Mine often end up on the beach

But that's usually because I walk out into the water

And then I wake up because I'm physically holding my breath while dreaming about being underwater

Honestly not sure if I hold my breath because I'm dreaming about being underwater, or dreaming about being underwater because I can't breathe

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I've been playing Danganronpa the past week because I picked it up three years ago on sale and never had the time to touch it, and already find myself in a weird place with it. I got through what I later learned is THE controversial case in all the series, and it left such a sour taste in my mouth that I had to go see what popular opinion is. Now, I find myself wanting to keep going solely because I found a series of memes about the first game and don't want to outright spoil myself since Danganronpa is closer to a true blue murder mystery despite its perverse preoccupation with the "punishments" of the murderers.

Today's dream feature is:
The mythos of the robot apocalypse

Which is to say, the machine mythos that comes about during their own Ragnarok devoid of humanity but is attempting to explain their interpretation of the end times.

Hey all, I'd like to pick your collective brains for a moment

I'm working on a Dark Souls-esque fanfiction (basic premise: what if each of the four main RWBY girls was a Dark Souls boss?) and I can't help but visualize the whole affair as an actual game, pixel art and all

As a result, I keep imagining cutscene encounters, and various characters as NPCs, and it occurred to me that there's various types of NPCs-as-game-mechanics when I realized that the character with the photocamera (Velvet) could be the Save Game feature

So my question to you all is, what other types NPCs are there? Obviously we have shopkeepers, but beyond that I'm at a loss

I've never played any of the Dark Souls games (nor am I familiar with RWBY, for that matter) so I can't speak specifically to that, but if you are talking about NPCs in video games in general, here are the ones that jump to my mind.

Quest-givers - NPCs who exist primarily or in part to give the player their next task or series of tasks. Obviously, this is a mechanic designed to move the game forward or, in the case of side quests, to advance the character's personal story or stats.

Trainers - Some NPCs exist to help train the player, or grant them new skills or abilities. Often, such training needs to be earned, sometimes just by finding the trainer, but sometimes by performing a task (or several tasks) for them.

Reference Librarian - Okay, I'm being flippant. But there are NPCs who exist solely to give information to the player, be it pertinent details or ambient lore. Sometimes it is just directions.

Escorts - NPCs that need protecting during the frequently-loathed escort quests. They primarily exist to annoy you and create a different sort of challenge largely divorced from the player's abilities.

Companions - NPCs who are, often temporarily, there to assist you. Mechanically, this is often used to help the player through a more-than-usually difficult spot in a game, or to allow for some unique puzzle opportunities (such as needing companions to stand on a switch or something).

Morality Police - Sometimes, NPCs exist in a game purely to be witnesses and prevent players from committing crimes with utter, reckless abandon. These can serve to give people a crime rating, or lower their reputation, or just to provide some degree of emersion.

I'm sure there are others, but these are what come to mind. I don't know if any of that is helpful, as I know you know all of that, and they're not all mechanics related, but hopefully there is something useful there.

My understanding of Souls games is that they're usually fairly NPC-sparse? At least compared to your average JRPG, to up the melancholy. But I don't know anything FromSoft too well so I'll just go with major archetypes.

The "Guide" or "anchor" NPC. This is the NPC, usually a unique and plot-relevant one, who the player is expected to bond with and who often keeps the player on their quest. Usually relevant right at the start of the game, and often but not always the whole way through. I know this one is a FromSoft staple via osmosis, but personally I end up thinking of Sister Death in The Void or Dieonarra in Planescape: Torment, who are ironically two of the ones that don't really stick around. GLaDOS could also count in Portal 2 on the opposite end of the spectrum, seeing how she's with you for a whole huge arc of the game. Perhaps the most core execution would be Elena in Pandora's Tower, an NPC who is (pretty much) always at home base and who the technical motivation of the quest revolves around, but who doesn't fight alongside you as a companion or party member.

the "Old Man" NPC (does not have to be elderly or male) who gives cryptic yet true/helpful advice. You know, the NPC that's supposed to keep you from running to GameFAQs (they still a thing?) but sometimes sends you there to interpret the BS. Usually totally plot-irrelevant. Obviously flows from the Old Men from Zelda 1.

The Treacherous Friend. If you've got NPC followers or party members, chances are that either one of them is going to be the "lovable traitor" archetype (where they have good reason for the eventual backstabbing and will probably be forgiven. See: Yuffie in FFVII, kinda Morte in Torment) or a character who SEEMS like they should be a playable assist but who isn't is revealed to not have been playable because they're actually evil (and will NOT be redeemed and recruited)

I'll see if I can come up with more later.

