#>got blown up in the ships console

[foursidecity]

Voltron is great and all but they keep putting lance in situations where he's blown up

[gracesimp]

I know

14th doctor x reader

Request/Summary: With the Not-Things, there's a lot of potential for angst and hurt/comfort, etc. Totally fine if you don't want to write this, but I keep imagining a reader companion who has been secretly pining for the doctor and the Not-Thing reveals their love for the Doctor while trying to prove itself and yeah

Wild Blue Yonder Spoilers.

"You don't fool me," The Doctor says bluntly, looking at Y/n with his arms crossed and a grimace on his face. "You're not them, and I'd strongly suggest you stop pretending to be so before this ends badly." He threatens, voice dropped low into an hair-raising whisper.

"But I am! I'm me." They try quickly, tenuous pout on their lips and eyes full of tears. They place a hand to their heart, expression morphed into one of desperation. "Please, I swear! You have to believe me. After everything we've been through, you've got to know that it's me."

Scoffing and standing tall, eyes darkening dangerously, The Doctor shakes his head immediately. "Don't." He spits, taking a step forwards, so brutally it causes Y/n to step back in fear. "Don't you dare."

With eyes ingenuous and lips parted to allow shallow breaths to escape, Y/n responded quietly. "If I'm not me, then how would I know everything I do? How would I remember standing on the edge of civilisations, watching planets burn and being able to do nothing to help. Evil monsters - the ones that gave me this scar, remember?" They struggled, running a trembling finger down the little scar on their neck.

His face remains unimpressed. Blank. Angry.

"And how would I know how in love with you I am?" They whisper, swallowing thickly. "That thing may be able to fake being me, but they would never be able to fake a feeling as strong as that. Never."

It's silent for a moment, but then The Doctor's already dark manner growed into an appearance edging on detrimental. Without fear, he marched towards them, grabbing them harshly and restricting their movement.

A shriek left their lips, panting as they fought to escape his tightening arms. But then, their body fell limp, and they turned their head to look up at the doctor, smirk rising on the corner of their lips. "Got me." They taunt viciously then hissed as they kicked a way out of his grip.

/

Travelling with the Doctor, Y/n had grown accustomed to fear. The way blood would pump faster, the heart would bang harshly against the chest. It felt like it was going to burst out.

A few feet in front, the Doctor and Donna found sanctuary in the tardis. Unfortunately, Y/n was a tad slower. The two of them, Y/n and not!Y/n, exchanged a look before rushing into a full blown sprint.

"it's me!" Not!Y/n yelled as they ran. Arm reaching out, harsh breaths leaving their lips. "I'm me!"

"No, they're not! I'm me!" They corrected before suddenly halting in their sprint, hitting the other's back as they face the Doctor in the tardis.

But the Doctor's eyes never once glanced at the clone. Always, they remained on Y/n.

"I-I don't know how to prove it.." Y/n trailed off quietly before groaning, running a hand down their face. "Oh, gosh! Why can't I think of how to prove I'm me?"

"You don't have to." He answered simply, grabbing their hand and tugging them into the tardis, the doors immediately snapping shut with a bang.

"No!" Not!Y/n screeched as the door closed. They hissed and growled viciously, snarling at the fading spaceship. In a futile attempt to get the ship to stay in place, their nails clawed pathetically at the wooden box, blue chipping off and dirtying under their fingernails. "No!"

/

"That was scary." Y/n began, walking into the console room, freshly showered and in pyjamas, hair damp and eyes tired from the day's events. This captured the Doctor's attention and he immediately looks up from fiddling with buttons and such, a tiny smile instantly forming on his red tinted lips. His cheeks turn a sweet shade of pink at the sight of Y/n in one of his old tops. "I mean, I was starting to doubt that I was even the real me. How can you be so sure that you know I am?"

"I know," He assures quickly, not missing a beat. "and I will always know."

Blinking swiftly and nibbling their lip, Y/n looks down to avoid his eyes as their own cheeks colour, heart beating promptly. "Oh."

"You know," He begins, deserting the button he had been messing around with. "the other you said something interesting."

"Oh? Really? And what was that?" Y/n mumbles softly, rubbing their sleepy eyes and letting out a yawn. Upon seeing this, the Doctor's eyes soften and he grins, walking over to them and cupping their cheeks in his hands.

"Doesn't matter." He responds in a gentle voice, leaning down to press his lips delicately to their forehead. "Go get some sleep, angel. We can talk tomorrow."

As always, not proofread cos I'm lazy 🙈

[deathworlders-of-e24]

Thomas, Engineer

Part 2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roomba stood on top of the console as Thomas lay supine below it, working on the wiring above his face, with only his legs sticking out. One of the control stations on the bridge had blown a circuit so he’d been called up to make repairs, crawling under it like it was a normal work desk. Captain Skitch, a insectoid Mergal man, stood off to the side, observing.

“So tell me again, why not have the service drone do this?” The captain asked.

“He’s busy, sir. I need him to push a button and tell me when the other buttons light up.”

“Beep.”

[Request: game pad]

“We got a job to do buddy, you can play later okay?” Thomas said as he twisted two wires together. “Alright, try it now.”

Roomba walked across the control panel and stepped on the flashing button. The rest of the console came to life, lights flashing on and the screen rebooting.

“Beep.”

[Confirmation: Command station is operational]

“Cool, thanks buddy.” Thomas wormed his way out from under the station, dusting himself off once back on his feet. “All fixed Captain, you should be good to go.”

“Good work ensign.” Skitch clapped him on the shoulder and returned to his captain’s chair.

“And you,” Thomas said, turning to the little droid, “thank you for the help Roomba.”

“Beep.”

[Acknowledged]

“Beep.”

[Request: game pad please]

“Oh, good manners buddy. Here you go.” Thomas dug the pad out of the pocket of his jumpsuit and gave it back to the droid. Roomba climbed back into Thomas’s work bag and continued from where he’d left off, the game pad’s tune muffled from the fabric. Thomas grabbed his kit and headed back down to the maintenance decks. He nodded to the other human in the room, Security Chief Ducane, Danny he thought his name was. They nodded back. Seemed like a cool guy. Maybe he’d ask to have lunch or something one of these days.

As he walked down the hall, the two Padrino caught him at the junction.

“Hey Sixer, Mace, how you guys doing?”

“Greetings, Human Thomas. We are functioning nominally, however we do request you explain again why you are trying to change our designations with these…nicknames.”

“Oh, I’m sorry guys, your names are just really long and kinda clunky.” Thomas pointed to the unit on the left. “Like I know your name is actually Unit H663K67Q6 so I just shortened it to Sixer, and yours is Unit M124C11E9 so I called you Mace.” Thomas looked at them for a second. “If you don’t like them I can stop, and I can just use your real names.”

The two robots were quiet for a moment. The lift chimed and the doors opened. The group walked in and asked for the ‘Maintenance deck, please.’ Behind him, Thomas could hear their odd machine language, and guessed they were ‘whispering’ to each other. It sounded like the time his laptop fell in the kitchen sink.

“We are not offended at the use of the ‘nicknames’. We were unaware that our designations were inconvenient for others. It has been logged in our memory now.”

“If the use of these new designations will improve efficiency, then we will allow their use.”

“Really? Thanks you guys, really. I just didn’t want you to think I was being a jerk, you’re kind of the first friends I’ve got on this ship, besides Roomba.” Thomas patted his bag.

They ‘whispered’ again in their machine code.

“Another question, Human Thomas. How were you able to differentiate us a moment ago? We have the same unit design.”

The lift dinged again and the door opened. They started off towards the maintenance locker room.

“Really? You look totally different to me. Sixer has shinier plates on his arms and torso, and Mace, your antenna has these zigzags in it that Sixer doesn’t have. Theres some other stuff too, but it’s not that hard if you pay attention.”

The Padrino stopped and looked at each other.

“He is correct. Reflection variance acknowledged.”

“Agreed. Antenna alignment noted.”

They turned back to Thomas, who was just chuckling. “It’s like twins seeing the differences in each other for the first time, this is cool.”

“Twins: identical offspring born at virtually the same time and share most genetic markers. This is what you are referring to, correct?”

“Yeah, exactly. My nieces are twins, everyone is amazed I can tell them apart. Totally different kids, I tell them.”

The group made their way into the Maintenance Hub, past the locker room. From there, water purification, air cleaning, WARP core fuel injectors, every major system ran through this junction. Thomas liked it in here. The Bridge might be the brain of the ship, but this was the heart, and they were the doctors keeping it beating.

Off to the side, Thomas saw Simms the Gally turn and go the opposite way. He motioned in the same direction.

“Thanks again for stopping that Gally guy from getting Roomba and me, I’d hate for anything to happen to him.”

“The Gally’s actions would have set an anomalous baseline in our observations of you,” Sixer said.

“What does that mean?”

“You would have been…upset,” Mace replied.

“Aw, thanks guys. You’re the best,” Thomas said. “Say thanks Roomba.”

The BEEP was muffled, but the translator picked it up.

[Assistance acknowledged]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was Thomas’s turn to go outside the ship to do repairs. A ship on its maiden voyage always had a few screws loose, one of which was on a port side window seam. It was leaking a little oxygen, so someone had to go out and get it. A whole section of the ship had to be evacuated because of it. Even a small leak could compromise the integrity of the hull, in a worst case scenario cause explosive decompression. Which is not great in anyone’s opinion.

He’d left Roomba in the capable care of Sixer and Mace, who assured him they’d ‘look after his best buddy.’ He had to go up several decks to the Security Division to get out an air lock, and walking around in the heavy space suit was exhausting. The thing must’ve weighed 100 lbs! Not to mention the kit he was lugging around. Humans had made it all the way to deep space and still didn’t put wheels on all the heavy objects it took to get there.

Thomas was almost to the security check point when the door opened. Someone from the Sed race came rushing out, heading his way. Their uniform said they were part of the security team, so maybe they were coming to help him?

Probably not. The were barreling towards him so fast, Thomas had to shuffle out of the way to avoid getting knocked over.

“Dude, watch it,” Thomas said, struggling to keep the kit up. The Sed just glared at him.

“Stay out of the way, human,” they practically snarled, making the hairs on the back of Thomas’s neck stand up. Neither of them said anything else as the Sed man passed by and down the hall.

“What the hell was that about?” Thomas said once the Sed was out of sight. He’d have shrugged if the suit he was wearing wasn’t so damn heavy.

Eh screw it, got stuff to do, he thought. Thankfully there was a nice Quintin girl at the security check, Coola, who was kind enough to help him get the suit helmet on and hand him his tools once he was in the air lock.

“Thank you so much, that was really nice of you,” Thomas said, shaking her hand warmly.

“Oh it’s no problem. Truth be told, I actually volunteered when I heard it was another human coming to do the repairs. We all think Chief Ducane is wonderful, so I wanted to meet the rest of you humans too.”

“His name is Danny right? I’m glad he’s a cool guy, maybe I’ll come by security sometime, say hi to everyone.”

