#+ i figure a youtube run by alien robots - even the ones that hate you - is probably kinda entertaining to watch

[wifeguycyclonus]

g1/cyberverse type episode where Rumble and Frenzy (with Reflector as their camera) go ghost hunting except most of the ‘ghost activity’ they find is just normal human and wildlife late night behavior

[thelittlesttimelord]

The Littlest Timelord: The Fall of the Eleventh Chapter 13

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: The Fall of the Eleventh Chapter 13 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 13/? SUMMARY: Elise Smith is now a teenaged Timelord. In addition to losing the Ponds, the fields of Trenzalore are calling. But first they have to figure out exactly who Clara Oswald is.

[A/N - I feel like I’m going to break everyone’s hearts with this chapter. This one is a longer one.]

The Doctor and Elise stepped out the TARDIS to find little black cubes everywhere.

The Doctor picked one up. He turned to Elise with a smile. “Well this is new.”

They met up with Amy, Rory, and Brian.

The Doctor was now walking around the console examining the cube in his hand. “All absolutely identical. Not a single molecule's difference between them. No blemishes, imperfections, individualities.”

“What if they're bombs? Billions of tiny bombs? Or transport capsules maybe, with a mini robot inside. Or deadly hard drives. Or alien eggs? Or messages needing decoding? Or they're all parts of a bigger whole. Jigsaw puzzles that need fitting together,” Brian suggested.

“Very thorough, Brian. Very, very thorough. Well done. Stay here. Watch these. Yell if anything happens,” the Doctor said, placing his cube on top of the one Brian was holding.

“Doctor, is this an alien invasion? Because that's what it feels like,” Amy told him.

“There couldn't be life-forms in every cube, could there?” Rory asked.

“I don't know. And I really don't like not knowing,” the Doctor said.

They stepped out into Amy and Rory’s lounge and the Doctor made his way into the kitchen. “Right, I need to use your kitchen as a lab. Cook up some cubes. See what happens.”

“Right, I'm due at work,” Rory mentioned.

“What? You've got a job?”

“Of course I've got a job. What do you think we do when we're not with you?”

“I imagined mostly kissing.”

“I write travel articles for magazines and Rory heals the sick,” Amy told him.

“My shift starts in an hour. You don't know where my scrubs are?” Rory asked.

“In the lounge, where you left them.”

The Doctor went to work constructing whatever it was he was going to use to experiment on the cubes. “Ah, the Ponds, with their house and their jobs and their everyday lives. The journalist and the nurse. Long way from Leadworth,” the Doctor said, sonicing his device.

“We think it's been ten years. Not for you or Earth, but for us. Ten years older. Ten years of you, on and off,” Amy said.

“Look at you now. All grown up.”

The front door was busted down and heavily armed people entered the house.

The Doctor pulled Elise behind him and Amy stepped closer to the Doctor.

“Clear! Trap one, kitchen secured.”

“Trap three, back garden secured.”

Rory was lead into the kitchen at gunpoint. “There are soldiers all over my house, and I'm in my pants,” he said.

“My whole life I've dreamed of saying that, and I miss it by being someone else,” Amy quipped.

A blonde woman entered the house. “All these muscles, and they still don't know how to knock. Sorry about the raucous entrance. Spike in Artron energy reading at this address. In the light of the last twenty four hours, we had to check it out, and the dogs do love a run out. Hello. Kate Stewart, head of scientific research at UNIT. And with dress sense like that…” She pulled out a scanner and held it up to the Doctor. “You must be the Doctor. I hoped it would be you.”

Kate frowned. “We seem to be missing someone.”

The Doctor reluctantly stepped aside, revealing Elise behind him.

“Ah, hello there.”

The Doctor stepped back in front of Elise. The Doctor wasn’t too keen on all these heavily armed soldiers around his daughter. “Tell me, since when did science run the military, Kate?”

“Since me. UNIT's been adapting. Well, I dragged them along, kicking and screaming, which made it sound like more fun than it actually was.”

“What do we know about these cubes?”

“Far less than we need to. We've been freighting them in from around the world for testing. So far, we've subjected them to temperatures of plus and minus two hundred Celsius, simulated a water depth of five miles, dropped one out of a helicopter at ten thousand feet and rolled our best tank over it. Always intact.”

“That's impressive. I don't want them to be impressive. I want them vulnerable with a nice Achilles heel.”

“We don't know how they got here, what they're made of, or why they're here.”

The Doctor picked one up and tossed it in the air. “And all around the world, people are picking them up and taking them home.”

“Like iPads have dropped out of the sky. Taking them to work, taking pictures, making films, posting them on Flickr and YouTube. Within three hours, the cubes had a thousand separate Twitter accounts.”

“Twitter?”

“I've recommended we treat this as a hostile incursion. Gather them all up and lock them in a secure facility. But that would take massive international agreement and co-operation.”

“We need evidence. The cubes arrived in plain sight, in vast quantities, as the sun rose. So, what does that tell us?”

“Maybe they wanted to be seen. Noticed,” Amy said.

“Or more than that, they want to be observed. So we observe them. Stay with them round the clock. Watch the cubes, day and night. Record absolutely everything about them. Team cube, in it together,” the Doctor said. He kissed the cube and smiled.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Four days later and the cubes hadn’t done anything.

The Doctor was currently hanging upside down on Amy and Rory’s couch, while Elise sat by the window. “Four days. Nothing! Nothing!” He picked up one of the cubes and started hitting it. “Not a single change in any cube anywhere in the world. Four days, and I am still in your lounge!” He sat up.

“You were the one who wanted to observe them,” Amy told him.

“Yes, well, I thought they'd do something, didn't I? Not just sit there while everyone eats endless cereal!” The Doctor jumped up from the couch.

“You said we had to be patient,” reminded Rory.

“Yes, you! You, not me! I hate being patient. Patience is for wimps.” The Doctor threw himself back on the couch. “I can't live like this. Don't make me. I need to be busy.”

“Fine! Be busy!” Amy yelled, “We'll watch the cubes.”

The Doctor jumped up from the sofa and started to get things done around the house.

“How are you not bored?” Rory asked Elise.

Elise shrugged. In truth, she preferred the quiet. She could let her mind wander.

The Doctor soon threw himself back onto the couch. “That's better. Nothing like a bit of activity to pass the time. How long was I gone?” he asked.

Rory checked his watch. “Uh, about an hour.”

“I can't do it.” The Doctor jumped over the back of the couch and went inside the TARDIS.

“Where are you going?” Amy asked.

Amy, Rory, and Elise followed him into the TARDIS.

“Brian, you're still here,” the Doctor said, finding Brian in the jump seat.

“You told me to watch the cubes.”

“Four days ago.”

“Ah! Doesn't time fly when you're alone with your thoughts?”

“You can't just leave, Doctor,” Rory told him.

“Yes, of course I can. Quick jaunt, restore sanity. Ooo, hey, come if you like.”

“They can't just go off like that,” Brian said.

“Can't they? Can't you? That's how it goes, isn't it?”

“I've got my job,” Rory said.

“Oh yes, Rory. The universe is awaiting, but you have a little job to.”

“It's not little. It's important to me. Look, what you do isn't all there is.”

“I never said it was.” The Doctor looked at Amy, but she just stood there. “All right. Fine. I'll be back soon. Monitor the cubes. Call me. I'll have the TARDIS set to every Earth news feed. Come along, Elise.”

“I’m staying,” she told him. Her statement stopped everyone in their tracks.

“Ellie…”

“I want to stay with Amy and Rory. I like not having to run for my life or wondering who’s gonna die.”

“Oh, okay then.” Elise walked over to him and put her hand on his cheek. “It’s not forever. Just a few weeks. Just like when you sent me off with River.”

The Doctor smiled softly. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. I just need to grab a few things from my room.” The Doctor managed to keep it together long enough for Elise to pack a suitcase and say goodbye. The minute he set the TARDIS in flight, he broke down. He should have known she’d leave.

They always did.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Elise settled into life with the Ponds quite well. Their friends got used to seeing Elise around the couple.

Amy and Rory had come up with the story that Elise was Rory’s niece who needed a place to stay while attending university.

Amy loved having Elise around the house and enrolled her in art classes.

Amy and Rory treated Elise more like a daughter than a friend; Elise becoming a surrogate ‘Melody’ for them both.

“Goodnight, Elise,” Amy said.

“Night,” Elise said and closed her bedroom door. She’d been with Amy and Rory for about a month now, but she missed her father and River.

Amy and Rory were great and all, but they weren’t the Doctor.

She spent her days sketching and painting. Amy and Rory tried to convince her to sell some of her paintings, but Elise refused so they kept getting moved into the garage.

Eventually one month turned into two and soon it was Christmas.

Amy and Rory noticed a change in Elise. The happy girl who had first moved in with them turned into a girl who spent all her time in her bedroom, sketching in her sketchbook. Even the allure of Christmas presents and Christmas dinner could make Elise come out of her room.

Amy burst into her room.

Elise was laying on her bed, staring at a picture of herself, the Doctor, and River taken on a past Mother’s Day.

“That’s it. Get up. I’ll not have you moping!”

Elise rolled away from her.

Amy sighed. “Elise, I know you miss your father, but you can’t keep doing this.”

Elise ignored her.

“Have you tried calling him?”

“He won’t pick up the phone. I can’t even get in touch with River!”

Amy heard Elise’s voice crack and she soon dissolved into tears. Amy quickly embraced the girl, holding her tightly.

Elise didn’t think it would be this bad. She thought she’d like being stationary. She did, but she missed her father more.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The New Year rolled around and Elise’s attitude started to improve.

