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ickle-ronniekins · 5 years ago

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just the girl

request from nonnie!!! “Hello gorgeous! I love your writing! Could I please get a George one where the reader is younger(like harry) and she is kind of shy but George loves her and flirt with her but she thinks he is just messing with her?”

word count: 4.4k

pairing: george x hufflepuff fem!reader

A/N: okay i strayed a biiiiit and didn’t make her like suuuuper shy but i definitely made her oblivious and i hope that’s okay?? also, i’ve had “just the girl” by the click five stuck in my head whilst writing this so that’s where the title idea/end dialogue come from lol

tag list: @mintlibri @georgeweasleyx @seppys-return-to-madness @fopdoodledane @fredd-weasley @iprobablyshipit91 @darling-details @laneygthememequeen @lupinsx @keoghans @helloallthethingsilove @bobduncanlover @dreamer821 @feffffffy @the-hufflepuff-of-221b @62442-am | send me a quick message if you’d like to be added darlings!

The only thing to ever distract George Weasley from his schoolwork has been pranking and mischief; it’s always been that way, ever since he was born, with his twin by his side. But now, he thinks, watching you across the Great Hall after not having seen you due to a very long summer holiday, everything else might just need to be put on the back burner.

How had he never noticed you in this light before? A thought crosses his mind now: he’s been far too preoccupied with creating types of chaotic mischief across the castle. Maybe he needs to rethink his priorities a bit. It’s not that he’s never thought about girls: hell, he thinks about them nearly all the time. But not like this. He’s never been so captivated in his entire life.

Your smile is lighting up nearly the entire Hall; how everyone at every table isn’t staring at you is beyond him. George can hardly help himself; his eyes are glued to you. His friends notice this and someone punches him in the arm, earning a sharp yell and a glare from him.

“Ow,” he says through gritted teeth after coming back to reality. He groans at what’s coming. He then turns to Fred, who’s laughing a bit, and says, “You’re a right git, you know that?”

“Oi, go over there and talk to her, would you?” Fred suggests, making the entire group of rowdy Gryffindors roar with laughter, “or at least quit the staring—you’re making yourself rather obvious, you know.”

George feels his throat tighten as he sinks into his seat; next to him, Ron is giggling quietly into his cup of porridge. “Go with the latter, mate—stop looking at her, would you? Merlin! You’re going to frighten the poor girl.”

He feels his heart begin to pound a bit harder against his ribcage; he hates feeling nervous—probably more than he hates sitting through Potions class. He swallows thickly, turns to his sister and says quietly, “Oi, Gin, you and Luna are friendly with Y/N, right?”

Ginny looks up from her bowl of cereal and nods her head before shooting a cheeky grin at her brother.

“You’ve spent quite some time with her before then, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ginny replies, taking a swig of her drink, “but so have you, you git. She hangs out with us all the time. You’ve known one another since your third year.”

George frowns. “Yeah, but.. I don’t know her nearly as well as you. Always sort of gravitates toward you, doesn’t she? She’s sort of.. turned off by my pranks a little bit.”

“Then stop the pranking,” Ginny winks.

George lets out a scoff. “Right. D’you not know me but at all?”

“It’s not that she’s turned off, George,” Ginny tells him and he feels himself relax a bit. She scoops up some more cheerios onto her spoon, “her life just doesn’t revolve around pranking people. She’s sort of shy. But I promise, she gets a rise out of your mischief.”

“She does?”

Ginny rolls her eyes as she entertains the idea that her brother might quite possibly be in love.

“Yeah, she does, so—talk to her then, would you?” Ginny tells her brother, taking a long swig of her drink. “She’s on the Hufflepuff team this year! New Chaser, she is. There, already have something to chat about other than pranking, alright?”

You? Quidditch? Girl of his dreams, you are. That aspect excites him. What he’s afraid of, he thinks of now, is trying to get you to open up to him. Maybe it won’t be as difficult as he thinks, considering you’ve known one another for quite some time now. A smile tugs at the edges of his lips when he watches your head fall back as you laugh—a laugh he can’t hear, but wants too more than anything else.

If there’s one thing George Weasley loves, it’s a challenge.

— -

George is finding it quite difficult to spend any time with you, much to his dismay. Not only are you in a different house, but you’re two years younger which means you’ve got absolutely no classes together. He reckons that Herbology wouldn’t be as boring if you were in class with him. He frowns at the thought.

So when he sees you rounding the bend in the corridor one day after emerging from an afternoon Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, he immediately seizes his chance for a chat.

“Oi, Georgie!” Fred calls as George leaves him, Ron, Harry and Neville in his dust, “where’re you off to, then?”

“Sorry boys,” George calls back, winking, “Have got a few things to take care of—meet you later in the common room.”

He leans against the wall and watches you, a dazed sort of grin grows on his face when he notices that smile again. He feels a pang in his heart when he thinks of just how long it’s taken him to really notice it.

You meet his gaze and clutch your books tighter into your chest; when you pass him, he ignores a few other Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws by your side, acting as if you’re the only two in the corridor. “Hey, beautiful.”

You roll your eyes and can’t help but smile. “Hi, George,” you reply sweetly, not stopping to hold a conversation. He’s quick on his feet, though, and follows you down the other end of the hallway. He feels poorly for you when he notices that you’re headed for the dungeons. “Good summer holiday?”

“Pretty good—happy to be back, though. And you?”

You ignore his question and wiggle your eyebrows at him. “Not getting into any trouble already, are we?”

“Not currently, dunno about later.. too early to tell,” he smiles a bit smugly, tugging on your arm and pulling you back, leaving your friends walking toward the dungeons without you. You turn around, now face to face with him, and he’s leaning casually against the wall, his arms folded across his chest.

“Better be careful—I hear Snape’s just dying to give out detentions. In a right foul mood, he is.. and it’s only the first week.”

“Shame you’re heading to Potions, then.”

“Would much rather be out on the pitch, mind you.”

“Oh yeah,” George replies, suddenly remembering what Ginny had told him, “how’s it feel then? Heard you’re one of the new Chasers this year. Heard you’re pretty wicked.”

“Yeah?” you raise your eyebrows and George can’t help but feel his insides constrict at your glistening eyes. “What else have you heard?”

He laughs a bit, running a hand through his messy hair. “That Gryffindor’s got a run for their money now.”

“Glad to hear my skills are being spoken about so highly amongst the houses.”

George is loving this; you’re a lot less shy than he remembers—nothing at all like you were when you two first met. Maybe more has changed over the summer that he doesn’t know about yet. His heart’s thundering at the thought. “Don’t think for a second we’re going to take it easy on you.”

There it is—that laugh he’s been dying to hear. He’s nearly putty in your hands at the sound of it. Luckily, though, George is pretty good at hiding his skittishness and replacing it with a flirtatious grin or banter. He bites down on his lip to keep from grinning like mad when you say, “Do your worst then, George.”

The bell rings suddenly, making you both jump, signaling five minutes until the beginning of the next lesson. You raise your eyebrows and nod toward the dungeons, “Better get going. Don’t want the wrath of Snape upon me.” You grin a bit and walk backwards down the empty corridors and George is nearly losing it at how bloody adorable you are, “See you later?”

“Yeah,” he says, confidence engulfing him, “see you.”

He can’t help but shake his head in admiration when he watches you turn back around, sling your arm behind your back and wiggle a few fingers at him in a wave as you vanish down the staircase.

— -

“Hey—what the bloody hell was that all about this afternoon? Thought you two were supposed to cause some type of diversion on the fifth floor corridors after lunch? You were nowhere to be seen!”

Ron’s face turns sour as his elder twin brothers just laugh at this. To him, Fred replies, “Think of our mischief as being on.. a semi-hiatus. Few days, tops.”

“Merlin,” Ginny mutters, looking down at her shoes, “what did you two do already?”

“We didn’t do anything,” Fred tells his sister. He leans back into the couch and relaxes. “Georgie here has some other things he needs to take care of first.”

Harry and Ron make obnoxious sounding kissing noises; Ginny, on the other hand, just rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re actually going after her.”

George raises his hands in confusion. “You’re the one who told me to go and talk to her more.”

“I didn’t think you were actually serious!”

“Ah well—should pay more attention to your older brother, then, shouldn’t you?” George asks, looking rather smug. He takes a long swig of his tea before placing his feet up on the table in front of him. “Besides, she’s a lot less shy than you seem to remember, Gin.”

Ginny rolls her eyes again, mutters something that slightly resembles a whatever, you git, and turns back to the book she’s clutching very tightly in her hands.

“So,” Ron begins again, turning his attention toward the twins, “Few days, you say?”

“Yes,” the twins chorus together. Fred continues, “Really, though, we’re trying to steer clear of Snape for the time being—bloke seems to show up wherever we go, he’s in a right awful mood and I, for one, don’t feel like starting out the new year with a weekend full of detentions under my belt.”

Under her breath, Ginny mutters, “because that’s so different than every other year?” George playfully chucks a throw pillow at her, and is delighted to see her finally chuckle a bit.

“What’s the plan then, George?” Harry asks, shuffling a deck of cards in his hands. “I reckon you’re going to take it easy on her now that she’s our opponent, yeah?”

The boys erupt in laughter, prompting Ginny to move to the other side of the common room to immerse herself in conversation with Hermione, Parvati, and Katie. To the group, George just replies, “Haven’t got a plan, really. Just going to try and wing it.”

— -

Harry lets out a huff, looking positively dreadful. He’s crouched down behind the twins at the entrance to the changing rooms and he says to the two of them, “This has got to be illegal, hasn’t it?”

“Nah—not illegal if we don’t get caught,” George winks, not taking his eyes off of the pitch.

“Relax, mate, it’s fine,” Fred says in a hushed whisper, “that’s why we’ve got the Invisibility Cloak. Merlin, Harry, it’s like you’ve never snuck out before.”

The twins laugh and Harry relaxes; sneaking out is nothing new to him.

They should be in the Great Hall, working on their assignments due for their lessons, but George had insisted on coming to spy on the competition. Fred nearly yelped at the idea; Harry needed some persuading. But honestly, George doesn’t care at all about the competition. He only cares about you.

He’s enamored at your Chasing skills—you’re a lot faster than he originally thought, getting the quaffle through the hoops each and every time. He’s feeling a bit nervous at how Gryffindor is going to bear with you and the other new Chaser and new Beater. It’s probably the best team Hufflepuff’s had in years.

“Eh, new Beater isn’t that good,” he hears Fred saying to him and Harry, but he’s not paying a lick of attention, “and they’ve still got the same Seeker as last year, and you know his weaknesses, Harry, so I reckon we should be alright.”

Everyone lands on the pitch with ease and heads right toward the changing rooms. George can’t help but notice the way the yellow color of your robes makes your eyes sparkle even more. Fred then says, “Ready to go then? Have got a massive Charms essay to finish up.”

But George ignores this; instead, he lifts the cloak from over him and is again visible to anyone in the surrounding area. He laughs at whispered yelps from both Fred and Harry, and he swears he hears a, If we’re caught I’m going to murder you, mate!

He frowns at this but continues to ignore it; adrenaline is coursing through his body like a rapid fire. He walks toward the group with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he’s just been out for a casual stroll, when once again, you meet his gaze.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

“Seeing you two times in one week?” you ask, placing a hand on your hip. “Aren’t I a lucky one.”

George smirks at you and wants nothing more than to sneak you into the Gryffindor common room later tonight. This scheme, he thinks, would definitely, probably, most certainly earn him detentions for weeks, if not months. “Well I may have heard you were out here, came to see you.”

“Is that so?”

“I just can’t help myself.”

“Not spying on us, are you, Georgie?”

“Spying? Never,” he replies gleefully. Making you laugh is just about his favorite thing. He nods toward the pitch, glad to see that the rest of the team has made it inside the changing rooms, leaving you two alone, “how’d practice go?”

“You Gryffindors better prepare—best lineup we’ve had in years. I daresay we might actually be able to get our hands on the cup.”

George laughs at this, not at all caring about the fact that if Fred had heard you say this, he’d nearly be up in arms at the thought of Gryffindor losing. George, however, doesn’t mind that much. Not if it means he’d get you in return. “I’d like to see you try.”

You release your hair from it’s ponytail and George cannot shake the feeling that he’s got something very sharp lodged in his throat. He clears it once, twice, three times before finally feeling it subside. You grin, elbow him playfully and say, “Don’t worry. I will.”

— -

Hogsmeade is absolutely swarmed with students, it being the first trip of the school year, and all. In fact, it’s so crowded, that George can hardly see through the sea of people. He follows his brothers into Honeydukes to pick up some much needed candy items before heading back to Hogwarts for the evening feast.

“I reckon you can never have too many chocolate wands,” Ron says brightly, pulling as many as he can off of the shelves. Quite a sweet tooth he has. Then he notices some caramel cobwebs and grabs a fistful of those, too.

“Ronald, leave room for dinner, would you?” Hermione teases him as he pays for his goodies; she then steals a wand out of his hand and bites into it, smiling giddily. Ron turns a bright shade of pink.

“Zonko’s next?” Fred asks the crowd, examining the sugar quill he’s just purchased. He then gingerly sticks it into his bag and heads toward the exit. “C’mon—we’ve got to get back soon and I’ve a lot I need to purchase still.”

And so everyone follows Fred from Honeydukes and back out onto the very crowded street. George is now losing all hope of spotting you, and Ginny’s been no help—when asked if you’d be here today, Ginny merely shrugged her shoulders, noting that she hadn’t been able to talk with you much recently due to your very different schedules as well as being in different houses. George huffs a bit and then freezes: he notices you, standing with two of your friends, in a line outside of Madam Puddifoot’s.

Harry notices this and slings an arm around George’s shoulders, “Mate, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“No self respecting bloke will step foot into Madam Puddifoot’s,” Ron chimes in, mouth full of chocolate. “I mean, it’s meant for couples who need to spend less time snogging and more time coming up for air.”

George agrees; he slams his hands in his pockets and keeps his eyes on you. Just the sight of the tea shop alone is making him cringe; of course he wants to be with you. But George Weasley isn’t much of a corny type of bloke, and he reckons you’re not that type of girl, either.

“Yeah, but she’s not with anyone, is she? A guy, I mean,” George tells them, shrugging them off and handing Fred his purchases. “Hang onto that for me, will you? Thanks. See you all back at the castle.”

As George nearly skips across the cobblestone, Fred shakes his head and throws his hands up in surrender. “Oh, yeah, sure thing—I’d be more than happy to carry all this junk for you, mate.”

George just ignores this; he can feel his heart begin to flutter when he watches you run your fingers over the spine of a notebook you’re holding—a new item from Scrivenshaft’s, he’s sure of it. He grins to himself before quietly stepping behind you, and gently taps you on the shoulder. “Didn’t take you for a Madam Puddifoot’s type.”

You whirl around, obviously a bit frightened by his sudden appearance. You bring a hand swiftly to your heart and say through some nervous laughter, “Blimey! You gave me a fright.” The two of you begin to laugh and George notices your two friends peering at you both before erupting into whispers. You turn back to him and shake your head as if to say, Ignore them, and continue on, “I reckon this is about the cheesiest place in all of Hogsmeade! But I have to admit—I’m a sucker for her tea.”

“So not here on a date, are you?”

“A date? Merlin, no! The reason I even step foot in this place, besides the tea, is to seemingly laugh at all of the couples in here—have you ever taken a peek around, George? Some of them are so clueless it’s actually painful.”

He’s nearly melting at your banter, and is surprisingly uplifted to hear that you’re not the type of girl who is looking to be all sickeningly sweet on a date in what’s been deemed as the most romantic spots for young couples. He reckons you’d much rather be throwing quaffles through hoops instead.

Suddenly, the door opens and a jingle signals the entrance of the next group—you, George, and your two friends. He raises his eyebrows and says, “Well let’s take a peek then, shall we?”

And it’s exactly as you’ve described, and exactly what he expects: couples, hardly drinking their tea, but instead peering lovingly into one another’s eyes as if in some type of hypnotized trance, or with their lips locked together without coming up for any air. You turn back to George, wiggle your eyebrows at him and begin to laugh, keeping your voice low. “What’d I tell you?”

“Merlin,” he replies breathlessly, spotting Seamus Finnegan tucked away in a corner with a Ravenclaw. “It’s worse than I thought.”

“Yeah, but—” you stop, handing him a cup of steaming hot liquid, “try the tea! It’s worth it alone to deal with all these people in love.” Your face turns sour at your own words, and you and George find yourself falling into laughter yet again. George swears he hears whispering from your two friends a few feet away.

“You’re right, it’s delicious,” he replies, not breaking your gaze, “and yeah, it’s… a bit much,” you giggle sweetly and turn to look at two young Slytherins attached at the hip, “but I reckon if you’re with the right person, it’s not so bad.”

A soft smile spreads itself across your face, and George can feel his insides go warm and gooey. “Oh yeah? Going soft on me?”

He sips his tea again lightly, poking you gently in the ribs. “With you? I just might be.”

— -

When George pops through the portrait hole that evening, a very smug grin plastered onto his face, it only takes the lot about five and a half seconds before bombarding him with questions and a bit of teasing.

“Oh lookout, there he is now—been snogging her in Puddifoot’s this whole time, have you?” Fred frowns and chucks a throw pillow at him, but George is quick and catches it.

“Nah, he couldn’t be, mate,” Ron tells Fred from the ground as he leans against the couch, “you’ve got to properly ask a girl out before getting to that level, and we know Georgie hasn’t gotten there yet, has he?” Raucous laughter echoes throughout the common room from him, Fred, and Harry.

“Leave George alone,” Hermione and Ginny scold together. Then Hermione continues, “Just because you three don’t know how to properly treat a woman—”

George stands up a little straighter. “Ah—cheers, Hermione.”

“So you’ve done it, then?”