Coola nodded enthusiastically before ducking out of the doorway. The air lock doors whirred closed, locking him in. An automated voice sounded in the speaker of his helmet, giving a countdown to the outer door opening.

3…

2…

1…

Thomas didn’t think he’d ever get used to the sound of all the air in a room rushing out into a vacuum. He’d been on space walks before, but the sheer absence always made him very uncomfortable.

He clicked on the magnetic boots he was wearing and began the 100 meter trek to the blown seam. He could see it just past a cluster of communications antenna, leaking gases out of the ship. Thomas headed in that direction.

He was making good time. Realistically he could be out there for hours without worry, the tanks in the suit could give him enough oxygen to last the rest of the cycle if he really wanted to sand bag his work out there, but given that out there was filled with nothing, Thomas wanted to wrap this up as quickly as possible.

He’d made it about 3/4 of the way to his destination, right at the communication array, when suddenly his ear piece started acting funny. At first it was just hissing and popping a little, then it started squealing, like microphone feedback right in his ear. Couldn’t take it off, space suit, helmet, needed to breath or he’ll die, but what the hell was this sound? His translator doubled as a radio now, sure, but what out here could be giving him this much interference? It couldn’t be picking up any chatter from the array, could it? That section of equipment was for long distance communication only, controlled by a special console right below it. Especially not with maintenance so close to it, this whole section of the ship was supposed to be empty until the leak was patched, standard procedure. Someone would have to be in that communication center to be using that array.

So who’s making the long distance call?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thomas made it back to the air lock after the patch was in place and he’d doubled checked the seal. No more leak, and he was happy to come back aboard the Noah. The ship felt nice and cozy after the deep dark emptiness of space. Thomas had hot cocoa on the brain.

As he made his way back to the Maintenance deck, he thought again about that rogue signal that almost deafened him. If it was the array, somebody would’ve had to get onto the locked down deck while everyone else was gone and into the long distance communication center. If it was the array, of course. It could just be his ear piece malfunctioning for all he knew. But he did know, his ear piece was fine, he’d even just gotten it upgraded by…

Thomas walked a little faster.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Beep.”

[Request: game pad please]

“Yeah I missed you too buddy,” Thomas said, patting the little robot on the head before forking over the game. “Everything okay while I was gone guys?”

Thomas had practically ran all the way down to the locker room, didn’t even wait for the lift, he’d just jumped down the stairs. Once he’d made it onto the maintenance deck, he’d spotted the group of 3 robots sitting off to the side. It was almost end of shift it seemed, Sixer and Mace were already plugged in to recharge.

“Entity designated Roomba has performed an adequate job and number of tasks. He was also sufficiently helpful to us as well.”

“Good, I’m glad. Thanks for watching him while I went outside.”

Thomas sat down and watched Roomba scurry through a digital maze on the pad.

“Hey, while I was out there, something weird happened, and I wanted to ask you guys if you could help me.”

“Please elaborate, Human Thomas,” said Mace.

“Well I was out by the long distance array, and something almost fried my ear piece while I was out there. I was hoping you guys could take a look at it sometime, maybe see if there’s anything left of it, or see if the thing is just busted or something.” Thomas rubbed his temple. His head still hurt from the noise.

“Of course, Human Thomas,” said Sixer, “but we’d have to acquire the correct tools. The upgrade we gave to you was merely a simple patch, but to retrieve signal data such as you are describing would require the correct approach.”

“In the meantime, might we suggest informing the captain of the signal? I believe Captain Skitch would be more than capable of answering your concerns.”

“Nah, I don’t want to start a fuss over nothing, if it is nothing. And if it’s not…well it’s probably best to have something to show him, right?”

“Your reasoning is sound. We can take a look at it during the next cycle, if you wish,” Mace said. “For now, we need to recharge or risk occurring a fault.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course guys. You two get some rest, I’ll see you tomorrow anyway. Good night fellas,” Thomas said as he picked up Roomba and set him in his bag.

“Rest well, Human Thomas,” the 2 Padrino said in unison.

Totally twins, Thomas thought, smiling. Hopefully a night of sleep would calm his nerves. Maybe some games would help him relax too. He could try to teach Roomba to play something other than PAC-MAN, though he wasn’t sure how the little droid would hold the controller.

The game pad trilled from inside his bag again.

“Beep.”

[Update: advancement progressing faster]

“My god you are just too cute,” Thomas said laughing as he went to his quarters.

Games. Definitely gonna teach the little droid to play something new. Right after he got some hot cocoa.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 3

Propaganda Under Cut

Allura

Lots of people (myself included tbh) ship klance (Keith and Lance). In s8 the creators made Allura/Lance canon (but then they killed her off and left the ending ambiguous it was weird). Anyway the fandom treats her like she's the most terrible bitchy woman ever but all she wants to do is end the war and avenge her destroyed home planet. Yeah she wasn't always the nicest or always the best, but you could argue some other characters in the show aren't either and they aren't treated near as bad as allura. people really just hate her bc Lance liked her. I don't think allura/lance are good together, but I still liked her as a character and thought she was interesting and had a lot of growth during the show. she DEF is not evil like some people portray her as in fic or talk about her in captions on posts. I've seen people say that they HATE her and that she's the worst and I'm like ??? let her live (well sort of ig she is dead now). lots of fic writers use her as the villain which is so interesting to me bc the show literally has villains like use them. anyway allura so perfectly fits the bracket description she deserves better.

I hate to acknowledge my time in this fandom but I hate the way the fandom treated her more. Allura was treated like shit no matter what side of the Great Ship War you were on because she was always a threat to the biggest ships (klance and sheith). At best she got put into Background Lesbian or Consolation Prize Shallura (Space Mom-zoned) (She was not a motherly figure btw. She was just Black). At worst she was violently demonized for being ~racist~ (kinda not cool with the alien race that blew up her planet for a few episodes), complete with misogynistic language hurled at her (she got called a bitch sooo much). Allura was a good and cool character and the show did her dirty but the fandom was somehow worse.

i apologise for speaking the dark magicks, but amidst the voltron fandoms many, many transgressions, there were a particular subset of people who just hated this girl. the infamous klance wars of the 2010s kept this perfectly fine childrens cartoon character in the sights of shippers everywhere, and she (and her voice actress im sure) were subjected to years of petty squabble blown up to global perportions. ive seen hate, ive seen rants, ive seen fanfics that made her homophobic. girls been through the ringer, and even though voltron was never the show its fandom wanted it to be, i believe allura deserved better

Every Supernatural Woman

Supernatural is so mean to women and committed to queerbaiting but it still gives Sam and Dean lovers to kill. The writers kill and villainize them and the fans get the few that remain

wincest and destiel shippers cannot handle the idea of their blorbos having a Woman THREATENING their SHIPS god FORBID

It literally used to be a running joke that if a female character got introduced you knew she was going to die soon because fans would react so negatively to her "stealing" one of the boys away from the big ship, whether it be destiel or wincest

[zarvasace]

How about a palette cleanser palette cleanser🎨? The Colors cleaning or needing to clean after a big mess.

This is probably not what you had in mind. It's like 400 words but going under the cut because it is, once again, a bit angsty XD

Linked Nexus sci-fi au though!!

---

“Well… that could have gone better,” Green says into the silence. 

Blue sighs and sits down in the pilot’s chair to start up the engines, fumbling a bit due to the fact that one of his arms got blown off in the fight. Each of them are a bit delicate, separated like this. “That's an understatement.”

“Well,” Red sniffs, attempting positivity, “we got rid of them. At least."

Vio’s next words are gloomy. “Yeah. All of them.” He sits next to the scattered dust on the floor of the ship, and runs one skinless hand through the sparkling particles. Someone else might mistake it for shards of glass or some sort of rock, but all of Link knows that these are dead nanogems, the tiny building blocks that make up every component in their systems. 

These, up until a few minutes ago, had made up Shadow's body. 

The engines start up, rumbling the ship, and Green limps over to help Blue get everything set up. Red drops to his knees next to Vio and helps to sort through the dead nanogems, looking for something, anything. He scoops them into a pile to do something with later. 

Vio spots something a little bigger in the shadows beneath one of the computer consoles, and lunges forward to catch it before the lurching of the ship can take it away. He cages it inside his hands and sits back. 

“That's…” Red says, leaning over to look. 

“His central processor, yes.”

Blue looks back. “Does that mean he's okay?” 

“It's deactivated. Maybe… with the right application of energy…”

Once the ship is on its way, the four pieces of Link merge back together, each part of him becoming sturdier as it fuses with two or three matching parts. It takes an hour or more, since reconfiguring his nanogems is never easy to do. But he manages it, and keeps Shadow’s processing chip in a spot in his chest only accessible by himself, even if he was somehow torn apart bit by bit. 

He shovels the dead nanogems into a bag and considers throwing them out, but… it feels wrong. He doesn't have a rational explanation for it, but he tucks the bag away. 

[sofasoap]

Mending Heart

Pairing : Din Djarin x f!reader. featuring Grogu, Paz Vizsla + OC.

Summary:  sequel  to heartbreak and Wrenching heart. Din is a big di’kut. His ad’ika to the rescue.

Slightly AU-ish, Din didn’t get N1 after Razor Crest got blown up.he got something similar. And his relationship with Paz isn’t that bad. He is still trying to redeem himself but didn’t get kicked out of the covert completely. Mummy Armorer is still pissed off at him though. 

Warning: Mature theme. strong languages. Alcohol use. 

English isn’t my first language, so I apologise for any mistakes. 

A/N : I seem to be writing all the Din fic for the University students at the moment to push them on ( Trust me, I know your pain. been there done that)   @groguspicklejar and @deakyjoe this is for both of you.

MASTERLIST

I am happy, I am back with Armour buir.

But where is Singing buir?

“She’s not here anymore, ad’ika.”

Why do you look so sad, armour buir? Armour buir isn’t happy anymore, I can feel it in the force.

There’s singing buir! We found her! She is happy to see me! But why isn’t she happy to see Armour buir? She is sad too.

Why are you crying Armour buir?

“I messed up, ad’ika. I really messed up.”

“You are a di’kut.” “ I know.” “ The biggest di’kut out there.” “ You don’t need to repeat that.” “Utreekov.” Din sighed. Sitting back to back with Paz, he Lift his helmet up slightly, downing another shot of spotchka. Trying to drown himself in alcohol and sorrow. Paz turn towards Grogu, “Gar buir kaysh mirsh solus” ( your father is an idiot ) “ Coo??” “ Can you not teach my ad’ika weird words.” “ He needs to learn some Mando’a you know.” Paz grab the cups, pour both another serving of spotchka. “Did you present her with a courting gift?” “.. I did, with my signet on it too.” “Hmm. Then I don’t know where you went wrong then.” “ Did you explain to her what it means?” Paz’s riduur chimed in as she put a plate of fruit and dried meat down for the men to snack on. “......NO.” “ I swear you Mandalorians always assume everyone should know all the hidden meanings behind the actions.” She sighed. Turning to Din, “You know Paz chuck me a knife the day after he saved the village, hover around me for days, expecting me to say something to him.”  she rolled her eyes. Din remembered. Paz kept sneaking out to the village, and when the Armorer ask him what he is doing, all he replied was, “Just to see everyone is alright at the village, I have to make sure the security is up to date.” 

