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Bestiary entries for Nymph Variants of Nymph Quest mod: 166/250. (84 left.) (When this hits zero, I'll at least get ready to upload some kind of Nymph Quest TEST on to the Steam Workshop... maybe work on TEST a little a day until I have a decent amount to at least make the claim that it's a meme mod.)
Explanation
Welcome to Westshore is a webnovel by Great Pikmin Fan/NeedsMoreDeepWater [That's me my handle is just in all lower case and one word because I was dumb when I made it], hosted on Fictionpress and Archive of Our Own.
Described as a "battle romcom", it covers the various adventures of Adam Whateverlastnamehe'llhave, a resident of the central countrysides of the massive Flyby County, USA, moving to a city following budget cuts to the hardware store chain he worked at. Or something along those lines. Adam sees moving over there as an opportunity to live life larger: He moves to Westshore, an enormous coastside city/possibly just county (in the sense that part of it touches the shortline, with it also extending out in to the ocean a good distance on both islands and underwater settlements) with tourist hotspots in every which direction. Adam quickly takes to his suburban living spot and befriends a handful of his neighbors, with one in particular — Jen Whateverherlastname — throwing a social gathering that convinces him to take the first steps in to also looking at the more urban, coastal side of town. After that, and meeting locals there who are friends of Jen (or, friends of friends), Adam eventually sets out to explore the "Rainbow Ring" that surrounds town — more fantastic locations in a series of smaller settlements, which on average have more monster-like people living there. However, Adam's quest to check out various things is not without struggles, as he usually bumps in to one a Jerkass that wants to take advantage of him, his friends, and/or his entire new home town. Cheifly of all is Charles Hislastnamemaybesomemoneyorgoldpun, the Fratbro-like freakishly superhuman son of the mayor who more-or-less rules the town with an iron fist.
Welcome to Westshore was deliberately written to be a contrast from Water's usual original story output. Feeling that he leaned too much on trying to force lengthy, serial narratives, he intentionally wanted something with a more episodic and comical bend to it, and took many ideas that were going to be in-line with the old version of Roy: Succubus Summoner (a "person of the week" sort of format, minus every chapter needing to slowly build to a showdown with an Arc Villain as the original plan was),
- Kinda.
The older plan for this was something much more down-to-earth. Like the first first idea that could be traced to this and not the general "Emazh in or bizarro Ed, Edd n Eddy meet elemental fairy people" thing, and a story I made a very rough draft of, was this thing where nine friends get together for a week. There'd be some very loose throwaway lines implying history but it wouldn't be followed up upon. Each chapter was on a different day of the week, they had these vacation plans and such for this big-ass party event thing. Trips to hot spots, watching a big film, that sort of thing.
I got stuck trying to come up with
At some point I figured that it would make more sense if the story that's meant to be serious and dramatic would also be the down-to-earth one, so I tweaked Biome Artists a little from what I had in mind to feel less like a "power fantasy harem" and be relatively more realistic — although absolutely did not morph to "just regular humans in more-or-less regular Earth", that is a story I could do but have no plans for now. (Right now the closest might be Living Twice, actually. Aside from the Thirty, everyone else is a regular human.) But I figured that every idea I had for "Party People" as "regular humans+some modification where these sort of poly games are more common" could also still work in a more outlandish setting. Just as long as I didn't make the characters too powerful. This lead to a weird thing where until I nailed the scaling, the characters are pretty much as strong as the plot needs them to be, with the two common rules being: Jen and Betsy are more powerful than any other love interest (at least generally), and Charles could kick Adam's ass in a one-on-one fight.
All Date-Tables
- Gender Flip: In the game, the player has the option to
Suburb
Yes they will have actual names come the full story I'm using their colors as a quick placeholder.
- Badass in Distress:
- Near the end of Part I, Charles sics a pair of kidnappers after him so that he doesn't release incriminating evidence (not putting together that this would just make Charles even more suspicious), intended to send him to a dungeon somewhere in North Westshore. Adam breaks out of their truck and wrecks it, but has the misfortune of doing so while it's going through the dump, so he has to navigate the harsh, flooded, polluted trash pit
- Character Development: Water's quick summary for Adam is that he "goes from being like Homer Simpson to being like Lisa Simpson". By the start, Adam is a rather distant and apathetic person who wasn't actually keen on making new friends in Westshore when he moved in, [...] He actually treated Jen and company almost like he treats regular randos
- Not a Contrasting Sequel Main Character because Biome Artists is unrelated to this story: He's meant to be an "opposite" to Zoap Bloodblade in the sense of being a protagonist of a polycule-centric story by Water that involves travelling a large-scale setting, both of them avoiding "typical" harem lead tropes but in different directions:
- Zoap is a pacifistic vegan who wants to pick the least violent possible resolution of any conflict and aims to be of the forgiving type, also striving to be an ideal hero. While Adam also prefers avoiding physical conflict, it's moreso because he just doesn't like getting beaten up and would really rather just spend time doing things he enjoys than playing a hero. He absolutely holds grudges against people and wastes no time telling anyone he hates to fuck off, things that would be unthinkable for Zoap unless he's seriously pushed by someone loathsome (which has only really happened with Zessima and Eansy). Adam is also a massive meat-eater, he loves going to grills
- Zoap is extremely devoted to his job and the only reason why he travels around the world is because said job involves it. Adam hates his job and will look for any excuse to cut corners with it,
- While both are associated with a wider range of colors than almost anyone else in the story (who typically have one or two colors, rarely three), Zoap's are generally light, warmer hues around the yellow range, while Adam is associated with darker blues and greens note .