For full disclosure, in a Fromsoft game, this is obligatorily a character named Patches.

Oh, yeah, that's a thing that's become rather rare over time -- or maybe I'm just not playing the types of games to feature them. Technically, this type of NPC tend to feature prominently in Soulsborne games (3 out of 5 of the From Software games, at least), though I'm not sure whether I'd utilize it mostly due to my vision being a short 4-level game where each playable character takes a different route -- I kind of plan to weave a purposefully-confusing narrative where each protagonist is going through these four areas at the same time and crossing each others' paths, letting the reader piece together the exact order of events.


I appreciate your thoroughness but this is just a normal side-character

I'm being glib, but yeah, a lot of game NPCs tend to just be, like, incidental characters either involved in the story or the world/location, and aren't some sort of mutual agreement with the player that they're just there to spice up a menu. A player doesn't need to talk to an NPC to level-up, but it's more immersive than going into a menu (engagement level can vary since I love me a good sphere grid)


Well I mean, full disclosure I decided to work with only the first two seasons of RWBY so I have a grand total of 35 characters to work with at a stretch, 4 of which are the protagonists, 4 are the major bosses, 3 I've definitively slated for being mini-bosses of sorts and another 3 that could well be, and 2 that I think should be Sir-Not-Appearing-in-This-Film because someone has to be the dead god(s). So that leaves maybe 16 characters if I want to stretch the definition, since some of these are nothing more than a name and model with maybe two lines of dialogue.


In my experience this is every From Soft NPC


Okay, but to be fair, Patches tends to be one of the least evil people in the setting. Most characters in Soulsborne games are like, willing to violate the Geneva convention 7,000 times over and send the entire rest of the world into an apocalypse for their schemes. Patches just kinda eeks out his living, even if it a little underhanded.

Is it... Odd to dream of a place that doesn't exist, but with consistent details across multiple dreams?
I ask, in part, because this time there was a name that came up: Pragway.

I have no idea, but that's a very good question. It makes me wonder where that name came from.

It's the fourth time it's generated in my dreams and there are certain locations and details that have persisted from dream to dream, enough so that my conscious mind noted them.
It should also be noted, as was true of my last dream commentary... There was a shopping mall involved.

As to the name, that's a genuine mystery. Digging in Google turns up nothing except a European tour agency and an insistence I must mean Paraguay.

In my experience, no. I've visited maybe 5 places multiple times in my dreams, with at least one of which being detailed enough (or revisited enough times) that I can recall it to memory even now. None of them have had place names, tho.

Though, I do believe I once talked about a dream which I woke up nearly in tears over, which had a named character — Narawa — which I wrote down because I wanted to turn it into a written story. I should maybe go dig that up again, try cutting my teeth on that since I feel so out of practice writing.

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Speaking of writing, I sat down the other day to pet the plot bunny some more and have a bit more of a structure for my four protagonists and their four boss encounters each, though it got me thinking about types of bosses. I know most everyone here can't help me match RWBY characters to boss types (except maybe TPMan? do they still drop by?), but in lieu of that, what are people's standout boss types that they enjoy and/or detest?

Puzzle bosses are usually my favorite by design, probably because I grew up with the Legend of Zelda series (in some fashion at least; it was the Capcom LoZ series, which were basically nothing like the main series). I especially like it when they're juxtaposed with other non-puzzle bosses in the same game -- like the Bed of Chaos is my favorite Dark Souls 1 boss, even if the jump involved is kinda not-goodTM. It helps that a lot of puzzle bosses in games that I play tend to be gigantic setpiece bosses like the Jhen Morhan in Monster Hunter, which makes them a lot more memorable. I've basically been told I'd like Demons' Souls more then Dark Souls for this reason.

I'm not unfond of Bosses where footing is important -- the kind where platforms fade or rotate or something, forcing you to constantly move. I'm slightly less fond of those where the arena is more of a hazard than the boss, but I'm generally more forgiving of those than the kind of stat/style check bosses that are specifically designed to counter certain builds -- like being the one boss immune to the status effect you've sunk all your points into kinda thing.

Welp...
The Vatican has introduced a chibi anime girl as their mascot for the year 2025.
Her name is Luce.


I'm torn between just being facetious about it and actually thinking it's weird.

I've had a few. A shop or workplace that departs from reality, but consistently across dreams.


I dip in and out. I'm way behind on RWBY though.

I had to look that up and, uh... that explains something I saw browsing the front page of a certain lascivious website recently...


For my purposes, that's fine; I'm restricting myself to Volumes 1-2 only because that's when it feels this kind of idea had the most potential to flourish. Also because there were only 40 total characters even if I include non-characters like the dog and the old man that they lifted from Pokémon.