His vod was so love struck by the woman who fought valiantly to protect her village, he didn’t even care she is a non-Mandalorian, he dug through his family weapon cache and gifted her a sacred heirloom. Pass down only from Father to son. It’s not until his now-riduur went up to him and push the knife back into his hand, “ I don’t need another knife, I have plenty in store, we got a stash full of weapons in the armoury here, Mandalorian. Keep this for your covert.” Only then did Paz realise his mistake in approach. 

He remembered laughing at Paz, from the great Vizsla clan,  who could have ANY Mandalorian, hell, there was no lack of warriors trying to throw themselves at him, he went for a non-Mandalorian. The chaos that ensued after that. How the tide turned. 

“ I am a di’kut.” Din groaned. “ I did tell you.” “Shush Cyare. Stop making fun of your Vod.” Sitting down by Paz, she consoled Din, “ Look, you can still redeem yourself…” “ I feel like I am redeeming myself a lot lately. This is probably going to be more impossible than finding living water on Mandalore.” “ As non-Mandalorian.. I can suggest gifting her more… conventional gifts? Flowers… sweets.. What does she like?” Din look at Grogu,  what do YOU like? Oh dear.

“Patu!” Turning your head as you heard the sound, narrowing avoiding the sharp edges of the wingspan of the ship you are fixing. Peli has been commenting on how you are really not concentrating lately. Connecting the heat exhaust vent to the life support system,  putting the fuel intermix back to front. You are embarrassed. You pride yourself in quality jobs, and here you are, mind wandering over the places. Giving back the vibroblade back to Mando was your own way of cutting the tie with him completely.  Forget about him. Moving on. He doesn’t care about you. You convinced yourself. Yet. You find yourself thinking of him even more. No. You just miss the little green pea. “ Patu patu!!” Now you feel a little hand smacking your thigh. Looking down, Grogu was there by your feet, trying to get your attention. “What are you doing here?!!” you shuffled out from under the wing, picking him up, he extended his two little arms, and presented to you dried flower in his tiny claw-hand. “ Aww, thank you little pea, is that for me?” You look around the hanger nervously, Grogu is here, does that mean Mando is here too?? Makers, that is the last thing you want. You spotted Boba Fett standing by the hanger door. What is the Daimyo here?? “Greetings Daimyo, what can I do for you today? Do you require me to fix one of your transporters ....” “ Relax, please, just call me Boba Fett. No need to be so formal. I am babysitting the little green thing here for the day. He insisted on coming here and giving you the flower.” You let out a breath of sigh. At least Mando isn’t here. The way Boba Fett is looking at you, you feel like there is something else he isn’t letting on.  Few weeks later, Grogu is back again, this time with a little colourful stone in his hand. Fennec is with him. With amusement written all over her face. Next was some hard-boiled sweets. The time after that was a bottle of perfume from Pasaana. A scarf from Coruscant. Cloud puffs from Bespin. 

Wasaka berry from Khashyyyk.

Five-blossom bread from Naboo. Your favourite pastry from your younger days. Now you are getting more and more suspicious about the gifts. The little Pea definitely didn’t choose them. Deep down you know who was instructing him to bring the gifts. Coward. You thought. Getting his son to do the job for him. “We got a secret admirer here?” Peli teases you. “You mean either the Daimyo or Fennec? I doubt it.” You rolled your eyes. The gift just keeps coming. Always Grogu bring them, accompanied by either Boba or Fennec. Until that night. Peli has gone out again, to one of her dates. “Zeltrons,” she commented, “ great drinking companions, they hardly get drunk with their second liver!”

You decided to take advantage with a bit of solo time, dragging one of the crates to the centre of the hanger, enjoying the beautiful light of the three moons with a glass of light liquor you save up for occasions. Hearing the slight clunk sound of metal door opening, you assume Peli was back from her outing, you made a comment without turning around, “Your date didn’t go as planned, Peli?” You were met with the sound of heavy boots coming towards you. That’s not Peli, alarm bells ringing in your brain. Why didn’t the security droid alert me? Out of habit, your hand went to your belt, grabbing the vibroblade, only to realise, you returned it to its original owner. Worse of all, you left your blaster in your bunk. 

Slowly turning around to face whoever the intruder was,  you saw something shiny reflecting under the moonlight. It’s Din. He strides towards you, only stopping about arm length distance away. You always admire the confidence he exuded when he walked towards his bounty, his prey. His helm tilting down slightly, looking straight at you. Suddenly that confidence he was showing disappeared a little. You swallowed hard. Why is he here? 

He spoke first. “... .You got all the presents?” “Yes.” So your guess was right. It was from HIM. Fidgeting your hand, you wait for him to say more. Instead, he reaches around to the back of his belt, and brings something forward to present to you. 

The vibroblade. The same one he gifted to you before. “I… In… In Mandalorian culture,” You can hear the wavering in his voice with the slight distortion through the modulator. “ We.. gift a weapon, with our clan signet on it.. To.. um… someone we intended to court..” He was shifting a bit on his feet. “ I.. I am sorry I didn’t explain it to you the first time I gave it to you.” You can tell he was getting nervous. “I came to apologise and.." he was practically begging by this point, “ Please forgive me. I have been a di’kut.. An idiot for pushing you away. I was only thinking for myself.. I didn’t realise you were just as equally as hurt after losing Grogu..”  “Please come back.. We miss your presence…. I MISS YOU…” You reach towards his helmet, he flinches and moves back a bit with instinct. Pausing a bit, silently letting him know you have no intention of removing his helmet, he shifts towards you a little bit more. Pulling him down, you rest your forehead against his helmet. You hear a gasp was too soft to be picked up by the modulator.  Din wonders if you know the significance of the action. “You are the biggest, most idiotic, most frustrating Mandalorian I ever dealt with, Din Djarin.” Din’s knee nearly gave out upon hearing you using his real name for the first time. “ I convinced myself to forget about you, but how can I forget our time as a family? As a clan of three? You were too good to us, Din….” Tears were slowly falling down your cheek.

“ I realise you care about us in your own way, but you really need to tell me what is going on in that beskar brain of yours.. I can’t guess what you are thinking all the time.” You were sobbing by now. Din moves one of his gloved hands towards your face, wiping away the tears. “You were ignoring me, not telling me what your problem was, I was so hurt. I thought we had something going on between us, yet you keep pushing me away, I don’t feel wanted anymore, just like my family.  Throw me away when I was no use to them.” Din’s heart tightened. This is the first time you let out any details of your former life.

“Yet, you wouldn’t let me go.” sucking in a deep breath, you continue pouring your heart out. “ I am not an object Din, you can’t trap me with you without giving me one good damn reason. So I ran. I ran as far as I could. But you still found me.” “ By pure chance.” he softly added. “ By pure chance. From that point I was actually believing the Force was leading us together. I wasn’t planning to stay here this long.” “But I didn't want to get hurt again. I want to cut my ties with you once for all.” “ That is why you gave me the vibroblade back.” Din replied with saddness in his voice. “ I didn’t know the significance of the gift. Though, even if I did, I would still have given it back. For what you have done.” Din looked down to the ground with shame. 

You sighed.  Pulling away from him, you push his hand with vibroblade back towards him. 

His heart dropped. 

“I am going to ask you again, do you miss me only because you have Grogu back and you need a maid to look after him again? To have someone fix your ship, clean up after you two, and throw me away again when I am not needed anymore?” You growled. “NO! It’s not like that Mesh’la… I..” He stepped forward and blurted out.

“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.” 

Your eyes widened. You vaguely remember the meaning of the sentence from your studies.

“I will know you forever..” You whispered. Din’s head whipped up, shocked. “ you…. “ “Yes Din, I know what it means.” you reach out to his hand and take the vibroblade from him. “ I can’t leave yet , Din. There’s too much work going on for Peli to deal with on her own. Come and pick me u in a few months. In the meanwhile. I will keep this gift of yours.”

Din pulls you into a tight hug. You bury your face in his hard beskar breastplate. It’s a start. You’ll see how this goes. You are allow yourself to hope again. 

If in doubt, use Grogu. He will melt anyone’s heart. Din was trying his luck with whatever he could find, hoping to hit the mark with one of the presents. Reader has been hurt so deeply, she needed a lot of reassurance from Din before she accepted his love. I can’t believe i am saying this.. I might write a bloody part 4. Gosh. 

If i feel like it...I might write about Paz and his riduur’s comedic courtship sometime. 

Thank you so much for reading, any likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated! 😀

Tag list:

@frogtits1, @READINGFAN, @memester-png @jake-g-lockley @novaethecosplayer @foxgirl95

[arkus-rhapsode]

Fire Emblem and Aesthetics-A Mini Discussion

So for those who don't know, I don't really play Fire Emblem Heroes, but I still have an interest in seeing what units they release. Usually for fanfic purposes or just keeping track of new resplendent designs. But recently, FEH had an update for the original character of Dagr and it got me thinking about how resplendent from jotunheim look

Combined with FEH's ongoing storyline of taking from Norse mythology it really made me think-"Wait, why don't we have a Norse Fire Emblem game?"

Now look, I'm not here to bemoan that FEH don't have a console version, non gacha style game, but it really got me thinking about how we may be missing out on something relating to the use of a rich mythology and it only being in a mobile game more about collecting waifus and husbandos.

You see, Fire Emblem is no stranger to cribbing from existing mythologies like Norse in Genealogy, Arthurian myth and the matters of France in Elibe, and several characters just straight up being named after mythological/classic literature characters like Beowulf, Sampson, Priam etc. But its always done in this relatively Anglo-Saxon-British-French homogeny of aesthetics for their tales. So we can have a character named Sigurd, but he's not gonna look like he's fresh off the Viking Ship. Now Fire Emblem isn't the only franchise to do this, many pieces of media made by other countries draw upon these sort of exaggerated/romanticized look for fantasy stories all the time. And I want to be clear I am not advocating for "Medieval accuracy," I think that's silly. What I'm more getting at is I feel like FE could do with changing up its setting/aesthetics to perhaps inspire newer experiences.

Now I'm not saying FE as a franchise needs to be reinvented. In fact, I think FE has one of the most universal accessible mechanics in turn-based gaming. Simple to pick up, but still able to create many difficult maps and challenges. And by this point has made the support system one of the most iconic in gaming. But if the mechanics are good, doesn't that mean it could be transplanted into another setting? Well, In a way, yes. But once again, I'm not advocating for FE to stop being this fantasy style sword and sorcery story and become like the Napoleonic wars.

(That is a real Nintendo game by the way. Its wild!)

No what I'm saying is that the broad terms of "Middle Ages Warfare" is much more than simply a certain type Eurocentric fantasy.