- Seducing Zoap is extremely difficult, the only known characters being able to pull it off being Arime and Mansia, who have known him for years on a personal level and spent time analyzing how to get in his head. He is otherwise very capable of Ignoring Fanservice, politely turning down offers when being hit on, and keeping very chaste apart from his partners behind closed doors. While Adam can also keep his cool around casual attractive/revealing people surrounding him, the moment someone puts a bit of effort in to acting sexy, he's usually head over heels with them unless they act repulsive (Helion, ), are tied to someone he hates (pretty much the whole C-Gang), or have pushed one of his Berserk Buttons (). In the first three chapters alone, a fully clothed Betsy's sweet talk manages to get him to start considering some of her view points, when he had otherwise been rather firm in his ways of not doing that; then he falls for Cyan's flower shop ads; and Lime gets his attention hook, line, and sinker
- Zoap likes bureaucratic work and sees it as a sign of being able to get what he wants in a neat, organized manner [kinda like Hank Hill but this is one of the few things he and Hank have in common], and it's been suggested that the Biome Artists equivalent of the DMV is just a location he goes to as part of business as usual. (It helps that, because of his Biome Arts powers, he doesn't need a vehicle most of the time.) Adam really dislikes anything about forms, [...] He hates the DMV to the point where it's a Running Gag
- Zoap is The Heart of his team and the one usually calming the rest of Nucleus down. Adam is a Large Ham and usually the first of the main fourteen to flip out over a given situation, next to fellow hams (one of each of the three main areas) Yellow, Pink, and Lime.
- The way they interact with their closest "rivals". Zoap wants to like Arime, [...] Adam wants to hate Betsy, having been warned about her by his neighbors
- A major contrast between them is that their character arcs see them going in opposite directions. Zoap goes from trusting almost everybody and trying to "forgive and redeem" people even if it hurts him and they obviously take advantage of his generosity (chiefly with Zessima, who has and continues to abuse him), while Adam starts off very closed off and quickly learns to be empathetic with others. This comes to a head regarding the fates of major villains: Zoap kills Zessima in a quick-second decision in order to save Arime from a last-second attack, but soon comes to terms that he was just dealing the finishing blow to an asshole Beyond Redemption. Adam, on the other hand, saves Sarah from a fall that would even kill her (despite the Made of Iron status in the story and Sarah being superhumanly strong, it's made clear that with her polymetal machines disabled, even she wouldn't have been able to survive the fall from the sky), disproving her philosophy that humans are unchanging and apathetic. However, he doesn't forgive Sarah, and they soon fight in the
- Love Triangle: Type I dunno with Jen and Betsy. In addition to the usual poly shenanigans among the main leads, Betsy by far has the most tension with him as he likes her despite her critical lens
- The Ace: Nobody contests that she is the strongest fighter of at least the Neighborhood Quartet, if not the main central-city twelve, or even an overwhelming majority of the story's romances. Her main competition is Betsy, who while also being a main character, isn't allied with them until near the end of Part I. Jen is extremely fast, has super strength, can custom-make a sword from scratch that can carve through plenty of materials, and can even tank a nuclear waste-powered laser Breath Attack from Charles. Years before the story began, she and Betsy once tried to have a sparring match. This lasted five days and wound up creating a massive river valley near the south border of Westshore, which also ends up being where the final leg of the showdown with Sarah takes place. She is also intelligent with both book smarts and street smarts, acting as the guide
- Big Good: While Adam is the story's protagonist, Jen is the one keeping everything in check for most of the story, she's the designated "leader" with no contest whenever the main leads are considered a "team" fighting against something,
- Broken Ace:
- Establishing Character Moment: She is introduced in the first chapter while her three main friends are discussing the moving vans
- Would she be an Expy if she lacks Evelyn's hamminess and has that sort of stuff downplayed, I mean they'll have very similar roles at least at the beginning: Of Evelyn from Roy: Succubus Summoner. The cool, collected, cape-wearing Ace of the team
- My Greatest Failure: She blames herself on Adam's kidnapping and takes it hard, to the point where she's barely phased by Charles getting total control over Westshore and turning it to a chaotic Social Darwinist hellhole. Jen sets out to fight Charles with or without anyone else's help (the rest of the gang comes along and she doesn't try to stop them, but insists that she has to do something and must try to find Adam as soon as possible)
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- She's almost never mad at any of the other heroes and says that she always tries to at least hear out what a person opposing her believes in, even if she expects it to be complete nonsense. It highlights how much she's legitimately pissed at Betsy at the end of "Mural People" for unknowingly letting a queerphobic group grow in power in Westshore (and successfully ruin at least one establishment) when Jen gives a serious lecture on how she's disappointed Betsy didn't know any better. When Betsy asks what she could do to make up for her mistake, Jen firmly states "To be honest, what I'd really like is if you just completely dropped this crusade shit and stop trying to desexualize Westshore". They have known each other for years and Jen has never said anything like that to Betsy, or even swore at her. [This is very important but I kept forgetting to add it for several days:] While Jen does take this back and say that it would be wrong of her to actually try to stop Betsy
- If Jen is ever showing signs of fear at anything, it's a good sign that everyone allied with her should be terrified themselves. The main thing she fears is the idea of a vast cosmic predetermination weighing on her and
- Butt-Monkey: Betsy aside from before she joins the group, Yellow is the most likely to get caught in
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's comparatively brash and happy to get in to fights when next to the others in her circle (or even any of the initial rainbow twelve),
- Light 'em Up: The "light magic" representative of the core four suburb friends.
- Shock and Awe:
She runs a small flower shop with dreams of making it much larger, eventually even competing with the southern jungle
- Berserk Button:
- Beware the Nice Ones? While competing with Blue in seemingly being the most quiet-mannered of the suburb four, she's also one of the most manipulative. Chapter 2 has her, while putting up flyers in the heart of the city, [...] When she's genuinely angry, something rarer
- Decomposite Character: Both her and Green are based on aspects of Mindy Way from Roy, especially the old version. Cyan takes the nature-loving side of her and uses that as a
- Green Thumb: As the one of the Suburb Quartet representing nature thematically,
- Irony:
- A bustling urban city is one of the last settings one would normally expect to find a gardener who is always naked, but Cyan visits Downtown a lot and even goes there as early as Chapter 2note
- The Tease: Unlike every other main character, who usually has one designated "main" love interest that they generally prefer the company of and date more often than the othersnote , Cyan is comparatively more open and likes to either try to join in with dating pairs to be a trio (none of them mind this) or jump in one dating one when her usual partner isn't available for whatever reason.