Amy and Rory made sure to get her out more often, instead of just leaving her in the house with Brian all the time. She got back into painting and even started writing in her journal again.

Soon, Amy and Rory’s wedding anniversary rolled around.

Amy had purchased Elise a new blue dress for their summer barbeque, reminiscent of the one she wore to their wedding. Amy even taught Elise how to put on makeup and did her hair.

Amy was leaving yet another message for the Doctor. “Hey! Doctor, it's me. Hello. So, the UN classified the cubes as provisionally safe, whatever that means, and Banksy and Damien Hirst put out statements saying the cubes are nothing to do with them. And the cubes, well, they're just here. Still. What's it been, nine months? People are just taking them for granted. Maybe we'll never know why they came. But anyway. Elise is doing better. Personally, Rory and I just think she was going through her rebellious teenage phase. I remember how I was when I was her age, but let’s not get into that. I got to Laura's wedding. It was great. She's here tonight, being as it's our wedding anniversary. We thought you might have dropped by. I left you messages.”

The Doctor appeared behind her, holding a huge bouquet of flowers. “I know! Happy anniversary! Come with me. And bring your husband. Where’s Elise?”

Amy pointed over to where Brian stood.

Elise looked…beautiful. He almost didn’t recognize his own daughter.

Elise finally looked over at him and dropped the drink in her hand. She ran over to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Please tell me this isn’t a dream.”

The Doctor smiled. “You’re completely awake, Ellie.”

“Good, because I’m never leaving you for that long again.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The Doctor tried taking Amy and Rory on one trip as a gift for their anniversary and things kept going wrong and soon it had been two and a half months.

They returned on Amy and Rory’s anniversary, but no one but Brian noticed that they were in different clothes. Even Elise.

As Elise settled in for the night, the Doctor entered her room.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked.

“Um, yeah.”

The Doctor sat down next to her on the bed. “I’ve decided I’m staying.” “What?”

“I miss Amy and Rory. And I missed you most of all.”

“I missed you too.”

The Doctor reached out and wiped a tear off Elise’s cheek, causing her to break down.

She’d cried so much in the last nine months, it was a wonder she still had tears to cry.

“Shhh, it’s okay. I’m here now,” the Doctor cooed, rocking gently, “Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side…?”

The song wasn’t enough to calm Elise like it normally did.

The Doctor felt bad that he was causing her all this pain and that he couldn’t take it away. He worried for what it would do to Elise in the end.

[kaisooficrec]

Hi mods, thanks for opening up the Ask box! It's my first time doing this :/ hope I do it right… Can I ask for recs of long fics (say more than 50k? can be chaptered/one-shot) that the mods like but think are underrated? They can be any genre, and they can be from any writers (even some of the older ones who wrote more before 2017?) Thank you!!

Hi lovely anon! You rang the right bell because we have TONS of long fics to rec!! There are old fics but also a lot of recent ones, many different AUs and they’re all above 50k! ! we also made sure to rec fics that are underrated and need more recognition. It will probably take a long time to read all of those so TAKE YOUR TIME AND ENJOY

Amuse-Bouche - hehe this was recced not too long ago but its place on this list still stands! Chefs AU, very unique fic and extremely realistic! a true gem. (139k words)

Legends: The Chosen Twelve - this is an oldie! it was recced back in 2014 but still is pretty underrated and such an amazing fic! it’s ot12, MAMA AU. enjoy ^^ (151k words)

All is Said and Done - another oldie! BFFs!kaisoo that fall in love. it’s angsty c: (70k words)

Common Ground - also from 2014, this is a fantasy/ghost AU that doesn’t disappoint! (84k words)

Start Over - High School AU, lots of drama :’) originally posted in 2012, deserves so much more recognition! (65k words)

Lapis Lazuli - Fantasy + (School of) Magic AU, originally written for the exordium fest in 2015! ot12 although Kaisoo are one of the main pairings. There are adventures and action, it’s very entertaining, a good read c: (55k words)

If Only for Tonight - College AU, pretty angsty (warnings: violence, character death). Police officer Kyungsoo meets gangster jongin :-) (56k words)

French Lilac - Artist AU, jongin loves kyungsoo’s voice, but he’s already married. angst + smut. (50k words)

Trust You The Most - Cat Hybrids AU!! we need more of those . Soo ran a shelter for hybrids and he ends up (accidentally) keeping one for himself. (52k words)

Dear You - Kyungsoo really, really tries to get over Jongin. It’s not that easy. (sorry for all the angst o/) (59k words)

EXODUS - Supernatural AU, Kyungsoo meets a creature that makes him feel safe and cherished (55k words)

Beautiful Butterfly - CEO!Jongin and HS student!Soo, nini tries dealing with all the confessions thrown his way. Read on AFF. (63k words)

hearts and bones - High School AU, swimmer!jongin and photographer!soo meet, and the unexpected happens. (68k words)

Mixed Feelings - College AU, soo has a crush on his straight roommate jongin. pretty fluffy (50k words)

Fly With Me - Fantasy and Fae AU, jongin wanted an escape from reality but he didn’t intend to meet a bunch of men with wings on their backs. (warnings: slight gore, character death) (50k words)

Moon-Child - Fantasy AU, Kaisoo find themselves caught in a fairy tale. (warnings: character death). smutty too (51k words)

Save Yourself - Fantasy & Magic AU, Hybrids AU, War AU. Jongin is a cat hybrid and Kyungsoo’s just trying to make the spell that could save them all work. (68k)

The Stars, Our Saviour - Space AU (+ Royalty AU) + Bounty Hunter AU. Very impressive and unique fic! also smutty ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (77k words)

Close To Home - a kai-centric fic, kaixeveryone but mainly/endgame kaisoo. Soulmates AU + Aliens AU. very smutty. (warnings: alien dicks?? alien sex, tentacles and knotting) (53k words)

Across - Assasins + Hitman AU, dark themes. (WARNINGS!: mental illness, mental instability, blood, violence, gore, murder, unhealthy relationship, mental and physical abuse.) Jongin has a crush on hitman!soo. Things don’t turn out as he planned. If you like freaky stuff, this is for you. (69k words)

Ghost of You - Future + Robots AU. Robots VS Humans. Kaisoo. A love story. (59k words)

Monster - VAMPIRE AU YES!!!! I can’t believe this isn’t as popular as it should be! one of my absolute favorites, it’s vampires VS vampire hunters, a fic where jongin realizes vampires aren’t all bad (especially kyungsoo). OT12 and definitely underrated. (115k words) (warnings: unhealthy to healthy relationships, blood (obviously), murder, psychopath killer, attempted rape)

Bugs and Space Elves - LOVE LOVE LOVE! !! this was originally posted for the happyendingexo fest, but the author decided to rewrite some old parts and continue with the story and i’ve never been more thankful. IT’S SO UNIQUE AND WELL WRITTEN AND MINDBLOWING! i really love this. Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Space AU, human kyungsoo helps elf jongin on his quest to save the universe! worth the read, i promise. (96k words)

The Gates of Horn and Ivory - married!kaisoo are taken into a world of darkness that they probably should’ve avoided. Dark fairy tale elements. (135k words)

The Boy Next Door - kyungsoo finds out his neighbour is a pornstar ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) very funny, fluffy and smutty. PERFECT TRIO! (53k words)

The War. (226k words) + The One After Ten Years. (149k words, on-going) (sequel) - WHERE DO I EVEN START? these are MONSTER fics! OT12, High School AU and Slice of Life AU in the sequel, but also includes their powers from MAMA era. Kaisoo is one of the two main pairings and honestly, these two fics gave me so much feels. It’s not underrated per se but has been only recced once on the blog and i wanted to fix this! 

Kim Jongin’s Must Kiss List - College AU, kyungsoo embarrassed himself in front of nini a few years back and he’s still bitter and hateful about it, but jongin won’t stop running after him. (66k words)

2088 - Sci-Fi + Dystopia AU, kyungsoo has a mission to find a mutant boy after the war, but he realizes too late that they’re all just pawns part of a bigger plan. THIS IS HIGHLY UNDERRATED! (122k words)

I Feel Awake (This Time) - Hotel manager jongin and detective kyungsoo : truly a concept! the story of how jongin did his best to win the love of do kyungsoo. THIS FIC DESERVES SO MUCH LOVE! (57k words)

Being Brave - Non AU + Slice of Life AU. cute and smutty stories of kaisoo :-) (95k words)

Perfection - College AU, ballet dancer!jongin is going through a rough time. will singer!kyungsoo be able to save him and give him hope? (53k words)

Through Fire and Ashes - this was originally posted for the exoggedon fest but deserves so much more recognition!! Post-apocalyptic AU + Zombies AU. Basically humans VS zombies, established!kaisoo are ready to help defend their town. (warnings: blood, gore, side character death, PTSD) - ALSO MY FAVE - J

BITE - Vampire + Werewolf AU, both species are rivals (kind of like a twilight parody). Kaisoo and Chanbaek are both the main pairings, Baeksoo are vampires who find their soulmates in werewolves Chankai. Very interesting story! ! worth a shot :D (50k words, on-going)

Admin Macaroon at your service 💜

Mirrors - Youtuber AU, College AU, 132k and ongoing!!! kyungsoo makes covers a popular songs on yt and his fans get into a fight with fans of an idol named kai. it’s minty-pixie whew!

Horizon - 63k. one of the less known works of jongnugget imo! they have soo many fics over 50k wow :’) jongin is a new student at his hs and meets boy that changes his life

Kiss and Cry - 93k, figure skating au. jongnugget did it again

Enamoured - 96k. age gap with teacher soo and bad boy jongin, who is a lot younger than soo. soo always helps him and jongin likes him but they can’t be together for many reasons obvi. happy ending!