I'll tell you what, as much as people like to rip on Birthright, I'm still shocked how it took so long for Fire Emblem to have a game where Japanese culture and aesthetics is super prominent and a main setting for a game. Fire Emblem tends to have one character who is obviously inspired by Japanese culture or even sometimes a single country. But a full blown game where so many characters come from and embrace this Japanese backdrop was unique.

Now of course it was still Birthright, so while you got these cool glimpses of a unique world and story like the Oni inspired Flame Tribe, the start of having a lot of retainers as main characters, the monk class and using fans as a weapons, and even roping in Kitsune. It still doesn't really do much than an average FE adventure with them. But it did at lease prove the the FE formula *could* still work removed from its conventional trappings.

Another in the different aesthetic, but missed opportunity category would be Fire Emblem Three Houses country of Almyra being pretty heavily inspired by Persian/Middle Eastern culture. A country that was gesturing so hard at an interesting idea that its left fan artist and fanfic writers to swoon over the idea of a possible FE game set in Almyra.

And if you want an even more recent example, for all the desert backdrops we've had in Fire Emblem, its kinda astounding it wasn't until Engage that we got a lightly (And admittedly exaggerated) African inspired country.

When I see stuff like this and what FEH is doing it makes me realize that we could be getting more. Im sure the next FE will likely still lean on its typical fantastical Anglo-Saxon look, but eventually there's got to be some spice to it. Sure it may be different, but Fire Emblem is a franchise that with each entry does try to be something different while maintaining certain core gameplay elements. So what is the harm of trying to approach something that looks a bit different?

Im not asking for an extreme change right away. Maybe start lighter. We have tons of pirates in Fire Emblem, why not a pirate/sea based game? We've even had the rare few pirate as a playable character. Its a type of story that could be told within the typical Fire Emblem world.

Then perhaps maybe something a bit more culturally ubiquitous like Greeco-Roman inspired FE? There's plenty of gods and magic, but also swords and spears to draw forth on. Heck, that may even open up new potential enemies or stories to tell with like an Evil Senate or a Gladiator culture. It could even push FE to maybe drop or reinvent certain tropes like how they approach the knighthood type of character where a certain culture's version of knight is different. Maybe even make new classes the way Birthright had to.

Overall, I think Fire Emblem is and always has been a malleable franchise. And because of that, I think it can afford to take certain risks on something as simple as drawing from another culture during the medieval magic era, while still being able to provide things that people still love about the franchise like the combat system and support system. Will there be push back on it looking different? Of course, I remember when Three Houses first teasers dropped and everyone was wondering what was up with the military school outfits and what even race was Claude. And of course a different aesthetic doesn't make the game automatically good. But let's remember, that people were judgmental of Birthright not because it went all in on looking Japanese, but because the general story and writing was lackluster for many.

But if you can make an interesting and likable cast of a characters that elevate the story, and make a memorable world for people to wage war in, I see no reason why you couldn't make Fire Emblem work set in the Netherlands.

If there is a personal aesthetic or theme you'd like to see Fire Emblem tackle, sound off in the replies. I'd love to hear what you guys think.

[specialagentlokitty]

Master chief x Male!reader - one of the same

Would you be able to write a Master Chief x male reader with this prompt “I fear if you get too close you’ll see me for who I really am, I don’t want you to see me for that.” from your prompt list? Also if it could be the reader that says the prompt that would be good. Thank you! - Anon💜

You had never been one to get too close to people, you didn’t want to want to get close to people, you didn’t see the point in it.

For you getting close to people was a waste of time, you had spent that long on your own it had become all you had ever known.

You had decided at an early age to join the UNSC, you had an unbridled sense of rage that would make it impossible for you to get any other job.

But you managed with a calm persona, you were able to hide your anger, keep it pushed down until you really needed it, and that’s what made you such a good soldier.

Because your rage meant that your enemy would never stand a chance against you.

Sometimes your training would get too intense, and you’ll end up in the office with injuries, usually not of your own free will, you generally didn’t care, but other people did.

Miranda was used to your visits to her office at this point, you did the same before she took over this position, and she knew all about you.

She had offered help but you weren’t interested in it, you didn’t want the help, you didn’t want to talk.

So, she spent time just patching you up as always.

“You need to tone down the training a little, if you keep at this pace you’re going to break your hand.”

“It’ll heal.”

Miranda sighed.

“If you break your hand you can’t go out on missions, you’ll be stuck here.”

“Then I’ll keep training.”

“With a broken hand?”

You shrugged a little bit, and you walked over to the console so you could check the time.

“I have a mission to go on.”

You got up, making your way to the ships with the other marines, not speaking to anybody as you sat down in the seat.

You knew where you had to be and what you had to do, and it was supposed to be a straight forward mission.

But nothing was ever straight forward as it was supposed to be.

You were crouched next to a blown up car, gun in hand as you waited for the firing all around you to stop so you could retaliate.

“We have orders to send the marines back.” John said.

He crouched down next to you.

“We’ve nearly got it under control.”

“The Coventry are going to destroy this whole planet.”

“And we still have people to evacuate.” You hissed.

“They won’t come, that’s not on us.”

You turned to the Spartan.

“So we’re supposed to just leave them?”

“Those are our orders yes.”

You sighed, running a hand down your face, nodding.

You knew if you didn’t go there and then he was going to force you to go with him.

His orders was to bring you back, and Spartans weren’t known to break their orders, and if the planet was going to be glassed then you staying here was pointless.

So you stood up, jogging back towards the ship you had arrived in, standing in front of the loading bay door as it closed.

But you were still angry.

You were angry that you couldn’t save everybody.

So you didn’t go to the debrief, you went to the gym to work out your anger, despite the pain that you were feeling in your shoulder.

You worked out your anger.

The door was opened and you paused for a moment to see who it was.

“You’re bleeding.”

“It’s not bad.”

“You should get it looked at.”

John stood behind you, looking at the bloodstained patch on your shirt, and the blood that was hitting the floor behind you.

It was dropped down your arm, leaving a trail.

“It’s fine.”

“It isn’t smart for you to ignore it.”

You said nothing, turning back around to the punching bag that you were hitting.

John watched you for a minute.

“You’re angry.”

“Of course in fucking angry! They didn’t even give us enough time to help those people!” You snapped.

You spun around to look at him, and you placed a hand on your head, letting out a small groan of pain.

“Do you need a doctor?”

“I said I’m fine…”

You walked over to the bench, sitting down as you buried you face in your arms.

“You’re not fine.”

John walked over, looking down at you.

“Let me see your injury.”

“No!”

You snapped your head up to look at him.

“Somebody has to look at it.”

“No. I can sort it myself.”

“It is in the middle of your right shoulder, you will not be able to reach it or see it clearly.”

“Then I’ll let it heal normally.”

“Then it won’t heal correctly.”

You stood up, glaring up at the Spartan.

“I said to leave it!”

You stormed past him, heading back to your own room.

You got a shower, watching as your blood mixed with the water as it went down the drain, and when you got out you stood in front of the mirror.

You tried to get a good look at it but John was right, you couldn’t.

You did a botch job at bandaging it.

You put it off for a few hours, but it was impacting everything you did.

You couldn’t move your shoulder proper and you knew something was wrong.

You spent another hour debating about it before you left your room, making your way to the wing which held the Spartans.

“Have any of you seen John?”

The three other Spartans looked up at you, gesturing to a room at the end of the hallway before going back to what they were doing.

You knocked on the door, and it was opened a few seconds later.

“(Y/N), why are you here?”

“I need you to look at my shoulder.”

He gave a nod of his head, letting you into the room.

He closed the door and you turned around to look at him.

“Before I show you, I need you to promise me something.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t say anything about what you see, you don’t tell anybody about it.”

“Okay.”

You slowly nodded your head, turning around and you pulled your shirt off with a small groan of pain.

John walked over, and he placed his hand on your shoulder, crouching a little bit so he could unwrap the bandage and have a look.

You had been graze by a bullet by the looks of it, but nothing had lodged itself into the wound, but with you constantly moving around it hadn’t closed up.

“You need stitches. I can do it but they won’t be any good.”

“That’s fine, just do it.”

“Sit down.”

You sat down backwards on his chair, resting your arms over the top of it while he got what he needed and began his work.

“Why did you not let me help you earlier?”

You sighed a little bit, resting your forehead on your arms.

“I fear if you get too close you’ll see me for who I really am, I don’t want you to see me for that.” You whispered.

John paused for a second before carrying on.

“What do you see yourself as?”

You didn’t reply to him.

John finished with your wound, and he bandaged it up for you, this time looking at the deep scars along your back.

He didn’t say anything about them though, he just held your shirt out to you and you stood up, pulling it back on.

You had similar scars across your chest, and you looked at him.

“You have a right to be angry.” John said.

“No I don’t.”

“You do, you have every right. You care about people, even if you don’t act like it. That is a good thing.”

You shrugged a little bit.

“I’m just a science experiment John, just like you and the other Spartans. I’m a failed experiment.”

“So am I.”

You looked at him.

“I think I understand how you are feeling. You are not alone, we all understand how you are feeling.”

You sighed a little bit.

“Maybe we can learn together how to accept what was done to us?” He asked.

You thought briefly before slowly nodding your head.

“Yes. I’d like that I think.”

“Kai has been learning to cook, do you want to stay?”

You nodded your head, following him back out to where the other Spartans were.

You weren’t a Spartan, but you knew exactly what they had been through, you had been through the same thing under a different person and you were all angry.

Maybe having some likeminded people would help ease your anger and make everything a little easier for you.

John glanced at you, then went back to watching his friend.

He was curious about you, about what had happened to you, but he had agreed not to ask, but maybe over time you would tell him exactly what you had been through to cause such anger within yourself

[frostgears]

From the bridge of the Shadowsea, Ada watched the monitors and gritted her teeth. The camera drone was barely keeping up with Cinquain's flight armor, and on top of that, throttling down its bandwidth to the relay to stay beneath the station's detection threshold as they approached, so the picture was getting steadily worse. She keyed the mic.

"Cinq. How are you holding up?"

"Green across the board, boss. Thermals where they should be. Deflek geometry solid, aerodynamics smooth like butter."

"Not the armor, Cinq. You."

"Green across the board, boss," her pilot repeated. "You nervous? You sound nervous."

No point in hiding it. "Always."

"Don't be. You trained me for this. Tell the mission jitters to fuck off."

"Wish I could. I don't have your triggers."

"Hard life you live, boss." Her pilot paused. "Coming up on the go/no-go line. We doin' this or what?"

She released the mic switch for the duration of one long intake of breath, held it again. "We're doing it."

"Right."

"And here's me," she told her pilot, and flicked a quartet of hardswitches across the width of the console. The Shadowsea's automatics took it from there.

For a quiet minute, nothing happened.

Then, when the moment was right, the firing solution perfect, the ship shuddered as its twin railguns hurled cobalt slugs in perfect over-the-horizon arcs. Elsewhere on the planet's surface, Cinquain had entrenched weapons where Ada commanded; now buried hypersonic missile launchers ripped their way to the surface to launch a a follow-up barrage of smarter, heavier ordnance.