- Badass Bookworm: Is very well-studied
- Casting a Shadow:
A fairly infamous suburban resident and waitress who is an activist trying to get Westshore to scale back on its open, free-love culture out of concerns of a safe and healthy environment. She has lived in the Westshore suburbs her whole life, longer than any of the other main leads in her district (who have all moved there from another location in Westshore at some point, or in Adam's case, from a different state completely)
- The Ace:
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: A major point of her character is that it seems like she'll be revealed to be a Jerkass at any moment in the early chapters, with the other main suburban residents talking about her ominously and
Downtown
A slightly ditzy
- Not Sure. Irony?: She considers herself a flirtmaster, and is actually pretty good at seducing others, but at the same time she is very vulnerable to being manipulated [...] In Chapter 2, this dynamic happens when Cyan is out in the city putting ads for her flower shop
Likes metalworking.
- Absurdly Sharp Blade:
- Rags to Riches: Downplayed on both accounts. She starts out living in the poor side of Downtown, being the contender for having the worst living conditions out of the main group. Come Part II with the economic boom Downtown has while the seaside sees a decline in
A (relatively) cautious
A small-name video game streamer
- Defeat Means Friendship: She makes her debut as the closest thing Chapter 2 has to an antagonist besides Helion, a rival to Orange that is only really "a companion" through means of her being friends with Jen. Yet
- Defrosting Ice Queen:
- Gamer Chick: She is not just a gamer, but a streamer, if a smaller-named one looking to rise in popularity. The sorts of archetypes and tropes associated with one are generally averted — notably, the story's male lead doesn't play video games that often, even compared to the other main members of the group (and Betsy, who also does play games), so he is immediately aware that should he try to compete with Purple, she would slaughter him in a game she has streamed daily for years. Since most of the main Westshorians are geeks in a sense and they do enjoy video games [yeah Adam/Terrance is kinda meant to be an "anti-harem protagonist" and one of those ways is that he's not really a nerd/super video game or anime-savvy],
Seaside
Adam's tour guide for the coastal west side of Downtown Westshore, a very energetic and adventurous [whatever her occupation would be. Thinking something involving transport would be something she'd like and could somewhat reasonably land] that lives in one of Pride Street's many apartments,
- Extra Digits: She has six fingers on each hand and possibly six toes on each foot I haven't decided yet. She refuses to let this define her, [...] Her full introduction in Chapter 3 is from Adam's point of view as she emerges from under the ocean near him, her hands under water most of the time; it takes her pointing out her hands for Adam to notice. Along with the more obvious reason why he wasn't looking there.
Lime: I have polydactyly! Six-finger handshake,
Adam: OH! I didn't even notice! I mean— I know if we were on land that would sound like a compliment, but—
Lime: You know I dressed like this knowing people would look this way, right? I'm used to people not staring at my digits. It's not to take attention off them or anything, I just kinda like being at the center of stuff. And maybe talking people in to going on schemes with me.
Adam: Shit I think I'm falling for it.
Lime: This beach is clothing-optional — well this entire city is. I wore this on purpose. Look, don't expect me to be ashamed of my digits. Or my body. I wanna control the room with this.
Adam: We're outside.
Lime: Think big. - Hidden Depths:
- She genuinely cares for Teal's issues, especially when it comes to the environment. In her "seaside tour" in Chapter 3, she takes a moment to give a serious speech about how she's aware of the signs of climate change on the forest, talking about the ria being formed from rising sea levels with accuracy [...] While she may seem like an irresponsible goofball who ignores Teal's warnings, she really does care for her
- Decomposite Character: Mindy from Roy is basically split between Cyan and her, Cyan taking the "nature person" traits, while she takes on the role of being the model who likes charging [...] However, neither of them have Mindy's art skills, which is subject of a few Mythology Gags.
- Defeat Means Friendship: As with Purple, she's initially antagonistic to the gang,
- Establishing Character Moment: She gives herself a rather grand entrance to a sand modelling contest at the beach, with her "sculpture" just being a wall that isn't even the largest wall ([???] creating a massive castle )
- Gag Censor: She's the introduction of the setting's technology to be able to project these sort of things in real life, [IDK I want to bring the Obfuscator Knights to this if I do decide to nix Depict Quest but I'm not sure how I'd go about it, ]
Lime's voice of reason and partner, possibly working at this ice cream shop in the boardwalk.
A comic book store
"Element" system/character associations have fifty different "hues". 48 are a standard spectrum, the RGB primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, and quinary colors. Then there's grayscale. And just to round things off evenly, there's this "offhue" that includes odder things like colorlessness (well here at least, for the Zenith Nymph/Biome Artists system colorless might be lumped in with the grayscale) and specific, weird shades of colors that aren't under their respective rainbow bits. And maybe stuff like super-light/dark shades of a couple colors. Offhue's weird, I'll just put off working with that for now. Each hue also has ten "shades" of like representing archetypes or something, a total of 500, and there'd be at least one character to represent each — most are bit characters, especially for the minute shades of the hues.
The thing with WTW though is that one of the "shades" is basically that, rather than being the color nearly all-over, the person in question looks generally like a regular human (or "saypant" from Biome Artists, who are basically humans with an inverted color scheme), varied different hair and skin colors, etc. But their eyes are of the associated hue. I want the team to have some members that aren't just entirely the color-elemental thing and while brainstorming that with the "offhue" group or thinking of just "extending" it past the 500 to have a handful "Token Humans" (but not really, here it's just a case of Our Humans Are Different). I'm like, "hell, just sacrifice a shade". And I could "make up for that" with some stuff about the "dichrome"/"two-color" groups. Specifically pairs involving the "Offhue" bunch. Anyway, the "human shade" includes all the main characters that have folders up there, except Adam. He's not part of the whole "symbolic partner hemospectrum-business". Since he's the central protagonist, or something like that. I've also been thinking that the primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, and grayscale "human shades" actually would look like humans, while the quinary and offhue ones will look like saypants (a bit confusing if I have Pink/Lime/Teal/Azure be expies of Team Joy since Team Joy were Perpendicular World residents, who were kinda like proto-saypants, down to having cyan blood), and with the "dichrome"... more on that below, but if both of the associated colors are the "human groups" (so, not quin or offhue), they'd just look like more humans, if both are quin/offhue they'd look like more saypants, but one half being a "human-resembling hue" and one being a "saypant-resembling hue" would... I don't know, could look like anything really.