“Reckon my dating life isn’t really any of your business, Ron,” George replies cheekily. He then quickly heads up to the boys dormitory, changes into comfortable clothes, and comes back down, only to climb back out through the portrait hole and into the corridors. “Hey, where’re you off too?” Ginny calls.

George ignores this; he jumps back out, not paying a lick of attention to the singing of the Fat Lady, and is delighted to see that you’re still standing there, leaning against the wall, picking at the sleeves of your sweater. You look up and grin; he’s beginning to feel those nerves again. “Ready?” you ask.

The two of you head straight for the pitch, now surely very dark—it’s almost after hours, but he doesn’t mind, and he’s happy that you don’t either. Whilst spending most of the afternoon making a mockery out of those couples in Puddifoot’s, you and George had fallen into an animated conversation revolving Quidditch, which seems to be a lot about what you two discuss these days.

You’re both hovering above the ground; the pitch is nearly completely black. George can only see you in the moonlight shining down on you both from the night sky. You say to him, blocking the goal posts, “Do your worst, Weasley.”

He’s not used to acting as Chaser, and you, a Keeper. But despite his ruddy awful tries at launching the quaffle through the goal posts, and your creative, albeit a bit dangerous, attempts at blocking these potential goals, you two still end up falling into a fit of hysterics and nearly falling off of your brooms. George could stay here for hours, into the dead of night, not a care in the world..

He feels his heart begin to race a bit and frowns at the sight of a few lights turning off within the castle. It’s evident to you both, now, that it’s far past curfew, and if Snape catches you both out here, you’re done for. Without saying anything, the both of you land on the grass and slowly make your way back toward the castle. “I reckon Keeper is definitely not on my list of Quidditch skills,” you tell him, laughing lightly.

He shrugs and grins at you, “You’re better than you think you are.”

“I should play with you more often—full of compliments, you are.”

“Can you blame me? I just—you’re kind of brilliant—”

“Oooh,” you say a bit teasingly, jabbing him in the ribs, “you about to confess your love for me, or something?”

He just smiles.

A bit taken aback, you ask skittishly, “A-are you?”

His grin deepens at your flustered words. “Well, yeah, I am.” he says plainly, as if it’s obvious.

Your eyes dart back and forth between him and the castle. It’s obvious to him that you’re feeling a bit nervous now. “Are you serious?”

George laughs haughtily, placing his broom down on the ground as he inches closer to you. “Haven’t I been making myself obvious?”

“I—I mean,” you stammer, tripping over your words as if the sight of him is making you tongue tied. There she is, he thinks. Shy, sweet girl you’ve always been. “You’ve.. you’ve always been flirty! I kind of just thought it was a joke?”

He pretends to fall back dramatically, and is delighted to hear you laugh a bit. “That hurts, Y/N, I was kind of hoping you’d be able to tell that I’m mad for you.”

A grin tugs at your lips, and George feels his nerves begin to subside at the dazed look on your face. “Soooo, you weren’t joking?”

“I’m always joking, love,” he says playfully, now just centimeters from you, and he snakes an arm around your waist, “just not about this.”

You swallow thickly, and now he’s leaning in. His voice is nearly a whisper.

“If you want me to stop—”

“Don’t stop,” you tell him breathlessly.

When his lips touch yours, he feels a chill declare war on his bones; it’s as if all of the adrenaline in the world is surging through his body at this exact moment. He’s quite sure he’s short-circuited, and he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as your fingers creep gently across his shoulder blades and into his hair. It’s slow and tender and soft, the way first kisses should be, the way he’s been imagining it.

Both of you pull away gently, and he hovers for a moment and smiles before pulling away fully. Your arms are still draped over his shoulders and his hands tighten around your hips; he’s definitely not going to sleep tonight, not after this, and he fully plans on going to class in the morning with some kind of hangover. “It’s crazy how you went from being just some girl—”

You grin lazily and he feels as though he’s about to spontaneously combust.

“Now you’re just the girl,”

You roll your eyes at this. “Ugh, has Madam Puddifoot’s made you corny, now?”

“Nah, it’s you,” he replies, pressing his forehead to yours, “you just bring out this side of me.”

You shoot a smug smile his way. “Hmm,” you begin, pausing to consider the conversation and think for a moment. You blink a few times, and he’s a right mess at the feeling of your eyelashes brushing his cheekbones, “can’t believe the effect I have on you. Can’t bloody wait for our match then, huh? Try not to get so flustered, Georgie.”

He grins against your lips and before kissing you fully again, he says, “Can’t make any promises, love.”

reblogs & feedback are always appreciated, thank you for reading and requesting loves x

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theroomofreq · 4 years ago

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“Are we on a date right now?” Chapter 3

First off I want to say thank you to the anon who sent me this prompt. It was the first prompt I had ever received, and I can’t believe it morphed into this. Wherever you are anon, I love you very much. Also thank you to all the lovely people who have read, commented, and shared this story -- I love you all so much!

Read on AO3

Harry walked through the next few weeks in a fog, his head was swimming from emotional turmoil. There was the constant pressure from Dumbledore to retrieve Slughorn’s memory, the confusing obsession with Draco’s disappearances, and Ginny.

Today, it was Ginny that was most difficult for him, she had returned to her laughing goofy self the moment she stepped out the dungeon classroom. Any emotion from their previously charged meeting seemed to have been forgotten. They returned to exchanging jokes in the corridors, swapping quidditch strategies, and playing exploding snap in the common room.

Unfortunately the rest of the school hadn’t forgotten like she had. Harry still had younger class men coming up to him and asking him about Ginny, there were still people who winked at him when they walked together, and the pathetic look Hermione gave him was too much. There was a stab of grief every time it happened, and he hated himself for it. Not being with her when everyone thought she might be was maddening.

Harry had immediately found Hermione and Ron after Ginny left him in the deserted classroom. He hadn’t told them everything that Ginny said to him or his stupid idea, but somehow they picked up on his misery. Hermione hugged him while Ron patted his shoulder and muttered apologies.

So, he learned to ignore the questions, and the looks, and the whispers. Instead he spent his time worrying about prophecies, quidditch, and Slytherins.

As he made his way through the common room one morning, on his usual brooding tirade, Ron stopped him in his tracks with a few words.

“Brill!” He announced, “A Hogsmeade trip on my birthday.”

The wheels in Harry’s head spun into overdrive. He whipped his head around the common room looking for a bright spot of flowing red hair. Ron was muttering something else to the side of him, but Harry missed the dialogue as he searched for the Marauders’ Map in his bag.

He pulled it out and turned to Ron, “I’ll be right back” before tearing out of the portrait hole.

If he wasn’t being so careless he might’ve tried to murmur the charm for the map, but instead he said it loudly as he walked down the corridor. His eyes searched the parchment hungrily until he found her name, the library.

His pace increased into little less than a full out run toward her, as his mind went south. What if she already had plans? Or someone had asked her already? Or maybe she did really want to be just friends?

As he entered the library he quickly saw her, surrounded by fellow fifth years, books, quills, and ink. At the moment she was twirling her quill in her fingers, which didn’t seem like a crucial revision. Although even if she had been in the middle of her O.W.L.S very little would’ve stopped him.

“Ginny” his breathy but loud greeting was met with a harsh shush from Madam Pince.

She looked up with a bright smile, “Harry, ever heard of a whisper before? It’s the norm here.”

“Right yes, Can we talk for a moment?” He did absolutely nothing to change the tone of his voice. This was evidenced by Pince’s quick steps toward him, Ginny was faster however, as she took him by the arm.

“We better get you out of here” she muttered as she pulled him away from the tight lipped librarian.

Once safely in the hall Ginny turned to him with a smirk, before she could open her mouth Harry blurted it all out, “There’s another Hogsmeade trip next weekend. Just saw it on the board actually, and I know you said you wanted to be just friends. But, I don’t think I can do that any better than I could fake date you, which was a right terrible idea. Sorry for that by the way.. And I…”

He was pulled out of his rambling by the tight squeeze Ginny gave him on his arm, her hand hadn’t released him after pulling him out of the library. “I shouldn’t have left you like that.” Her smile was small but genuine as she continued, “Just because we agreed to tell the whole school we are just friends, doesn’t exactly mean that’s how I want us to be.” She said the last few words slowly and deliberately.

“Just friends idea was really as bad as the fake dating idea if you think about it” Harry said as he took a half step toward her.

“I think that could be put up for debate Potter.” She said as her brow quirked at his sass.

Ginny ran her hand down his arm stopping just in time for Harry to lace their fingers together, “Don’t you have something to ask me?” Ginny asked as she smiled up at him.

“Yeah, Go out with me? For real this time?” Harry could feel his grin crossing his entire face, “The upcoming Hogsmeade trip in March?”

“I’d love to” her smile reached up to her freckled cheeks, squishing them against her brown eyes.

Ginny gave his hand a squeeze before releasing him and taking a few steps backward, “I need to get back, transfiguration exams are coming up and all.”

“See you Gin”

She sent a small wave his way before turning and walking back into the library. Harry waited for her to glance over her shoulder at him before waving back which Ginny returned with a wink.

March 1st was going to be the greatest day of his life, he was sure of it.

---

It turned out March 1st wasn’t exactly as he expected it. After shoving a bezoar down his best mates throat, Harry Potter now paced in front of the hospital wing. He turned so quickly on his heel he nearly ran into Ginny. It must’ve been his quidditch reflexes that stopped him from barging over her, his hands gripped her upper arm as he stopped dead in his tracks.

The look in her eyes was piercing, why was it always him that had to put this family in danger? It took little more than her hands coming up to his wrists for him to explain everything that happened. They stayed locked together as he told her every detail, her eyes intense and searching on his face. After he finished she took a step back and gestured to the floor, “As you were”

As if on impulse he began to pace again, around the fifth time he passed her, she spoke again, “Go on then, let’s hear it”

“Well it wasn’t Slughorn so who was it?” Harry shook his head trying to make sense of the whole issue. “He meant to give the wine away, but can’t remember how he got it.”

“No mark on the bottle, no way of tracing it?” Her words kept his mind moving fast, struggling to find the answers.

“No, nothing, I just can’t stand being helpless like this. There’s nothing I can do.” He groaned as he spun again on his heel.

“Right, save Ron? Check! What else is there to do now?”

“Gin” He stopped again facing her from the other side of the door, “You know what I mean. I can’t help but think there is something bigger at play here.”

“You don’t think it’s Tom do you?” Her eyes went cloudy when she asked the bitter question.

“If he went after Ron?” The thought stopped him dead in his tracks. “I don’t know what I would do. I couldn’t handle it.” He felt glued to his spot, as she walked closer to him.

“Something on the inside then?”

“I always think it’s the same two people behind everything. This time I really can’t shake the feeling that Draco has something to do with it?” Harry pushed a hand into his hair, messing his hair around as if it would help him think clearly.

“Maybe,” she was right in front of him now, “But we really don’t know enough about Slughorn. He has so many visitors and he is frequently at Hogsmeade, anyone could’ve given it to him.”

Hogsmeade. The mention of the village brought him back to all the hope that he had for the day. How he wanted to spend his time with Ginny, being caught up in her laugh, and getting a real chance to make something happen.

“This isn’t how I wanted today to go, Gin.” Harry collapsed against the hospital wing door and slid down to a sitting position.

She followed him sitting close enough that their legs touched, “And here I was thinking it was romantic.”

“It’s the atmosphere isn’t it? The sterile smells and bright lights?” He laughed, half at her joke and half at how quick she was to make him smile.

“I bet you take all the girls here, don’t you?” She gave a wistful sigh that he didn’t believe for a second.

“Only the ones I’m really trying to show a good time.” Her laughter swelled in his ears and made him feel a bit dizzy. He thought about asking her to just spend the day with him tomorrow when a frenzy of steps broke his train of thought, as Hermione raced down the hall with her wand out.

Hermione’s hair was billowing wildly around her, “Why aren’t you in there with him?”

The look in her eyes was cold and fierce, Harry didn’t dare tell her, Ginny didn’t seem to be too worried though, “Pomfrey won’t let us in.” She explained.

Hermione’s eyes went positively feral, Ginny and Harry dove out of the way just before Hermione tried to reducto her way into the Hospital wing.

---

As he walked down to the quidditch pitch the next evening Harry’s mind raced with thoughts of Ron’s poisoning, Slughorn's memory, Draco’s frequent disappearances, the upcoming quidditch match which was sure to be…

“McLaggen, really?” Ginny said as she caught up with him, her training robes fitted nicely around her frame.

“Don’t remind me. ” Harry frowned, “He practically ambushed me on my way back from the Hospital wing yesterday.”

“It’s going to be a real disaster isn’t it?” She asked, a smirk casting over her features.

“Without a doubt” he tried to form a scowl thinking about McLaggen, but it was challenging to do so when Ginny was smirking at him like that.

She laughed at him with a full smile on her face, and suddenly Harry couldn’t help but think back to his plans from yesterday.

“Ginny, listen, could we...” He held back, unsure how to ask her for another date, another shot at being with her.

“Maybe we aren’t cut out for this? The planning and setting up dates?” She bit her lip as she looked over at him, her shoulders slumped forward a bit.

“I’ve always been rotten at planning.” He admitted slowly.

“We could just let things work out? Be spontaneous and see?” She asked, still rolling her lip between her teeth. “I mean, we’ve got quidditch to worry about right now.”

Her eyes motioned up ahead, and Harry noticed with disappointment that they had made it to the pitch. He nodded, “Yeah, okay”

“Great because I think today is the day that I’m going to outsprint you.” She lightly elbowed his ribs before taking off in a dead sprint toward the broom shed.

Harry was only distracted by her swishing ponytail for a moment before he took off after her. He ran after her as quickly as he could but she did in fact beat him, and the celebration dance she did after she had was very worth the loss.

Ginny laughed wildly as she danced around singing about beating him, he laughed as she spun around, which resulted in Harry becoming distracted enough that practice started later than usual.

Harry’s lack of focus did not stop there, it continued throughout all of practice. He was impressed as Ginny excelled at the new play he had come up with and in every drill he had the team complete, his eyes followed her during the entire training session. She frequently made a point to fly near him when making her snarky comments, winked his way whenever she made a particularly good goal, and rolled her eyes excessively whenever McLaggen talked.

As badly as Harry wanted to set up a good game plan for the upcoming match more than that he wanted to plan a spontaneous way to get Ginny alone and snog the daylights out of her.

---

Harry rustled through the bed covers, sore as he’d ever been in his life. His head ached, but not in a Voldemort way. It was as if a bloody buggering fool hit him across the brain, and suddenly his memory came flooding back along with a great deal of rage. Luna’s commentary, McLaggen’s absolutely idiocy during the match, and a searing pain across his head.

“Well look who’s finally up” It was Ginny’s voice that rang out. Harry scrambled to find his glasses and knocked over a glass of water in his haste.

With his glasses righted on his face he turned to see Ginny perched on Ron’s bed, the girl smiling brightly while his friend had a deep smirk on his face. She lowered herself to the ground and hopped up on the foot of his bed without any hesitation.

“Ginny was giving me a play by play of the match, you seemed to have a great run.” Ron said, Harry was tempted to walk over and wipe the smirk off of his face.

“I’m going to kill McLaggen. The absolute nerve of him” Harry muttered scornfully under his breath.

“Wait until you hear about the final score.” Ginny said with a twinkle in her eye.

Harry turned his head toward Ron’s bed, “320 to 60, Sorry mate.” Ron said with a grimace.

Harry buried his face in his hands as he grumbled about giving McLaggen a skiving snackbox courtesy of the Weasley twins. A small snigger from the end of his bed pulled Harry out of his misery, he glanced up to see Ginny covering her mouth.

“What are you laughing about? It’s your quidditch team too.” He said with a glare.

“Come on Harry, Luna’s comments? And the ridiculous way that McLaggen goes on playing? All we can do about it now is laugh.” She rolled her eyes affectionately at him.

“You could at least feel a bit more sorry.” He murmured.

“What did you expect? Waking up to find me crying over your banged up head?” Ginny’s eyebrow was cocked up again.

Harry felt his flush run across his face while Ron cackled. “Wouldn’t mind that actually” Harry admitted, he also wished the crying would be accompanied by a confession of undying love, but he decided to leave that part out.

Ginny let another laugh fall out before speaking up, “Oh come off it, you know if anyone was going to be crying over you it’d be Ron.”

While Ron threw a fist in the air and yelled, “Damn right!” Ginny reached forward and grabbed Harry’s hand, “And obviously I was worried about you. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Harry felt warm at her contact but tugged her arm for more, gratefully she got the message and moved up the bed closer to him. She sat opposite him with her legs folded underneath her and pressing against his own, their hands coming to rest on her knee. Ginny glanced down at their hands before returning his bright smile, her eyes seemed to dip down to his lips for just a moment before landing on his face. Harry felt himself lean forward just as a loud retching sound broke the moment.

Ron was making a disgruntled face as he scolded, “Well shit, don’t make me watch this go down.”

No sooner had he uttered the words Ginny pointed her wand at her brother, whipping the curtains closed and casting a silencing spell on him. At the same time Harry had found his own wand, closing the curtains on his own bed and casting a silent muffliato spell.

The two locked eyes and burst into laughter, Harry couldn’t help but think how easily they paired with each other. Within seconds they had accomplished the same purpose and almost equally as fast.

“Thought I might make it a bit more intimate.” Harry said through his laughter.

“You’ve really outdone yourself, just when I thought this place couldn’t get any more romantic.” Ginny managed to say through her own giggles.

Harry wouldn’t exactly be able to pin down exactly why he did it. Maybe it was the intoxicating feeling of having Ginny alone and right next to him. It could have been the way her body shook with laughter and her grin lit up her eyes. Perhaps it was just the simple fact that he’d wanted to do it for so long. Whatever it was, it sent him surging forward to capture her lips under his.

He swallowed her laughter as they collided and despite the way their lips moved together he could still feel her signature smile. His free hand came up to her face as she deepened the kiss, and Harry felt fully absorbed in Ginny. When her hand found its way to his hair his grin was too large for any further kissing to be done.