The camera feed lit up white and then went to SIGNAL LOST. On the voice link, Cinquain whooped and then her signal was gone too.

Ada bit her lip. Nothing to do but wait. And oh, how she hated waiting.

The signals came back, eventually.

The camera drone had survived, and in its feed, defense drones fell burning from the sky. Pillars of ash spread from where railguns and missiles had blasted the station's air defenses to dust. The black wings of Cinquain's armor in approach configuration showed briefly against the steel and glass of the station itself, and then, nothing.

She put the drone into signal relay mode and switched to Cinquain's armor's camera just as Cinquain smashed through the station's walls. The video feed was chaotic, patchy, contrast blown by weapon flash. Most, not all, from Cinq's own weapon.

It was over quickly. She watched every second, room by room, unflinching, reminding herself what this all cost in the end, what was gained, what was lost.

"—day— … —ender—"

"Say again, Cinq."

"I said, that's something you don't see every day, boss. Finally got one of the bastards to surrender."

The armor's camera showed a room full of metal shelves, and a young woman, wearing the usual black and gold but cringing, arms crossed in front of her face as if to ward off Cinquain's cannon.

That didn't happen. Their indoctrination ran deeper than she'd ever been able to figure out a way around — at least, in the field. "You're kidding."

"Nah. Somebody's lucky day, I guess."

"Is the station secure?"

"Other'n this chick, yeah. Everything matched up with our blueprints and personnel records."

"Good. Hold for pickup. I'm bringing the ship in."

"Urgh." She could hear the grimace in her pilot's voice. "Be careful, will ya?"

Despite the chain of command being obvious, short, and to push the metaphor, tightly wrapped around a certain pilot's neck, Cinquain still considered the Shadowsea hers.

Pilots.

"Funny of you to tell me that."

"I'm the one who has to fix the paint job. And last time, two layers of armor underneath—"

Ada spoke a phrase into the mic.

In a voice entirely drained of its irritation, as well as its accent, Cinquain replied: "I hear and obey, Miss."

"Good girl," Ada purred. "Continue to hold. I'll be there shortly."

She reached up to pull the flight controls into position…

[thecreaturesoftheelevator]

Some ooc ramblings abt Zim bc I love my lil soldier Gnarpian oc vv much:

~ Zim is not actually zer name (due to the lack of a naming system on Gars). Zer name was actually given by another oc of mine named Lenny, and yes, in fact, Lenny did give zer that name because of Invader Zim.

~ Alongside being a Gnarpian soldier, Zim also likes tinkering with machines, human or alien.

~ Ze also participates in No Violence Sunday, and in fact quite enjoys it.

(Boom angst)

~ Despite zer typically quite confident and high-stanced attitude, ze actually has a quite low self-esteem and constantly yearns for approval from zer superiors and peers. This mostly shows in the form of zer constantly finding cool stuff to show Gnarpy and having the most positive reaction to approval from xem on the object ze shows.

~ Zer favorite Earthly foods are dragonfruit and pineapple.

~ In addition to this, when ze first got showed what smoothies are, zer mind was fucking blown

~ Ze sees Gnarpy almost like a cool older sibling and yearns to be viewed as equal as far as coolness level

~ Ze has learned a variety of human stuff from Lenny (the oc that gave zer the name Zim)

~ When discovering something new (that is safe to be touched), ze taps on it with zer whiskers similar to how a snake flicks its tongue at something. Ze also lightly bites it, paws at it, and sniffs it, followed by 5 minutes of prolonged staring.

~ Part of the reason ze crashed was not only because ze panicked at seeing Gnarpy crash, but because zer ship also began malfunctioning and ze punched the console out of anger.

~ You can easily distract zer with a cat lazer pointer or really any kind of cat toy.

~ When surprised, excited, or happy, zer ears visibly perk up.

[Tagging @two-stud-invasion cuz I know they love Zim vv much - Em]

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3 playthrough - Parting thoughts

Massive spoilers:

I’ve now had some time for the ending to percolate through the grey matter, gotten over feeling sad that my first playthrough is over. I’ve started playing with my second tav, a tiefling paladin, and you know what, I’m already noticing little tweaks they’ve made to the dialogues. Like, nothing significant, but little polishes here and there. For instance: I always remember when I first met Asharak (the fight practice teacher) and he said to the kids, look who’s here! I thought he was talking about ME, look, it’s the hero who just showed up at our gate and fought off the goblins! Oh man I thought that was so cute. I was a bit disappointed when I finally realized he meant WYLL, not ME. They adjusted the dialogue so now it’s much more clear that Asharak is introducing Wyll to the kids. Little things like that. I can’t wait to see all the things that got finessed.

Man. It took me seven months to finish my first playthrough. I dunno how everyone finished the game so quickly, my final recorded time was like 200 hours. (granted this did involve several hours of backtracking to fix various mistakes) Initially I assumed I would never play BG3, because I don’t have a PC or a non-nintendo console or anything. It was fun to watch everyone talk about the game even when I had no ability to play it. I think I mentioned this a million times already, but this game was released for mac coincidentally the exact same weekend I got a terminal cancer diagnosis for my cat that I’d had for 13 years. (she’s still doing ok btw) It was so amazing to have something to distract myself with and cheer myself up with after getting that shitty news. I binged it for about four days straight, barely sleeping at all. It was the first big, brand new, non-nintendo game that I’d played in… like… decades, seriously. I was so blown away by the quality of everything. Came here for the funny mean vampire, stayed here for the… absolutely everything else.

I am really glad that I kept a character journal as I played - like, along with the notes I was keeping about game mechanics (because online guides are super shit), I would also write down little thoughts and observations from the perspective of my tav. I always have this record of my playthrough now, and I think it’s really helped me to preserve my thoughts and reactions.

Neil Newbon came to my city’s comic expo last weekend and I was absolutely broadsided by what a smart, nice, and humble guy he is. Isn’t it just such an AMAZING feeling to be a fan of something, then get to know the people who made that thing and find out they’re nice people? I… I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain, but I’m a bit glad I finished my first playthrough before the expo, because I feel… embarrassed somehow?... to be thirsting so much after characters now that I’ve chatted with the guy in real life and he’s talked to my kids? Isn’t that weird? Why is my brain doing that? It’s not like he cares. Very much no. Neil has an amazing sense of humour about it all. Weird brain stuff. Weird. What can I say.

Anyways, I was thinking about a summary of my favourite moments:

1) Cambian fight on the nautiloid. So like I said, I hadn’t played any big, new non-nintendo games in a while. (I mean Nintendo makes good games! But like. A game like Animal Crossing… isn’t… quite the same, you know?) I was wandering around the ship feeling quite blown away by how fancy games have gotten. I was marvelling at the graphics, the gameplay, the tension of the whole situation, and then I get to this fight and that absolute fucking BANGER of a song that is Twisted Force starts playing, that was when I really realized like shit, this game is going to be an EXPERIENCE.

2) Alfira’s dark urge death. I was exposed to a ton of spoilers for this game before I ever touched it so I knew a lot of the main story beats, thoroughly. With Alfira, I did know that the dark urge kills a bard, but for some bizarre reason, the only clips I had seen were of that dragonborn alternative that you get if you cheat and Alfira is unavailable. So I was already at the grove, exploring around, and I absolutely fell in love with the tiefling NPCs, and THEN I discovered it’s actually HER who dies. I was DEVASTATED. I was so attached to the tieflings - both myself as a player, and my tav as well - this was the first settlement of people he found, post-brain-scramble, the first people who were being kind to him, and they needed help so bad, and he wanted so bad to protect them… and here is this awful thing that he does that I can’t avoid. AUGH.

3) The siege on the Emerald Grove. It continues to mystify me that this path is actually a bit hidden in the game, and if you aren’t paying attention you will be herded into just killing the three goblin leaders to resolve things, which is such a massively less interesting path. (perhaps they’ve made the option more obvious with patches? I will see) I loved the tension of the morning before the attack: everyone’s fear really bolstered my desire to win the fight with zero casualties. I loved how, due to my familiarity with the NPCs, I instantly realized that Mattis wasn’t with the other kids and searched all over the place, legit worried, until I found him up by the gate still trying to make a buck, lol. I loved how when they mentioned people had ran off in the night, I knew exactly who wasn’t there and who it had to be. It really made me realize how much I’d got to know the NPCs. Zevlor gets two amazing cutscene speeches, and the fight itself was so freaking fun. I mean it certainly wasn’t the hardest fight in the game at all, but I think it remains one of my favourites, due to all the different moving parts and the planning it involved. It was so goddamned fun getting to use the explosives I had saved up, and I never really had the chance to rig up a battlefield the same way again.

4) Lenore’s tower, and the whole underdark in general. I found it all so lonely, and Lenore’s tower really got to me. I think I shed some tears. I loved the area with the giant sussur tree, I thought it was so beautiful, I took so many screenshots of it. I know if you’re a dark urge your upbringing is… unconventional, but I still imagine that my drow durge has spent a lot of time in the underdark and generally considers it home-ish, so it was neat to see it and think about how this is his home turf.

5) Moonrise and especially the mind flayer colony underneath. This was really where things just started to get interesting for a durge, you start to get the first reveals of your backstory. For a resisting urge, it’s extremely unsettling. Meeting Kressa Bonedaughter was especially horrible. I hadn’t really spoiled a lot of the details of the durge plot, so most of this was a surprise to me. JK Simmons did a great job as Ketheric - I remember being so incredibly curious how he was going to sound, but it worked so well, and as I have noted previously, they spend ridiculous care rendering his sad old man eyes.

6) Gortash’s coronation. Again as a dark urge, this is an important plot beat, I think the last big backstory reveal? Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, not only do you have these horrible murderous urges, not only do you have this nasty little butler man trying to force you to kill people, not only did something horrible happen to you that wiped clean all your memories and turned you into a necromancer’s cute little pet for a while, NOT ONLY ARE YOU A GODDAMNED BHAALSPAWN and the leader of the goddamned Bhaal cult, NOT ONLY ALL OF THIS, NO, that wasn’t enough, oh no: now you learn you were also one of the original architects of the Absolute plot, removed only when Orin saw an opportunity to displace you. Dammmmn. Your companions all react to this information appropriately, so in other words, negatively. Karlach’s reaction is particularly strong, understandably, and hurt my heart. To balance that out a bit, you have Astarion’s reaction, which was… to thank you. If you hadn’t put this plot into motion, he wouldn’t have been abducted by the mindflayers, and wouldn’t have been rescued from Cazador’s control and given the means to resist his commands. 200 years of praying to every god, but it was you that saved him. I had honestly never even considered that, so that was… surprising! Really, really surprising.