Elizabeth "Betsy" Lovejoy is a main character of Welcome to Westshore and a dateable love interest in the video game version,
Character Information:
- Associated Color: Silver-Gray ()
- Also Known As:
- The Slate Hammer ("Sage Title")
- That Neighbor (Jen's Neighborhood Block)
- Jen's Intellectual Rival (Jen and her friends)
- The Gray One ([there'd be at least one character who refers to everyone by their associated color])
- That White Girl ()
- The Waitress (Cent [Really any one of the C-Gang I just picked a name at random])
- Brain-Ass (Charles)
- The Chick With the Ass (Helion)
- that fuJUKCKING TRAITOR HYPOCRATE ASSHOLE (Tiffany "Insa")
- inivincible jackass (Insa)
- CHRIST I LOST MY [minues fifty debuff] (Insa)
- that 5HIT-EATING [It's her! The specialist] PURITAN (Insa)
- (Insa)
- Dis[Honest man] Marge Simpson [Call me a killjoy. But I think that because this isn't to my taste, no one else should be able to enjoy it.] (Insa; she has a lot of colorful nicknames for her) (Webnovel only, don't want to mention The Simpsons in a paid product so it'd be changed or omitted in the hypothetical video game)
- Ms. Walking Lower Profits (Sarah Indigo)
- The Vriska Serket of Welcome to Westshore (NeedsMoreDeepWater)
- Favorite King of the Hill episode: "Joust Like a Woman"
Confirming by the way I might have Insa talk with broken grammer and just not follow capitalization, recent idea. ...I don't want her to come off as a Spamton ripoff but I really do like the idea of her spoken dialogue somehow breaking capitalization and grammer and such.
Date Information:
- Prerequisite:
- Complete Part II
- Complete the "Heart of Steel" questline
- Difficulty Rating:
- "Easy" option: 0 Stars
- "Challenge" option: 11 Stars/"DANGER"
- Layers: Shit like 30?
- Armor Helmet
- Armor Suit
- Reward: Hammer Trophy (Challenge Date)
Date
Betsy's date is unique in that she offers two options before starting the date, an "easy" one and a full "challenge". Picking the easy option drops the player to an empty Date Board with no targets, and Betsy's pinup already revealed in full, also counting as a free Diamond ranking and unlocking it. Picking the "challenge" however will begin a cutscene where she jumps through the roof of the first floor of her house and return in a full suit of armor,
The main gimmick of the fight is a heavy emphasis on parrying. Using a perfectly-timed charge attack (or a standard timed slash at the right moment for melee-based Sashes) is the only way to reflect certain attacks Betsy will perform, starting a brief minigame where she will also reflect them back, requiring another perfect-charge/parry. Successfully reflecting these back 3-5 times will speed up the battle by removing 3[?] of Betsy's layers at once
Betsy's attacks make use of every element, with her "non-elemental" attacks actually having a unique "element" (in terms of code, not story, similar to the Pollution "element") termed "Creation". These deal a base damage rate of five hearts, and have the unique property of the damage increasing for every Voidstellar Pin equipped, meaning that equipping all four will have them deal a whopping 25 hearts of damage, half of the maximum life bar of regular hearts. It is therefore highly unadvised to attempt to cheese the elemental moves by using all Voidstellar Pins; in addition to this, similar to other superbosses, Betsy's regular attacks all have a Scratch Damage effect which means that their damage absolutely cannot be negated and will do a bare minimum of one heart's worth of damage on contact, even to sets that otherwise grant immunity. This means that Voidstellar Pins will not prevent regular elemental damage and make her Creation attacks far more punishing. Betsy uses every single element on the elemental table except Void.
Phase 1
Betsy will always begin the Date by leaping to one of the top corners of the board and firing a large volley of arrow-shaped Creation bullets, in one of seven randomly selected predetermined patterns. In the middle of this, she will fire an exceptionally large shot that can either be parried or dodged
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Phase 5 (1 Layer)
The first time reaching this phase, a short dialogue snippet will play out where Adam mentions that he didn't notice she still has socks. Betsy makes a "Knock my socks off" pun, leaps in the air, teleports out to the Asteroid Belt, and hurls a colossal meteor towards Earth, using Chartreuse teleportation to also warp the meteor back to Earth. This starts a minigame where Adam himself also leaps and teleports to the meteor, and must destroy it by hitting various targets. Once the meteor is blown up, Adam breaks through and finds Betsy already charging a supreme energy ball. This starts the only "mandatory" parry session, where the energy ball must be parried ten times. Successfully doing so will remove her socks and end the duel. Failing will hit Adam for a base 15 hearts of damage, and Betsy will charge up another ball, restarting the process. However, getting hit three times will finally tire out Betsy, and any regular attack will finish the fight. This is only recommended to do as a last resort if the player can amass enough health to make it to the point of tanking the super energy balls, as 45 base damage in total is barely short of the 50 regular heart cap, health extendors [???]. Waiting too long during this will have her charge up another large shot, which starts the process again.
Successfully reflecting her final energy ball back at her causes a cutscene showing that the resulting explosion is visible from outside the supercluster
The first time completing her challenge, the final reflection also causes a crack in her hammer. This sets up a cutscene where she mentions wanting to replace the hammer with an upgrade, while giving Adam the cracked hammer as a reward. This cracked hammer appears on his Trophy Shelf at home, signifying one of the Challenges is complete. In future rematches, Betsy will be depicted with a shinier hammer that is not cracked on the final reflection, with her remarking that it's still in good condition.