The two pulled back, hearts racing, foreheads touching, and hands still interlocked. Harry looked into her eyes and saw a mischievous gleam along her flushed face.

“Are we on a date right now?” Ginny asked.

He didn’t think it was possible, but his smile got even wider. “I’d say there’s been enough snogging to classify this as a date.” He answered before pulling her back in to cover her laugh with his lips.

#hinny fic #hinny #are we on a date right now #hogwarts au #hinny au #harry potter #ginny weasley #hbp fic #hbp #hinny fanfic #hp fic #roomie writes #my writing

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miracle-sham · 5 years ago

Text

Plan D for Dicey.

| {MaribatMarch2020 – Week 1, Day 6: Unconventional Weapon} |

| [Ao3 Link] | | [Masterlist Link] |

| Triggers/Warnings: D&D typical Violence, kidnapping/imprisoning of Player Characters, Explicit Language/Swearing, (Also not so much a Trigger/Warning but this a gen/platonic fic). |

| The Wayne (bat)family attempt to play their first streamed session of Warriors and Warlocks. Unpredictably, things go surprisingly well. |

| Word Count: 4323 |

==–==

| A/N: So firstly, I got really carried away writing this so it's being posted a day late. Sorry! But fun fact, this means I'm posting this on my birthday, so wooh! Also if you can't tell yet, I'm a massive D&D geek (been playing for roughly five years now but I still fell like a complete noob whenever I play or DM :P). And DC has its own version of D&D (W&W/Warriors and Warlocks) and upon reading Day 6's prompt, my immediate thought was the improvised weapons mechanic from D&D. Also also, I originally intended for this fic to be MariTim (hence the tags) but I got caught up in all the platonic fun of the family playing D&D I kinda forgot to write in the shippy bits? |

| A/N cont.: Writing this was actually a massive challenge because at the start of this I had absolutely zero idea on how to write a D&D session as a ficlet. So this might be a bit more clunky and unrefined compared to my normal work (or that could just be my self-doubt talking). As I mentioned earlier, I got really carried away writing this because I love D&D so much. I would have written more but this ficlet is long enough and late enough as is. But if I were to continue this ficlet in additional parts, I definitely can already think of so many ways to improve writing this sort of fic (and maybe next time I won't forget to add in shippy stuff). Anyway, thanks to those who read these A/Ns, and I hope you guys enjoy reading this! |

| If you want to be tagged in future oneshots/fics, or a specific Au, then comment or send me a DM/ask! |

| Also side note, Don't Like? Don't Read. Also also, please do not criticise any of my writing. This was written for fun and receiving criticism, even in a compliment/criticism sandwich, is the exact opposite of fun. |

==–==

Marinette, with Tikki on her shoulder, bursts into the Wayne Manor games room, barely able to contain her excitement. As the first in the room, she can't help but glance across the square conference U-table already set up with everyone's character sheets, dice equipment, other equipment, and snacks and drinks. Bounding over to her designated seat (right side, place nearest to the DM's section of the table), she pulls her chair out and sits down.

The rest of the Wayne (bat)family, including Steph but sans Alfred and Barbara, slowly filter into the room and take their designated seats. Jason takes his seat next to Marinette whilst Dick takes the seat directly opposite. Steph nabs the seat beside Jason, Damian stakes a claim to the seat next to Dick (despite it already being his designated seat), Cass sits down in the seat beside Steph, leaving Bruce to take his seat next to Damian.

Tim's the last of the family to enter. He slips into his seat, the DM's seat—as he is the most experienced Warriors and Warlocks player at the table—and grins downright ferally at his players.

He looks up at the cameras and recording equipment that is set up in the middle of the open space in the square U-table. “Hello and welcome to Plan D for Dicey, the first-ever Wayne Family Warriors and Warlocks fifth edition stream. We weren't quite expecting so many people to petition that we stream our sessions after a few people—” Tim fake coughs twice, “—Dick and Marinette—” Tim fake coughs twice again (whilst Marinette and Dick both grin and wave cheerfully at the cameras), “—rambled about their characters and some highlights from previous sessions, on Twitter. So we decided to give this a go and see how the session pans out whilst being streamed. So as a word of warning, prepare yourselves for the Venators, probably one of the most dysfunctional parties in W&W to miraculously band together.”

As soon as he says this, the rest of the table burst into grins and cheers (excluding Bruce who despite also smiling, looks like he's just aged five years). Marinette's side of the table all high five each other in their excitement.

Tim pauses for a second. “For anyone unfamiliar with who I am, I'm Tim. And as you can probably tell from the table set up, I'm the Dungeon Master for this campaign. That's because I've been playing W&W for just over five years now and have had experience DMing before. But for the rest of the players here, this is their first campaign and by extension first time playing. So before we begin our session, first let us introduce our players and their characters.” He nods to Marinette's side of the table.

She immediately slaps her hands on the table, pushes her chair out and stands, she waves at the cameras again. “Hi, I'm Marinette and my character is Nella Septa-Punctata. She's a Protector Aasimar Celestial Pact of the Chain Warlock, and she has a Sprite Familiar called Tikki. Nella's Chaotic Good and a little anxious but she tries her best to be a kind and heroic adventurer.” She then sits back down, scraping her chair back in again.

Jason raises an eye at Marinette's antics but shrugs. “I'm Jay, I play a Winged Variant Feral Tiefling Gunslinger called Rehodros. He's Chaotic Neutral, verging on Chaotic Evil at times, and he only joined the Venators because they helped save him from backstory related stuff and he ended up getting reluctantly attached to them.”

Deciding to also stand up from her chair as well as slap the table with both hands, Steph smirks at the cameras. “I'm Stephanie, my character's Speilsol Leyer, and she's a Chaotic Good Variant Human Ancestral Guardian Barbarian with the Tavern Brawler Feat. She lives for beating up bad guys and doing good, even if it goes against the law.”

Cass decides to take things one step further and moves to sit on the back of the chair, balancing it carefully as to not let herself fall. She waves at the cameras. “Hi, I Cass. Play Balabitara. Neutral Good, Kalashtar Shadow Monk.” She then sits back down on the chair normally.

With one half of the table introduced, Tim nods towards the other side of the table.

Dick winks at the cameras, “I'm Dick and I play Niriwyse, a Chaotic Good Eladrin Glamour Bard who's along for the ride and just wants to have a good time.” At that, he wiggles his eyebrows.

Scoffing, Damian glares at the cameras. “I am Damian and my character is Rokian. He is a Firbolg Circle of the Shepherd Druid and is Lawful Neutral in the sense that he believes the only laws that should be obeyed in the world, are that or the laws of nature. He begrudgingly joined this party of adventurers after they saved an animal friend of his.”

This leaves Bruce as the only one to have not introduced himself and his character yet. He smiles his Brucie Wayne smile at the cameras. “My name's Brucie and my character is called Chirop. He's a Chaotic Good Bugbear Swashbuckler Rogue. He comes across as very gruff, but he's just a big old teddy bear at heart.”

Tim coughs under his breath. “Alright, with our introductions over, let's get on with the show.” The lights in the room suddenly dim and turn a dark red shade whilst creepy echoing organ music begins to play from hidden speakers. “Last session, our brave party of seven adventurers were captured by the evil Lich Dreldaz whilst trying to rescue the beautiful princess Theophania—”

“—Timothea!” Corrects the rest of the table.

Rolling his eyes, Tim continues. “—from the cursed castle in which she has been trapped in, by Dreldaz.” He pauses, steepling his fingers as the dim red lighting becomes a dark grey shade. “The Venators awaken, only to find themselves shackled to the walls, in individual stone brick cells and stripped of any and all equipment bar the clothes on their backs. From what you all can immediately tell upon waking, these cells are small, cold, dark and dingy. What do you do?”

The seven players all exchange glances between themselves.

“I'd like to look around my cell, see if I can find anything or if I can get an idea of what the cellblock we're in looks like?” Jason announces after a few seconds.

Tim nods. “Roll a perception check, please.”

Jason narrows his eyes Tim. He reaches towards the red and black dice set beside his character sheet and picks up the D20. He shakes the dice in his hands before rolling it into the dice box. It lands on a 7. “Alright so because I don't have my gear any more, that means I don't have my eyes of the eagle right?”

“That's right,” Tim responds.

“Mmk, that's a seven then, plus my perception modifier… Fourteen total.” Jason glances up at Tim once he finishes calculating.

Humming, Tim glances down at his Mysterious™ DM notes. “With your Darkvision, you manage to make out that there are two small barred windows on the walls adjacent to the wall with the cell door. The door luckily has a barred window in it too, but you're too far away to glean anything from peering at it.”

Marinette purses her lips and double-checks her character sheet. “Is there anything magical about the darkness in these cells?”

“Roll an Arcana check to see.” Is Tim's response.

She reaches over to the pink and gold dice set beside her character sheet and picks up the D20. She shakes the dice in her hands before rolling it into the dice box. The D20 lands on a 16. “Sixteen! Wait, plus my arcana modifier, uh…” She scans her sheet for the relevant modifier, “plus six, so that's uh… oh heck maths, uhh I think that's twenty-two total? Yeah.” She nods to herself at calculating the maths.

Jason snorts and addresses the cameras. “This is why you should stay in school kids!”

Huffing, Marinette elbows him in the side. “Fight me!”

Not evening flinching at the elbowing, Jason pats her on the top of her head. “Friendly fire, Mari! Friendly fire!”

Tim waits for silence with his best poker face on. “As far as you can tell, there is nothing magical about the darkness!”

“Really?” She furrows her brows. “Alright then.”

He smiles in response.

Dick glances down at his character sheet then up at Tim, he taps his fingers against the table idly as he speaks. “The walls of the cells are stone? So I can use my Cli Lyre to cast Stone Shape and create a hole in the stone where the metal shackles connect, which would free me, right!”

Clicking his tongue, Tim shakes his head. “Nope, you don't have your Cli Lyre on you right now, so you can't cast any spells from it.”

Cursing under his breath, Dick frantically scans his character sheet for anything. He reaches his spells and freezes and slaps the spell sheet (and by extension, the table). “Ah hah!” He crows, “I will cast Knock on the shackles!”

Tim raises an eyebrow, then looks down to flip through his spell cheat sheet. “When you cast the spell, it makes a loud knock that's audible for up to three hundred feet. Are you sure you want to cast this?”

Dick falters and furrows his brow, then glances around the table at the rest of the party. “I think I'll wait and see if anyone else has a way to escape this first? Wait we can all hear each other speaking from our cells, right?”

“You can indeed.” Tim answers.

“I got nothin',” Jason admits, putting on his Rehodros voice, which is just his normal voice but deeper and with a raspy—almost hissing—clipped tone.

Steph, using her Speilsol Leyer voice (which sounds like she's putting on a weak German accent), shrugs. “I could try breaking the shackles? I'm strong enough to do cool things like that?”

“But that will also be fairly loud.” Bruce points out, speaking with a gruff tone of voice (which is significantly different from his gravelly Batman tone of voice) for Chirop. “If I had my lockpicks, it would be easy to escape stealthily. But without them, I can't see a way for me to get out of these shackles.”

Damian wrinkles his nose. “I might be able to summon creatures, elementals, or fey but what I get is determined by the DM and may not be entirely helpful. However, I could try wildshaping?”

Tim smiles cryptically and the lighting behind him changes from dark grey to lime green. “You could.”

Damian nods. “Alright then, I will use my wildshape ability to transform into a spider.”

The lime green light fades to flickering orange-red light. “As you try to use your druidic abilities to magically assume the shape of a spider, you feel a burning sensation around your wrists, right where the shackles are. You are unable to transform and take…” Tim pauses as he pulls out his black and red dragon dice and rolls a D6 behind the DM screen. “Five points of fire damage.”

Cursing under his breath in Arabic, Damian glares at Tim. He crosses out his current hp and writes down the new amount.

Jason taps Marinette on the shoulder. “What about Nells, Mari? She got any tricks up her sleeve to escape?”

Marinette startles at that, having been chewing her lip and staring intently at her character sheet since her arcana check. She licks her lips then glances up. “I might…”

She taps a small stat block card with a pencil and turns to Tim with an intense stare. “Is Tikki nearby?”

At that, Tim grins widely and raises a finger. “That,” He says, flipping through his notes, “is a very good question.”

“Because on my notes, here it says that last session Tikki was invisible when we all got captured.” Marinette picks up her session notes journal and shows it to him.

“Would you say Tikki followed after you when you got caught?”

Marinette tilts her head to the side and Tikki whispers in her ear. Of course, the cameras inability to record kwamis means it just looks like she's thinking instead of listening to a flying red bug deity. “Yep, I would say that. I would also like to telepathically communicate with Tikki and ask if she can come and pick the locks because we gave her a spare Thieves' Tools kit last shopping session in case she needed to pick the locks during an invisible scouting mission!”

“Indeed you did, so Tikki flies over to your cell and will try to pick the locks on your door first. So roll a d20 and add Tikki's Dex bonus.” He instructs.

Marinette nods and picks up the dice, cupping her hands underneath it so Tikki can shake then roll it without it looking suspicious on camera. Tikki shakes the dice and drops it as Marinette separates her hands. The dice lands in the box and rolls a 16. “Plus Tikki's Dex mod, that's uh…” She scrambles for the Sprite Familiar statblock card, “Plus four, so dirty twenty!”

“That's enough to pick the lock. Do you want Tikki to enter the cell and try to pick the lock?” He asks.

She nods and repeats the roll with Tikki, this time rolling an eleven. “With mods, fifteen.” Tikki then returns to her place on Marinette's shoulder.

“Tikki barely manages to get the locks open. The shackles open and you land on the cell floor.”

Marinette punches the air. “Wooh! Freedom!”

Cass then waves her hand in the air. “Shadowstep out?”

Tim cocks his head to the side. “As you don't have Darkvision, you can't see outside your cell but you manage to use your shadowstep ability to escape the shackles. Then by peering out the barred window in the door, you manage to shadow step into the cellblock corridor.”

Marinette and Cass share a high-five.

“Let's go free everyone else!”

==–==

It takes them ten minutes to finish freeing everyone else, and start making their way out of the dungeon cell block. The Venators now make their way through the bowels of the castle, searching for the armoury in which all their belongings have been stored.

“As you push open the grand oak doors, the faint scent of sickly sweet rotting food and fire hits your noses. The doors reveal the next room to be a grand dining room with a long oak table, set as though prepared for a grand feast expecting many a guest. It's adequately lit but the two corners of the room above the door seem to glow with a dim greenish glow.” Tim pauses in his description as lighting changing to a dim greenish light behind him; he rolls a D8 four times (6, 7, 2, 4), behind the DM screen, followed by the rolling of a D20 four times (3, 19, 13, 18).

“Oh god…” Dick mutters,

Jason huffs. “What are you going to torture us with now, oh great DM?”

Tim smiles cruelly. “Four rays of fire are shot towards the party from somewhere within the dining room. First attack is an eight versus Chirop's AC?”

Bruce sighs in relief. “That's a miss.”

Tim continues to smile. “Mmk, the rest of the attacks are, twenty-four versus Balabitara's AC, eighteen versus Niriwyse's AC, and twenty-three verses Rokian's AC. I assume those hit.”

Damian narrows his eyes at Tim, whilst Dick winces and Cass pouts.

Tim rolls a D6 nine times, behind the DM screen. “Balabitara takes four points of fire damage, Niriwyse and Rokian both take eight points of fire damage.”

The three all jot down the damage taken.

Still smiling, like the truly evil DM that he is, Tim clasps his hands together. “Two skulls, enveloped with green flames, descend from the ceiling. One hovers over the grand table and the other hovers but the top of the opened doors, giving itself cover.” He pauses, then grins. “With the surprise round over, everyone roll initiative!”

Out of habit, all seven players, and Tikki, roll their D20s in almost perfect sync. Dick rolls an 18, Cass rolls a 9, Jason rolls a 14, Bruce rolls a 16, Steph rolls a 17 with advantage, Damian rolls a 2, Marinette rolls a 10, and Tikki rolls a 14.

“Twenty or above?” Tim asks.

“Twenty three,” Bruce announces.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Twenty-one.”

Dick grins, “Twenty one as well!”

Tim scribbles down the rolls on the initiative table. “D'awww, you both rolled twenty-one. Anyway, fifteen or above?”

“Tikki rolled an eighteen.” Informs Marinette.

“I got nineteen!” Steph exclaims.

Jotting down those rolls as well, Tim asks “Alright, anyone ten or above?”

Cass signs her roll, ‘fourteen.’

“Thirteen.” Marinette answers.

Tim glances at the initiative table, then at Damian. “And you Damian?”

Damian scoffs. “Three.”

“Okay.” Tim then rolls a D20 twice. “Chirop! You're up first!”

Bruce looks slightly bewildered. He clears his throat. “Can I grab the nearest sharp pieces of cutlery and sneak behind a chair?”

Tim nods. “Roll stealth.”

He rolls an 18. “My stealth modifier is plus thirteen, so thirty-one to stealth.”

Tim whistles, “To the rest of the Venators, it looks like Chirop just vanishes into thin air.”

“Are any of the enemies close enough that I could move into melee range?” He questions.

“There's one floating Flameskull hovering five foot in the air, with your Long-Limbed trait, it's well within reach,” Tim informs.

Bruce narrows his eyes. “I would like to stab the Flameskull with the sharp cutlery, knives are preferable.”

“Roll to hit. As knives are close enough to daggers, I'll say you can get away with adding your proficiency bonus as well.”

Bruce rolls, with advantage, a 19. “Plus my modifiers, that's twenty-eight to hit.”

“That hits.”

Bruce rolls for damage, 2. “That's two, so seven.” He then rolls for Surprise damage, 8 (5, 3), and Sneak Attack damage, 24 (6, 2, 5, 6, 5). “That's a total of 39 piercing damage. Then I'll use my bonus action to stab it again,” He rolls a 16, “Twenty-one to hit.”