7) Comparing spawn and ascendant Astarion - I didn’t play much with ascended Astarion, just spent a little time progressing through the next batch of cut scenes, just so I could see. I was really impressed to see the difference in the two characters, the difference in the writing, the difference in the performance. I enjoyed the visceral negative reaction I had to AA almost immediately, when we had our first camp chat post-ascension, and he SHOUTED at me when I was responding to him with… not even an angry or rude response, but just, a less-than-enthusiastic response. It was like ice water down my back, instantly taking me back to dealing with my abusive ex. I know everyone has a different and highly personal reaction to AA and I think that’s great, and I enjoyed how viscerally negative my reaction was. It’s fun when a thing makes you feel stuff! And I loved spawn Astarion, and how honest and vulnerable he is in his third act romance, thinking about his whole character arc and growth through the game.

8) Rescuing Minsc. It’s a bit of a long daunting set of steps to get Minsc, and I didn’t find it very fun tbh, but I did it anyways because I have to complete everything. I was fully expecting him to sit around camp and never be used, like Halsin and Jaheira are for me unfortunately, (sorry guys) but I was really unprepared for how funny he was going to be. I don’t really like ranger class (also sorry) so when I found out he can still summon Boo even if you respec him, I made him a barbarian, and kept him on my team as much as I could. He is now my second favourite companion to have with me after only Astarion. He has SUCH funny dialogue. I like that you can attempt to start a romance with him and he’s not having any of it. He even gets the opportunity to say a very touching speech as you gather your allies, if you let him.

9) Durge vs Orin fight. The actual fight itself was kind of pitiful, which I thought was sad for her, but it was a startling moment in the lead-up when she briefly changed into me and I actually heard my own tav speaking, like, more than just a little reaction line here and there, I got to actually see my tav speaking. I don’t know. I don’t know why that was such a neat thing to me but it was. Since this playthrough took so long, I really got attached to my tav, I guess.

10) Gather your allies. Ah, the big summary that I needed of all the people I’ve helped and made friends with, all saying something nice about me, haha. Not gonna lie, I reloaded and watched this a couple of times cause it made me so happy.

I’m so glad Larian made an epilogue, with so many sweet little details in it. I’m so happy I had a chance to play this. I don’t have a huge amount of current mutuals who are also fans, and my IRL peeps for some reason are absolutely refusing to finish this game, so please if you want to fangirl (fanperson?) about anything just start talking to me, I’m kind of starving over here!

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda Under Cut

Allura

Lots of people (myself included tbh) ship klance (Keith and Lance). In s8 the creators made Allura/Lance canon (but then they killed her off and left the ending ambiguous it was weird). Anyway the fandom treats her like she's the most terrible bitchy woman ever but all she wants to do is end the war and avenge her destroyed home planet. Yeah she wasn't always the nicest or always the best, but you could argue some other characters in the show aren't either and they aren't treated near as bad as allura. people really just hate her bc Lance liked her. I don't think allura/lance are good together, but I still liked her as a character and thought she was interesting and had a lot of growth during the show. she DEF is not evil like some people portray her as in fic or talk about her in captions on posts. I've seen people say that they HATE her and that she's the worst and I'm like ??? let her live (well sort of ig she is dead now). lots of fic writers use her as the villain which is so interesting to me bc the show literally has villains like use them. anyway allura so perfectly fits the bracket description she deserves better.

I hate to acknowledge my time in this fandom but I hate the way the fandom treated her more. Allura was treated like shit no matter what side of the Great Ship War you were on because she was always a threat to the biggest ships (klance and sheith). At best she got put into Background Lesbian or Consolation Prize Shallura (Space Mom-zoned) (She was not a motherly figure btw. She was just Black). At worst she was violently demonized for being ~racist~ (kinda not cool with the alien race that blew up her planet for a few episodes), complete with misogynistic language hurled at her (she got called a bitch sooo much). Allura was a good and cool character and the show did her dirty but the fandom was somehow worse.

i apologise for speaking the dark magicks, but amidst the voltron fandoms many, many transgressions, there were a particular subset of people who just hated this girl. the infamous klance wars of the 2010s kept this perfectly fine childrens cartoon character in the sights of shippers everywhere, and she (and her voice actress im sure) were subjected to years of petty squabble blown up to global perportions. ive seen hate, ive seen rants, ive seen fanfics that made her homophobic. girls been through the ringer, and even though voltron was never the show its fandom wanted it to be, i believe allura deserved better

Kayano Kaede

shes genuinely a really tragic character who had potential for a really compelling, effective arc concerning grief, identity, healing, and finding trust again all while going through the inherent ordeal of being 15 years old….if she werent a female character in a shonen anime 😭😭 instead she gets sidelined during the show up until her big plot twist reveal after which shes immediately sidelined again. whatever i still love her and know her to be a character of all time who has suffered more than jesus. in my experience shes perhaps the female character who like. ive seen most *obsessively* hated due to her “getting in the way” of the ship b/w the male protagonist + deuteragonist (bc of her proximity to the both of them) u woild think shes the devil incarnate and not just. 15 and traumatised 

She had a crush on Nagisa and they kissed and a lot of fans ship him with Karma so theyre mad that Kaede is there. She is super silly and nice but the fandom hates her for standing in the way of karmagisa.

she's a sweet person that was an actor and loves her sister. she is the main love interest of the main character but doesn't interact with him more than most of the other characters for a majority of the story. Often I have seen them removed from the story only to become some homophobic jerk that's desperate for the main characters love instead of letting her keep the good friendship that her and the main character had before the romance.

[fabeong]

Ascension - a SWTOR short (2)

When the Sith walked onto the bridge where Andronikos was pouring over the flashing console he only glanced up once. Then his mind registered what he saw seeing and he looked up again – because the Sith wasn’t wearing her helmet. In the dim light of the cave on Tatooine he had seen the basics; green scarred skin, diamond face tattoos, glowing yellow eyes. But here, under the bright light of the ship her features were illuminated and Andronikos couldn’t help but stare a bit.

She really was small, with skin the colour of a forest like Endor’s, and short black hair tied back in various places with basic decorations, and those scars – if Andronikos didn’t know any better he would think someone had pushed the Sith’s face into barbed wire. But damn if she wasn’t still kinda pretty, and those yellow eyes stared right back at him with a defiance that made something shiver down his spine like an electric jolt.

“Nice ship.” He said. With the silence broken the Sith came in properly, approaching the console he had been inspecting.

“You think you can fly this as well as your own?”

“Heh. I can fly anything, trust me.” Andronikos smirked, patting the consoles. The Sith’s cheeks twitched like she didn’t know how to smile, and his curiosity overtook him. “What’s the story, Sith? Seems like you know all about me and I don’t know nothing about you. You always a sicko or you just kind of fall into it, like I did?”

The Sith exhaled something close to a chuckle and fell gracefully into the captain’s chair; she peered up at him with those yellow eyes and for a moment he wasn’t sure if she would reply. But then she shrugged.

“I didn’t really have much choice.” She said. “My parents were slaves. I was a slave. Originally I was meant to be something like a housemaid, for cooking, cleaning, and… personal use.” She tossed the phrase out so casually, raising her eyebrows, and Andronikos rolled his eyes. He got the insinuation.

“But?”

“But I kept hitting back. Eventually the family… devalued me,” she gestured lightly to her face and the spiderweb of scarring, “and sent me to Kessel, to the spice mines there. Do you know it?”

Andronikos frowned – he knew Kessel well enough, and he knew the typical work and fate of the slaves one saw in those mines.

“Rough place.” He ventured, and the Sith chuckled in agreement.

“Most don’t last a year. I was there for two. Then one day the overseer was lashing me harder than he should have and…” her voice trailed off, and her gaze fell to her hands. She flexed them, and Andronikos heard the crackle of electricity, saw the sparks jump across her fingertips. He looked back up at the Sith’s face, grinning.

“Tell me you killed him.”

“One moment he was raising the whip again and the next… well, his ashes were getting all blown into the spice. I couldn’t explain what I’d done, but I remember the way everyone looked at me. One of the higher-ups must have seen, because I was handed over to the Sith just days later.”

“So here you are.”

“So here I am.”

“Funny how those Sith work.” Andronikos leant back against the ship’s wall, deciding to return the favour of a story, “I was an accountant on Moneylend when I decided I wanted a little more adventure. So I put a blaster to the head of the Intergalactic Banking Clan and walked off with a few million credits.” Just to illustrate the tale he spun his blaster out its holster and raised it at the Sith, who didn’t even blink. If anything, the twitch of her mouth solidified into the closest thing to a smile he’d seen so far. Andronikos grinned too. “Been robbing and murdering ever since.”

“Well it sounds like you made a good start. Just don’t put a blaster to my head.” Her words came out as a murmur, lovely and low without the distortion of the helmet.

“Don’t worry, Sith.” Andronikos smirked, holstering his weapon again, “I got a good survival instinct.”

There was no doubting it now, the Sith’s lips curled upwards into a smirk of her own.

“Me too.”

He paused, her yellow eyes and placid smirk filling his vision; but then a snarl came from somewhere else in the ship and the Sith looked over her shoulder, her face falling back into a guarded frown. “Khem Val. I should go.” Andronikos shook his head as she got to her feet and began to leave.

“You’ve got to tell me how you got that beast sometime.”

She paused in the doorway, looking back at him and holding up her electric hand. “Another time. I promise.”

Then the Sith was gone, her footsteps echoing through the ship and leaving Andronikos with the consoles. Promise, huh? He wouldn’t have pinned her down as a woman so easy to talk to, but he couldn’t deny the promise of more conversations… wasn’t bad. Maybe he’d even find out her name next time.

Sith. Andronikos shrugged, turning back to the ship controls. Never can figure them out.

[passionsafire]

A thumping metal heartbeat sets an unsteady rhythm as a fire-red titan of steel lies trapped between fallen rivets and frayed wire large enough to barely fit in the giant robot's hands. Within its chassis, the buzzing tone of a bugged-out radio wave echoes from the center console of its cockpit. The pilot lies still, spiked-up hair drooped over his forehead, caked in sweat. A dented flying V guitar lies flat in his lap. Both pilot and Valkyrie, both equally battle-worn, were at least not so worse for wear as the environment of the wreckage-strewn corridor around them. Rubble topples from an exposed ceiling panel as a thunderous quake ripples through the devastated station. The unmistakable sound of explosions echo again and again in the distance like the repetitive beat of the drums of war. Faintly, in the undercurrent of the merciless soundscape, a crowd roars. Unintelligibly at first, but as the static loop of the radio circuit begins to drown out all other sounds, he hears it clear;

". . . Ba-

. sa-. .

ra. . ."

The pilot stirs, his numbed-out index finger twitching to life.

"Ba... sa ra..."

It's louder this time. The drums sound more coordinated, and his foot starts tapping along to the beat.

"Ba-sa-ra. Ba-sa-ra. Ba-sa-ra. Ba-sa-ra."

The call of the crowd meets his ears as he steps forward onto the stage. Spotlights beam down on him, bright enough to force his eyes into a squint. But he doesn't take his eyes of his audience for a second. They've all come here to see them play, to hear Fire Bomber! He can't disappoint them now, can he? Not after they've come this far.

"Basara! Basara! Basara!"