Notes
- Unlike most of the "superbosses", Betsy's challenge Date does not actually reward anything [maybe I'll be nice and it'll give like this "auto parry" option or something, I dunno], so it is recommended to take this on as one of the last challenges of the game with gear from other superbosses.
- Completing the "Challenge Date" is not required for the 250,000 Trophy, as completing the effortless one will still count towards
- The reward stats for the effortless date will always be the same unless Adam self-damages during the brief window where control is possible. The Date almost instantly ends [...] This means all scores will have a time ranking of 0:03.000,
- The final energy ball deals the highest amount of base damage out of any bullet in the game, at fifteen hearts. For comparison, Hartbraik's Void-elemental moves deal ten hearts of damage,
- Betsy's Challenge Date is one of five boss fights (six counting Hartbraik's Nightmare fight separate) that has a full-screen title card, along with Hartbraik, Iris, the Endless Pain, and Princess Zessima [LOL]. Hers addresses her as "The Slate Hammer".
Assorted Take That! stuff.
Webnovel
- Despite The Simpsons being a major inspiration to the story, it
- Helion exists because Water hates "comical pervert friend/lead"-type characters and wanted to make one that was legitimately Hated by All rather than being seen as "mildly" weird but still tollerated by the leads despite attempting or performing acts of sexual harassment. Helion is not actually friends with any of the main characters; hell, even the story's main villains can't stand him and think he's a sexpest. Unlike the respectful Adam, Helion very blatantly sees anyone he deems attractive as pieces of meat. He tries to justify his behavior by citing actions of heroics or
- Chapter 6 [maybe 5 while I have a clear plan in mind for Chapters 1-4 and I'm pretty sure of the setting of Chapter 7 — the second Rainbow Ring one, in the "Chartreuse" "Tropics"-ish biome — I don't have too much planned for 5 and 6 except that they'd both be back in central Westshore after Chapter 4 isn't, one might involve a movie theater, and one might involve a library, and only one of them will have Betsy play a major role because I don't want to alienate readers with too much of her at once early on] has a scene [opens up with?] with a number of women (and a handful of men) showering, while Blue walks in and tells them about how pilot episodes of series tend to have more sex and nudity than the rest of the series. This is directly mocking a similar scene from the beginning of Velma; Welcome to Westshore immediately follows Blue's claim by [...] Shortly after, Adam slips on a bar of soap and gently bumps in to Cyan, with the two quickly fixing themselves up and sheepishly laughing it off, Yellow remarking "That could have gone SO much worse", confirmed by Water to be making fun of the infamous leaked "Episode 8" of Confinement which involved Connor somehow burning off his clothes to a jetpack and eventually accidentally sexually harassing various SCP site staff members in a shower.
- [This was originally going to be a thing in Biome Artists before I came up with the idea of this story, and figured that it would tonally fit here (or Roy: Succubus Summoner) far more] The B-plot of a chapter has the Suburb Quartet needing to read a book by Helion to try to find clues to catch a criminal whose actions are based on it. The book itself is a mockery of works that obviously shoehorn fetishy material to what is ostensibly a more general fantasy, particularly if it carries prejudiced implications or comes off as playing sex crimes as fanservice. With Helion being Helion, it's not good. It's titled I, a Member of the Greatest Race, about a blatant invincible self-insert of Helion with a harem of women who have the commonality that they are incapable of actually communicating or clearly resisting something he does, [...] The book also features an apparent overuse of the word "cock" (not surprising given how often the author says it), enough that Yellow half-jokingly says she never wants to see or hear the word again after only reaching the end of page 30, [...] Helion also insists that the book is "PG-13" at maximum,
- The Shitty Gacha Mobile series is a multi-mock of predatory games (particularly gacha games), uninspired sequilitis works that are concerned with pumping out quick installments to make a cheap buck, AI art, and shady greedy entertainment producers in general. Sarah Indigo is a genuinely brilliant coder who has perfected an algorithm that can generate wholesale sequels to the game at the push of a button via AI — a talent she uses to have a program mass-producing and releasing similar gacha games every few months to try to maximize the profits from addicted players she gleefully calls "whales" even in her own ads that mock the hell out of them. The characters are also very same-y looking compared to the more diverse residents of Westshore (both the dateable ones and the non-dateable ones), a criticism of same-face syndrome. Even Sarah herself is implied to hate the constant demand for identical characters [...] In the video game adaptation, the player has the option to purchase exactly one installment and play it themselves, only to find that it costs an obscene amount of money (the in-game currency of Welcome to Westshore, not Real Life money) to get pulls or [...] Part of this is more specifically directed at the infamous Sakura visual novel series, to the point where for a while Sarah had Sakura as a placeholder name.
- Sarah has also made an AI assistant program, which she later upgrades to a line of "robots" late in Part II, called Ms. Mercury, [...] Ms. Mercury gets a number of things wrong, like having a Running Gag of mistaking the heroes trying to storm Sarah's base as them attempting to find the gas station, [...] Just before the fight with Sarah, a Ms. Mercury model "congratulates" the gang for "finally reaching the gas station" (the top of Sarah's enormous building, which has no gas station or anything of note on it), and is unceremoniously destroyed by Sarah, who remarks that she finds it extremely annoying and unhelpful. When a startled Lime asks if that's like murder, Sarah says that it's an AI and not self-aware. Lime initially doubts this claim, but Sarah convinces her by talking about just how it got so many basic facts completely wrong.
Game
Roy: Succubus Summoner
- A chapter has Daygelz introducing herself to some guy and claiming to be a nudist, shaking hands with him. The some guy replies "Oh, a nudist, like in Kill la Kill?" Immediately after this, the story cuts to Daygelz washing her hands
Biome Artists
- The whole concept of Zessima's character initially came from love interests that routinely beat up their lead for poor to no reason, and she later morphed to that and a jab at "overpowered" protagonists
Ideal reaction to Insa would be something like, "Jesus Christ Tambry from Gravity Falls really let herself go".