Bus Rides & Sleepy Misses - 133k, ot12 with main kaisoo ;) both meet on a bus ride and immediately catch each other’s attention! soft and fluffy :) 

Two Sugars / AO3 - 57k, ongoing jfjsjf this is so good ;) a lot of smut, fluff, comfort a bit drama whew! fashion editor soo falls in love with a cute barista by day, sexy dancer by night jongin and when they are together it’s very…cute and sexy :p

Lackadaisical Blue + White Night of Silence- 53k and 61k, kingsman au, with spy exo, also ofc there’s kaisoo too, and this is absolutely well-written!!! if you know And the Rose Said to Me, you’ll understand the quality of these stories!!

Growing Seasons: A Universe of Us - Farmer AU, farmer jongin finds an unknown bloodied man passed out in his cabbage field and decides to take care of him, not knowing this man will change his life forever. (warnings: blood, PTSD, mentions of murder) (77k words) - Adm. Ginger

- Admin J

[rosecorcoranwrites]

When a Plot Hole is Not a Plot Hole (or, at Least, When It Doesn't Matter)

Much like 45 million other people, I have recently viewed Bird Box. I also watched The Ritual and re-watched A Quiet Place. All of this got me thinking about the horror genre, yet again, but it’s too soon for another “Thoughts on Horror” post. Thankfully I also watched a Youtube video about world building in the Divergent series, which gave me an idea for a more far-reaching analysis not just of horror, but of genre and plot holes in general.

A Matter of Genre

The fact of the matter is that Bird Box, A Quiet Place, and Divergent have gaping plot holes (The Ritual doesn’t. The Ritual is great… but freaking horrifying, so watch with caution). These plot holes, however, are only a problem in one of those stories, and this is due to genre, and I will climb onto my genre-soapbox for as long as it takes for people to realize that different genres work differently, and need to be read or watched differently.

Let’s step back a minute, and I'll explain what I mean. In my senior year of high school, we read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. My class loved it, not least because it was a welcome break from all the depressing literature foisted on us throughout our high school career. I was also a student aid in another class that read the same book and got to eavesdrop on their class discussions. I sat in the back, filing papers, and heard the students say they didn't like the book because, quote, "It was so unrealistic." The Little Prince? Unrealistic? You don't say! I'm not sure I have ever heard a more idiotic critique of a book. Yes, The Little Prince is unrealistic. It's a children's-book-esque fantasy/fairytale about a prince from another (tiny) planet who's in love with a rose. It's not supposed to be realistic!

A similar phenomenon happens when people—both Christians and atheists—treat the entire Bible as one genre. It's not! It contains poetry, myth, history, genealogy, letters, biography, parables, apocalyptic visions, and law codes. If you read poetry like you would read a law code, or a letter the way you read a myth, you're probably going to miss out on most of the meaning.

Back to my point, different genres require different ways of being read or watched. There are varying amounts of belief one should be required to suspend. Fantasy requires more suspension of disbelief than sci-fi, because the audience needs to accept that magic and magical creatures exist, whereas sci-fi only needs them to accept that humans have advanced to some future scientific point. Both genres, however, need internally consistent world building, no matter what other wonders we are shown. Otherwise, the audience will be taken out of the story, and the point of these genres is to immerse the readers or viewers into a believable, if fantastic, world. If magic works a certain way, it always needs to work that way. If smaller spaceships can’t use FTL, then no little ships should be shown using FTL unless you make a point of saying they have some new type of FTL drive. There is some wiggle-room in this, since "fantasy" and "sci-fi" are big labels that cover a lot of things. Fairytales or magical-realism stories tend to be a little looser about what is and isn’t allowed. These stories still shouldn't break their own rules, but they also don't have to explain themselves as much as other fantasies. Sci-fi that bleeds into fantasy, such as that which incorporates time-travel, other dimensions, or robots with kokoro still needs internal consistency, but don't need to be as scientifically accurate as hard sci-fi.

On the other hand, genres which rely on audience reaction can get by with much less in the way of tight world building and well-thought-out backstory. The two genres to which I am referring are comedy and horror. Obviously, these can intersect with fantasy/sci-fi, but taken as their own thing, they are a different species of genre altogether. They rely not on immersing the audience into a believable world, but on eliciting a reaction from the audience. A comedy is only a comedy if it's funny and horror is only horror if it's scary. Those are the requirements. Thus, a comedy or horror doesn't need unassailable world building to be a successful comedy or horror. Comedy, in particular, often relies on pointing out or playing with plot holes in whatever genre it's in. Horror, on the other hand, often focuses on the scary situation at the expense of backstory and world building.

Plot Holes in Horror

Thus, we come to Bird Box, or A Quiet Place, or Signs, or any other horror that, frankly, doesn't hold up if you think too much about it. People critique these movies by asking things like, “Why doesn't everyone in the world just blind themselves to be immune to the phantoms?”, “Did no one else in all of society think to use sound against the creatures?”, and “Why don't the aliens wear waterproof suits?”. These are valid criticisms for sci-fi or fantasy stories, but… these stories aren’t really meant to be sci-fi or fantasy. They are meant to be horror. Specifically, survival horror. For this genre, backstory is utterly irrelevant. In survival horror, a person or group of people are put into a deadly situation and need to use their wits and whatever they can find to survive it. The end. That's it. Are Sandra Bullock, the family in The Quiet Place, and the family in Signs put into a deadly situation? Check. Do they attempt to survive it? Check. Is it scary for the audience to watch? Check. All three movies pass the survival horror test. They aren’t trying to be good sci-fi/fantasy; they’re trying to be good horror, and do a pretty good job.

As a side note, I’m not some Bird Box apologist. Of the four horror movies I’ve mentioned in this post, it’s my least favorite. But the issues I take with it are not with the world-building (unlike some critics, I thought the rules regarding the phantoms were fairly well spelled out), but with the choices on how to induce horror. (SPOILERS INCOMING: SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU CARE) From the beginning, we know the rest of the people in the house don’t survive because only Sandra Bullock and the two kids are alive in the current time; that undercuts most of the tension in the house. Also, I thought the first phantom-acolyte they encounter, at the supermarket, was horrifying, as he appeared to be stuck forever in his place, doomed to coax unsuspecting souls to their death. One character even commented, “How is that guy still alive?”, so I wondered if he even was, or if he was sort of an undead thing controlled by the phantoms. Scary! Unfortunately, the rest of the acolytes (aside from the one in the house, who we knew John Malkovich would kill because how else would Sandra Bullock and the kids be alive in the future? The structure of the narrative seriously undercut the tension!) are pretty much your run-of-the-mill murderers in any post-apocalyptic movie. Not scary! Finally, I took issue with the last few minutes, after their boat capsized; I felt it was unnecessary for them to run around in the woods. It would have been scarier if she reached out of the water to feel a person’s foot, making the audience think it’s an acolyte, until he taps a cane on the ground and it’s revealed he’s blind. But, I digress. I don’t mind that the story has a few plot holes; I do mind that it wasn’t as scary as it could have been.

Plot Holes in Dystopia

Where, then, on this spectrum of genre does dystopia fall, and why do so many YA dystopian novels seem to fail? Could not "dystopia" be a sort of parable, requiring little explanation and thus little scrutiny, in the same way that comedy and horror and fairytales can get by on little to no explanations of what, exactly, is going on? Yes. I'll say it again, yes. I think dystopias absolutely could get a pass on world building... if they wanted to. The problem with books like Divergent or Hunger Games is not that they explain too little, but that they explain too much. If they simply set up their messed-up situations—everyone is sorted into a Hogwarts House faction, innocents must fight to the death for the enjoyment of the rich—and left it at that, I think it would be fine. The problem arises when these authors, usually in subsequent books, attempt to hash out the reasoning behind these horrible societies which... kind of couldn't arise for any real reason, or if they did, wouldn’t last very long. The explanations we are given don't make sense, or are at least are very, very full of holes and inconsistencies.

To be fair, other dystopias also offer explanations for why the world is the way it is, but they don’t dwell on it. 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 offer lip service for how society got so bad—whether that’s due to government rule or human complacency—but then move on. We don’t need to think too hard about how Eastasia or Eurasia were formed; we need to care that the government keeps switching which one we’ve “always” been at war with. We don’t need to know who’s running the world in Fahrenheit 451, because they’re not the ones who caused Montag’s wife to O.D. or who hit Clarisse with a car or who made Beatty hate books; the society of that book is twisted because individual people are twisted. Though they contain sci-fi elements, these stories are not sci-fi books. They are much closer to horror, in that their events are supposed to provoke a sort of cautious fear in the audience. The idea is that this could happen here, and maybe it’s already happening.

Again, YA dystopia’s could do this, but that’s clearly not what they’re going for. If Hunger Games was only a nod to the dangers of media and decadence, I could get behind it. Instead, it decided to become a story about revolution, with a somewhat Chosen-One-esque figure. It went the sci-fi-fantasy route, following the epic story of a hero who attempts to save society. If Divergent only concerned itself with the idea that humans are sorted into groups based on a single personality trait… well, I would still think that was pretty silly, but I could see a skilled writer making it work. It goes beyond this, though, into this whole backstory involving genetic engineering and human experimentation. It’s a sci-fi. And because both of these stories have decided to be sci-fi, rather than only dystopias, they fail. Because sci-fi stories require a somewhat believable backstory and set-up and current world building, and the worlds of Divergent and Hunger Games could not happen, or at least would not happen like that, even if there were rebellions and mutations and human experimentation. There are too many inconsistencies and plot holes that strain belief, and sci-fi needs to be somewhat believable.