I think I've accounted for all the characters at this point, actually, and I'm mostly trying to establish in what order and in what arenas the 28 fights will happen in. I've got a general idea, but there's some intricacies that keep forcing me to re-think my encounter/chapter order.

Basically, most all the adult characters are going to be made out to have been the gods of the setting, but the story takes place after they have long since died or departed, with the PCs/protagonists (team JNPR) coming in to help overthrow the Throne and start the world back up again. Well, more like conscripted by the fallen angel with the gift of prophecy, who has seen the way out of the cycle and acts as the in-universe explanation for revives (going by game logic) as well as the quest giver.

Besides my 4 Royals who will need to be killed by each PC once, I've also got a set of Loyalist encounters and Defenders, plus an endgame set of 4 additional encounters. Somehow I ended up with 4 shops that all make sense as becoming unavailable as the story progresses, plus some great wandering/recurring lore/hint giver NPC encounters. I also made sure to include the obligatory "summon" NPCs, though I'm currently unsure whom I'm placing in what encounter.

What has two thumbs and remembered they have friends knowledgeable in comics?

One of the projects I'm kinda chipping away at‡ is a kind of fusion fic taking HeroAca's story beats and adapting it to a different cast, with the main character's main power being speed instead of strength, and one thing I've been struggling with is wrapping my brain around how to properly challenge a speedster character.

Now, I already understand and have plans for said speedster's weaknesses (most notably the lack of a few required secondary powers early in the story), but that's a different matter than figuring out what kinds of powers an antagonist should have to properly challenge someone with super-speed. What little I've looked into The Flash tells me that like 50% of his villain encounters are simply other speedsters, which...

Marvel and DC have such huge casts and such a long legacy that it's difficult for an outsider to sift and parse, so I was hoping someone might have a bit of insight to share.

‡still in the planning stages honestly b/c I'm still catching up with HeroAca itself

Challenging a speedster requires basically 2 major aspects to pivot upon.
The first is the idea of planning and forethought, IE Intelligence. Even if a speedster is fast, their applied intelligence might not be in the realm of unraveling motivations or key mysteries, so the more occluded you can make the plans of their antagonists, the more it will be difficult for them to deal with and also give them a more demanding ticking clock to struggle against.

Building off that, another key advantage an antagonist can account for is positioning. Locations and situations where the speed cannot be used to the full effect or otherwise have physical limitations. In general, it actually irritates me that speedsters can stop on a dime and ignore the MASSIVE amounts of momentum built up. They also shouldn't be able to corner terribly well.

Lastly, a factor that most everyone ignores or hand waves is that speed is something that the individual can be built for, but that doesn't make other materials or individuals impervious to the physical effects of such speed.

Ah, that's actually good considering my "Deku" in this crossover/adaptation is the speedster, and like a core aspect of his character is having to rely on thinking his way out of situations instead of brute forcing them. That said, the setting I'm working with means a number of encounters are against monsters that probably won't be able to out-think my protagonist, so I may need to add an extra layer here.


That's like, the one thing I managed to figure out on my own, mainly because of the key battles against allies (e.g. Deku vs. Todoroki) that I wanted to adapt. Since then, I've also heard about the idea of simply running through rain or grass at high speeds being a problem. I'll have to see how much I want to rely on it because it would feel… repetitive? if the protagonist is literally running into walls too often.


To be fair, I think having a speedster's clothes all burn away every time they fight might not be a great idea . On a more serious note, I get where your coming from, as most every superpower has been given a hard look over the years to show the audience that normal physics means there would be consequences, if only for gag strips. I remember Cyborg 009 doing that specifically for its speedster when I was a kid, now that I think about it -- he picked up the elderly doctor to take him out of harm's way, but had to be told by the telepath, "hey, the doctor's just a human whose body can't withstand your extreme speed". Ooh, now that I think about it, that's an excellent vein to tap when I have to put the protagonist in the same kind of "protect the civilian" situation that we see Deku in multiple times throughout HeroAca.

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Meanwhile, what I'm currently watching alongside HeroAca (which I've finally gotten to season 7) is the first season of Queen's Blade, and Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer (AKA Hoshi No Samidare)

It was honestly a toss-up for me whether to try revisiting Queen's Blade or to rewatch Monster Musume, because while I did end up having a bad time overall with the latter, that was because I'd come in with much, much higher expectations, and I remember both the tits being very well-animated and the OP being a banger. I ended up deciding to go with the new experience, and it's been a bit of a trip so far. At least Exiled Virgin is better animated than Rebellion, which I started on, but it still suffers from basically being a hentai plot, and I can't help but be confounded by all the errors and weirdness in the show. At one point the main character ends up inside a pyramid but enters a chamber with an oculus (a round opening at the ceiling of a dome to let in sunlight). It's crazy.