I guess this is a mix of webnovel tropes and "game tropes":
- Bookends:
- Both the first chapter of the whole story and the last chapter of Part II have Adam watching an ad for Shitty Gacha Mobile. In the former, it's while he's channel flipping, he just catches a bit before changing channels, all while having no idea that he'd get in to a fight with its developer over a year and a half[?] down the line. In the latter, he and the others are together laughing at this over their victory
- In Chapter 1, Yellow offhandedly mentions that Jen and Betsy had a sparring match towards the southern end of Westshore which lasted five days and carved a whole canyon. Not longer later, it's hinted at before being revealed that this is Not Hyperbole, and there were even stone sculptures of the two made in honor of the spectical. The final battle of Part II is set in this valley.
- [This will happen almost 100%] The first and last chapters end with the story's Arc Words, "What do you want to do next?" In the first chapter, it's spoken from Jen to Adam. In the final chapter, it's the end of a poem directly addressing the reader.
- First-Episode Twist: Westshore is actually a World of Badass, and the seemingly unamusing Jen is one of the strongest of them all. Apart from Charles' appearance (showing himself as a giant, driving through the hardware store in a large car, and jumping through the wall — and his introduction was framed in a way that made his case seem like it was going to be one of a kind) and a few mentions of people with green skin, the first chapter played the setting like it was something totally mundane. It takes until the end of the party board game before Jen demonstrates her combat capabilities — Adam is given a challenge to try to pin down a standing opponent in the game, and with Jen as his only option left, he tries to go at her until she manages to Flash Step behind him. This was meant to be a huge twist, complete with having a Title Drop to highlight it, but as the story goes on Jen being The Ace of the group is just an established character trait treated casually in all other chapters. The fact that there are over-the-top fight scenes akin to something from an action series at all goes from being an end of chapter twist to a regular formula, with fight scenes being almost Once an Episode.
- Joke Item: The Helion Seal of Approval Sticker is a Pin (it's actually just a sticker) that turns you in to a One-Hit-Point Wonder. Normally, something like this would be a Negative Pin and at least have the downside mitigated by being able to grant additional Pin Slots, except this just has a worth of zero, meaning that in terms of risk/reward there is no reward and purely risk.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the original webnovel:
- The humor is less biting and mean-spirited. [...] Helion is also both Demoted to Extra (he was already a side recurring character) with his more overtly disgusting/racist remarks happening less often,
- Stance System? I mean the crests are listed there: Pins are equipped on to what the game calls a "Sash", and different Sashes can be unlocked and equipped with various benefits or costs. Most of them also have innate elemental resistances, at the cost of giving elemental weaknesses; the intent is to encourage the player to switch even if it's a style they are not used to in order to gain the elemental advantage for a given stage, since stages rarely use more than one element prior to Part III, and it's even rarer if they are opposing.
- Explorer is the default Sash, having the baseline Pin holders and "average" two Spell Slots. It gives a basic, straightforward shooter style. It provides no elemental resistances, but it also has no elemental weaknesses either.
- [[ Engineer]] is a Difficult, but Awesome technological-themed Sash based on ranged moves, calculations, and managing Pin effects over mana. It allows for only one Spell Slot, heavily limiting options for the mana meter, but it gives a major bonus of Pin Holders (especially in the early game), as well as having an "ammo" bar in addition to the mana that has to be replenished with a special command via mana. Ammo is a secondary resource that makes attacks stronger, [...] Bullets are unweildy drill-like piercing shots, which if used right can eat up bosses,
- Entertainer is a light magic-themed Sash based on tanking, mana-using moves, and suited to fighting bosses
- [[ Environmentalist]] is a nature-themed Sash based on melee combat, life draining, [...] The basic bullets are replaced with a swinging attack that does fire projectiles (so as to prevent some stages from being literally impossible, as the game is built around you having a ranged attack at all times), but the projectiles are pathetically weak unless at full health, meaning that the life draining effect must be used [...] It's also more effective against pollution-based enemies, namely helpful in Part I,
- Educator is a dark magic-themed Sash based on summons and dodging, with any spell cast also having the benefit of spawning familiars that, after a delay, ["Oh these are the Terraria classes" yeah pretty much]
- [?????] Squeegee is a special Sash based on the "Luigi's Challenge" only available with the "SQUEEGEE" menu code [hell maybe it could just be swapped to in regular gameplay somehow...], where Adam/Ada's stats cannot increase (no Heart Containers, no extra Pin Holders [like, maybe when this is equipped, it'd "nullify" any health/slot extentions]), but they have the full three Spell Slots and a whopping thirty Pin Holders for equipping many Pins.
- Exclusive to the Love Potion Route: Corruptor is a Purposefly Overpowered Sash automatically forced to the player when getting far enough in the Love Potion Route. It has the full three Spell Slots [...] Fitting with the themes of the Love Potion Route being an intentionally boring, overly on-rails route with little challenge until the Iris fight, the game also force-equips certain builds at select points
- Series Fauxnale:
- "Rich People" was an older concept drafted as a "bare minimum" ending in case Water got tired of the concept, also doubling as an anchor to go "If you think the story underwent Seasonal Rot, then just pretend that this is the stopping point". It involves the showdown with Charles, who had been presented as the Big Bad, and is the culmination of almost everything Part I had been setting up. In addition to "officially" being a two-parter with "Poor People", the chapter right before it, it also forms a more serial narrative with the two chapters before them, creating a four-part arc that's longer than the other connected adventures had been. Every major romanced character returns and gets to have at least some role in the fight against Charles, multiple Chekhovs Guns being set off. The scale is also larger than what had been before, but barely a drop in the bucket compared to what happens in Parts II and III.