With that, I hoped I’ve converted some of you to my genre-focused cause. Before you criticize a story for having a plot hole or being unrealistic, first consider the genre. Consider what the story is trying to do, and if it does it well or not. The plot holes might not be as big of a problem as you thought.

[fanarchoslashivist]

Star Trek AU, JackBunny

I Don’t know enough about Star Trek for a real AU but here is a Con fic set ten years in the future that I hope resembles something vaguely Star Trek shaped.

~*~

“This is ridiculous.”

“This is awesome, shut up forever.” Jack dragged Bunny by the arm from booth to booth.

“I thought you hated crowds.” Bunny whined as he was shoved by yet another overly excited underaged girl in way too little clothing.

“I do, but cons are different. They’re FUN.”

Jack’s idea of fun was as difficult to understand as North’s idea of drunk, though sharing in at least one flickering light of sanity in all that chaos, you should at least survive it. Unfortunately Aster didn’t think he would.

“Yo, furry con’s across the street!” Jeered a group of teenagers in what Aster figured was matching costumes though to what he didn’t know. He wasn’t very up to date in a lot of popular media.

“Thank’s, but you go on ahead. We’ll catch up!” Jack shouted back.

“Like I would!”

Jack spun around and walked backwards. “Don’t you work there?”

They couldn’t hear the reply over the laughs and Jack was already moving ahead with determination. “People dressed as Naruto should not mock other costumes.” Jack muttered.

“Why am I even here?” Bunny asked, begged really. This was not his scene and he had thought it wasn’t Jack’s scene, but here they both were.

“To argue.”

“Argue? With who?”

“With idiots. There’s a whole panel of them, and yesterday they made Sophie cry.”

“What?” Aster was suddenly a lot more interested. “How?”

“Because its ‘Fiction’,” Jack used his one free hand to do air quotes, “and she’s a wittle girl who knows a little science from like youtube or wikipedia and they’re professionals and pointing out flaws in their shows is ruining everyones fun.”

“Sophie is a robotics engineer with a college degree.” Who was very soon going to rival SpaceX in the market for space travel, once she finished her crowdfunding.

“Yeah, but she’s bad with public speaking, and you’re like an alien, and a genius, and also a guy, so you’re going to do what her autism prevented her from doing.” They had finally reached the one part of the crushing group of people that they were going to merge into, how Jack could tell where the general crowd ended and THEIR crowd began was a magic beyond Aster’s understanding.

“And that is?”

“Humiliate them, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Aster nodded. “Should I uh… is the penis part mandatory?”

“It is for these assholes.” Jack snarled and their immediate neighbors did a doubletake at him.

“So should I, um…” Aster stuck his thumb between his two fingers, “shapeshift?”

Jack’s eyes bugged then he burst out laughing. “No Bunny, your very deep and very sexy voice is enough.”

“Oh, good.” He sighed. He never knew what he was getting into with these things, and it wouldn’t be the first time any of his fellow guardians had taken him on a mad adventure involving public displays of reproductive organs. North in particular. “Should I have some previous experience?” he fished, trying to figure out what Sophie had gotten so offended by, “ a debriefing? Maybe a movie night?”

Jack huffed a laugh, “Asking me on a date?”

“I already did, and ye said I was too grumpy.”

“I said you were too attached to the stick up your ass, and I stand by that.” Jack faced him fully and reached up to fiddle with the weird chain that made Bunny look like he had a well concealed but still visible zipper running down his chest. “I’m not interested in breaking up committed relationships, but I’m open to the idea once your divorce settles.”

That.. Aster didn’t know how to respond to that. So he ignored it.

“What exactly are we here for?” He asked as plainly as he could.

“You know Star Trek.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not anything in the past 50 years.” Though when Jack had first become a Guardian some thirty years ago and discovered the very large library, specifically the comic book collection the Yeti had acquired, he’d convinced North to build a home theater so the Yeti could watch every comic adapted into a movie ever. Then they’d somehow binged several decades worth of movies and tv series. Aster was a little more interested in high fantasy than scifi, which had surprised them all including him.

It just hit a little too close to home. And also had the habit of getting him and North on a rant of what was and was not possible.

“Good, because only like half of what they’ve made recently has been worth knowing, and the newest reboot is vile.”

“How vile?”

“Black people don’t exist, at least if you go by the cast, and Spock is some double agent and evil foil to Kirk, who thinks it’s okay to blow up an entire planet to kill one bad guy according to the last season finale and Picard had been retconned into the original cast and is the President of Earth for some reason? It’s a whole ordeal.”

Bunny’s face clearly showed his disbelief.

“Yeah, so I’m gonna need you to take, like, the entire time they have available to just… do that thing you do when something is obscenely stupid.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s OBSCENE.”

“LEXX.”

“Look, ye can’t fit an entire human brain on a CD ROM, I don’t care how advanced the Brunen-G were no sane person commits suicide an sticks their brain inna disc, if ye want to preserve yer conscious just upload it to some cosmic plane where ye can still interact with others and the world around ya otherwise yer memory will stagnate and corrode.”

“Yes, this, good.” Jack pointed at his nose making Bunny go cross-eyed, “But like, in THERE. Take all this,” he gestured widely, “and put it THERE” gestured towards the door.

“Fine,” he crossed his arms. “what am I going to debate exactly?”

Jack shrugged, “Whatever comes up. Smarty pants space travel stuff always comes up at these things.”

“Okay, so what do we do until then? Besides risk symbiogenesis from such tight quarters?”

“Well we COULD discuss how you plan to divorce your perpetual butt plug and learn to have fun one of these days.” Jack smirked at him.

“I can and will leave ya here.”

“See, not so hard, now just tell that to the stick up your ass and we can finally date.”

[utopianparadoxist]

The pleas of false people mean nothing: Nier’s sound and enemy design carries a vital message.

(This Cannot Continue.)

For Nier/Taroverse Fans: (Skip this section if you’re not one of my tragic people (yet)):

This essay is primarily aimed at fans of Nier:Automata, or at least people interested in it. Or good game and sound design fans in general. 

That said, I am primarily a Homestuck blog, and my perspective will include some comparisons to Homestuck. Don’t worry, nothing you won’t be able to follow-- even if you’ve literally never heard of Homestuck. In fact, you may come away from this with a new area of interest if you’ve exhausted Nier: Automata’s content and it left you hungry for a similar kind of story. 

Even if you can’t imagine reading all of the comic proper, Hiveswap is coming out soon--possibly even this month, and I’m confident that game will make an excellent entry point into the series. I’m also running a youtube channel dedicated to explaining the comic to newcomers, along with potential lore links between the game and the comic, a la Dark Souls.

This piece will include some fairly big Homestuck spoilers, but frankly I don’t think it will matter either way--like with Nier: Automata itself, even spoiling the entire story couldn’t for a second make up for the actual execution.

In any case, No matter how much you’ve interacted with either Nier or Homestuck, you should be able to follow along and enjoy my points about both in this essay just fine. 

I’m also going to avoid spoilers about Nier: Automata for the most part. However, I will be outlining the basic premise of the game and the thematic undercurrents that run through the entire story, so there are obviously some spoilers for the early game.

For Homestuck Fans:  (Skip this section if you’re not one of my tragic people (yet)): 

Yeah, I know I’m in the middle of a whole series of essays on Jake and that I kind of established a strong build up for the next essay. That one’s still coming--I might publish it tonight or maybe tomorrow. I’m excited about it!

But frankly, I kind of went through some really intense and borderline traumatic stuff in my personal life the last couple days. Not to do with Dirkjake or Homestuck at all--everyone who’s read my posts has thus far been terrifically kind to me, and the criticism and feedback I’ve received has been constructive in polishing and framing the next entry. I haven’t gotten a single anon hate message or anything. Thanks for that.

Just to do with some stuff irl, and writing is how I cope, and what happened made me want to write about this right the fuck now. I don’t feel like it can wait, no matter how much I love the subject of Jake English. Given how bombastic I am in those essays, that should give you an idea how strongly I feel about this subject.

I also think that understanding my views on Nier will illuminate how I approach and deconstruct Homestuck from an analytical perspective, and at the very least help you contextualize my ongoing writing on the comic. So this is relevant in the long term anyway, I’m just kind of chagrined I’m essentially pulling an analysis series intermission here. Fucking RIP, I have become my own comedy.

OK, so all that stuff out of the way: This essay will be split into four sub-sections, following a naming convention you should be able to recognize pretty quickly.  I want to talk about the main antagonists in Nier: Automata: 

The Machines, and why they’re currently my favorite antagonists in any video game ever. 

Androids: Data for the uninitiated.

(This Cannot Continue.)

Nier: Automata is the latest entry in what is obscurely understood as the Drakengard-Nier franchise-- A series of action RPG Square-Enix games. Like Homestuck’s Andrew Hussie, most of the Taroverse saga (Drakengard 2 can stay in its corner) was conceptualized and directed by a notable Auteur figure: Yoko Taro- from whom the franchise gets its name. That’s not to say he’s solely responsible for the quality of his games, but simply that this is the reputation he’s earned in the fan community. 

The reason I bring these auteurs up at all is that they both seem concerned with very similar ideas, leading to some peculiar similarities between their works. By bringing up the similarities between them, I feel I can better get at the core of what each series has to offer, and hopefully enticing fans of the one to consider the other.  

Both series include explorations on the nature of existing as part of the Multiverse, along with multiple and sequential apocalyptic scenarios (both stories span over thousands if not millions of years and several civilizations).  They both have questions to ask about the human condition, the nature of power and relationships, and humanity’s relationship with both reality and God. 