Tim puts on his best poker face. “That also hits.”

“Then that'll be…” He rolls a 1. “One damage from the second attack.”

“The Flameskull you hit screeches in fury as it crumbles to bone dust.” Tim then proceeds to make a horrific screeching sound, for immersion of course.

“What the fuck, Timbo?” Jason asks, wincing.

Dick cringes. “At least you aren't right beside him! My poor ears!”

“Rip us closest seats.” Mumbles Marinette, wrinkling her nose.

“Rehodros, you're up next!” Tim announces gleefully, ignoring his suffering players.

Jason narrows his eyes at Tim, “I want to run over to the table, grab any food on the table that's not rotten, and yeet it at the nearest Flameskull.”

Tim hums, “Okay, the only non-rotten food you can find, is a block of aged cheese and a bowl of hardened sugar cubes.

Snorting, Jason cracks his knuckles. “Oh, I have to pick the block of aged cheese.”

“Roll your attack then. But make sure you only add your Dex modifier to the attack as you're not proficient in improvised weaponry.”

Jason rolls to attack and also gets a 19. “Twenty four to hit.”

Tim snorts. “Yeah, that definitely hits, go ahead and roll damage.”

Jason nods and rolls a 1D4, managing to get max damage. “Four! Wooh! Plus my Dex mod, that's nine damage!”

“You lob the cheese at the Flameskull, managing to cause a couple of cracks to form on its skull. It turns it's furious gaze to you, intending to intimidate you but the effect is somewhat hindered by the melting cheese covering half of its skull.” Tim flips through his notes and marks down the damage taken.

“Okay, then I want to grab the bowl of sugar and using my extra attack to throw that at the Flameskull, in the jaw.” Jason smirks and switches to his Rehodros voice, “You look like you've got a sssweet tooth, bonehead!” He rolls to attack and gets a 12. “Seventeen to hit?”

“That will hit.”

Jason rolls a 3 on the D4. “That's eight damage total.”

“As the bowl of sugar starts to melt from the heat of the fire, the sickly sweet scent of hot sugar begins to emanate from the Flameskull. The Flameskull does not look happy.” Tim pauses to glance at the initiative table. “Niriwyse! You're up.”

Dick glances down at his spell list and beams. “I'm going to cast Vicious Mockery. And say,” he puts on his Niriwyse voice, which is just his voice but higher pitch and with a British Estuary accent, “Green is so not your colour!”

Tim hums, then flips through his notes. “What's the spell Save DC on that again?”

Quickly checking his spell sheet, Dick answers, “DC 16.”

“Mmk,” Tim responds non-committally, before rolling a D20 twice from behind the DM screen. “That, unfortunately for you, is a nat 20. Which means it takes no damage and suffers no disadvantage. The Flameskull turns to you briefly, to cackle in your face, before turning its attention back to Rehodros.”

Dick frowns. “Aww that failed, welp I'll use my bonus action to give Speilsol Leyer inspiration.” He clears his throat and puts on his Niriwyse voice to sing. “Let's get down to business! To defeat, this skull! Did they order heroes, no they asked for none! We're the saddest party you'll ever meet! But you can bet before we're through, Flameskull, we'll make dust out of you!”

The rest of the table burst into cheers and groans.

“Beautiful, Speilsol Leyer, you get 1D10 bardic inspiration,” Tim confirms. “And now it's your turn. Show the audience what you've got.”

Steph giggles. “Okay, okay, I've got a really dumb idea.”

Tim raises an eyebrow at her.

“So, firstly, is there anything on the walls, like paintings? Wall sconces? Y'know.” She asks.

“There's a painting of a naked elven lady on one wall, and a taxidermied fox head on the other,” Tim informs.

Steph bounces in her seat. “Cool! So I'm gonna rage! Rip the taxidermied fox head off the wall, then run and leap up into the air to bludgeon the Flameskull with the fox head!”

“Right. Make an athletics roll.”

Rolling a D20, she gets 13. “Twenty one!”

“You manage to jump into the air with expert grace. Roll to hit.”

She rolls a 16. “That's a twenty-four to hit because I've got the Tavern Brawler Feat so I've got proficiency with improvised and-slash-or unconventional weapons!”

He snorts. “That'll definitely hit, roll damage.”

Steph picks up her D4 and rolls it, getting a 3. “Do with my strength modifier and Rage damage, that's ten damage! And uh, that's the end of my turn!”

Tim scribbles down the damage taken, he then checks his notes quickly. “The sugary cheese-covered Flameskull starts to cackle madly. It casts fireball on the party, everyone make dexterity saving throws.”

On cue, everyone in the party rolls their D20s. Tikki rolls an 18, Damian and Marinette both roll 16s, and Dick rolls a 4.

Before Bruce rolls his dice, he proclaims, “I'd like to use evasion!” He then rolls and gets a 5. “Fourteen total.”

“Evasion too!” Cass declares with a smile, she rolls her D20, getting 18. She then signs her result, ‘twenty-seven

“Shit!” Jason mutters, staring at his roll of 2.

“Nat one?” Tim questions.

Jason shakes his head. “Natural two, so seven total.”

“I also got seven,” Dick adds.

“Seventeen,” Damian announces.

“I rolled a nineteen and Tikki rolled a twenty-two.” Marinette pipes up.

Steph frowns at her roll of nine. “Eleven…” She glances at her character sheet again. “Wait, no! I get advantage on dexterity saving throws!” She shakes the dice in her hands and blows on it for good luck, then rolls it into the dice box. It lands on an 18. Fist pumping the air, she cheers. “Yes! Dirty twenty, fuck yeah!”

“Alright. Niriwyse and Rehodros both take…” Tim rolls a D6 eight times, behind the DM screen. “Twenty-three fire damage. And everyone else except Chirop and Balabitara take half that, so eleven damage. And of course, Chirop and Balabitara take no damage whatsoever.”

“Wooh,” Bruce cheers.

“Wait a second!” Jason interrupts, triple-checking his character sheet, “I've got fire resistance!”

“Then you also take eleven damage instead of the full twenty-three.” Tim corrects. “And that's the end of the Flameskull's turn. Tikki's up now.”

Marinette tilts her head to the side as Tikki whispers in her again. “Tikki is going to hold her turn.”

Tim nods. “Okay then, it's Balabitara's turn.”

Cass smiles sweetly. “Jump and punch?”

“Roll an athletics check then, please.”

She rolls a 13, and signs her results, ‘eighteen.’

“You barely manage to leap within melee range of the Flameskull,” Tim narrates. “Roll to hit.”

She rolls her dice again, rolling a flat 17. Again, she signs her result, ‘twenty-six.’

“That will definitely hit.” He acknowledges.

Cass then rolls damage, gets a 4, and signs the total, ‘nine.’ She glances down at her character sheet, and then back up at Tim. “Second attack?”

Tim nods again, still jotting down the damage taken. “Go ahead and roll.”

Rolling again, she gets a nine, so she signs the result, ‘eighteen.’

He hums, “That'll also hit, roll damage.”

She rolls and gets a 3. ‘Eight,’ she signs.

Tim chuckles, “As you punch the Flameskull twice, the skull shatters and turns into sugary and cheesy skull dust.”

Cass grins and fist-pumps the air as the rest of the table breaks into cheers.

“Everyone breathe a sigh of relief! Encounter over.” He comments. “And I think we've reached our halfway mark, so we'll take a quick five minutes break to grab something to eat and drink, and we'll continue on after the break.”

==–==

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little oneshot! Comments, likes, and reblogs are much appreciated! |

| @maribat-march2020 | | @vixen-uchiha |

#Miraculous Ladybug #Maribat #ML x DC #DC x MLB #Timinette #MariTim #Timari #MaribatMarch2020 #MaribatMarch Week 1 #MaribatMarch Day 6 #MaribatMarch Unconventional Weapon #Plan D for Dicey #PDfD #Sham's Posts #Sham's Writing #Sham's Fics

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crystalmaeson · 4 years ago

Text

Official Readme by Maeson

Pokemon Crystal Maeson - Public Version 1.0 - Internal Version 15.0.3

IT IS RECOMMENDED TO READ THIS WITH NOTEPAD++, BUT YOU DO YOU.

o--------o |Sections| o--------o

[1] Installation [2] Introduction [3] General List of Changes [4] Patch Differences [5] Pokémon Changes [6] Type Changes [7] Move Changes [8] Stat Experience, Vitamins and Fruits [9] Mechanic & Gameplay Changes [10] New Kurt Balls, new ways to obtain Apricorns [11] The New and Improved Battle Tower and Trainer House [12] Visual Changes [13] Credits

o-----------------o |[1] Installation| o-----------------o

Patching a game is usually a very easy process, specially with IPS Patches.

There's a variety of programs that work with IPS files, but the most famous one is named Lunar IPS, also called LIPS.

This hack is to be patched on a Pokémon Crystal 1.1 ROM file.

More specifically, this rom: Pokemon - Crystal Version (UE) (V1.1) [C][!].gbc CRC-32 : 3358E30A

You open your patcher, and then point to it to the IPS patch and the original, unmodded ROM. It will apply it and inform you when it's finished, it should be quick.

Now, there's two versions of this hack, and each one has also two varieties.

CHOOSE ONLY ONE. To know which version you want, check the details at the not-surprisingly-named "Patch Differences" section.

And yes, the patch weights almost 75% of the original game.

o-----------------o |[2] Introduction| o-----------------o

Hola, welcome to another ridiculously long readme of mine.

I go by the name Maeson and I made other hacks for a handful of other RPGs. For the most part what I usually aim for with these hacks is to create a different experience, tweaking what I can to give games that I've played time and time again a gameplay facelift to keep them fresh for me, sometimes also trying to improve aspects of a game that I think could make it more fun, varied, better paced or just more challenging after many playthroughs and knowing stuff by hand.

These hacks are made for me in first place, so they're shaped in a very personal manner and of course through my own tastes and ideas, but it should goewithout saying, I hope.

But anyway... What can I say about Pokémon?

My feelings toward the main series of Pokémon have changed a lot since its inception. Just like millions of other fans of video games, I lived the Pokémon craze back in the day, and I grew playing most of those games. I was there without fail up until the fifth Generation, then I started to get tired of the series gradually, and I sort of stop caring with time.

Thing is, I really didn't stop liking the Pokémon themselves, and I still enjoy spin-offs like the Trading Card Games or Mystery Dungeon games, and some like Pokémon Conquest and Pokken are quite cool crossovers, so there's still some appeal to me, even if it's waning with each day.

And hey, then you get things like Pokémon Snap, which it's one unique and very memorable game, one of the very, very few games about photography. it's a really chill, fun time overall.

...What it does not appeal to me all that much since a long time, though, is Game Freak and The Pokémon Company. The choices and "philosofies" they've been doing and following for several years now have been some of the most frustrating ones I've seen besides Square Enix, and their interviews equally leave some wonderfully baffling pearls of "wisdom".

They've done a remarkable job at making me wanting to distance myself more and more throughout this last decade, to the point that I lost pretty much all my appreciation for the franchise.

And it's not just with the main games, their choice of pushing aside console spin-offs for more and more mobile based Games As A Service (that usually failed and died quickly) also left us without many interesting games that could at least keep us somewhat happy.

And the less we talk about the lies, misinformation and the worrying use of younger audiences as a shield to deflect criticism from their business decisions, the better.

I... Just can't support or stand that anymore. I feel drained.

And I would have been completely away from this franchise, barring some old games, if not for one day finding that a collective of people were working on disassembly projects of older games.

I found them to be really interesting, and my mind kinda played with the idea of having a version of one of those old games with changes that I've been wanting and waiting to happen for many years. Who knows, I could even *attempt* to improve what was already there and even add more stuff to it.

Checking the available games with disassembly, I chose Pokémon Crystal, as it seemed the most complete and evolved project of all, in combination with also being one of the longer games thanks to the large post-game it originally had, plus being an earlier Generation game also gave me more room to do changes and improvements.

So little by little, with no idea of assembly, I kept hitting walls and messing around for a time, and what you downloaded is the result of spending the free time I had working in it... For quite some time. In fact it has been over 2 years of constant work, this started in 2018.

The aim of this hack is simple:

Create a new "balance", make the game more challenging, and iron out stuff I find could be improved, or I have the ability and knowledge to do while I add more value to certain aspects of the game. Make a version of Pokémon that I'd like to replay and have every monster be a fun addition to the team and a foe I just can't roll over with little to no thought, so I want to try all of them.

If you were expecting a new story, or a new region, or whatever pipe dream that most probably would end up incompleted and not stable, sorry to disappoint, but you won't find it here.

And no, I don't really care if this hack doesn't have an "epic" name. There's so many other more important things to care than that...

o----------------------------o |[3] General List of Changes| o----------------------------o

Here you have a quick list with some of the biggest changes all around, but there are sections for most of them to talk more in detail.

· Attempt to reach a new balance. This has been said above, but what it actually means is that elements as Types, Moves, Pokémon Stats and such have been changed deeply to move away from the conventions of the original games, making many species feel entirely different gameplay-wise.

Among other things, this means no more disappointing creatures with bad typing and many weaknesses, or low Base Stats filler. It also means parity between the Types, with each one having the same number of Weaknesses and Resistances. The intent is for every Fully Evolved Pokémon to feel useful or, at the very, very least, usable in a way where you don't feel handicapping yourself to the point you ask yourself if it is even worth doing it.

· Moves and TMS have been changed a lot in order to accomodate the Physical & Special Split, each Type now has both Physical and Special moves of different Power tiers.

Many old attacks have been removed and many others have been added. What moves each evolutionary line learns also has been changed, in order to make all Pokémon have decent movesets depending on what their archtype is.

· DVs (IVs on later generations) No longer matter on Stat Calculations. This means that every member of the same species will have the same potential. This also means you can have female Pokémon with good Attack, and Shiny Pokémon with good stats, what a novel concept.

This way any monster you come across will be equal, so you can focus on having fun, while still having to care of it by training, feeding him vitamins and fruits, choosing the best moves for it in a given situation, making a balanced team, and you know, the actual RPG bits instead of the RNG ones.

If you liked the eugenics experiment experience the original games give you, sorry but that's not here. I apologize for nothing.

· Trainers changed all around. Better AI than in the original game, more varied teams, their Pokémon have Stat Exp, meaning that the further you go, the better trained their Pokémon are, and better trained your own monsters should be. I also removed several limitations imposed on NPC trainers to make them factually inferior to you. This is made trying to make the game more challenging instead of the usual cake-walk.

There's no ridiculous stuff like giving Hyper Beam to everything or illegal moves for NPC trainer's Pokémon (although bear in mind, many Pokémon have changed types, and many have changed movesets so their moves are the new "legal" moves, but again, nothing impossible for you to have or to add fake difficulty).

If you're asking yourself this, no, in this hack NPCs do not change Pokémon constantly, that tends to drag the game too much. They still do it occasionally, but not at every time Type matchups that go against them.

· Quite a few changes related to Items, from how strong some Healing Items are, to changing Kurt Balls, changing the effect (or power of the effect) on several Held Items, new types of berries, and others.

Healing items are no longer useable in battle, neither for you or the NPC Trainers. Battles must be won only with your Pokémon, their held items, and strategy.

...Or well, over-levelling through mind-numbing grinding. We can't exactly get rid of that.

· Added a whole LOT of improvements here and there to make the game flow, feel and play better.

Things like changing how Item Storage works to have more space overall, much faster egg hatching speeds, making every monster available in this hack, having the Pokédex show you a bit of meaningful game information, as now it shows a species Base Stats and also the Shiny variations, make saving a faster process, making TMs infinite (but not abusable), improving the scrolling while moving around making the game feel and look much better, large improvements on the Battle Tower, expanding the Trainer House to be more interesting end-game stuff, adding Rematches, making PokeGear rematches better, a way to change PC Boxes remotely, move tutors and quite a few others.

There's many things more, but that's what the individual sections are for.

o-----------------------o |[4] Patch Differences | o-----------------------o

Now, there are four patches, so let's explain this quickly.

First, we have the Original versions, and the Alternative versions, these last ones offer a tweaked experience in case you want to play this hack again with some differences.

In which ways it is different?

Well, the Starters have been swapped, so when you begin a new game, you get to choose between Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle.

MUCH bigger difference, though, is that all the Gym trainers, the Leaders, other important NPCS and the Elite Four no longer have their teams limited to following the thematic "Type" standards.

Other trainers such as the Rival also have different teams, (and like the original patch, he develops a different team depending on the starter they steal).

Without that restriction each of those trainers have way more varied teams, making the game less predicable because you can no longer coast on the Type disadvantages most of the Pokémon of a Gym Leader share.

This of course changes how you make your teams. You no longer "have" to bring "this or that Type" because later on the road there's a Gym weak to it. It's more about making a team that you feel it can withstand anything it may come.

The order of certain Ingame Trades have also been changed.

There's other smaller changes to make the bigger ones sit well, such as small text edits or change the order of the Pokédex.

But Original and Alternative are divided in two too, one that I'll call "Intended Versions" and the other two are "Items in Battle" variations.

The "Intended Versions" disables healing Items in battle and it forces Set options, meaning you don't get free switches after knocking out a foe Pokémon. You can't change the option, because it's not even there anymore.

That's how I'd like people to play my hack, but knowing how some people can be, there's an extra patch, "Items in Battle", that gives you the possibility of using Items and to change the battle option, but there's a price to pay.

If you choose to play with enabled Items/Switch in battle, a few Items will be unavailable to you, the price of several Items will increase, and the HP they restore will be lowered. Also, NPC Trainers will also use Items.

That's simply because Items can be easily abused, and that is the opposite of what I wanted in this hack. If you choose the "right" to abuse Items during battle, then I have the right to make adjustments to annoy you with your choice.