"How ya' feeling, EVERYBODY?!" Nekki Basara cries out to them, raising a single fist to the sky. The roar of the crowd erupts into a chorus of voices like rogue waves crashing against a rocky cliff. Boom, boom, boom from behind--Veffidas putting down a drum beat with the ferocity of a brawl. Ray's keytar fills the air with a cool synth rhythm while Mylene's bass fires up a deep, pounding riff.

"Alright, let's get started! FIRE!!"

"Basara?" A voice calls from behind, but he's focused forward, getting fired up with the fans.

"Basara." It calls again. His brow twitches.

"Basara!"

"Oh, come on! What's wrong, we're just about to get starte-" A flash cuts through his vision, throwing him out from his fevered dream and back into reality. As a burst of flame roars into the corridor, Basara's eyes burst open in a fury. He barely has time to get his bearings before another quake rocks his Valkyrie's chassis inside and out.

The radio in his forward console chirps out a scratchy query, "Ba..s...? Ba...sara? Are y.... re.....ng th...s? Wha.... y..... ....atus?"

The rockstar swipes his bangs from his eyes as he sluggishly reaches for his machine's controls.

".....ara? Co..... ..n Basa....a. Ba....sar...a!"

"Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on. I heard ya' already," he says, pulling his guitar to his chest. His Valkyrie reaches forward and pries itself free from the cage of wreckage that had collapsed around it before pulling itself to its feet. With a burst from the rear verniers, Basara accelerates into a veritable maze of crooked metal. The fire that burst out before has died, quickly, and judging from the fact that his machine's feet haven't touched ground since he got up must mean that space shouldn't be all that far away. A few more halls of twisted metal pass before he comes face to face with a pitch-black hole filled with a dim glimmer of light reflected off free-floating debris.

There we go. With a burst of speed, Basara and his Valkyrie clear the opening and come to a stop against the surface of an adjacent wall that seemed to have been blown clear from the ship it was probably just inside. He looks up and sure enough, there it is. As busted-up as a wreck could be, the carrier he just left floats past a solemn view of a blue planet awash with distant explosions, still falling apart before his eyes. It's an ugly sight. A sigh passes through his lips--what a waste of life...

"I've got a reading again!" Chimes the voice of a young woman across the radio. "Captain, it's Basara! We've found him again!"

Found him again? He wasn't aware he was lost. Then again, he did only just wake up. Wait... how long was he out for, again? Before he can rake his brain for an answer, the image of a familiar face flashes up on a side screen by his controls. An old man with greying hair and a pair of distinctive black shades worn under a helmet's visor.

"Basara!" Maximilian Jenius exclaims, his voice deep and commanding as ever. "We've been trying to contact you for half an hour! What happened?"

Half an hour? Sheesh. Talk about a power nap...

"I don't know. I just woke up a second ago... ship I was on got blown to smithereens, from the looks of it."

Max frowns and shakes his head. "I was afraid of that..." The stress of battle seems to have taken its toll on old Max. His face has been drawn into a half scowl from the moment he showed up on screen. It seems to soften as he looks back up at Basara, however. He might be trying to force a smile, but if so, he isn't doing a very good job. Not that he can blame him. "It's good to see you're alright."

Basara wipes a bit of sweat from his cheek, putting on a strong face of his own (and doing a considerably better job of it.) "Don't worry so much, old man. Just got the wind knocked out of me is all."

Seeing Basara in such a spirited mood gives Max the energy to chuckle. How about that? If he didn't know any better, he'd say the rockstar's thick-headedness was starting to grow on him. "Glad to hear it. Now, that's enough chatter. I need you back here, ASAP. We're regrouping around Lagrange point L1, but Delta Flight has been cut off. I'm moving in to support, and I want you as backup."

A grin flashes across Basara's lips. "You mean you need me to bring the show to you? Didn't think you were that big of a fan, gramps!"

"Take this seriously, Basara. Walkure has already pulled back. That means we need to rely on your songs for support," Max says.

"Walkure, huh?" The rocker says. "Shame. I'm not great at doing second-fiddle, but I wouldn't mind singing along with them sometime!"

The captain smirks. "I could arrange that. After you start following orders, that is."

"Tch..." Not the most innacurate dig he's ever been given--but in his defense, he works a lot better when he just goes with the flow, anyway.

"Don't worry, Delta Flight and I won't be your only audience for this one. Or did you think I was going alone...?" Max asks, Basara arcing his brow in response. Just then, a few other fresh faces flash across his screen.

"ALRIGHT! A battle between robots just wouldn't be complete without the right music! I'm getting pumped up just thinking about it!" Says a young, silver-haired boy whose eyes almost seem to twinkle like stars at the prospect of a real battle between mechs; Ernesti Echevalier, the boy from another world.

"Indeed. I'm eager to hear your songs as well, Nekki Basara! Charging into the fray with a song at our backs... I couldn't think of a better way for a warrior to enter battle!" Says a blonde pilot with a half-scarred face and an ecstatic grin just about as wide; Major Graham Aker of Solbraves.

"Not the worst motivator I've ever heard of. Shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, though, right? I'll be glad to have you with us too, Basara." Says a man with a scar over one eye and a robotic prosthetic replacing one arm; Kincaid Nau, a space pirate from the Crossbone Vanguard.

"Hah... you're really throwing together a party, huh, gramps?" Basara laughs. "Not a bad bunch we've got here... alright, then! Hope you're all ready..." Basara gives his guitar one quick, preparatory strum. It howls out a pleasant tone in return. "...This one's gonna knock your socks off!"

His signature red Valkyrie rockets off the loose wall, kicking it away into the darkness as his machine shrinks away into the backdrop of Earth against the black, ominous void surrounding it; a single bright, shining light in a starless sky.

"LISTEN TO MY SONG!"

——————————————————————————————————————————————————— Part 1 | Part 2 |

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 5

July 2023

Here we go again! I did NOT expect to play so much this month but I... yknow... kinda... got back into gaming in a special little way. I gave it up for a bit cause I was using a hand me down laptop that couldn't run games well, and I was having some phobias about data loss. Then I got a new laptop and while I did do a little bit, I mostly starting focusing on finally playing actual PC games and more indie games that were always out of my grasp as a dedicated console gamer.

Anyway I played a SHIT TON of games and hopefully I'll be able to play more and more. I have a gaming laptop, I have a big ass hard drive, and I have NO MONEY! SO LET'S PARTY!!!

Pikmin (October 26, 2001) - Gamecube

Ah, Pikmin. I've actually had a huge soft spot for this series for a long time. I always loved the world and characters. I remember writing an essay on Pikmin 2 in elementary school, and my mom convinced me to start journaling by telling me Olimar kept a journal lol. But you'll probably be shocked to learn that I NEVER beat this game! I've always been really bad at it and would get sad when my Pikmin died so I gave up on it. But with the power of save scumming, I was able to get the confidence needed to clear through it.

For positives this game is GORGEOUS. Even for gamecube trying to look hyper realistic (in the environments at least lol) I'm actually blown away by how good it looks! Playing on Dolphin may have helped but damn this game's graphics have ages AMAZINGLY. The whole game is also just so charming. Everyone's designs are really cute and delightful. From the Grubdogs to the SS Dolphin itself, their designs are lovely and everything is filled with such personality and charm. I love how goofy and squash-and-stretchy the Pikmin are. It's all so adorable even when facing themes on the cruelty of nature lol. Music is also FANTASTIC, gameplay is fun, I love the story and ending (the part with all the onions was SO cute.) I loved figuring out ways to get parts quicker and trickier, like one part is being guarded by 3 Burrowing Snagrets but you only need to kill the farthest to get it. So I had a bunch of Pikmin grab it and carry it out of the arena while I distracted the other two with a smaller army. It was very neat.

But I will say for all that praise this game is fucking ANNOYING! The Pikmin are so determined to die! I'll be doing everything in my power to keep them safe and they just gloriously run into any body of water or explosion they can. It's so frustrating and is a big reason I decided to emulate it despite owning the game physically. This could get especially frustrating when trying to precise things to get certain ship parts and having to deal with Pikmin stupidity combined with annoying hyper aggressive enemies. But despite that, every day since beating it all I can think is "damn I wish I was still playing Pikmin." So you can expect me to try Pikmin 2 very soon!

Sonic the Fighters (June 1996) - Gamecube

Sonic the Hedgehog? Check. Fighting Game? Double Check. Somehow I've gone my whole life and NEVER played this game!! I've had friends talk about how good it was for ages and it's literally two of my favorite things combined. So I'm very happy that I finally gave it a whirl. I played through Arcade on the easiest difficulty as Sonic!

And may I just say, I only played a little bit. So maybe I didn't get the full experience, but the gameplay in this SUCKS. In general I'm not a huge fan of 3D fighting games over 2D ones. But the enemies are so ruthlessly brutal for NO reason and it genuinely made some fights IMPOSSIBLE to get past. Particularly Tails and Metal Sonic. I am not proud of the swears I shouted at this game just trying my hardest to clear the Arcade mode. And it's endlessly frustrating to me that this game seems to get so much more love and be more popular than Sonic Battle which is LEAGUES better! WHY ARE SO MANY OF SONIC'S SMASH BROS. MOVES FROM THIS AND NOT BATTLE!?

But, I will say. I totally get why people like it. Pretty much everything outside of the combat totally fucking rules. The character models are cute, charming, and full of personality. The menus are nice, the music is GREAT. The plot is cute and works. The level backgrounds are AMAZING, seriously they look WONDERFUL! And I particularly really loved the final boss. Where the Death Egg is exploding and Eggman comes out with a self destruct timer, and then that timer turns into the match timer. SUPER cool touch. This game is really cool in spite of being kinda annoying to play.

Anyway, new Sonic 2D Fighter made by Arc System Works next please!!

Soul Calibur 2 (July 5th, 2002) - Gamecube

Oh boy, another 3D Fighting Game. Here we go. Soul Calibur is a series I've only played once before with SC6. And while the whole aesthetic and concept of this series absolutely RULES, it just doesn't really click with me. I love the weapons, Nightmare is SUCH a bad ass and so is the Soul Edge, I love the over the top narrator who says so much, the edgy fantasy aesthetic rules, and I love the weird guest characters. But it just never fully clicked sadly. BUT, I've heard LOTS of people say it's one of the best fighting games ever so I figured I'm overdue to check it out.

Just like SC6, this game looks great and has great character designs. I'm particularly a big sucker for these gorgeous Gamecube graphics. Lizardman was my main even though I played the arcade as Nightmare (since you can't do arcade as Lizardman which fucking blows.) But yeah I'm just not super into the gameplay. Neat game though. This and Tekken are both neat games I may sit down and try to play all of some day.

Super Monkey Ball (June 23, 2001) - Gamecube

You may be shocked to learn that I've barely touched this series in the past. I've played a Monkey Ball Arcade Machine at a Chuck E. Cheese once... I played the phone version one time... And that's about it! I know it's a really loved series but for whatever reason it just never came into my life before. But I've had a friend tell me I should play it for a while now so I decided, what the heck? Since I'm here I might as well give it a shot.