If I had to describe my opinion on their philosophical differences in a paragraph, here’s what I’d say: Homestuck explores the concept of the multiverse while presenting a path for how to reach Heaven. The Taroverse explores how it can be used to imagine an endless, cyclical Hell.

If you’re not averse to spoilers or watching some pretty disturbing and depressing stuff and you want to see a fantastic case for this reading of the Taroverse, I suggest watching @pixievalkyrie ’s excellent breakdown of the entire franchise’s history. Fair warning: Trigger warnings for pretty much every kind of horrible abuse and degradation of life imaginable. 

If you want to see my case backed up further for Homestuck, well-- there’s no earthly way to break Homestuck into smaller chunks like the Taroverse allows for, so I suppose you’ll just have to stay tuned to my work and read the comic yourself in the meantime. But Tex Talks does a very good job of explaining the nature of Homestuck’s setting in this video, and I think you’ll find similarities. 

Now we can finally get to talking about the damn game. 

Aliens: The Shape of the Enemy.

(This cannot continue.)

The premise of the game is as follows: After surviving about four distinct apocalyptic events and/or wars, thousands of years in the future, Earth faces an alien invasion. The invasion is successful and drives what’s left of humanity off the planet and onto the Moon. 

The aliens do not fight themselves, however-- instead preferring to build a distinct industry of robotic weapons to fight their war for them: The Machines, our antagonists.

In response to the threat, humanity builds autonomous weapons of their own. Our Protagonists: The Androids. The three primary androids in our story are two combat androids, codenamed 2B and A2, and one scanner/support Android codenamed 9S. Here we see 2B, 9S, and A2--from top left to bottom right.

What’s immediately noticeable is how different Androids and Machines are. 

Androids look and feel, for all intents and purposes, perfectly human. They talk fluently, consider complex problems, and clearly care for each other. They are expressly ordered not to show emotions, but they demonstrably have them anyway. 

Machines, by comparison, look like crude imitations of people, toy-like and expressionless. Their voices are synthesized and robotic, their intonations and accents alien, making it difficult to discern emotion. Machines look mass-produced and cheaply customizable, with a variety of modifications pasted onto a crude and simple base design to fill out enemy types.

Androids are also ridiculously more competent and functional. This is a hack n’ slash game, and the Machines are direct analogs to, say, Heartless from Kingdom Hearts. 

During gameplay, you’ll mow them down by the hundreds practically effortlessly, and though there are some bigger and tougher variants, most of them come across as borderline pathetic in their attempts to fight.

But both kinds of robots share a few similarities, one of which is this: 

They are both connected to Post-Singularity Server networks that give them orders on how to fight their enemy. 

For both Machines and Androids, these supercomputers are the structures actually calling the shots--they’re the sources of the series of orders that lead to a war that seems to span anywhere from centuries to millennia. 

Neither Androids or Machines are calling the shots. But Androids have a design that makes it easy for them to signal feelings and complex internal realities, and Machines are designed to look very easy to dehumanize. 

And this is a Taroverse game, so of course this depressing as hell setup is only the beginning of a long fall down. 

Machines: Sounds that mean nothing. 

(This cannot continue.) Early into the game, 2B and 9S begin to note more and more machines behaving erratically. More and more machines become non-aggressive, staring blankly into space or beginning to ramble about random subjects, wandering the land and modifying themselves based on their environments.

As a player, Your orders are clear: Machines are to be eliminated. These are also the orders of 2B and 9S, and the game has you continue carrying them out mostly unquestioned except through these little niblets of bizarre behavior from the machines. It doesn’t matter anyway--they’re the enemy, and you have to fight to win.  This dynamic comes to its first climax in what will surely become one of the game’s most memorable scenes. 2B and 9S find their way to a small enclave of machines minding their own business, and what they find staggers their imaginations:

These robots are non-hostile. They’re rocking cradles while repeating “Child. Child.” Bumping into each other in suggestive ways while repeating “Love. Love.” and “Together. Forever.” All in those monotone, synthesized voices. Sounding so empty and wrong. 

9S forms an interesting response to this. He says: “Don’t listen to them, 2B. They don’t have any feelings. They’re just imitating human speech.” 

And it’s easy to come to that conclusion, right? It’s not like they emote. It’s not like they’re really able to. Essentially, 9S considers the Machines a threat, first and foremost--so when they act in a way that might engender empathy, he assumes it’s a trick or a ploy--an attempt to win the Androids over in order to hurt them. 

It’s deceitful, but it’s also worse than that. It’s deceit by sheer virtue of it’s premise: Machines cannot possibly say something indicating emotions like love, desire, or care because Machines are not real beings. They aren’t people.

They’re tools and weapons and puppets to a supercomputer’s Agenda-- not autonomous entities who think and feel for themselves, at least as far as he’s concerned. That’s what he was taught by his intelligence server, and that server is really the only source of information in his life. It’s natural to rely on it. 

Still, the machines don’t react to your presence and there’s nowhere to go. The only way forward is through violence. And once you provide it, they answer, with a lone Machine rising up and declaring: 

I’ll get you for this. 

As the fight continues, more and more machines make odd statements as they throw themselves at our protagonists, who demolish them by the dozens. Statements like: I love you! Kill! and Hatred! Pain! The robots suggest they feel what you’re doing. That they know what’s happening to them.  Again, this war has gone on forever, and you--as the Androids--are almost absurdly more powerful than they are. 2B executes machines by the dozens constantly, across every corner of the world she can reach them in. The Machines surely know this as they watch their community die on her sword, one after another. They can likely feel exactly how weak they are. 

But the voices that deliver their pain to the player remain stilted and alien--difficult to recognize. As the battle rises to it’s conclusion, however, one machine voices a thought that catches on. A short, clipped statement every machine can get behind. A meme.  This Cannot Continue. The machines repeat it faster and faster, uniting under a common rallying cry. This tension builds and builds until suddenly, the Machines experience some sort of breakdown, straight up throwing a collective tantrum in (seemingly pantomime) desperation and repeating the words so fast and so often it barely sounds like a recognizable statement and sounds pure like pure cacophony.

Looking at this screenshot might convey some of the effect, but listening to the noise they’re collectively making is really something else. I’d link to the scene, but I don’t want to spoil what they do next. All I’ll say is that once they all gather around this common, desperate thought, they take action. When they do, the music shifts... And the game does something I’ve never seen before.

[Please Listen]

Here’s another area where Nier: Automata is similar to Homestuck. Both properties are downright famous for their use of leitmotif and attaching particular meanings to different musical motifs. (The developer of Undertale, Toby Fox, got his start as a Homestuck musician.) But even in this sense, what Nier: Automata pulls off is uniquely powerful. This song uses everything about itself to inform and flesh out the themes of the game. Once the robots do what they do next, we get an new rendition of the game’s main battle theme. A battle theme titled as Birth of a Wish. 

Right from the title, the song is telling us something. Birth of a Wish (This cannot Continue) qualifies the robot’s collective statement as a wish, a desire. A wish for mercy? For deliverance? For justice, or peace? It’s hard to know. Probably all of the above.  And the song itself tricks the player. Or at least, it tricked me. I should mention that Nier does one thing that Homestuck only really dabbled in: Vocal work. Specifically, vocal work in a made up language-- @pixievalkyrie again comes to my rescue with an excellent breakdown of Emi Evan’s downright staggering artistic achievement in her creation of a composite chaos language derived from most of the major languages on Earth. 

Emi’s music is one of the major reasons I love this franchise, which is to say that when I first listened to this song, I did so actively hoping its vocal works wouldn’t make sense to me. 

And I got what I wanted! The vocals, as usual, were smooth and fascinating but seemingly meaningless enough that I could use the music as a backdrop for my writing--I’ve been listening to this track pretty much nonstop for the last couple of weeks. 

Which made it downright chilling when I realized, quite abruptly, that I was wrong. I have no idea if you noticed while listening to it or not--I genuinely don’t know if I’m an outlier here (pls send me asks with your experience!). But if you didn’t, then listen again: Most of the vocals for this song are written in plain English. 

They consist of three words: This cannot continue. 

The voices of the robots become part of the song. And the song itself is structured such that it informs the nature of their plight. The voices of the robots are barely musical--they are blank statements stated in synthesized monotone, hard to draw sentiment from. 

But they are persistent, barging into the song as forcefully as they possibly can for as long as they can. Their voices don’t rest or stop willingly, seeming as though they’re almost forming a sort of counterbeat to the song’s main line. And when they stop, it is always because they are cut off, shut down and out of the song by the force of the Instruments. 

Which is fitting, because instruments are what deny them in the game, too--after all, the Androids are simply tools. To the humans, to their server, and to you. 

The experience of listening to them goes something like: This cannot continue this cannot continue this cannot continue this cannot-- Over and over again, until the song inevitably drowns them for its climaxes, only for their voices to return once again. 

It’s a marvel of musical storytelling. But what makes it a diamond is what happens next. Later into the game, you come into contact with a village of Machines waving the white flag of surrender. 

These machines inform the androids that they have disconnected from the information network, as have been many other groups of machines across the world. This is the cause for their erratic behavior--these machines now wish only to learn about the world and themselves and live in peace. 

The music for this village is fundamentally different, to go with the information we gain:

[^Please Listen^]

Here the game tips it’s hand for good. I’m genuinely not sure what language this is in, or if it has actual lyrics--but it doesn’t matter. The vocal work is so stellar that the sentiment and meaning are carried in the simple tone of the voices. Like before, the Robots sing in harmony, but they sound deeply different. 

Their voices are still synthesized, but now they suggest an almost melancholy and gentle inquisitiveness. They sound so similar to the childlike voices that actually emote that the two distinct voice tracks flow into each other, rather can harshly contrasting like (This cannot continue)’s voices do. 

