults in a way she shouldn’t.
True. He’s an arrogant criminal who took advantage of an Endbringer situation to make himself look good at the expense of lives, but Dragon doesn’t seem to really mind that.
I suppose that’s what happens when you make a human consciousness and emotions for an AI… it starts being able to act illogically.
Brian sighed, loudly. “Don’t turn your power on me.”
“Who says I am?”
Chancing a look at Bitch, I saw she was pacing back and forth, each set of paces short and restless. She didn’t seem to have calmed down any.
I’m not sure even believing you would really do that. Not quickly, anyway. And then there’s the way we know she acts towards you in the future…
I wasn’t feeling much better myself. I said as much, “All I want is for things to go back to the way they were.”
“It’s not that easy,” Brian replied. When I met his eyes, he looked away, his brow furrowing.
Taylor’s line feels like a callback to this one exchange between Sophia and Taylor in 9.6:
Shadow Stalker: “I guess everything’s back to normal for you freaks.” Skitter: “No…” Skitter: “…things are different now.”
It also reminds me of Doki Doki Literature Club, but that’s less relevant right now.
When had things been good? What point in time was I so eager to return to, where I hadn’t been wracked by guilt or nervousness? By the time I got over my fear of getting caught, I’d run away from home and cut ties with my dad. Then, before I could come to terms with that, I’d found out about Dinah, which had affected me more than anything else. I’d terrorized hostages, maimed a supervillain, hurt superheroes, but it was Dinah that left me lying awake at night, feeling helpless, feeling like I was the scum of the earth.
This is actually a good point. Besides, going back to “the way it was” technically includes going back to the situation where Taylor was an undercover hero or hiding the secret that she at one point was.
There’s no taking this back. And honestly, I feel like that’s a theme of Extermination that I didn’t really think enough about when I was back there: There’s no taking this back. Everything that happened in Extermination has consequences. Those deaths were final. Armmaster is probably going to prison for life. The city was wrecked and it’s gonna be a bitch to repair. The Undersiders were alerted to the potential traitor in their midst.
That’s how the reveal fits in, besides the general climactic feel of Arc 8. It fits in because like just about everything else that happened in that Arc, it changes everything and there’s no taking it back.
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