Kobold King

"Yeah, I'm totally sought after. Really. Like... everybody's after me. Every... body..." * starts crying * "I just want someone to care enough to chase me..."

If A Series of Unfortunate Events and Fullmetal Alchemist were combined into a freakish chimera of a show.

It's really tempting, but considering how my posts dwindled last time, and the various things I'm trying to keep up with right now, I just don't think I could make it work out. I'm very sorry, but I'll have to sit this one out. I wish all of you the best of luck getting this started, though!

The Very Organized Thief is a free game available on Game Jolt in which the player takes the role of a thief with a meticulous list of items they must steal from a house. The owner of the house will arrive at a certain point and will personally catch and subdue the thief if they are not fast enough to get out. It is a simple game with nothing in the way of a story, but that doesn't stop me from overthinking it a bit. Theory: the titular Very Organized Thief knows the Owner and has been to the house before in a non-criminal context. Here's my reasoning. The Thief enters the home with a randomized list of items to steal, and will not take any item (aside from stacks of money) that is not on the list. This is slightly peculiar behavior for a thief, but it gets weirder. Some items on the list are fairly generic; the list might include a television, or a computer, or other items that one could wager almost certainly exist in an average house. But some items are oddly specific. The list might include such items as "a stamp album," "expensive wine," or the especially specific "portrait of a lady." To me this suggests that the Thief has been to the house before, and knows exactly what items are good enough to steal. Most of the items can be debated, but the "portrait of a lady" almost certainly indicates an amount of specific foreknowledge on the part of the Thief. It's simply too specific of an item to randomly guess exists in a house. The game rewards the player with a high score for acquiring all required items in a short amount of time, which is virtually impossible on a first playthrough. Subsequent playthroughs however will give the player a very good idea of the layout of the house and the placement of items, allowing the Thief to steal everything on their list in as little as forty seconds in some playthroughs. From a meta perspective, this is because of the ability to start the game over fresh and learn the layout of the house through trial and error. From an in-universe perspective, the fact that the title "Very Organized Thief" is only given for such a run suggests to me that if a story exists, it is that the 'protagonist' of a Thief is capable of this feat without the Undertale-like ability to reset time. This ought only to be possible if they have been in this house before. (Admittedly, this is my weakest point. It relies on the meta detail of the game's scoring system. However in a game titled "The Very Organized Thief," I feel it's fair to assume that the ending which bestows this title upon the player is the most likely to be 'canon,' such as that word is.) From these two lines of reasoning we can believe that the Thief has been to the Owner's house before, and knows its items and layout well enough to conduct a very organized targeted robbery in the dead of the night. The question becomes this: who is the Thief, and when did they first come into this house? Here are a couple of hypotheses. 1: The Thief stakes out their targets ahead of time. It is possible the Thief set their sights on this house beforehand, potentially even making entry in the past to scout out its loot and layout. It would be a scheme befitting of a "Very Organized Thief," and seeing as the Owner possesses a personal safe with goldbars and thousands of dollars worth of cash in their bedroom, it's probable that they are a known wealthy individual and thus a likely target for an aspiring plunderer. 2: The Thief has visited the house in a non-criminal context. Perhaps they were invited to a house party, or visited as a plumber or a electrician to work on the house. If this is the case I would suspect the Thief to be an electrician, as the player has the ability to selectively cut wires and disable functions of the house alarm system should they so choose. 3: The Thief and the Owner are estranged family or estranged lovers. This is my personal favorite theory. If the Thief and the Owner were former romantic partners sharing a home it would explain how the Thief knows the layout of the house and has the means of creating a list of items to steal. Perhaps after a bitter dispute the Thief breaks in to steal all of the items that they feel entitled to. Perhaps they were not romantic partners but were instead siblings, and what we are witnessing is an inheritance dispute. Perhaps the Thief is a deadbeat sibling or spouse, and although ostensibly kicked out of the Owner's life, they feel entitled to break in and "borrow" any item they feel like. Perhaps the Very Organized Thief lives a Very Lonely Life, shunned by the one person they had some semblance of family with. Perhaps I'm really REALLY over analyzing this free Game Jolt game.

There's also the possibility that Thanos is actually just certifiably insane, in keeping with his comics title of "The Mad Titan."

As I said, there are valid reasons to make the argument. I just think the argument is often unevenly applied.

Sadly no, she doesn't. Not until I give her an accessory upgrade, that is.

I've seen some fan-made decks and cards, so maybe... My fic, predictably, mostly centers around a character who can resurrect after death.

Nice to know things never change around these parts. Sentinels of the Multiverse, a superhero card game with some lore I got really invested in. I went too long without writing superhumans and started going stir crazy.

Good to see you! How have you been? Sorry I haven't been around too often. I've been writing fanfic. I have almost twenty thousand words written! ...in an obscure fandom with maybe four or five potential readers. Whatever though, I make myself happy with it.