It's not like Hyper Potions will heal 1 HP or anything crazy like that, but because in my hack you can't use Items in battles, they're more powerful than the usual vanilla items so you could recover better between battles.

The items you lose access to are all new, by the way. A set of consumable Held Items that raise a stat whenever the holder is attacked or under other circustances, similar to the berries in the Third Generation, albeit they're activated differently.

Another change is limited access to a team-healing item that I made, and restores all your Pokémon to perfect shape. Intended to be used in a pinch, like being lost in a cave, or between hard fights, but you can only have in small amounts. In the Original patch, you can carry 3 of them, but only 1 on the "Items in Battle" versions.

You're free to choose how to play. Of course, you only apply one patch.

If for some reason you started a game with one version, for example, with the patch for Items in Battle, and you later on want to go to the No Items in Battle version, you can actually use that save file and not start again.

But I recommend you to save first in a Pokémon Center before doing so. Once you did that, patch a clean ROM and rename the .SAV file into whatever the new patched rom is. Now you can continue with your game. Remember to always make backups before doing anything of this sort.

I do not recommend changing between the Original and Alternate versions.

Lastly, trading and battling with vanilla Pokémon Crystal is not going to work. Not only many of the fixes made already impossible to be compatible with Vanilla Pokémon Crystal, but the gigantic load of changes I made to the game would render any attempt become a glitchy mess.

But you can trade and battle with other copies of this hack, and the four versions of the patches should be compatible with each other for both trading and battling. I'd recommend using the No Items versions because it gives you access to those extra Held Items, though.

o--------------------o |[5] Pokémon Changes| o--------------------o

Probably the most obvious and central change, these creatures are the core of the franchise after all.

As you may imagine, there have been changes to most aspects of them. While some of those have their sections to talk about, Base Stats are probably the most important one here.

That is because for the most part there is parity in Base Stat Total for all evolutionary lines in this game.

Pokémon to me has become a rather painful series of games to look back, because there has never been that much of an interest to improve or balance out their creations to make a more varied, balanced and fun experience, and when they try to do something is more on the lines of "adding" to fix instead of improving what's there already.

And don't get me wrong, trying to get "perfect balance" is impossible with such a large amount of creatures, but at the same time, Game Freak has done very, very little in this regard, most other developers would at least try something, specially if they had the decades of game releases Game Freak has had.

But back on track. This is why in this hack, almost every non-Starter, non-Legendary fully evolved monster has a Base Stat Total of 650, making each all of them feel have the same potential overall.

This means there will be no "early useless Pokémon", nor so called "Filler".

And yes, this means your beloved Tyranitar, Dragonite, and such have the same potential as a Raticate or a Wigglytuff. On the other hand, this also means you don't need to train a Pupitar or Dragonair to ridiculous levels to have them evolve into their final forms.

If you ask yourself "why such high Base Stat Total", well, its simple: The higher the roof, the more space you have to scale stats. The more space you have to scale stats, the better you can "personalize" stats for the different species.

Besides, the Base Stat Total stops being important when everybody is at the same "level".

Now, that's for "normal Pokémon". The first two Generations had two trios of "pseudo-legendary" monsters, those being Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, and Raikou, Entei and Suicune. These critters have 660 Base Stat Total.

Starters also have a total of 660. This is mainly because starters are usually the back bone of most player's teams (although I usually roll without them), and I saw fitting for them to be slightly stronger. But fear not, because those extra points don't really make much difference, as they're used to make them more well rounded instead of just dumping them on their highest stats.

Finally, true Legendary Pokémon keep their 700 Base Stat Total of the original games. To this day I never used legendaries beyond wanting to see their back sprites, never cared about them, so they have the least number of changes, really.

Some other changes are:

·Many Pokémon had their overall archetypes changed besides their Stats improved. Furret is now a Fast Special Attacker, for example.

·Almost every Pokémon now has a 50% Male/Female Ratio, except for the Nidorans, Tauros and Miltank. Pokémon like Blissey, Chansey, or the Hitmon-family now can be both male and female. Magnemite, Voltorb and such are still genderless.

·The two Legendary Trios have genders and can in fact breed, thus they can be seen almost as normal Pokémon.

·The Pokédex had the entries for each Pokémon modified. This is because now it shows actually useful information instead of the continuously repeated "scientific" info that usually is full of lies and ridiculous stuff that could make an Indian Elephant have a headache, but hey, it may not be the Pokédex info, it may just be a bit too close to a Magcargo and it's experiencing how one feels being next to the Sun.

Happens to us all sometimes.

Now, the first page of each species shows its Weaknesses and Resistances while the second page of each one now points out the Base Stat spreads it has, which is a much, much more useful ingame data, specially when this hacks aims to change heavily most things related to battling and "the RPG elements".

Oh, and by the way, if you press Select while looking at a Pokémon's Data, you'll activate "Shiny Mode", and every Pokémon shown will be seen with their Shiny Colors!

·Talking about Shiny Pokémon, those are far more common. While I personally don't care too much about them, specially nowadays when they've become so... Uneventful and common, not to mention how much they've been related with hacking and cheating, Pokémon being shiny lost appeal to me, yet they're still a big thing for many players, so why not make them easier to obtain?

The means for finding a Shiny Pokémon in Generation II were rough. REALLY rough. With the way it works now, you should find quite a few of them throughout your adventure, and also finding female shiny Pokémon should also be a more common occurrence than before.

You're bound to find a fair share of them. This being a modded game, it doesn't really matter if they're not as rare or hard to find.

NPC trainers will have Shiny monsters here and there, so you should also have the chance!

·As you already know, wild Pokémon may be holding items. In the original game, many species had nothing with them. Now, most species have them, and the variety is much, much bigger. Not only that, the chances for finding Pokémon with items has increased.

Now there's a 50% of not having an item, 40% of having a "common" item, and 10% of holding a "rare" item. Better than the 2% on the original.

Lastly, I've made another improvement in held items. Now, whenever you battle with a wild monster that has an Item, an little icon (similar to the one in the party menu) will appear on the enemy's HUD. Specifically between the Pokeball icon that appears when you fight a monster that you already have in your Pokédex, and the Gender icon.

Again, only for WILD creatures. If monsters have items in trainer battles is a secret to everybody!

·A big one, already mentioned in the introduction: DVs (or IVs, if you rather call them that) NO LONGER FACTOR INTO STAT CALCULATIONS!!

This means that now only Base Stats and Stat Exp matter in each Pokémon statistics. Oh, and by the way, the formula to calculate stats has changed very slightly. Remember that +5 bonus at the end of the calculations? Now it's a 6. That means that a 100 Base stat (Not HP) of a fully trained monster is 300 and not 299.

This also means you can now have Female Pokémon with good Attack power, and Shiny Pokémon no longer are weak, two rather big things for me at least.

No more you will have to waste hours of your life breeding and abandoning dozens if not hundreds of Pokémon for good DVs (what a great lesson!). NPC Trainers also get good Pokémon too, making things better for everybody.

·Evolution has been streamlined and homogenized. This means that Pokémon that evolved by trades, special events, and such have simpler, more direct ways to do so now. But also, all Pokémon evolver on similar levels.

After all, if they are supposed on equal footing in Power, they should also be on the same level on this matter too.

Here's a few examples:

Pokémon with three stages evolve at levels 20 and 32.

Pidgey evolves to Pidgeotto at level 20, and to Pidgeot at level 32. Chikorita evolves to Bayleef at level 20, and to Meganium at level 32. Dratini evolves to Dragonair at level 20, and to Dragonite at level 32.

Pokémon with two stages evolve between levels 22 and 24.

Rattata evolves into Raticate at level 23. Venonat evolves into Venomoth at level 24. Rhyhorn evolves into Rhydon at level 24. Hoothoot evolves into Noctowl at level 22.

Of course, there are a couple of exceptions. Caterpie and Weedle are still the fastest evolving lines, and of course Pokémon that evolve through stones can do so anytime you want.

Oh, and by the way, in this hack, you WANT to evolve when Pokémon want to. You won't get much from stopping an evolution, and with Pokémon that evolve through stones and such, you should do it before too late.

This is because many species learn better techniques at the same level they evolve, and it would be a waste to not learn them.

You can find at which levels are recommended Pokémon to evolve through stones in the specific Pokémon Stat list txt. But if you want to make it easy:

If the Pokémon has two evolutionary stages > Use the stone at Level 22 or 23. If the Pokémon has three evolutionary stages > use the stone at level 30 or 32 (to reach the last stage).

That said, if you feel like not evolving for whatever reason, you've not lost everything. The game has a Move Reminder, and you'll be able to remember freely any move from a species learnset.

Oh, and the Time Capsule seems to work as long as you of course follow the rules. But a few notes:

Any Pokémon you bring from Generation 1 may have their moves changed upon arriving your game. The moves may turn into a very uncharacteristic one for the Pokémon, because I repurposed many moves into new ones.

The stats of the Pokémon will change from Gen 1 to Gen 2, and most notably, the HP of any Pokémon that reaches Gen 2 will not be fully healed, because of the change in stats, but there's no problem at all as far as functionality, just heal.

That said, have in mind there's NO NEED to use the Time Machine. You do so under your responsibility.

o-----------------o |[6] Type Changes| o-----------------o

Yet another big shake to the, in my personal point of view, rather badly balanced formula.

I'm not going to discuss or waste time with this. This is how it works here:

Defensive wise, each type now is weak to two other types, while resistant to three, one of them being itself. There are NO immunities. Every type is equal as far as weaknesses and resistances, except for Normal.

Normal has no weaknesses or resistances, period.

Offensive wise, each Type is effective against two Types, and is resisted by three, one it being itself. Normal does not hit for Super Effective damage nor does it get resisted.

So, among other things, Ghost will get hurt by Normal and Fighting moves, Normal will get hit by Ghost, Dragon is no longer weak to itself, and Ice is not such an awful and pathetic defensive Type that exists to be mocked.

Oh, the Fairy Type has been added too, but how it works doesn't exactly resemble the original game, just like the other Types.

Now, because I know how certain part of the community can act (and let's not kid ourselves pretending it doesn't happen), to make myself clear and blunt:

I don't care if you think Type X should be weak/resistant to type Y. I don't care if you don't want to learn new Type Matchups. I don't care what Game Freak does with types now or in the future.

I'm not Game Freak and I have made this wanting to break away from their norm, I don't have to follow any rules, not theirs, not yours.

Making a more even ground for all types, trying to make each monster good, so I could play with all of them and have fun was one of the important things for me, and to reach that goal I made as many changes as I saw fit.

You're free to stop reading and go look for another hack if this will bother you that much.

End of the "serious" moment. Good? Great, let's continue!

With this change, every Pokémon will always have more good points than bad points, not to mention that the maximum number of weaknesses a Pokémon can have is 4, and if it has 4 weaknesses, to compensate it will have 6 resistances.

Another thing I want to point out is that the number of Normal Type Pokémon has been lowered. While there are still a bunch of them, it's a way lower number, making many of these previously Normal Pokémon have completely different Type Combinations. I mean, I'm sure you won't miss all the Normal/Flying types. I hope so at least.

If you think Normal Type not having weaknesses could be "broken", far from it, specially since, as I said, in this hack having *more good points* is a given for any non-Normal Pokémon. But of course that's just talking. They can make for great members, in one of my several test-playthroughs, a Furret was one of my best Pokémon all thoughout the game.

There is an image in the RAR file with a Type Table to show you how Types work now, but beyond that, in Violet City's Pokémon Academy, there are two books that teach you the differen Types and their strong and weak points.

And then, if you're so lazy to figure it out, the weaknesses and resistances for each individual species is listed on the Stats text file.

And theeen, if you're even lazier than that, you can also check the Pokedex Entry of a given *captured* Pokémon, as it gives you useful info such as this.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that you have a number of ways to find out how types work. Use them to your advantage.

Oh, lastly, in this hack there are NO Pokémon with double weaknesses. I've never liked them to be honest, and to me just show how unappealing some types were designed to be that they make such awful combinations.

I still remember how excited people were for Aurorus until they saw its typing, and then it all turned into either jokes at its weaknesses or pure disapppointment.

No fun.

o-----------------o |[7] Move Changes| o-----------------o

Alongside the previous two changes, the Moves have been changed A LOT too.

Instead of just "copying" what Game Freak has done in later generations, this hack had in mind to actually modify moves in ways to make them more interesting based on the limitations of the GBC games, and also another little thing:

There is a Physical/Special Split in this hack, so one of the big changes of this hack was to give each Type a number of both, Physical and Special moves to cover different Power levels so Pokémon can have good STAB moves that go along with their stats.

After all, that was probably the best thing Generation IV did for me. While it took some toys from some Pokémon (like Elemental Punches from Alakazam), it really was a big change for the better for most species.

So for example, we have Rock Slide for Rock Pokémon with high Attack, and Rock Launch for Rock Pokémon with high Special Attack. For this, many old moves were removed and reworked into new moves, mostly moves that were redundant and exactly the same as other moves (Like Whirlwind and Roar, or Wrap and Bind, they're the exact same thing).

While this gives every type and every Pokémon solid Stab moves, the limitation of 254 moves makes it so I can't add many "wild" and unique moves, but oh well, it's already much, much better than what it was originally on Generation II.

...No, really, I forgot how rough and unfair the move list was in old Generations, with some Types having almost no good moves at all, or moves that Pokémon couldn't take advantage of because their Stats and their Types didn't match. Hoo boy...

Another big change is that most attacks now have secondary effects, and very often, the lower the Power of a move, the higher is the chance to inflict those secondary effects.

For example, Fire Breath (New move) has a 15% Chance of causing Burn and 70 Power, but Flamethrower only has 10% chance of causing burn and 95 Power. This makes moves with lower Power a bit more useful.

As you may imagine, Pokémon Movesets have been changed tremendously, not only for those critters that had their Types and Stat distributions changed, but also to accomodate all the modifications related to Moves.

Movesets in this hack are in no way attempting to copy later generations of official games, specially since Generation 2 Movesets were incredibly sad to look back.

Instead, they're focused on attempting to give what that certain species needs. So no Pokémon will be let without good STAB moves, and you also won't see Pokémon that are obviously Physical attackers getting Special moves or viceversa.

A handful of moves also got their priority changed.

Safeguard, Haze, Mist, Transformation and Bide now go before other moves. This change actually shakes up battles a bit, it was fun to see the AI read my moves from time to time and prevent Status, and hey, with Transform having priority now Ditto is more usable too!

A list of the moves, what they do, and their other data is in its own TXT file, although with ingame descriptions, it is not necessary.

As far as TMs and HMs, things also have changed.

TMs no longer get consumed when used, so they have infinite uses. The Moves they teach have also changed for the majority of TMS, with most of them teaching both Physical and Special "end-game" moves. There's also a total of 55 TMS now.

None of them can be found in shops, you must find them by exploring or obtained from an NPC.

HMs have also changed a bit, making them more useful. Cut now is a 70 Power Normal move with a High Critical Ratio, and Fly is a strong move with 110 Power that causes Recoil damage. Flash causes damage and can lower Accuracy. Strength is now is Fighting type and causes Flinch. And Whirlpool is a bit more powerful and now takes more HP at the end of turns, so its a rather cool combo alongside Toxic on bulky Pokémon.

Also, HMs can be forgotten like normal attacks, so you can swap attacks easily in case you want, and unlike in Gen. 1, because you can't drop them, you can't get stuck.

Or rather, you wouldn't get stuck, because there's another change. These moves:

Headbutt Rock Smash Cut Surf Strength Waterfall Whirlpool

Don't need to be known by a Pokémon to be used in the overworld! You only need a Pokémon capable of learning such move, and the needed Medal in the case of the HMs.

That only leaves Flash and Fly out of that list, right?

About Flash:

I also added an item that will let you light dark caves so you don't need to have a Pokémon with Flash, but you get it quite a bit later than the HM. Just look around Mahogany after things calmed down.

It can be assigned to Select for quick use, too!

About Fly:

There's a small sidequest you can do later in the game that will net you a special object. This item will let you use a different version of Fly. Mechanically, it's the same, you can fly to places you've explored. Animation-wise is different, though.

Because all of this, you no longer need to have any HM on any Pokémon unless you want it (because most of them are actually respectable attacking moves), which gives much more freedom to parties and movesets!

o----------------------------------------o |[8] Stat Experience, Vitamins and Fruits| o----------------------------------------o

TLDR VERSION: Use Vitamins, use Fruits. They improve your Pokemon's stats, and you need to take care of your team to withstand other trainers which have properly trained monsters. Use them intelligently, don't waste them with Pokémon you don't want to have in your team, at least early on when you have limited resources.

Vitamins are no longer as limited in effect, or as expensive. Fruits are new, and are twice as good as Vitamins.

Pokémon games have a system in which, through adquiring certain points through different means, a creature can improve its Stats. In Generations 1 and 2, these are called Stat Experience. This is a system Game Freak has never informed the players about at all, and the games never came even close to mention it in any trully useful detail, so bare with me if this is your first time with this stuff, although I doubt you found this hack knowing nothing about it.

Stat Experience points can range from 0 (Empty) to 65535 (Maximized). Unlike later generations, In Gen. I and II, you can maximize the experience of all the stats.

Stat Experience points are divided and exclusive for each stat. HP, Attack, Defense and Speed have their own Stat Exp Table. Special Attack and Special Defense share the same Stat Exp Table. So reaching 65535 Stat Exp in each Stat will make your Pokémon perfect stat-wise. Even Pokémon at Level 100 can get Stat Experience, but to gain the effects, they need to be stored on the PC so their real Stats can get updated with the current Stat Exp. they have at that moment.

The ways you get Stat Exp are these:

By battling -Each time one of your Pokémon defeats another, the Base Stats of the enemy's species is added to your Stat Exp in each stat. This is the slowest way, but it's also free, and will raise your stats by just playing through the game.