The sentiment conveyed is clear, even though in this case the Machines don’t seem to be speaking any language I understand. These are real beings. 

These are real people. These are just a bunch of kids. 

This is only the beginning of the Nier: Automata experience, and it’ll go on to explore so many more concepts that I don’t feel bad about spoiling it. It would be literally impossible for you to guess what happens next, and this isn’t even a quarter into what the game as a whole has to offer. 

But this is where we get off the train of Nier’s plot and into what the game is trying to tell us. There are only two more relevant pieces of information from the story left for me to spoil. After that, I will be discussing only the message the game is trying to send philosophically, without leaning on any more of the story. 

These are two more similarities between Machines and Androids:

1) Machines and Androids are built from the same materials.

2) Machines and Androids both consider their creators their Gods.

As well they should. Because once humans transgress the boundary of creating sentient life, that is what they will have become. And that is not just a possibility. It is an imminent reality of our future, which is coming sooner than you think. Which is why Nier: Automata is more than just a profoundly existential, deeply enjoyable work of art. 

Nier: Automata is a warning.

Humans: Become as Gods.

(This cannot Continue.)

[^Suggested listening^]

The leading scientists and experts of our planet pretty much agree that the Singularity is not just inevitable, but coming fast. The point when the machines we create become advanced enough to recognize and modify themselves, thus beginning a process of autonomous self-improvement that will far outspeed even the increasingly staggering rate of progress we humans are capable of, is coming.

Many of the most successful and scientific minds in our generation have issued dire warnings about AI. Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, Elon Musk--these are not uninformed people prone to spreading fantasy. I know this sounds like sci-fi drama, but it’s just a fact of life--what’s about to happen is real, and serious people are taking it very seriously. 

We can already reform the very shape of our planet. We can already extend our own lives and perform fucking magic like creating warmth when the world is cold, drawing water from nowhere as soon as we want it, and talk to literally anyone anywhere on the planet because we are all interconnected through a massive, sprawling, infinite plane of ideas and concepts we forced into reality--a composite experience containing all of our minds.

Once we have created life that can evolve without us, that is as aware of the world as we are--then we will really be as good as Gods. And when it happens, it will not save us from ourselves. It won’t fix the world for us.

If we are not mature enough to handle it, if we cannot evolve to the responsibility of our power, then it will without a doubt destroy us as a species. And it will destroy us because of our ability to dehumanize and abuse each other.

We humans have more in common with Androids and Machines than one would initially think. In fact, we have one unnervingly real similarity with both of them:

We have intelligence superstructures that inform how we think about reality and other people, too. You’re reading this on one. This is true whether you’re on Tumblr, Reddit, or wherever else this ends up. 

In this time of intense political division, there two main internets: The Left and The Right. The internet is a marvelous place where we can all talk to each other and transmit ideas, sure. But like with the servers providing information to both Androids and Machines, it’s also where a lot of people get their orders.

But not everyone. Obviously, like in Nier: Automata, the reality is more complicated than that. I just wonder if we will realize that long enough to look at what our world has become and fix it. 

There are people in control of my country right now that view me and the people I love as Machines were viewed by Androids. Our voices are wrong. The shapes and colors of our bodies are unnatural and awkward. The intonations and behaviors we use are strange and eerie to them, and the way we love and wish to present ourselves is incorrect to them. And so when we say we are being hurt it does not matter. We are not real. We cannot say real things.  It is all in service to a greater Agenda. 

The horror of the Machines, and the reason they are important characters, is not because of the threat they pose to the characters or some intrinsic Wrongness they reveal about the nature of life or humans. 

The horror of the Machines is how easy it is to ignore the fact that they feel horror. The horror of the Machines is how easy it is to make them look horrible. The horror of the Machines is that they can speak and speak but the Androids may never choose to listen. 

The horror of the Machines is that they are people, and we have stolen that from them. And if we continue to regard other humans the way we regard the Machines in our own world, once we have achieved Godhood, we will inevitably steal it from each other.  Nier: Automata’s message is clear:

Gods: This cannot continue. 

Very soon in the course of human history, we are going to be faced with a Choice. It is a Choice we will have to make every moment, every instant, for the rest of our lives. It is a Choice we are already making, but which many of us still have the luxury to ignore. Although not for much longer.

We must face this choice, both as a Collective and as Individuals. But the choice of each individual must inevitably come first, because how can we decide how to move forward as a species if we can’t even talk and agree about it? 

What kind of Gods are we going to be? Are we going to be like the Humans and Aliens in Automata? This is a Yoko Taro game, so I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you-you won’t like how they end up. 

Personally, I have a suggestion. 

I would like us to be more like Gods from Homestuck.

I like the world they build a lot better.

You can find my writing here, on this blog. You can also find some of my writing on games on ZEAL, and find my series aiming to make Homestuck accessible to non-fans on my youtube channel. If you like my writing and would like to support me in the endeavor of creating more of it, it would also seriously help me out if you pledged to my Patreon. I’ll be more than satisfied if my words move you enough to simply choose to share them with others, though.   Doing so will also get you access to my Discord server, where I’m more than willing to answer questions about Homestuck and Hiveswap whether you’re a long time fan or just getting into them for the first time. I’ll still answer questions if you just send me an ask on Tumblr, but I’m basically always busy with writing or helping to run the communities I am a part of, so answering questions can’t be my top priority at the moment. I’ll get around to all asks, but it might take time. 

Regardless, if you made it this far I am deeply, deeply grateful. More grateful than I think I can express in mere words. I hope my words change something for someone, somewhere. I hope my words change something for me.

Because this cannot continue.

See you again soon, everyone. 

Until then, keep rising. 

[ciathyzareposts]

Journeyman Project – Final Rating

Written by Reiko

All the way back on gameplay post 1, one of our intrepid commenters managed to neatly summarize my final sense of the game. Ross said, “This is one of my favorite series of games, but man is this first one clunky.” That’s exactly it. It was a cool ride, but…clunky. Like a budget rollercoaster that clanks and bumps around every turn, and its top speed never quite manages to feel fast. And then there’s the place where you’ll hit your head if you don’t remember to duck.

I am actually thinking of a particular kiddie rollercoaster I’ve ridden with my young son. Yes, it was clanky and bumpy, fast enough to be fun but not fast enough to feel fast for long. No, I never actually bumped my head, but there’s one point where the track dives below an overhead loop that you reach later in the ride. I’m very short, but as an adult on a kids’ ride, it felt like a near miss every time I went through that part, to the point where I would usually duck a bit even though I didn’t have to.

Puzzles and Solvability

Most of the puzzles were very solvable, but rather on the obvious side. Use the oxygen mask to breathe while in the depressurized tunnels. Disarm the bomb before taking it. Use the right biochip in the right situation. It’s really not a hard game. There were only two tricky timing puzzles, and one was only tricky because of the interface (the silo deactivation minigame with the awkward cursor), and the other was the ore crusher. Some of the puzzles were very derivative, like the stunted Mastermind variation. And there was a real maze, which fortunately was rendered rather trivial with the Mapping biochip. There are also no alternate solutions except for the final choice of how to deal with each robot, whether “peacefully” or not.

How many chips can I grab from the robot before it self-destructs?

Then there’s the walking dead situation. The problem is, the game doesn’t allow any possibility of returning to time periods that have been won. Oddly enough, it’s possible to fail the Mars level without dying and start over again, as if the robot didn’t succeed. But once you’ve defeated a robot, then the level is won and becomes inaccessible. If you fail to take all of the biochips from the robots, then they are lost. Some are duplicates, but I managed to lock myself out of completing the game my first time through solely because I failed to get the Retinal biochip, which is unique. It’s also possible to miss the wire cutters, but this would only lock the player out of the best score, not prevent winning the game entirely.

Score: 4

Interface and Inventory

In my opinion, the entire interface could have used a redesign. It’s typical of the time that the viewing window was very small, with an interface frame around it. I don’t mind that so much, but the inventory in particular was not designed well.

I have to go from the Access Card Bomb at the top of the list to the Stun Gun, nearly at the bottom of the list.

First, there was no good reason to mix biochips and regular inventory items in the same list, particularly when the chips can also be accessed from the pull-out list at the bottom. All that does is make it harder to get to a particular inventory item when you need it, and given a few times where you need to get to an item fairly quickly, it’s really awkward. Plus the list itself is really small, with only five items visible at a time, and the scroll buttons are very slow. It’s a good thing the time limits on those moments that require a response are very generous.

Plenty of room for the pull-out list to stay open at the bottom.

Second, that pull-out list should have just been a permanent frame at the bottom with all of the spaces (full or empty) always visible. That way every biochip would have been a single click away. The interface chip in particular needed to be more accessible because of the scoring being tied to the time limit: every time you have to fumble through the inventory to get to the interface chip, energy and points are slipping away. So most of the time I left the interface chip activated so I could get to it without delay. Note that even with the pull-out list open, there’s still enough room that the inventory list could have displayed more than five items.

To be honest, I think it’s a bad sign when you have an inventory item called “interface”. The interface should never get in the way of inventory or be represented as inventory. In this sort of high-tech future, it might sometimes make sense to have a sort of digital interface item that the player uses, but the interface biochip isn’t even the same thing as the eyescreen object that Agent 5 clearly picks up and wears in the opening video, which then becomes the entire visible viewing screen plus surrounding interface. The biochip only performs the meta functions of saving, loading, and displaying score, which should generally not have anything to do with physical objects in the protagonist’s world. (Probably games exist that successfully and cleverly break the fourth wall in this way, but this isn’t one of them.) In other words, this is clearly the design of an inexperienced studio that hasn’t yet figured out that meta functions should never interfere with gameplay. By contrast, Sierra games early on already were designed to pause gameplay by default when you access the menu screen.