- "AI People" is the end of Part II and Water had been iffy on whether or not Part II would also be the end of any "serialization" entirely, with Part III starting out with a large stretch of episodic adventures. It's the showdown with Sarah Indigo, the Big Bad who replaced Charles [...] The last leg of the battle taking place in the Valley of the End-like setting that Jen and Betsy created
- Tamer and Chaster: Despite the game boasting a large number of pinups of the characters compared to the text-only [there would at least be some concept art like maps and stuff most likely, maybe the rare illustration that would, moreso, be like for the prelude to a fight or something], it still tones down the content level, in part from the shift to a visual medium and primarily because of the game's being planned in advance for consoles
- Wham Line:
- [Unsure if this would count] The story's Boss Subtitles pull one in "Metal People". With there being a main lead from the beginning named Adam in a romance-heavy story, a question is raised if there would at least be an "Eve" to some degree to fall under a Biblical motif, even when none of the main characters have this name. As Adam explores the Grayscale Palace, he ends up in a room with two Dance Battlers with a black and white theme emerge from the walls and ambush him, challenging him to progress. This may seem like yet another regular encounter, but then they introduce themselves in a manner that screams that they'll be important in some way:
They Who Link the Dark and Light. [Unless I use the "Offhue" thing to have a slot that represents "Dark" distinct from the "Black" slot, and same with "Light" and "White".]
Lilith and Eve.
- [Unsure if this would count] The story's Boss Subtitles pull one in "Metal People". With there being a main lead from the beginning named Adam in a romance-heavy story, a question is raised if there would at least be an "Eve" to some degree to fall under a Biblical motif, even when none of the main characters have this name. As Adam explores the Grayscale Palace, he ends up in a room with two Dance Battlers with a black and white theme emerge from the walls and ambush him, challenging him to progress. This may seem like yet another regular encounter, but then they introduce themselves in a manner that screams that they'll be important in some way:
- What Could Have Been:
- Potential ideas for a "Post-Charles and Sarah Grand Finale"
- Adam leaving Westshore, with the chapter having an Odd Name Out like "Now Leaving Westshore" [...] Water struggled to come up with any reason why he would leave, since
- Water has said he has heavily leaned on the Grand Finale breaking the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming of the rest of the story, either being just named "People" without something before it, being named after Adam,
- Potential ideas for a "Post-Charles and Sarah Grand Finale"
All of the first five (starter+"neighborhood quartet-themed") starting with the letter "E" wasn't the initial plan but after I realized it while thinking of Explorer, Engineer, and considering "Environmentalist" for Cyan's I decided to just lock in with that.
I think I got it
- Neutral: Gray
- Technology: Red
- Light Magic: Yellow
- Nature: Cyan
- Dark Magic: Blue
- Technology+Dark Magic: Pink (There's three colors between them, but I'm "reserving" Magenta and Violet, process of elimination, this is what's decided out of the three)
- Technology+Light Magic: Orange
- Nature+Light Magic: Teal
- Nature+Dark Magic: Azure
- Technology+Nature: Lime
- Light Magic+Dark Magic: Purple
- And then Green would be the "Ocean" or whatever, or something like that. Magenta... still not sure.
For the longest time I was thinking the suburb area would be east of Downtown, and that would be east of the "beachfront" side of the city, so like, going across the three main locations would be a straight line. Lately I was thinking that, since suburbs surround the main city and the coastal area from all directions (yes, even west in the ocean, the actual beach is fairly clear and at least in central Westshore what a typical beach might be expected to be like, even in the shallow waters, but deep enough there's an "underwater suburb neighborhood" that serves as the proper border of the ocean side of the Rainbow Ring), maybe the "main" suburb area Adam and co live in could be north. And like, border the northern side of Westshore almost, the north area would have a lot of shit under Charles's influence (in addition to having Rich Asshole Island and possibly some other wealthy districts, there's a lot of hellish industrial factories that get cleaned up in Part II, and poorer sides of down that he oppresses; farms might be here too). Hell it could even sorta fall under the "dividing the areas based off of the Simpsons Hit & Run maps" thing; while considered distinct from the central suburbs, I mean, just combine the suburbs with the north and you've got the whole residential, poor side, power plant, rich side of Level 1/4/7. If Adam's neighborhood block is reaaaally close to the border of what's unofficially considered the "north" of Westshore, there'd be the implication that she and/or Betsy are the main reasons single-handedly keeping Charles' "empire" from extending southward.
I wouldn't have to change anything from what I've actually written except for maybe the bit describing Adam (currently going by Terrance I'm still not sure which name to use) driving from the suburbs to downtown.
Also new potential conflict thing: There's some establishment in downtown and/or the beachfront and if Charles takes ownership of it, somehow that would spell Game Over. The current owner is a spineless wimp and it's also suggested that Jen and Betsy take turns babysitting her so that she doesn't just simply hand over a deed or whatever.
Very north end might have some pleasant garden or something. It could be relatively hard to reach; from the north, that's basically Canada and you'd have to cross country lines. And there may be no roads leading to it. From the south, you'd have to get through Charles's domain of North Westshore (well at least prior to his downfall). And there'd be only like one stupididly long and complicated road from the east or something leading in to it, which starts waaaaay in to Flyby. The south end I decided a while back would have this Valley of the End knockoff. Unsure if the "pleasant garden" will be featured in Part I's finale.
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Nobody is claiming that Sarah is heroic or good-natured, but there's signs there is at least some other side to her than being a purely awful Card-Carrying Jerkass:
- A lot of what she says especially near the end of Part II puts it in to question if she actually hates her job and what she writes, but keeps her usual perpetual grinning attitude to appear confident and help piss off her enemies. It's especially evident when giving Adam a Punctuated Pounding during the final battle with her, beneath her usual sadism of insulting her fanbase is a villain on the verge of a breakdown realizing that she's trapped herself making content she considers intellectually beneath her:
Sarah: And what's with the "artsy" bullshit? THE MASSES HAVE SPOKEN! They just want DUCK FACES, and WATER BALLOON TITS, AD NAUSEUM! OVER! AND OVER! AND OVER! AND OVER! AND OVER AGAIN!