If you defeat, let's say, a Caterpie, it has these Base Stats:

HP 75, Attack 60, Defense 70, Speed 95, Special Attack 90, Special Defense 70. As I said, Special Attack and Defense use the same Stat Exp Table. The game takes the Base Stat related to Special Attack, so in this case, your Pokémon will be awarded 90 Special Stat Exp Points, alongside the rest. Training only through battles is not only pointless when you have other means, but also incredibly tedious. While in my hack Pokémon have higher stats that make training this way faster, battling for Stat Exp should only be relied on when you've already fed your Pokémon Vitamin and Fruits, to get those last Stat Exp Points needed for a Perfect Stat.

But of course, any Stat Exp gained through battles is benefitial, just don't battle *only* for the Stat Exp unless, as I said it's to finish Stat Exp training! By the way, there's a special condition named Pokerús, which is a benefitial virus that will double the amount of Stat Exp you get from battles. This is very rare to get, and you will be noticed by a PKMN Center Nurse. The games don't tell you what it does exactly either...

It can be very useful, and it propagates through your Pokémon team, and disappears after some time. If you ever get Pokerús, try to keep a Pokémon with active Pokerús on your PC so you can pass it to other Pokémon. But as I said, it's very rare!

By Vitamins -Vitamins in the original game were pretty useless. They raised very little, and they could only be used up to some point, which is less than half way the Stat Exp total.

In this hack, though, they're much better, and even necessary, as the people living in Johto and Kanto have *actually* trained their Pokémon properly and they have Stat Exp, so they'll be stronger and more challenging, and after a certain point, all trainers you'll find will have maximized Pokémon, like any trainer worth their salt would be doing.

Each Vitamin gives 10.240 Stat Exp Points per use, and they can be used until the Stat Exp of the Stat that you want to raise reaches 51.456, at which point, the Pokémon wont get any benefit from it (it won't be wasted, so don't worry).

To make it easier to understand, let's put it this way:

An untrained (either just catched, or just hatched) Pokémon will have 0 Stat Exp on everything. If you feed it HP UPs, it will be able to eat 6:

10.240 1 HP Up 20.480 2 HP Up 30.720 3 HP Up 40.960 4 HP Up 51.200 5 HP Up > Doesn't go pass the limit so you can eat another one. 61.440 6 HP Up > Passed the limit, so you can't feed more, but it's almost Maximized! You can get the rest by battling.

If you're used to Effort Values from Gen 3 onwards, let's make it even easier:

The way it works, each modern EV means 256 Stat Exp, so if it's easier for you, just divide Stat Exp by 256:

Each Vitamin gives 10.240 Stat Exp, that means 40 EV. The limit of Stat Exp is 51.456, that means 201 EV.

So with a Pokémon without EVs, you can go from 0 to 240 EV through vitamins.

You can obviously give Vitamins to a Pokémon you've been battling with no problem, but an untrained Pokémon is better to use as an example.

Their price is much lower so you can keep up with enemy trainers, although they cost enough to make each purchase a bit of an investment early into the game.

By Fruits - Fruits are almost exactly the same as Vitamins, but they give twice the Stat Exp.

Each one gives 20.480 Stat Exp (Or 80 EV if you want it that way), and the limit is 41.216 Stat Points (or 161 EV). This means that your Pokémon can eat up to three Fruits in a stat to jump for 0 Stat Exp to 61.440 (or 0 to 240 EV) and almost maximize it. Let's again use an example of raising HP with Fruit now:

20.480 1 Salty Fruit 40.960 2 Salty Fruit > Doesn't go pass the limit so you can eat another one 61.440 3 Salty Fruit > Passed the limit, so you can't feed more, but it's almost Maximized!

Thus, fruits are much better overall than Vitamins, but they're scarce, and should be better used for Pokémon you know they have little to no training in a certain Stat.

You can combine Vitamins and Fruit without problem, but if you do, first use your Fruits, then the Vitamins so you don't waste Fruits unnecessarily.

Why the limit - If you're asking why the limit is 51.456, or 240 EV for Vitamins, and 41.216 or 161 EVs for Fruits, it is simple to answer: If you feed a Vitamin/Fruit to a Pokémon in a way that would go over 65535, a bug would happen and the Stat Exp of that Pokémon would roll back to 0. I think it's obvious why that would suck. So, by putting these limits you're safe from that to happen, but you also get very close to maximize a stat. It's the best balance I could achieve.

o--------------------------------o |[9] Mechanic & Gameplay Changes| o--------------------------------o

Already said that under the hood, there are many, many other changes. Some (not all of them, not by a long shot) changes are as follows:

· The Clock Reset function now has a much easier button combination to open it. The combination is like this:

1: Hold Select + Down 2: Release Down while holding Reset. 3: With Reset Held, now hold Up too. 4: Release Select. The Reset Clock menu will open.

It requires less buttons, making it easier to do, or able to do at all depending where you are playing. You still need to input the password, though, removing that would let you abuse certain things very easily.

· Prices for several things have been lowered on the "Intended" Versions of this hack. Because you no longer can abuse Items to progress, I saw no real reason to make you pay as much as usual. You're still going to need them, because the need for healing between battles is still a thing.

Another reason to do this is because you will also spend much more money than usual on Vitamins and other stuff to properly train and prepare your team.

· Catching Pokémon grants you Experience now! The Exp. is the same as if it was defeated, and every Pokémon that fought in said battle will get a share of it.

· The Odd Egg will always give you a Shiny Pokémon between 7 ramdonly selected species, and both genders. Each Species get a unique move, instead of all of them getting the same (now non-existing) move.

· Talking about Eggs, Pokémon now hatch much, much faster, so there's less walking up and down through Goldenrod. Not only that, but Egg Moves also changed all around. Pokémon also lay Eggs faster, and Nidorina & Nidoqueen can now breed, alongside both "legendary" trios.

Now each basic species has between 3 or 4 Egg Moves for the most part they are different from vanilla, and basic Starter Pokémon have 5 Egg Moves.

· Trainer AI has been much improved. Now they know much better what they do, and they can priorize stuff like Status Effects, they take better advantage of weaknesses and resistances.

They also carry Items with them, if you play with the patch that lets you items in Battle, of course.

Trainers also have properly trained monsters, with Stat Exp increasing throughout the game. Feeding your team vitamins and fruits is now important to stay on toes with them. Of course, there is more variety in species of monsters used by NPCs, their levels are higher, and team sizes have increased a bit.

Making each trainer a full 6 Pokémon team would drag the game, though, and probably couldn't fit, I already was suffering the lack of space with what I added, because when adding Stat Exp, custom Movesets, and such the space gets used way too fast.

Also, the game was very, very unfair to the NPC trainers. Not only were they hard-coded to fail more often, have mediocre AI, and Low-Level Pokémon, you also got your Stats and Types boosted as you got Badges, so they became completely inferior and disappointing... At least, if you want to have any challenge.

That's why any bonus that Badges give you was stripped down. No Stat Boost, no Type Boost. This will make the game far more fair and chalenging, in turn making it more enjoyable if you look for having to think and put a bit of effort, which is, you know, the point of this entire hack.

Another thing changed is the money that many types of trainers reward you by beating them. In this hack you have many more things to buy as mentioned above, from Vitamins, to Held Items, to Decorations, and more Healing Items because of the higher difficulty, so a better income was needed.

On the other hand, if you lose, which is much more plausible now, you won't get your money halved. Instead, you lose money depending on the number of badges you have, like more recent games. It's much more fair early on, specially in this hack since it is expected of you to buy vitamins and held items for your monsters as you go through the game, besides all the other items.

· Stat increase percentages have been changed.

Stat-improving moves like Accelerate or Meditate, and Stat-decreasing moves like Growl or Scary Face can go from Level 0 (normal stat), to Level +6 or -6, depending if it increases or decreases a stat.

Before o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o |Level -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 | |Perc. 25% 28% 35% 45% 50% 66% 100% 150% 200% 250% 300% 350% 400%| o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o Now o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o |Level -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 | |Perc. 25% 30% 35% 45% 60% 75% 100% 130% 160% 190% 220% 250% 300%| o-----------------------------------------------------------------------------o

This has been changed for one main reason: to make better balance between critters, Stats are now higher. With stats being higher, stat-increasing would get too broken, specially with +1 bonus being a whole 50% increase. So bonuses are softer now, but so is stat-reducing -1 Level, so it's not too harsh.

· Item Storing Changes

For starters, there's two new pockets, one for Berries and Fruits in which 13 kinds of items go in it, the already known berries, plus the new Fruits used for powering up your monsters. Fits all of them.

The other new pocket is for Battle items, specifically Held Items. There are several dozen of them, and having such type of items be mixed with consumable and healing items was a bit of a mess, even more if you have an organization obsession and want everything neatly grouped.

Every item of this type fits in this pocket, that's over 50 different types of Items!

Apricorns are now stored in your Ball Pocket, and there's space to have every ball plus Apricorn, so they will never become a nuissance to you by filling your bag like before.

Item Pocket now can store 35 different objects instead of 20, and because Berries/Fruits, Apricorns, and Held Items do not take space in this pocket anymore you have much more freedom.

There's one catch, though, now you can only store 30 types of items in the PC, instead of 50. It won't be much of a problem because you don't need to store any Berry, Fruit, Apricorn, Ball, or Held Item, so I think it's a good compromise.

Another change is, as mentioned above, about wild Pokémon. Now, many different species will hold items. These range from Berries and Fruits, to sell-able Items, Apricorns and a few others.

This not only will make getting new monsters more interesting, but will also make way, way more useful the move Thief, and also the new Peck, which also has the effect of taking the item the foe holds.

· The Pokegear Map has seen a huge facelift. Not only is a bit prettier to look at, it's also more informative, with standout places or landmarks pointed out in the map. I even added different little icons to quickly see which poblated areas are Towns or Cities, just because why not.

· A new Building in Goldenrod has been opened. This place will sell to you all the Decoration items you previously would get through Mystery Gift or through your Mom.

Some of the dolls also have been changed, to offer something new, because the game now is not limited to the original Pokémon icons for the Party Menu. This is also true for the bigger dolls.

Talking about that, your Mom will no longer buy you Decoration items, and the items it buys are now much more useful and simply put, better than Super Potions and such.

· A Move Reminder has been added to the game, but unlike how Move Reminders work in vanilla games, here it will let you remember moves from a species, as many times as you want, for free.

This is because this hack, having higher difficulty than your usual Pokémon game, may require you to reshuffle your Movesets or try different strategies, and I WANT you to do so, punishing you with constant farming of Items to change Movesets so you can try different things sounds very counter-intuitive to me.

To make this even more useful, each fully evolved creature can remember a number of Moves from prior evolutionary forms too.

The types of Moves they'll retain from earlier forms are usually moves related to Stat changes, Status Effects, and Attacks that may have special traits or effects.

Basically, Pidgeot won't be able to remember Wing Attack, which is a simple, straightforward Attack move, but it will remember Quick Attack and Peck, the first one having Priority, and the second one having the new effect of stealing Items from other Pokémon.

You can find the Move Reminder in both Johto, and Kanto. In Johto, he lives with the other useful NPCs, Name Rater and Move Deleter in Goldenrod. In Kanto, you can find a similar group of NPCs in Lavender Town.

· Pokegear Rematches are now much stronger, they have more Pokémon and more varied, and often enough their Pokémon have nicknames.

To give you an idea, many Pokegear trainers will end up with teams of Lvl 80 Pokémon! So be very careful when fighting again these trainers, they may surprise you!

Also, a big change in how they work: Originally, if you didn't rematch a trainer and you kept playing, when you came back to it, it would challenge you with a very outdated team.

This is because they only get better if you fight them earlier each time. This is no how it works anymore. They upgrade their teams as you advance through the game, and you could very well meet them for the first time after battling them originally and find out they have a full team of very strong Pokémon.

This makes Pokegear rematches far, far more interesting and better paced.

Talking about rematches, I added end-game rematches to the game. Once you beat Red for the first time, a whole bunch of new battles gets unlocked: The Pokémon League levels get bumped, with some changes on their teams. Counting your Rival's rematch, levels range from 80 to 85.

All Gym Leaders end up their training, and they await you to fight in Lvl 100 Rematches. If they didn't have originally, every Leader will have a full team, and all of them have some changes to their teams.

The default trainer in the Trainer's House in Viridian City also goes from Lvl 70, to Lvl 100. And there's a few extra Lvl 100 battles that I'll let you discover, although they're not precissely hidden!

If you ask yourself why Lvl 100, well, that's to make sure you don't win by overlevelling them. Once you beat Red, you also unlock a way to Level Up your Pokémon much faster. Just check the Battle Tower once you do so, although be warned, it requires some effort!

· Buena's Password had its rewards changed, now it's more useful overall.

· Ingame Pokémon trades are different, and they ask for hard-to-get monsters, but give you very nice ones in exchange, I hope you like them.

· Bill's grandfather has seen some neat changes. His time killer of seeing Pokémon you bring to him stays, but not quite the same as it originally was. Now he'll tell you riddles that talk about a certain Pokémon, and if you guess them correctly by showing him the right species, he'll gift you some very neat Held Items for your pals! He put quite of effort in those riddles, they even rhyme!

· Fishing has been tweaked a bit.

Now the chances for Pokémon to bit are higher (who wants to press Select several times for nothing?) and the Pokémon available by fishing are much more varied, yes, even the Old Rod.

Levels are also higher. Old Rod ~10, Good Rod ~20, Super Rod ~40.

Talking about the Old Rod, now you can get it sooner, before even getting the first Medal. The Fishing Guru has moved to the gate that connectes Route 31 with Violet City. This expands which Pokémon you can get early on, and more options is better.

...Unless you're me, then it just makes it harder to choose which monsters you want to have.

· Fruit Trees now give 2 Berries/Fruits/Apricorns each day!

· On Violet, Azalea and Goldenrod cities you can find the new Berry Scouts. These green-cladded folks will sell you the basic Status-Healing Berries, in order to help accomodate you a bit on the higher difficulty of this hack compared to the usual stuff.

The price on the "Items in battle available" patches are a bit higher.

· While there's absolutely zero intention of creating a new "story" or "region", there are new maps here and there. For Example, there's an actual Viridian Forest again, with trainers, Items and such, even!

Other maps got extended a bit here and there, maybe to hide something...! Some areas also have changes made to look or feel better to explore. Others have been extended to feel more like a full place.

The Gyms also had changes. It's interesting how... "small", and simple most of them where. I expanded most, give some light puzzles to most of the ones that didn't have anything going on (I even rescued unused map movement for one of them!) to make them slightly more interesting.

Of course, please don't expect Zelda-level dungeons or anything like that. ...Although that could be a pretty cool thing as its own game!

· Because I made quite a few changes in the Types of the Pokémon, I reformatted Bill's PC a bit. Now when browsing around your monsters, you can see their types on the upper left side of the screen.

· I changed a few textbox frames, some to fix them up a bit, and two of them are entirely new. I like Frame 5 myself.

· The order of the Pockets in your Bag differs when youre outside Battle and when you're in middle of one.

This is to make the Poké Ball pocket right next to the default Item pocket, instead of being 3 pushes away to the right.

· Status Effects no longer are shown with 3 letter "words". Now they have their own little Icons, which make things cleaner both in Battle and specially on the Party menu.

· Of course, I decapitalized all the text I found. What a tedious thing...

· Smashable Rocks now can give stone-type Items alongside being a way to find certain Pokémon.

· Once you heal Moo Moo, one of the twins opens up a little shop!

She'll be able to make Berry Juice for you, and you have two ways of doing it, for convenience.

Talking about Held-healing Items, RageCandyBar have been also reworked to be eaten during battle.

They're more powerful than Gold Berries, but less than Berry Juice.

· Many things have been fixed. For example:

Daisy's Haircut was buggy and could in fact reduce Happiness, has been fixed. Magikarps in Lake of Rage were in fact smaller than normal and not bigger, and other Magikarp related bugs also existed all around. Fixed. A bug where Defense could be lowered by attacking a Substitute with a -Def move existed, now is fixed. A bug where Mirror Coat and Counter would damage foe after they used an item existed, now is fixed. A bug that made supposedly fleeing Pokémon not able to flee is fixed. Now Fast Balls are more useful. A bug that made a foe under Nightmare's effect still be hurt if it was healed with items is fixed. A bug where the HP Bar would deplete way slower than intended existed. Yes, you're reading right. The speed at which the HP Bar emptied, specially at higher levels, was not intentional, making high level battles way, way slower. This has been fixed and is much better, albeit not Gen. 3 "fast".

Other bugs and stuff has been fixed too.

There's more things I could put here, but when you spend so long doing something you start to forget each individual thing...

o-------------------------------------------------o |[10] New Kurt Balls, new ways to obtain Apricorns| o-------------------------------------------------o

Yes, every Kurt Ball has been replaced. Why?

Well, actually, for the first year and a half of "development" of this hack, Kurt Balls were pretty much as they were originally, with exception of changing one for more utility, improving their effects to make them overall better and fixing the quite-a-few glitches related to them.

But during the many tests I (and a few friends) did, all the feedback I got is that they did not use them much, if at all, because how situational they are, and because you can only get them in limited amounts.

So I decided to create a new set of Balls with very simple yet very effective effects. Each of these new Poké Balls offer a x3 Catch Multiplier if used on a certain Type of Pokémon, with each new Ball being useful for 3 different Types each.

For example, the Poké Ball made with Red Apricorns (named Red Ball to simplify things), will work best while trying to catch Fire, Fighting or Ground Pokémon! Other example would be the Pink Ball will do so with Poison, Psychic, or Fairy ones.

There's no tricks, nor complexities. If the types match, you get a stronger effect than an Ultra Ball. This makes each one way more versatile, every Apricorn as useful as the rest.

Descriptions of each new Ball points to which types are most effective.

Now, because I want people to use these Balls more often, there are a few more ways to obtain these Items. The first and most simple is getting Apricorns from Trees, from which you get two for every one each day.