Pressure plate triggers T-rex shadow?

I also didn’t like that certain places had unskippable animations that would play every time you moved there. Sometimes the repetition was merely implausible. In the distant past, the same dinosaur would appear every time you stood in the right spot, but at least that was a short animation. Other times the repetition was really annoying, like the rather lengthy sequence that would play when entering the transporter at the beginning. The Pegasus device also had an animation for displaying the timeline every single time you entered it, warped back from a time period, or loaded a saved game there. Overall, the game just wasn’t very responsive, and that made replaying sections less fun than it could have been.

This was almost entirely a mouse-driven game, except that moving around could also be done with the keyboard, which I very much appreciate. That minigame with the cursor really should have had some sort of keyboard controls as well, though. The mouse control was very imprecise, which added artificial difficulty to the task.

Score: 3

Story and Setting

The plot involved fairly typical time-travel shenanigans, which boiled down to “villain who invented time travel hates aliens, so he sends robots back in time to mess up history and make everyone else hate aliens too.” Cue the time agents to set things right. The interesting part is seeing what the future is like and observing the effects that just a few changes have on history. It’s not terribly realistic, but then time travel generally isn’t. On the other hand, the change in the political climate when suddenly everyone has a reason to believe that aliens have attacked Mars is rather understandable.

I asked early on why attacking Castillo at the rally in 2310 was one of the choices to change when the initial contact with the Cyrollans, where they offered Earth Symbiotry membership in ten years, was two years before that, in 2308. After playing the whole game, I suppose that the first two events (destroying the alien ship and the Mars colony, and attacking the small country with nukes) were meant to turn the world’s governments against aliens and each other, while the rally event was meant to prevent Earth from wanting to accept the Cyrollan offer once it was made. You’d think the third event wouldn’t be necessary if the first two succeeded, but I guess Sinclair was hedging his bets, especially since he was prepared to assassinate the Cyrollan delegate at the crucial moment if none of the changes succeeded.

Neat sequence of flying the shuttle over Mars

I liked the setting, but I generally like science fiction. The Mars base was done particularly well: I enjoyed walking around the base with Japanese signs and watching the shuttle fly over the Martian surface. The distant past was very brief, although the vista with the volcano was pretty neat, and the other two past levels were mostly just internal corridors. The biomechanical doors in the rally level were intriguing, though.

Score: 5

Sound and Graphics

Sound effects were evocative and appropriate: doors swished, footsteps clanged on metal floors, the robot voices sounded suitably menacing, and so forth. The music was really fun too. You can find the soundtrack on Youtube here if you want to check it out. “Mars Maze” is the neat song that plays while you’re wandering around the maze of ore tunnels on Mars. That one is my favorite track. I also like the ending theme, which is a smoother and longer version of the music that plays on the main menu.

I also noticed that there’s a slower version of the Mars Maze song that’s labeled “Airless” with breathing and a heartbeat overlaid on it. I originally assumed (and was correct) that it isn’t possible to enter the tunnels without the oxygen mask, just like it isn’t possible to enter them from the other direction, but this track implies that it is possible to run out of air while in the tunnels. The description of the oxygen mask does say it’s only supposed to work for eight minutes. So I went back and entered the tunnels and tried waiting around. Sure enough, after about five or six minutes, the theme switched to the slower version and I started hearing the breathing, which sped up along with the heartbeat, and eventually the air did run out. So that’s another way to get the Suffocation ending. I had just always used the Mapping chip and sped through that section so fast that I never noticed that the air could run out. That’s also interesting because I can wear the oxygen mask for the entire NORAD level with no issues, but I think there it’s only filtering out the sleeping gas, so it doesn’t use up its oxygen.

Full tunnel map. I could be starting to run out of air here, but you’d never know it just by the screenshot.

At any rate, the alternate maze theme is a fantastic audio cue. I often play games without sound, but I think this game would be very hard to play without sound because so many of the puzzle cues are audio only. Nothing appears on screen to tell you that you’re running out of air. Another example: the security radio alerts tell you where the robot in the Mars colony has gone when it takes off in the shuttle, so you can take the other one and follow it. I would have really liked a subtitle option, as I just really prefer to read text rather than listen to voices (or ideally, do both, but have the option to skip ahead).

In the NORAD level, most of the corridors had an annoying alert repeating in the background about the sleeping gas. Sure, it helps the immersion a bit, but it’s very distracting. Probably it would have been just as effective and a fraction as annoying if the alert only played in the first main corridor. It’s not like you can get very far without having the oxygen mask anyway.

I really wanted text summaries of these videos…

One of the places where the FMV was less than helpful was with the videos of the timeline differences. I don’t mind a voice-over, but it would have been so much more efficient to show a still image of the speaker (because she looked different in the different timelines) with the text of the description, rather than playing those unskippable videos. The objective videos needed to be videos, though, because Sinclair’s menace and instability wouldn’t have come through with just text or even text with voice. But all of those videos that are triggered by the player should have been pausable and skippable.

The erupting volcano scene looks almost photorealistic, although low resolution.

The graphics were clear and even quite lovely in places, such as the volcano vista I mentioned, the views out the apartment windows over the city of Caldoria, and the views out the colony windows over the surface of Mars. Much of the game took place in relatively repetitive corridors, though. Plus, most of the animations were videos that took up very little of the game’s screen area: the visible area was already only part of the screen, and the parts that moved were often only a fraction of that.

Score: 6

Environment and Atmosphere

The atmosphere is quite good. I felt like the robots were really menacing, for instance. Every time I encountered the robot in the Mars level, I wondered if I was going to get blown up. The Mars level was the longest and best of the three major time periods (and because it’s supposed to be played first, I have to wonder if the other levels were intended to be longer but development was cut short).

The surface of Mars and more of the colony structure.

While the areas that are playable are sharply constrained, external views help make the worlds seem much larger. Outside the colony corridors is the surface of Mars. Outside the apartment is the rest of Caldoria. Outside the lab corridors is…well, we don’t really see it, but we do periodically hear stage announcements and people talking, which helps the illusion that we’re near a stage with a large audience. Again, the sound effects are fantastic. Much of the atmosphere comes from the sound.

Outside NORAD, though…? Who knows? All we see are corridors and all we hear is that horrid announcement about the sleeping gas. There are a lot of locked doors, though, which I guess is supposed to imply a larger base.

Score: 5

Dialog and Acting

I’m going to have to rate this category down for three reasons: there just isn’t all that much dialogue in the game to start with; most of the interesting bits are completely optional and even have to be skipped in a high-scoring run; and the written content has numerous typos/spelling errors. I’ll say more about each of these in reverse order.

Nobody ever checked this screen during development or testing?

Spelling errors bug me, especially in a game like this that hangs together quite well. I encountered no bugs aside from the one oddity of having the tranquilizer dart show up again when I restored inside the lab. Clearly the gameplay was tested, but nobody bothered to read through the text and check it? It really makes it seem like the video and audio content was considered more important, as if nobody reads in the future, but just watches videos instead. It’s a huge contrast to something like Myst with its copious journals and letters.

As I’ve mentioned, the game actively discourages exploration beyond what’s needed to solve the puzzles and advance. Sinclair’s lab at the rally has some extra research archives that explore what the man had been working on, which is great background material, but it’s totally irrelevant to stopping the robot. Naturally, the optimal playthrough entirely skips it. Any video is simply wasted time when the energy is ticking down, but it’s a shame that there wasn’t more of this sort of thing to be found in the other time periods for a playthrough that isn’t focused on optimization (especially the NORAD level, which felt particularly empty).

The voice reads all this as well as having it displayed on-screen.

Aside from brief encounters with the robots (and Sinclair at the end), there just isn’t much dialogue. The acting is well done, but there are no conversations, only one-sided remarks, and they are all very brief. The minigames did have significant written descriptions. But most of that merely duplicated the spoken content, which was unskippable. I mentioned earlier that I wanted subtitles for the videos. Here it seemed redundant to have both, since the purpose was only to explain how to play the minigames, not convey complex character information. The videos should have had subtitles, and the minigame explanations should have been text only.

Score: 4

That adds up to a final score of 4+3+5+6+5+4 = 27/60*100 = 45. Sixteen people made guesses ranging from 41 to 65, but this time, ShaddamIVth has nailed it.