I've honestly heard nothing but bad things about the anime adaptation of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, but it's all been about how bad the animation is, and I know how spoiled people are by the likes of Jujutsu Kaisen so I have my doubts it's that bad. I've only watched a few episodes so far because I'm wanting to compare it to the manga at the same time since I own it (one of my favorites), and one thing I never thought I'd say is that they took out the panty shots to the detriment of characterization. The male protagonist of Hoshi No Samidare is made out to be an anti-hero of sorts, only in on the "save the world" plot because the female protagonist whom he swears loyalty to is going to destroy the world herself, and he has so much trauma that he hates the world and would rather see it destroyed. To that end, they show him being a bit of a douche early on in the series by unabashedly looking up some skirts, and those are completely removed in the anime. Not only that, but there's a moment when a different character is made to look worse because they took a scene where he was supposed to playfully flip the female protagonist's skirt up and instead it looks like he groped her now. Overall, it's feeling like they ground a lot of the edges off, and I'm starting to worry about the characterization, but apart from the dog I'm not at all seeing the complaints about the animation. I've seen a LOT worse.

This actually gave me some thoughts on your speedster problem, if ones that would have to be brought in from the start.

We're kind of used to supers having all the invisible required secondary powers. Costume that's just as super as they are is just one of those. But what if they're lacking one, lacking the skill to use one well, or not totally lacking but just deficient in a few areas.

We're kind of used to this: the speedster runs, and they go from point A to point B real fast without any serious issues. But there are reasons that land speed records have usually been set in places like Bonneville, not the urban settings where most supers tend to operate. Any of these might not apply... but if any one of them does, that's a chink that you can exploit.


Let's set aside the garments for a bit and say, okay, you get a super costume. And you get at least enough required secondary that if you were to just run all out with nothing messing with you, you could run all-out and wouldn't self-destruct any more than a normal person pushing their limits of all-out sprinting.

But what if they're only as super-durable as needed for that? Just because you're able to run at speed X doesn't mean your arm can take the full force of throwing a running-start punch at that speed. You might not get fully physics'd like a generic human who was subject to the same kinds of forces and would be reduced to chunky salsa, but you could throw your arm out, tear a muscle, or even break a bone depending on just how far that durability superpower is lagging. This would mean having to get creative to take out bad guys.

You'd also be much more worried about crashing, which segues me into the next possibility, what if your reaction speed isn't 100% perfect. If your ability to handle changing situations is more similar to that of a normal human driving at 100mph, which is to say that it might be on top of you before you can react to it properly. A turn, a surprise, or even an unexpected clothesline could be a huge hazard, and in a cluttered environment like the city, might make the speedster think twice about giving 100%. It would also mean that a bad guy with a plotting or scheming band superpower (Charles Atlas style or legit supernatural) could set traps and those traps could work.

Third, there's inertia. This is one where, while I don't know a lot about comic book supers because I've touched barely any of the genre first-hand, I feel like you do get differences in speedsters. Some can pull the "flash step" gimmick where they can move short distances at max speed and stop on a dime, letting them dodge, bob and weave, or "teleport" behind you at super speed. Others can't -- they're subject to inertia and even if they don't need much of a warm up to hit their stride, they do need space and time in order to stop.

And of course, if we're talking inertia, there's the side effects. A lot of the time when you see a speedster in fiction, if it's less serious, they get the "blur and woosh of wind" treatment. But you could also go the other way and make their power both more impressive and more of a PITA to use. So you can run faster than the speed of sound? Good for you! And you even may be durable enough to be able to survive stopping at least moderately suddenly at that speed. But that's not going to do much for the downed powerlines you happened to catch, the potholes torn in the pavement by your footsteps with that kind of force, or the countless windows shattered by the all-too-close shockwave if you run down a city street. Again, this is something that convinces the character to possibly put restrictions on themselves, and consider if they can or should use their powers to the fullest extent despite the collateral damage. Hesitation can then be exploited, especially by antagonists who know how to make the environment more problematic.

All of these serve to make "All out" not just something the hero can do until and unless it's dramatically appropriate or sufficiently necessary. They can struggle through layers of action at less than full throttle, still being fast and impressive for it, but also straining over how much they can really use. And then when the stakes are highest, you can pull out the full force use of their powers and make that one moment really impressive. As long as they feel afraid or concerned about being limited rather than smug that they've got an ace in their pockets, it will still feel like a challenge.

Happy birthday, Luna!

I hope you have a marvelous day, and that you get to spend it more or less how you want to.

Congrats, Luna!