- Her "backstory" is Played for Laughs (she literally just says she's from Texas and Adam, in a brief moment of horror, exclaims that it perfectly explains her), but she lightly touches upon how she didn't fit in
- A lot of what she says especially near the end of Part II puts it in to question if she actually hates her job and what she writes, but keeps her usual perpetual grinning attitude to appear confident and help piss off her enemies. It's especially evident when giving Adam a Punctuated Pounding during the final battle with her, beneath her usual sadism of insulting her fanbase is a villain on the verge of a breakdown realizing that she's trapped herself making content she considers intellectually beneath her:
- Nobody is claiming that Sarah is heroic or good-natured, but there's signs there is at least some other side to her than being a purely awful Card-Carrying Jerkass:
- Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
- I Wish:
- Biome Artists: The Four Tertiaries Arc follows after
- Welcome to Westshore gives itself the task of introducing over a dozen main characters at once, spaced out over three chapters, having a beginning of exposition with dull activities and more of a slice of life vibe. The story attempted to shake up the formula and introduce its "other half" (outskirt chapters in more adventurous locations rather than inner city chapters in more mundane settings), but went the opposite direction and felt odd and disjointed, as well as the conflict still not having much of note. It took until a few more chapters before it really found its footing,
- Memes:
- I'm kinda surprised the only Simpsons example on here so far is in-universe, there's been loads of characters and a lot of Early-Installment Weirdness, I'd have thought that there'd be some kind of "first draft didn't stick, second absolutely did and become a Springfield mainstay": Sarah/Sana to Charles. The latter was a fairly one-note Jerk Jock thought by some to have overstayed his welcome about halfway through Part I, not helped by him having little in the way of skill or intelligence and just relying on raw strength that gets less impressive as the story undergoes power creep. The showdown with him was seen with more "Oh, thank god he's finally taken out of his Big Bad role" and not "What a satisfying final showdown". Sarah Indigo, the Big Bad of Part II, is thought to have breathed much-needed new life in a story getting stale, being much more intelligent, scheming, and having a more diverse Quirky Miniboss Squad that stick out
Yes.
Environmentalist in particular was so bad Water had to buff it twice. And it's still not a top pick outside of the Dumps section.
That each Part villain is an evil reflection of the "main main" characters: Charles to Jen, Sarah to Betsy, and Hartbraik to Adam.
Charles and Jen are both associated with the color red, they're both "leader" figures
Sarah and Betsy are both associated with gray/silver, highly intelligent
Finally, Hartbraik is an odd one
Also worth noting: Part I's showdown happened in the north, Part II's showdown happened in the south. Part III's, at least with regards to the game,
- Other Bookends:
- Run: .GIFocalypse:
- When including the canon "Soos and the Real Girl" (several days took place between it and the proper .GIFocalypse, but .GIFfany in-universe considers that episode the "true" first fight or the "zeroth" fight with a dean), the same .GIFfany instance is both the first and last of the Romance Academy Characters that fights the Pines.
- The first domain is the only one "normally" in Gravity Falls. Both the last "regular" domain before the Grand Finale and the ending of the proper showdown see the heroes finally return to the town after going through a chain of islands. In the case of Domain 14, it's really just Dove's airship, and the majority of the chapter about fighting her is set on Gravity Falls hit with a powerful anti-gravity beam she fired at the town out of spite
- Biome Artists:
- The first five chapters are titled "Life With a Princess", "Pass or Fail", "First Days on the Job", "Some Time to Think" [I like this name so even with the change to compress the Licensing Exam to one chapter, I'll find some way to worm this in], and "". The last five chapters are titled [...] "No Time to Think", "Last Day of the Job", "Life or Death", and "Life Without a Princess".
- Both the beginning and end of the Yellow Moon Saga [screw it if I'm using "Parts" and roman numerals for Welcome to Westshore then I'll bring back the old "saga" naming scheme for BA] involve Zoap and Arime getting caught up in one of the two non-Region nations being attacked. In the first chapter, Arime was the opponent (under her Janitor alter ego) and Zoap was working with the leader of the Blossom Kingdom at the time to protect the Kingdom itself. In the last chapter of the saga, the leader of the Blossom Kingdom at the time is the opponent and Zoap is working with Arime to protect the Saypant Metropolis.
- The first line of dialogue in the story is "This is the tale of the Core Empire", Bavlia at the start explaining to a class of students going to the museum she works at on a field trip. The Distant Finale opens up with Bavlia closing the book that was most of the events of the story (sans the recaps, which are glimpses at this future) and telling her far larger audience there "That was the tale of the Core Empire's last legs".
- Run: .GIFocalypse:
[This isn't about anything specific yet but I have the feeling it could very easily be:]
Let me put it this way: It gave the vibes that at any moment it would go on a lecture about how it's actually empowering that the meek shy teenager is forced to wear the costume despite not liking it for very convoluted reasons, all while the camera obsessively oggles her and plays her discomfort like it's any other joke
I still think it's valid/common enough to count as a Fan-Disliked Explanation. Go to pretty much anything with fandom discussions or a Homestuck-related blog/topic and search "Hemospectrum" and there's some discussions about it, interpreting it differently (granted, some might be from people who missed Hussie's statement that it's only twelve colors), or saying that there only being twelve colors instead of a gradient doesn't make much sense. It's not as common of a topic of debate as, say, Vriska but it's still something I've seen often enough to figure that of the fans who do have an opinion on discrete vs gradient hemospectrum, more of them lean on the latter side, some to Death of the Author levels.
For FranchiseOriginalSin.Super Mario Bros:
- One disliked element of Sticker Star that carried over to Paper Jam is the environments being standard Video Game Settings with little in the way to make them interesting. The first Paper Mario also made use of typical Mario world settings, with a grassland Chapter 1, desert Chapter 2, jungle and volcano Chapter 5, snow world Chapter 7, and Chapter 8 being Bowser's Castle. The difference is that [...] Paper Jam didn't even do as much as Sticker Star did [debating whether to link to the Aurum Alex video], as it had considerably less landmarks or structures besides Peach and Bowser's castles and some very similar Toad towns. This coupled with both games being released around the time of the New era where the repeated biomes became much more apparent and disliked