Pokémon themselves also carry Apricorns, as many species hold them randomly.

But I also added a new face to Johto, a traveling monk! He's easily recognizable thanks to his sandogasa (a traditional traveling hat). Because he travels around Johto, each day you'll find him in a different spot, and each day will offer to trade 5 Apricorn of a certain color for one specific Item. The Items he ask for can be obtained from wild Pokémon, and sometimes found somewhere lying on the floor.

For Red or Green Apricorns, he asks for a Tiny Mushroom. for Blue, Yellow or Pink Apricorns, he asks for a Pearl. For White or Black Apricorns, he asks for a Stardust.

Tiny Mushrooms can be held by Pokémon such as Paras, Ledyba, Oddish, Vulpix and others. Pearls can be held by Pokémon such as Shellder, Horsea, Seadra, Octillery and Corsola. Stardust can be held by Pokémon such as Geodude, Jigglypuff, Phanpy, Staryu and Tentacool.

Of course those are just a few examples, there are more. I hope with all this, Kurt's custom Poké Balls are more useful all around.

o--------------------------------------------------------o |[11] The New and Improved Battle Tower and Trainer House| o--------------------------------------------------------o

The Battle Tower was the first time Game Freak offered anything sort of similar to a Challenge Mode inside the main games. We got Pokémon Stadium 1 and 2, which were great little things, designed to be a battle simulator, with different rules and difficulties, among other things like mini-games.

But the Battle Tower was a bit... Lacking. And HARD.

This is because, for one, the trainers you met here had a quite low variety of Pokémon, so it kinda became a bit boring (I guess Game Freak knew most Pokémon had middling stats!).

On the other hand, the monsters here sported pretty much PERFECT stats, and with strong moves along with them.

This last sentence is worth noting because in older generations, training your Pokémon to their fullest potential, A.K.A. giving them the max Stat Exp. was a total pain and a ludicriously slow process. And trying to get good DVs (old IVs) was a much, much, much worse process than that.

You couldn't make use of ANY mechanic to get Pokémon with good DVs, they were random, and unlike more recent Generations, you could not improve a Pokémon DVs by using items or such. You had no control besides soft resetting ad nauseam. If it sounds bad it's because it is.

So to have a chance not only you needed High DV monsters (pretty much impossible by normal rules), but also fully trained and with the best moves possible. And you only got ONE SINGLE TM for many moves, and Pokémon learnsets were for the most party pretty lacking if looking at them from a competitive point of view, so you were screwed there, as you may imagine.

All in all, it was often seen as unfair and just not very fun. And if you wanted to try it anyway, add to that that the rewards were laughable. Vitamins that you could buy, and didn't help you at all because they became useless quickly, they only helped for less than half of the Stat. Exp total!

But here's the thing: I love the concept! The idea of having 3 monsters each, with the same level, where only your strategy, knowdlege and adaptibility can take you out of trouble, sounds great!

Even more, maybe if you got something worth your time as a reward it could be even more fun!

That's why a good chunk of the effort of this hack was about trying to balance types, moves, Pokémon and such. And also why the Battle Tower got so many changes!

So let's list the changes:

For starters, each of the ten Levels of the Tower got their Pokémon changed, both to update the new stats, but also to give much, much needed variety to the types of monsters you would see, as originally the game sported just a small number of different species.

Instead of 7 battles per round, now you have quicker rounds of 3. This makes for a much more brisk pace, a far less frustrating event if you lose, and easier to pick up and play.

About difficulty, it should still be a good challenge, although this time, there is some balance, as now you can properly train your monsters through vitamins and fruits, TMs hold a good selection of high-Power moves and they're infinite and of course DVs/IVs are the same for everybody.

Oh, and you can remember old moves, too!

There's also two Shops available for players, in which you can buy a selection of Held Items so you can prepare yourself to challenge the Tower, or to progress through the game, as trainers will start using Held Items more and more once you reach this point in the game.

Up to that point is the basic stuff... But the Battle Tower has also opened several shops and services, and there's even a bit of a progression system built into it, too!

Whenever you participate in the Battle Tower and come out victorious, you'll be rewarded a new type of Item: Battle Medals!

You get three for each victiorous round (so each three battles).

These objects are, basically, the coin of exchange for almost any service inside the Battle Tower. They are stored in your Item Pocket and can be used in a variety of ways.

For one, they're pricey objects, each one sells for 12.000P, thus they can cover costs for training Pokémon. Selling all 3 you win nets you 36.000P, which is pretty good if you realize you can buy enough Vitamins to fully feed a Pokémon in three different Stats (or four if you use Special Atk/Def Vitamins!).

So two good rounds of Battle Tower lets you set up the Stat Exp. of a Pokémon really, really quickly! Or you can buy other stuff with it, too. But that's just a bonus compared to their real use!

In the Main Hall of the Battle Tower, a new Receptionist hangs out close to the Battle Tower's usual lady that takes you to the battles themselves. This new NPC can reward you with a Silver or Gold Trophy in exchange for a number of Battle Medals. They're shiny decorations for your room... And hold some use.

The Battle Tower has been expanded and now there are new rooms that host several services. One of them, and one I'm rather excited to manage to put in the game is a Reward Shop that exchanges Battle Medals for Special Eggs!

Do you remember the event Pokémon from the Stadium games?

They were gifted to you after accomplishing something, and in Stadium 2, they had moves they couldn't learn normally. It was a nice little thing, and always made me feel curious about Pokémon with Moves that couldn't learn normally. You know, what new strategies could I come up with and such.

This service is located in a room behind the Main Hall. There, a Receptionist will take one of your Battle Medals and will gift you an Egg with a special Pokémon that knows a unique move!

There's a total of 50 different species you can get through these Eggs, and the one you get for each medal is selected at random. And every species has the same chances, no dishonest stuff like 0.0001% to get a certain Pokémon, like a Gatcha game.

Oh, and if you're one of those, don't waste your time resetting trying to get Shiny Pokémon from these Eggs... Believe me, it won't work.

Another service is the inclusion of Move Tutors!

There are two Tutors and each one can teach 4 Moves each. Seven of those are unique to Tutors, with an Eighth Move being Toxic, a TM you get veeery late, so I added it for earlier access, as some Pokémon (like defensive ones) do benefit from it or need it to work well.

Tutor Moves can only be learnt by Fully Evolved Pokémon, and you can do so only in exchange for one Battle Medal.

The move selection is composed of Non-Damaging moves to give more utility and so they can be applied to all Pokémon in one way or another, unlike damaging moves, and I would have liked to have more, but I hit the limit before the entire game gets corrupt, so these will have to do!

Both of these features not only offer much, much better rewards for your victories in the Battle Tower, ones that not only can be enjoyed throughout the rest of the game making it more entertaining, but also give you a chance to get a few monsters earlier and gives new possibilites to make teams to challenge the Battle Tower too.

...And that's not all you can do here now!

Besides normal Move Tutors, the Battle Tower has also hired a very special NPC: The Egg Elder... Or in other words, an Egg Move Tutor!

Basically, in exchange for 3 Battle Medals, this old man can teach a Pokémon an Egg Move that its evolution line can learn through breeding with other Pokémon!

And yes, any member. Pidgeot and Pidgeotto can learn moves that a bred Pidgey could hinerit, so no worries on that front!

This way you won't longer feel like your early-game teammates (or any Pokémon for that matter) feel gimped or "lesser" because don't have this or that move only available through breeding.

In a way it's like every species has its own specific Tutor Moves!

But let's continue.

The receptionist in the main hall (the one who gives trophies) also offers a new Key Item: The Box Changer. It does what it says, it gives you the ability to switch the Box on Bill's PC anywhere you want. Just remember that you still save your game when changing boxes this way.

Once you reach the "endgame", meaning, after defeating Red, two other Receptionists will open up new services. And are neat ones!

The first one is a Rare Candy shop! You will be able to exchange one Battle Medal for 5 Rare Candies. This will let you manage the Levels of your Pokémon faster, either to battle the new Lvl 100 Rematches, or to Level up your monsters to reach the Levels required for Battle Tower Rooms.

The other, it's quite different but way more interesting too.

You see, a new group of candies capable of changing the Level of a Pokémon to a fixed one now exist! There's Candies for Levels 10, 30, 50 and 80!

No matter what Level the monster is, it will change into the Level of the Candy!

If you give a Level 30 Candy to a Level 4 Pokémon, it will become Level 30. And If you give a Level 30 Candy to a Level 82 Pokémon, it will also become Level 30!

This is mostly for a reason: To be able to use your favourite pals in any Level of the Battle Tower!

Once a Pokémon Level goes up, it no longer can access the Battle Rooms of lower Levels, and if you wanted to use a monster of a specific species you already raised, you were forced to train another one. But no longer you will need to do that!

Now any Pokémon can battle in any Battle Room by using these new Candies in combination with Rare Candies, and you can perfectly control the level of your team for this challenge while also needing a bit of a resource (Battle Medals) to make use of it.

Not to mention, Level 80 Candies can make HUGE time savers for training Pokémon for those Level 100 Rematches, specially if we're talking about bred Pokémon, or Pokémon from Battle Tower's Special Eggs!

Now, be warned, you CAN NOT make use of all these features from the beginning!

Remember those Trophies I talked about? Yeah, they do more than look nice in your room. Each one unlocks features of the Tower!

Once you win the Silver Trophy, you unlock: Move Tutors (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Rare Candy Shop (You need to beat Red too). Level 30 Candies (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Level 50 Candies (You need beat the Elite Four too).

Once you win the Gold Trophy, you unlock: Egg Move Tutor (Accessible the moment you get the Trophy). Level 80 Candy (You need to beat Red too).

So yeah, you must prove yourself and get the Trophies to use all the Battle Tower has to offer.

But don't fret! There's not really much grinding to do. You'll see that the number of Medals needed to obtain each is pretty reasonable for what they unlock.

The game does not ask for hundreds of them for each, not even close! I know how tedious is to collect Battle Points for an Item or one-time use TM back in Generation IV.

And hey, if for some reason you still need a bit of a push, you can win Battle Medals by participating on Buena's Password.

They cost 2 points, you can get one Medal every two days. It's a much slower pace than actually fighting, but it certainly adds up if you play often.

And you also get a handful of them in Kanto, a certain NPC will gift you a bunch if you manage to do something, and some Gym Leaders will gift you one too.

Lastly, also in Kanto, there's the Trainer House.

Originally it was a cool little feature in which you could battle the Pokémon Team that a friend had when you two did a Mistery Gift.

Because I don't expect people going around doing IR connections with a Romhack, the Trainer House has been changed around.

I really don't want to say much, but here's this:

Normally, you can battle a special Trainer daily in this building. But once you've beaten the strongest trainer in all the land, levels are raised, and you can take Lvl 100 battles... With the difference that the Pokémon used in these new battles change depending on the day of the week!

And if you win, you also obtain Battle Medals!

It's a little extra end-game thing alongside the other end-game additions.

o-------------------o |[12] Visual Changes| o-------------------o

Many, many visual changes have been made throughout the game to make the world a bit more cohesive, to make Pokémon look better, or to simple improve stuff here and there.

Pretty much every Pokémon not named Unown got their colors changed, for ones that look better, closer to the original colors of a particular species, and also got their sprites touched up and cleaned up.

Because the games were originally designed to be displayed on the tiny screen of a GB, the graphic artists would try and take advantage to use the 4 colors available to a Pokémon sprite to give it more details. With the advent of the GBC, now they could use colors too, and because the screen wasn't backlighted, they needed to use stronger, more saturated and often darker colors.

The issue is that nowadays these games are pretty much always played on backlighted screens that are also much, much bigger than the original Game Boy's screen, so these graphics that originally looked fine now I don't find they've aged as well with the ways we play them today.

Now, let's be fair here. This is not a criticism for the sprites or the artists. These sprites were made to be seen under a specific hardware, and they worked with what they had, and the gigantic jump in design quality from Generation 1 to Generation 2 is to be applauded.

But at the same time, I think it's fair to say that there's nothing that says they can not be revised and/or improved. That's why I took the horridly tedious job of cleaning up every single sprite (and each of their animated frames) to make them look more clean when played on bigger screens.

I also took the liberty to tweak many of the colors used for Shiny Pokémon. This is something I've seen many people point out throughout the years, and it's true that the use of color for Shiny palettes leaves quite a bit to be desired, with many Pokémon being painted with what I saw called "Puke Green", and others having really dark and simply not appealing combinations of colors that sometimes would make the sprites look worse.

Several of those examples could be Blastoise, Raichu, Aipom or Golbat, and this last one even gets its shading screwed up. Or something like Rhydon, that looks exactly like the official art, while its normal color is much darker; with Pokémon like Phanpy, Sunkern, Xatu, Scyther and others looking very similar to their default colors.

Just have in mind I'm working with the limitations of the GBC and 4 Colors per sprite, so I do what I can do, although it's surprising what nice colors the GBC can display compared to the ones they used, but of course, I'm not doing this to be seen on real hardware, so I do not have that limitation.

You can check a couple of examples in the pictures inside the RAR file for both, sprite improvements and Shiny changes.

I also improved all the Back Sprites too, to keep consistency. And some Pokémon got entirely different sprites, such as Mr. Mime, or Wigglytuff, as there was better designs elsewhere, like Mr. Mime's Silver sprite. It's so much better in my eyes. And yes, they have animations.

Oh, and a handful of Pokémon got redesigns here and there. Don't panic, the changes where made only to humanoid Pokémon to remove incoherent stuff like Machoke and Machamps' underwear or the boxing gear of Hitmonchan.

This is because as time has passed it "snowballed" into a gigantic ball of nonsense. Now, it's not that I hate Pokémon with human-made things on them, for example we could make logical arguments on why they have them in the first place.

Very early Pokémon (back when it was Capsule Monsters) had a lot of very... morally dubious stuff in it. Trainers had whips, the monsters were sold in cages and there was a pretty clear aura of animal abuse in it all. The artwork was intriguing... And a bit worrying.

When you find out about that stuff it can make sense that humans would put things to restrict their Pokémon like the "strength-reducing" underwear for the Machop tree. Who knows, maybe that's why Pokémon such as Primeape have what looks like shackles on their limbs too.

And back in generation 1, there was only ONE Hitmonchan, given to you by a human. We can simply think the objects it wears are given to it by that person, and it would make sense. Jynx is also another Pokémon which can only be received once, also given by a human and looks like one, maybe there's something going on too.

And all those examples would be fine but then they're turned into nonsense when you can find these Pokémon living in nature with all that stuff on them, or they magically appear when evolving. It just feels... dumb to me, it is something that I could see other developers adress in different ways, but here they just where completely forgotten.

Because this thing is tailored-made for me, I decided to change it.

And talking about Jynx, when the beta sprite leaked from Red & Green leaks among others, it was pretty exciting to see that this Pokémon once upon a time was very different, with more of a yeti-like design, which can be traced to japanese Kaiju tv shows, like many early Pokémon designs such as Nidoking (look up Baragon). It apparently had a name that was a very easy to see nudge at Ultraman.

You can read about it here (and also see a bit of the darker Capsule Monsters stuff I mentioned above, but you can also search for early concept art):

https://helixchamber.com/2019/02/16/what-dreams-may-come/

During the development of the hack I went so far as to create sprites to change Jynx into this Yeti-thing, but as time went on I did not feel very satisfied, it felt like a random addition that felt out of place.

I thought of going back to the original Jynx, but I ended sending the entire evolutionary line away and substituting it with another Ice Pokémon from the third Generation.

...Anyway, moving on from that, each species has its own unique icon on the menu and the overworld too, which is a great thing to give flavour to the game, and seems like a new standard for Pokémon Crystal hacks (with good reason).

The overworld also got some big changes to improve visually, and sometimes, gameplay wise. Besides visuals, some places also changed in design a bit, for a number of different reasons.

For example some Kanto cities had their design changed to look more on par with Johto, as if you compare maps between places, and Gen. 1 and 2, you'll see they kinda look off and weird, as if it didn't have the same time and effort put into it compared to Johto (they didn't).

Places like Celadon and Fuchsia City for example look rather different, although they keep their overall structure, they just got a bit more going for them.

Also there's a few improvements on sprites. For example, I drew new sprites for when you're surfing, similar to those in Gen 3 with your character over a undefined Pokémon. And yes, they're different for both the male and female player characters.

There's also HUGE CHANGES in how information is displayed in several points, with the biggest improvement being the Pokémon's Stats Page. It took me quite some time to get it to look nicer and more organized / easier to read, and I even expanded it by adding a fourth Stat Screen to show some extra "for fun" info.

The font was also changed for a thin yet wider one, to make it less empty between letters, and also more consistent with the different characters, like numbers.

Also, HUGE, HUGE thanks to HyperDriveGuy's amazing work and effort, a way of improving the scrolling and movement on the overworld to make it much more smooth and, to be blunt, less disgustingly choppy if you're used to smooth scrolls.

This change to me is like magic, it makes the game feel so much better! To be fair, finding this improvement refueled my interest in continuing this hack, so thanks again HyperDriveGuy, your work is not just great, it also really did drive this guy forward, pun no intended... Or maybe a bit.

That said, coding this introduced some bugs, some of them harmless, and others being progress-halting or even game-breaking. But fret not, as I managed to fix them all with a bit of work, some trial and error, an a lot of luck, but it was all worth it because the result is a much more fluid experience that translates into a more fun game.

Overall, the game uses much less aggressive colors too, because 99% of the people that may play this (which that would make a total of 4 to 5 individuals, probably) will do it on a lighted screen. Also there's little touches here and there.

Another tiny change that makes a bit of a difference in the long run is battle effects. Most of them on Gen 2 used the same palette: Gray tones! Well, that's not that way anymore.

Most of the effects now have color added to them, and make battles look a bit more fun. A few effects were changed visually, even. For example, Pokémon no longer see "chickens" when confused. Now Pidgeys fly around their poor heads!