And yeah it's neat! I totally get why people like it! It's tricky, but honestly a ton of fun. Love the graphics and level aesthetics. Music is nice (I LOVED the final area's music with the rock soundtrack in that edgy colosseum). The characters are all super cute (my favorite Monkey Ball character is that one with pigtails and a raccoon tail but she wasn't in this one sadly.) I love the random Dole cross promotion stuff that was genuinely funny. And I like that you actually control the stage that was neat. My only major issues aside from it being, generally frustrating is that the camera can actually REALLY fuck you over, it tries to kinda hang towards your back. But this can really influence your delicate control over the stage. I had some levels where the camera swinging it around genuinely made it impossible to get over some hills.

Frustrating as it was, I actually remembered that my sister bought a Monkey Ball game on Switch recently, so I can absolutely see myself playing more of this series later.

Guilty Gear X (July 13, 2000) - Playstation 2

Ah, one of the last few Guilty Gear games I haven't played. I'm not sure why, but this one just never seems to get ported anywhere. If I had to guess it's cause it's very similar to XX, but it does have a very unique look to the menus, exclusive stages, and it's own story. So I really think they're overdue to put it on Steam. But oh well, that didn't stop me, I finally sat down and gave it a shot! I of course played through the Arcade as Sol and had a pretty good time with it!

It's GG so of course you already know the music and graphics are AMAZING, it feels great to play and is overall a fantastic package. I actually thought the menu aesthetics this time around were CRAZY good. Everything looks really cool and good and I know the character select is a bit notorious for being kinda difficult to see everything. And yeah that's true but I thought it looked awesome! Overall this game rules and I think it's worth checking out even with XX being a thing. It's interesting to see just how far the quality in sprites and backgrounds improved from Missing Link to X in not even that long of a time (though ML will still be one of my all time favs aha)

My only major complaint is that I thought the Arcade Mode was relentlessly brutal this time around. Once I reached the second half I was massively struggling to get through and I could not beat Dizzy to save my life, it was nuts. I never had this trouble with Missing Link or XX! Maybe it was just the version I was playing or my controller. But this game seriously whipped my ass. Oh well. Still cool.

User Unknwn (July 17, 2023) - PC

It's okay for me to write about games made by friends of mine right? That's cool? It's my tumblr I'll shout out whoever I want. A friend of mine recently released a visual novel and I think you should give it a read! User Unknwn is an interesting and in my opinion, unsettling little visual novel about a strange homebrew app for PSP that causes... Problems let's say.

It talks about dysphoria and struggling with presenting and how people treat you when you're trans. I think it's best you read it yourself to see how you interpret it, but I found it to be very relatable with how it handles these topics and also makes it very creepy and bizarre in a good way. It's got nice visuals, I liked the use of real world photos and scribbles, it's a nice combination. It's got an interesting story and it's actually got an original soundtrack! Which is very good but also cool that they made the effort to include that! Most small indie games will just forgo music altogether or use free music, I'll admit I'm guilty of most of my games being silent. But no, here you get a full soundtrack! Which is honestly awesome! My favorite might be, and I'm sorry I have to type this... "Music That Will Make You Cum Your Pants"

Seeing as how it's a visual novel there's really nothing to complain about. My only complaint is that I'm also an original trilogy Paper Mario guy and I would NOT act like gabe, I'm better than that.

Super Mario 64 Star Road (December 24, 2011) - N64 Mod

Hey! Would you believe that this is probably the first Mario Romhack I've ever beaten? I've played TONS of Mario Fangames in my time. But never any Rockhacks oddly enough. But I recently played Super Mario 64 CO-OP with some friends, and I LOVED IT. You can set it to not boot you out when getting a star, let Mario access moves added to later games, and improve his swimming which makes the game feel SO good and new. It also natively runs fullscreen and has modern controller controls, it feels SO good to play this way (and you can customize Mario's color scheme.) So I did a quick 30 star run in the base game, and wanted more. It came with Star Road so I decided to play through that, and here we are!

STAR ROAD RULES!! It's a brand new game with a fully original hub world, all new stages, 120 brand new stars. Nothing is copied from Mario 64 except for the characters and the base engine and what not, of course. It's literally a whole new experience, and I loved it! I loved the new worlds, my favorites were probably Bob-Omb Island and Fatal Flame Falls! There's tons of areas to see and I don't think I even found them all! The game also has original boss battles like a bunch of big piranha plants which was very cool to see! And I was blown away by just how big the game is. I rushed the to beat the first boss, and then was shocked to see a second hub world! Then the same thing happened and there's a third hub world! This game is crazy massive! It's also got some new enemies, some visuals and stuff from other Mario games, and it was super cute hearing different video game tracks put in the SM64 soundfont for the OST!

The game isn't perfect though. In my opinion it's too long. You need 80 stars to beat it which is already 10 more than the original. And I feel like there's less stars in each world than the original game so you REALLY have to 100% a lot of worlds in order to get everything you need. I 100% cleared almost every main level to get 80 stars which is just a bit too much. I also felt like there were too many instadeath locations. The big bully in the snow world, the piranha plant boss, ect ect. Gloomy Garden was especially guilty for having SO many places to fall off and feeling SO big while also being so empty. That was easily my least favorite stage. BUT aside from that, this was an amazing romhack! I may even come back and 100% it some day!

Pac-Man World 2 (February 24, 2002) - Gamecube

And last but not least, Pac-Man World 2! I played the first one last year I believe, so of course it's only natural we jump into the sequel this year! This one I basically knew nothing about, never watched any videos of it or nothing. I just remember seeing the cover a lot at my local video rental store... I'm not old shut up. (I miss you so much, Screenplay Video...) But I finally gave it a go and I'm glad I did! It's a neat little game!

The game looks very nice, controls nice, I thought the music was good. And I love the story honestly. Spooky is cool and the whole concept with collecting the gold fruit, while simple, is cute and works perfectly. The game also isn't too long, it's shorter than even the first one. Speaking of which, I was really shocked to see how similar it was to the first one. The Rev Roll is still there and it has a lot of the same mechanics with finding fruit and what not. Idk why I just wasn't expect it to be so similar to the first! I do think I might prefer this one though? And the final boss was cool and the first boss was FANTASTIC!!

Speaking of bosses though, this ties in perfectly with what WASN'T that good about it. Dude. The middle 3 bosses are the EXACT same bosses and this boss fight fucking SUCKS. IT'S AWFUL, so I have no idea why they recycled it 3 TIMES but the cool frog boss just got left in the dust. It's so stupid. In addition whole the game itself is short that's only the case cause there's so few levels. Which they had to do cause the levels are SO LONG!! They drag on FOREVER and especially some of the on rails ones can just go and go and go. It's not too hard so it's not that bad but it can noticeable when you're playing a single level for what feels like forever. I also felt like there were a lot of jumps that were just slightly too far to make, I kept ALWAYS grabbing the ledge and rarely landing on platforms, and if you do that on the tons of platforms that fall, it's an instadeath every time. And then the final level felt completely broken. I had no idea what was happening in that stage I would constantly make progress, and then my reward would be being sent back earlier into the level. Wormwood fucking rules though so that's okay.

Regardless! Now that that's over there's only one more game left! Pac-Man World 3! THAT'S the one I've been looking forward to! It's the only one I played as a kid, it's edgy, and Pacman PUNCHES PEOPLE! I can't wait to play it!

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I also played 2 other games, but really didn't have much of anything to say on them. WarioWare, Inc. Mega Party Game$! which was, neat but really boring without friends. Cutscenes were particularly goofy though. And Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 which was a very cool fighting game I've heard people rave about for ages! But I only briefly played it so I'd like to learn how to play it better and give it another go later, particularly after I play more KoF. But hey, look at my funny custom Morrigan color scheme:

[seekerblue]

The restoration of Cybertron was truly glorious news. Thundercracker's part in the war effort had ended when he abandoned the Decepticons and Cybertron collectively; he'd stolen a Shade-class bomber called the Arctava and taken off for deep space. By the time he'd reached Earth, it'd been more than a vorn since he last spoke to another Cybertronian. It had been a brief encounter with whom he believed to be Dirge, though he couldn't confirm; the signal was far too degraded, and was coming from a dark sector with a dying star. His ship wouldn't have lasted long enough to get a visual, with how inefficient its fuel burn was, so he left, even knowing he may have been dooming an old friend to death.

After all, what help would he be if his energon ran dry? Then he'd be dead, too.

Sometime after Cybertron went dark, he'd picked up a signal from none other than Optimus Prime, calling for Autobots to rally at specific coordinates. He was hesitant, but Optimus had once extended to him an invitation to join the Autobots; at the time, he'd declined, even though he wanted to join them. He couldn't have faced Starscream and Skywarp again if he betrayed them in such a way; instead, he'd given Optimus his energon reserves and fled. The memory bade him follow the signal to Earth, hoping he might be of at least some help.

As it turned out, he never truly was. He remained hidden all the way up to the final days of the conflict, until Megatron fell dead from his ship and the Autobots restored Cybertron. He had still been hidden away in the jungles of Peru when the news reached him, and, perhaps recklessly, he fired the ship's engines and took to the skies immediately. He knew he was going to be late; any transmissions he picked up usually reached him months, even years late. But he wanted to see it, to see his home restored to its former luster - especially Praxus. He'd had no small part in its destruction. If he could redeem himself, even just a little, by aiding in its reconstruction - then he was honor bound to do so.

This time, though, the ship's navigation wasn't quite working as well. Instruments were malfunctioning, fuel efficiency was at the worst he'd ever seen it; the crash had really done a number on it. He was navigating himself, manually piloting moreso by memory than any instrument data. He was jumping through wormholes whose trajectory he'd previously mapped out, trying to get back to Cybertron as fast as possible, but one of them put him out somewhere else. A dark quadrant with a dwarf star, one he didn't recognize. He must've been mistaken; this wasn't one of the ones he'd jumped through before.

One of the screens on the console lit up, flagging a ship just past the farthest planet. It wasn't one he could identify, if it even was a ship. He couldn't be sure the Arctava wasn't flagging an asteroid, with how outdated and damaged the systems were. The systems responsible for identifying ship classification & friend or foe status shorted out in the crash, and he'd been unable to repair them. All he had was a blip on his long-range sensors.

Just this once, he allowed a modicum of hope to creep its way in. He flicked two switches, turned a dial, and spoke, opening his comm. on an open frequency.

::Unidentified vessel, this is the Decepticon Shade-class ship Arctava hailing on an open line. Pilot identification: Thundercracker, Seeker Squadron Omega-6. If you're reading me -- well. I'd appreciate not being shot at.::

He had no way of knowing how many Autobots or Decepticons had heard about the war's end; he didn't want to risk being blown up by an overzealous Autobot. But maybe this one would be sensible; Autobot or Decepticon, he was certainly looking forward to having something other than the ship to talk to. Maybe they would even be willing to guide him back to Cybertron, seeing as he got himself so utterly lost.

Or maybe it would turn out to be a chunk of space rock and he'd have to find his own way out. That would be his usual luck.

@honor-cxde hit the starter call!