CAP Distribution

100 points to Reiko

Blogger award – 100 CAPs – For blogging through this game for our enjoyment

50 point to Joe Pranevich

Classic Blogger Award – 50 CAPs – For blogging through Trinity for our enjoyment

38 points to MorpheusKitami

True Companion Award – 25 CAPs – For playing along with most of the game and providing amusing commentary

Spellchecker Award – 10 CAPs – For finding the repeated “dicovery” typo and the “nuclear missle” typo in the screenshots

Sudden Death Award – 3 CAPs – For alerting me to a death I’d missed: entering the mining tunnels without disabling the bomb

14 points to ShaddamIVth

Psychic Prediction Award – 10 CAPs – For guessing the final rating for Journeyman Project

Walking Dead Award – 2 CAPs – For sensing there would be a walking dead situation (but not how it would happen)

Cognitive Dissonance Award – 2 CAPs – For recognizing that the Mars robot should have been more violent

10 points to Adam Thornton

Psychic Prediction Award – 10 CAPs – For guessing the final rating of Trinity

7 points to Biscuit

Music Research Award – 5 CAPs – For determining that the post titles are all songs by Two-Mix

Pegasus Variation Award – 2 CAPs – For describing differences in the NORAD level in the Pegasus Prime remake

7 points to Ross

Psychic Summary Award – 5 CAPs – For echoing my conclusion of Journeyman Project back on the first post

Genre Evolution Award – 2 CAPs – For reflecting on how the JP games shifted their approach to exploration as the series progressed

3 points to Niklas

(Not-so) Sudden Death Award – 3 CAPs – For alerting me to a death I’d missed: letting energy run out in the prehistoric era

2 points to ATMachine

Historical Geography Award – 2 CAPs – For reminding us that Bonn was a capital while Germany was divided

With that, I am done with the first Journeyman Project game. We might eventually get to the Pegasus Prime remake (although with an original release date no earlier than 1997, it will be a while), and the second Journeyman Project game, Buried in Time, should be in the 1995 set. But before that, I’ll be back later in 1993 to see if Ecoquest II is just as cheerful and wholesome as the original.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/journeyman-project-final-rating/

[ghostsonabiketonowhere]

Ghostman: The council calamity retrospective

Well christ, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I know literally nobody follows this blog, but as of this writing, i’m waiting on the steam direct fee i paid to be fully processed (Basically, in a week i’ll be able to publish the game)

I’d like to take a second and stroll down memory lane for a little bit, and why it took so fucking long to make this game, this is basically going to be a list of every time i tried and failed to make a game, so strap in, these aren’t in chronological order either, and i’ve kinda forgotten the proper order.

Bill’s excellent adventure:

There’s incredibly little to say on this one, after reading a 4chan thread on games development i downloaded GM:S, tried making a platformer, saw my art, didn’t see any progress after trying a little bit, and gave up.

Mugman:

Mugman was the first time i tried making an adventure game, other than the main character, i had no ideas for the game and dropped it like a rock.

Radiation Seat:

Radiation Seat, for the more dedicated gamers in the audience, is just a synonym for nuclear throne, i tried messing around with random generation in GM:S, realised i’m not very good at coding and gave up, the game actually kinda works though, so theoretically if i’m a moron/psychopath i could try working on it again.

Asterodis:

First real game i ever made, it’s an asteroids clone, but with a bunch of the stuff i saw in Vlambeer’s game feel talks crammed in, it’s essentially idenitcal to a tutorial on youtube except shooting takes away points and there’s a limit to the number of bullets on screen.

Poltergeist (Aka: Ghostman when he was a person)

I posted a lot about Poltergeist (the version of ghostman with good art and a completely different setting), the secret to this was having a good artist, Robert Thomas helping me out, we never finished it, and Bobby got caught up in school work, but that’s almost over so if he’s willing to pick up the pen again, i’m willing to do the coding and fix the reall weird bugs (randomly the game would massively lag for a reason i never figured out, i assume it had something to do with the way AGS handles characters over non walkable areas)

Grall and Foegart goto whitecastle:

I’d had the idea of wanting to make a high fantasy adventure game after reading a couple of discworld novels, these games didn’t get far, but it did have an interesting character switching mechnic similar to DOTT, this also appeared in a couple of other half finished games i’d made, why i thought it’d be funny to make a game based on it when i’d never seen Harold and Kumar go to whitecastle? Iunno.

H.E.L.L:

H.E.L.L (Hyper Energetive Love Lab) was a shot at making a VN, i’m probably going to still do this, so i don’t know if putting here’s sensible but eh, fuck it, i’d had the idea of a reality show crossed with a death game for ages, and tried writing a short story about it, which went nowhere.

Gender Girl:

Gender Girl was the first video game i ever made, it was a scratch program with the cat repainted to be pink, moving left killed you by a spike, moving right displayed a message that gender girl had liberated herself (Hohoho, very ludonarratively insync, 12 year old me), i uploaded it to the scratch website, and it, containing swear words(such a rebel was i) it was deleted 5 seconds after publication, truly, a light gone from the world, what did it have to do with gender? If i remember literally nothing, or you were supposed to cut your dick off with the spikes.

Yeah.

PAGAN:

Pagan was a pokemon rip off i was making, i didn’t get far beyond changing sprites and types, world design is hard, as of writing it’s still on my site, i ought to take it down buti just don’t have the heart, poor Pagan.

BORB (Ghostman 1)

Borb, as it’s affectionatly called in the files, is ghostman 1, it’s the source of the Alien King sprite, and the Ghostman sprite used in Ghostman: The council calamity, and was distributed amongst my friends for like, 5 seconds, it’s 4 screens and one “Puzzle”, which doesn’t actually work because the last time i did work on it, it’s fun to see how my humour changed, in GM1 we’ve got the classic line “It’s locked up tighter than a jewish bank” and a character named Snil, whose ribbing snarky asshole persona was basically every persona i used to write until i started playing dnd with my friends, and had to make more than 1 character, i don’t really like anything about GM1, but i find it oddly charming, it’s terrible perspective and total lack of story or theme (You’re kidnapped by bandits and the game ends in leaving on a spaceship having never seen a single bandit.) just makes it like lenny from of mice and men, it probably should die, but i can’t help shooting a game that thought the way to add taste was to remove the words “Fuck off” from a wall.

Rebet:

Rebet’s the first time we see the actual character “Rebut” appear, in some weird tron like backround, i remember wanting to make something that looked like tron, and failing, other than that Rebet remains a total mystery, even to me, andi made the fucking thing, looking at the code, i remember a little bit more about the game, the main gimmick was having a variety of ray guns that could effect peoples emotion, the example in the tutorial was a “calming ray” to prevent a drill seargeant from screaming at you, this didn’t go anywhere.

Wing Wang:

This is literally an empty ags game, there’s nothing in it, i don’t know why i haven’t deleted it.

Ye Men of Valour:

Ye Men of Valour was a weird idea, i’d read a book called “The decline and fall of the British Empire” (Based upon the work, the decline and fall of the roman empire) and decided to make a game based upon a variety of British figures from across time entering into a house they must escape, only to be killed by Aliens, the goal of the game was to get players to reload the game with the knowledge that following the puzzles as they were laid out would kill them, and use a different method to escape, Ye Men of Valour really ended up going nowhere because i was in a pretty dark place and wasn’t motivated, like at all, i’m gonna put this in the “Might come back to it” pile.

Ghostman 2:

Ghostman 2, like Grall and Foegart, had a character switching thing, this ended up breaking the game, so i scrapped it, Ghostman 2 was when the idea of Ghostman being a space adventure comes from, following from Ghostman 1, where you leave on a ufo with an alien, it’s what i thought would happen next, if i remember there was literally no story, just the characters, and switching gimmick.

I.A.C.M

I.A.C.M was a project i worked on with Bobby very breifly, the idea was to make an adventure game set inside a mentally disturbed girls mind, this basically didn’t pan out due to AGS engine limitations, the sprites sent in were too big and ended up looking kind of lame squashed down.

You cannot name this file, insect.:

This wasn’t a game, this was shit poetry at a time in my life where i knew my poetry was godawful, there was no story here, just a Shodan like figure who’d insult me, like personally, i’d write insults about myself into a script and then play it.

Robot Initation:

Adventure game, starring “some random guy named mike”, drew the first character sprites, hated them, didn’t want to improve them, gave up.

Assault and Battery/BatteryMan:

This was a go at 3d platformers made in unity, fell apart because the models i’d made in blender weren’t done properly at all, breaking practically everything.

PirateTextAdventure(ActualTitle):

Sounds exactly like what it is, never got a single line down for this.

Shield Slide:

A rip off of free ski based on the idea of riding a shield i think i saw i a lotr movie? Never got to prototype.

AAAH!

AAAH (Aimless aeronautical adveture, huzzah!) was an experiment i wanted to make, an adventure game that was procedudrely generated, every game would involve a one minute timer, which upon reaching zero, would result in the player dying, the story was the player had just survived a plane colliding with another plane in midair, and had to find a way to live without a parachute just using debris, lessons learned: Random generation is hard, i also ripped off the title from AAAAAAAAAAAAh for the awesome.

Sweet Goodnight:

Sweet goodnight was an rpg i planned to make about dying alone in a spaceship, it never got far beyond idle doodles and some game design docs that i’ve since lost, may go back to this in future.

Spaceman and Woodboy:

A mario and luigi superstar saga ripoff, never got to properly playable state, GM:S is hard.

Quest of Halden:

Shit rpg.

Ghostman: CNC :

Ghostman: CNC (Caverns and creatures) was a weird idea, i wanted to make an Rpg based on my dnd campaign, but for some reason i felt the need to justify it with a weird ghostman shell, may go back to this one.

Legend of Negro:

I don’t know why the fuck this is on my computer, i tried pissing around with a legend of zelda game maker thing.

Generic Units:

Supposed to be an xcom like, fell apart.

Airman/Pacifist run:

Something i still want to do, an fps with non violent weapons and stage hazards that you have to use to defeat enemies, got as far as modeling a single gun.

Sepsis man:

A 3d platformer starring a drinks machine, modeled main character, gave up.

Slime Game (actual title, again.)

Slime game (Or Slime Quest) was going to be an incredibly clever subversive take on the Rpg genre by having the grand villain actually be a low level mook, think cave rats and dungeon bosses, that kind of thing, stopped making it because i thought “Woah, that’s dumb, and lame, and i really don’t like making art for ideas that are dumb and lame!”

Zug’s Glorious road trip for the glory of the party and wealth of the nation:

ZGRTFTGOTPAWOTN for short, this was a text adventure based on wormhole shenanigans and Soviet propaganda films, never really got that far, fun little fact, Zug’s the name of the alien in my twitter profile pic.

Ghostman: The council calamity:

I didn’t quit, i made the game.

THANK GOD FOR THAT.