The Trainer's card also got a bit prettier, specially the Badges section. Oh, I also added a third page to your Trainer's Card, showing your progress through Kanto's Gyms. You only need to press Right while on Johto's Badge screen when you get at least one Badge from Kanto!

Asymmetrical Badges also spin correctly. Funny enough, the game has coded that function in, but it is only assigned to a medal that was symetrical (Clair's badge). Sounds silly, but once you start seeing Game Freaks coding it's... Actually par for the course, in a way.

o-----------------------o |[13] Tips and Questions| o-----------------------o

Tips: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What type of beginning you want? Each starter is going to change your early hours.

Taking in mind how things work in the Original version of this hack, Cyndaquil would make your first steps more easy than the other two, as his Fire/Rock typing would make him effective against the first two Gyms, while Chikorita's Grass/Ground typing would make it a bit harder than normal. Totodile, with its Water/Ice typing would be a medium difficulty.

But of course, the point of the game is to make more friends and balance your team! You could also ignore the starters and make your team without them. That's how I usually roll.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can get an Exp. Share very early on.

Once you brought the Egg to Prof. Elm, and you're ready to go away on your adventure, go back home and leave 2.000P with your mother. Once you battle once (With Youngster Joey on Route 30), she will call you, telling you she bought something for you. It can come in handy this early!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Talking about saving with your mother, she will buy many useful items, so it's in your best interest to send her money from the beginning!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ During your first few Gyms, look for people in green clothes near the towns and cities' main Sign. These people will sell to you Berries to heal Status Effects!

They will come in handy to prepare against the trainers and leaders there!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't waste your Fruits and Vitamins without having in mind what team you want! This becomes more important the further you go, because NPC trainers will have trained Pokémon either you've raised your own properly or not.

As you get more money, or get more fruits you'll be able to quickly prepare Pokémon, but early on you need to think ahead.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Talking about team, while I tried to make all Pokémon good and be on the same Level, that doesn't change the fact that having a balanced team can make things smoother.

Making a team of only slow, defensive Pokémon, or only quick but frail monsters can make things harder for you at certain points. Although, of course, you could just play with your favourites and tough it up. That's what I usually do.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Take advantage of Pokémon such as Meowth or Spearow, capable of learning stealing moves! They will help you to get ahold of many items, that you can either use or sell to make a profit.

Also, be aware of said Pokémon, as they may steal something you have!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Experiment! Because TMs are infinite, HM moves can be forgotten easily, and you have access to the Move Reminder freely, you're given the chance to try all sorts of combinations for a given species. Not to mention, the further you advance through the Battle Tower, the more options you'll have through Move Tutors and the Egg Elder to teach new moves, thus increasing the number of strategies for each species!

You'll only need to watch out for "Event" moves, such as the Odd Egg Pokémon, or the Special Eggs gifted in the Battle Tower, as each have a unique move and you cannot remind it if forgotten.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check the Game Corner on Goldenrod when you arrive!

They've expanded the number of prices you can get. For one, you can get HP restoring Berries there, with Golden Berries being really useful early on, and they're not that expensive.

Even more, new species of Pokémon have been added, and they're Pokémon hard to come by during the early parts of the adventure! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Can you get every single Pokémon in the game? How can I get Mew?

Yes, of course, what would be the point of a Pokémon Hack if you couldn't get every monster available in it by yourself?

There's a lot more variety early on, both so you can get your team-making juices boil sooner, and because different people like different monsters, and having a bigger variety helps with making more people happy.

Although for Mew, you'll have to buy my exclusive and new Park Ball Plus and send it to your game through my exclusive Park Ball Plus-To-GBC Link Cable(tm), or upload it to my exclusive service PokéMaeson Hostage Holdings, previous payment of course, and then you can connect your game magically to it through Infrared connection.

Really, it just works. Wait, are you going to play this on an emulator? Tough luck then, no Mew for you.

...Nah, it's somewhere in the game, you just have to find it, like the rest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Are you going to do more Pokémon Hacks?

Niet. Nee. Ahneo. Tidak. Nej. Nope.

...What I mean is, don't count on that. The amount of time I put into this is so big that I could have made several other things, the testing has been killing me the most. I have reached the point of burnout, I've been working on this almost on a daily basis for years. You can't imagine how many times this thing has been reworked and changed over time. Beyond that, my love for the franchise has pretty much being forced to disappear.

And even if I wanted to do more, I wouldn't be able to use any other disassembly project thanks to current DevkitPro versions being incompatible with 32 Bit systems; I'm not going to get a new computer only to do more of this, and going back to the older "Hacking Tools" is not a very welcoming idea, mostly because they're so much more limited and risky to use.

So, sorry but no, I have no intention, I have no energy, I have no passion for it anymore. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

o------------o |[13] Credits| o------------o This wouldn't exist without a lot of people involved with the Pokémon Rom hacking community.

Thanks and Credits to every single person on PRET, a community dealing with disassembly for many Pokémon games. These projects look like THE WAY going forward, how awesome they are.

Check it Here: https://github.com/pret -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to Rangi42, and all people on places like the Skeetendo and Pokecommunity forums, and many others that shared their findings and information about ASM, going so far to make great tutorials to teach stupid people like me how to do do a whole lot of things, fix several of the bugs in the game, and many other things.

Check it here: https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal https://hax.iimarckus.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, and of course, credits and thanks to Rangi42 again for Polished Map, an amazing utility for map editing, very complete and absolutely essential.

Check it here: https://github.com/Rangi42/polished-map -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to the TPP Anniversary Crystal 251 Project to create the code for the Move Reminder, which I adapted to my hack. I couldn't even have known where to start with it, and my hack is only better thanks to it. Also for giving me an idea of how to make Caught Data be shown in the Stats Page. My approach to how the information is displayed is different, but again, without TPP I couldn't have know where to start.

Check it Here: https://github.com/TwitchPlaysPokemon/tppcrystal251pub -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks and Credits to HyperDriveGuy for its example and implementation of "60 Frames per second" project, which created a new way of programming a Run Button, but even more incredible, it made the scrolling of the game as you walk, run, and ride so, so much more smooth. It's amazing.

Check it here: https://github.com/hyperdriveguy/pokecrystal-60fps-example -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Chamber, Soloo993, Blue Emerald, Lake, Neslug and Pikachu25 for their Pokemon Icons. While I did a number of them myself, I also used a good amount made by them, and also remade some of them from their initial work, so they deserve the credits!

You can see their work here: https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal/wiki/screenshots/minidex.gif https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiki/pret/pokecrystal/screenshots/minidex.png

Also, if you play my hack and find any of the icons or tweaked sprites I made good enough to use it yourself, go right ahead. Just give credit and you're good to go, don't even ask. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits and Special thanks to Vice04 for helping me test my hack over the years. May you never be assaulted by Level 168 Slowbros ever again.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music Credits:

Credits to FroggestSpirit for "Hoenn Wild Battle" and "Hoenn Trainer Battle" themes.

You can find FroggestSpirit music in this Soundcloud link, check it out: https://soundcloud.com/froggestspirit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits to Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for "Hoenn Rival Battle", "Route 101", "Cipher Peon Battle", "X/Y Rival", "Hoenn Champion Battle" and "Shoal Cave" themes.

You can find Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm music in this Soundcloud link, check it out: https://soundcloud.com/mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits to TriteHexagon for his Night Theme music for cities and his tutorial on how to implement them in the game. His ASM files and his Soundcloud can be found here:

https://pastebin.com/u/TriteHexagon https://soundcloud.com/user-930339535 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope I'm not forgetting anyone, it's way too much people hacking around the world!

#Pokemon #Crystal Maeson #ROM hack #Maeson #RPG

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loquaciousquark · 6 years ago

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E45 (Dec. 18, 2018)

Evening, all! @eponymous-rose is off tonight with such silly things like family and events and real life obligations, so I’m here to make bad jokes and have opinions instead.

For those who hadn’t heard, Brian & Ashley are engaged as of this week! Brian is taking both her last and first name to be ultra-progressive. Tonight’s guests: Sam Riegel & Matt Mercer. Matt is here willingly. Sam is not. We’re discussing Episode 45: The Stowaway, sponsored by LootCrate. Brian asks Sam for an impromptu song ad; he rhymes moot and loot and jigs and everyone is a little closer to death than they were a few moments prior.

Tonight’s announcements: Pub Draw & Name Drop are two new shows on the Critical Role channel--check out critrole.com for more details.

This Thursday’s episode is the last of 2018; Critical Role then returns on January 10.

Liam’s oneshot, The Night Before Critmas, airs at 7pm Pacific this Friday night. He’s been planning it for two years, and the VOD will be available December 23.

Talks Machina is also breaking for the holidays and will return on January 8, where they’ll have a cast-wide discussion on the state of the campaign so far. The questions open on Reddit, Twitter, and email on January 4th.

CR Stats: Nott has the most kills of the group with 37. The 45th HDYWTDT occurred in episode 45 as well. Twiggy’s dragon kill was the fifth guest kill of the campaign, and the 2nd guest HDYWTDT. In campaign one, guests got 22 kills and four HDYWTDTs. This was the longest episode of campaign two and the fourth longest of the series.

Matt and Deborah had met extensively to discuss backstory and mechanics, but hadn’t discussed much personality. The only person who wanted to check voice/accent was Khary (with Shakaste).

Deborah was one of the first guests they reached out to when they started streaming all that time ago, but she initially said no because D&D was such a personal thing for her and she didn’t want to share it with the internet. Everyone agrees she was worth the wait.

Everyone’s furious about Daredevil’s cancellation. :(

Sam thought it was fun to play alongside another Arcane Trickster because... “she was very good at it, all that great stuff that I forget to do.” Nott was jealous that many of the things that made her unique were present in Twiggy. However, the jealousy was later reversed because of how excellent Twiggy was in the fight.

The Happy Fun Ball was a narrative device Matt had been planning for a long time--he liked the idea of a pocket dungeon with lore attached. When they realized Deborah’s schedule would put her on a boat in the middle of nowhere, he found a perfect opportunity to bring it in.

Sam asks if Matt intended the device to be a one-use single episode thing, or something recurring, something for the party to further explore at their will. Matt explains very circuitously (and hilariously) that certain DMs may have in the planning of the introduction of the Happy Fun Ball originally intended for such Happy Fun Balls to leave with the guest, and were very surprised when said Happy Fun Ball (and all its hundreds of extraplanar rooms to explore) was left behind with the party instead. He then basically dares Sam to press a button and see what happens.

Nott doesn’t resent Fjord for touching the window or setting a time limit on the library exploration. While it was cool in the library, there were too many things attacking them.

Matt doesn’t necessarily intend his traps for Travis, but he likes having good buttons and bad buttons. “I just want shit to happen. Surprise me!” He admires the player that occasionally gets bold, rather than the one who always sends their minions out to touch all the tiles and trigger all the traps before they ever set foot in the dungeon. He also enjoys the meticulousness of Liam being at the same table as Travis’s impulsiveness.

Sam does not want the fans to send him larger flasks. His current flask holds 128 oz, which is exactly a gallon.

GIF of the Week: @criticalschluck with a hilarious movie-trailer-style GIF of Travis explaining he’s got an intelligence of 6 (Grog), then an intelligence of 14 (Fjord), then pushing buttons and experiencing... consequences.

Nott approves of Caleb’s choice to abandon the books to go back to the party. While she wants as much knowledge in his head as possible, it’s because “a smarter Caleb is a more powerful Caleb, and hopefully a Caleb that can stay alive a little longer.” Matt likes watching characters be put in situations where they have to choose between long-reaching character goals and the people they have chosen as their family. He was fascinated to see the struggle as he was ticking down the time on his sheet. He’s very excited to see what’s going to happen this Thursday.

Brian and Matt both fanboy over Sam’s 1hp decision.

Sam reflects on Jester’s being left behind--”not in a malicious way, you know, but sometimes in a big family someone gets left behind at a mall!”

Matt circuitously explains that the stained-glass window could be used to access other places. This man’s being slipperier than soap suds on wet tile tonight.

Nott was aware that the hit she took for Jester could have been a killing blow, but she was ready--”it was what goes through her head around Caleb a lot: ‘I’ve got to protect my friends.’” She’s very protective and very maternal, and Sam would have been okay if that had been the last of Nott.

Both Sam and Liam (and others) have begun to experience the in- and out-of-game changes that come with finally beginning to really know these characters. They certainly wouldn’t have died for each other at the beginning of the game, even knowing how hard their friends worked on these characters. It was originally a “system shock” (as Matt puts it) which required check-ins after certain blow-ups at the beginning of the campaign to make sure they (the players) were all okay. Now, though, they’re closer and closer to being willing to die for each other for both in-game and meta reasons.

Sam reflects on how both Caleb and Nott hate themselves, but manifest that very differently in how they treat other people. Caleb withdraws and puts up thick walls; Nott is quick to trust and care about everyone.

Nott is least close to Yasha at the moment. She’s still a li’l scared of her.

Matt had a few battle options planned out regarding which parts of which chamber were futzed with. The black tapestry was the one curtain they didn’t mess with that would have led to a “very rough encounter.” Matt had six maps built off-stage, just in case.

Sam’s backup character is a handsome actor named Sam Seagull.

Brian is annoyed that every encounter starts with the chat screaming “TPK.” Matt: “I hope not. That’d be my fault if that happened.”

While the dragon was very powerful, Matt had expectations that the party would understand very quickly that the fight didn’t necessarily have to end with the dragon’s death--he wanted them to understand the challenge was the exit, not the dragon. However, they came in in a different order than he’d anticipated, including party staggering, and that was when he started to get nervous.

Whatever magic had first triggered the first crystal would have been the same magic required to open the second door. It was proximity-based.

Fanart of the Week: @tehsasquatch, with this super-cool portrait of Nott.

On whether Nott feels as if she’s earned her comma: sometimes, especially in encounters like these, Nott feels just for a moment that she can be brave, she can be useful, she can be heroic--and then the moment it’s over the world comes crashing back down. When she’s out of those moments, she feels that she’s still just a goblin.

Is Sam ready for Nott to get the spotlight Fjord’s currently in?

Sam: No. Matt: [very intense face]. There’s a lot of backstory elements that he and Matt know that no one else is aware of, and he’s nervous about those coming to light.

The Traveler’s appearance was complete improv. Matt was reading the situation and the emotions and looking for ways to facilitate a heroic story, and when the dice worked in her favor, he felt it would be a wonderful, dramatic story beat to suddenly include--especially since the Traveler hadn’t responded much recently. Matt: “Yeah, that was really cool.”

The Traveler/Jester relationship has evolved in ways Matt both did and did not expect. He wasn’t sure how seriously Jester was going to take it. It’s the difference between believing in something and allowing that thing to define you as a person. He loves it. Sam: “The Traveler...is Taryon, right?”

Nott doesn’t see Caleb as abandoning her at all. “He’s a weak, puny man who needs to get himself out of danger.” It would have actually been harder if Caleb had been there, because if Nott had had to make a choice as to who to protect, Jester would be dead.

After Beau’s emergence from the orb, she probably for a few minutes would have thought that they were all dead behind her. It wasn’t that hours or days had passed--just a few minutes. Matt found Beau’s and Caduceus’s conversation at the end very fascinating and compelling, especially as a way to end the episode.

Nott agrees that Jester is not as happy and fine as she appears to be, especially after their talk about boys, but doesn’t feel it’s as severe as Caleb’s issues. “Jester’s a functional person.” However, Sam’s excited they’re getting past the “flitty person from the first half of the campaign” to the “core of sadness” as the story progresses.

Matt’s sure Yasha was not happy at all that her friends all disappeared without warning. “She spent six days thinking her friends were never going to come back. She doesn’t cry in a corner; she’s familiar with grief and loss. She hardens herself and moves on.” He’s hoping they’ll get to see some of that this week.

Critmas Spotlight: The Blind Weaver, a really, really cool 3D painting by a lady named Elaine Ryan, which has layers upon layers of polyurethane stained to make an amazing effect. See @elaineryanart on twitter and tumblr for more!

Talks Machina: After Dog

They decide where guests sit at the time of the episode. Matt likes to avoid the edges so they don’t feel like the outlier. Sam requests no attractive guests be placed immediately adjacent to him so that it does not detract from his glory. “That’s why I sit next to doggo Laura Bailey.” Brave man. Brave, foolish man.

Sam likes oatmeal raisin cookies. I am DELIGHTED, WHAT AN OLD MAN WHO SHARES MY TASTE. He also likes Werther’s, which is bringing back so many memories of my grandmother’s house. Matt likes ginger snaps, which are my favorite Christmas cookies also. I would kill for ginger snaps right now. Matt and Sam both are excited about pumpkin pie.

Essential D&D gifts, per Matt: dice, PHB, HeroForge custom minis if you really want to get them excited. He finds that getting in there and making a character can really help hook someone on the visual aspect & get invested in their character. Everything else is fluff. Sam suggests a music playlist for the first game; when he ran his first game with his kids, he liked having gridded paper to draw the maps on.

Matt does not feel that the crew of the ship has been mistreated, but they have been “neglected and dragged through places they didn’t expect.” He does think they’ll talk about everything they’ve done to all their friends and family when they get home in a very “you won’t believe this!” kind of way.

Sam always wears the same tie when he’s voice directing and on the first day of a new show. He’s wearing it tonight and can’t discuss the new show.

Favorite holiday movies! Brian: “Love, Actually” and “Die Hard,” as well as “Miracle on 34th Street.” Matt loves “A Christmas Story” (my favorite also, bless this man). Sam likes “Prancer” and “Scrooged,” but realizes mid-sentence that this is Brian’s first Talks as an engaged man.

Brian on proposing: ”It’s...the best.” They’d been together for over six years & met during the first Last of Us game. Brian describes himself as a former “piece of shit” and a very different person back then. Ashley had no expectations that he was going to propose & was totally surprised. Gah, this is too romantic.

Brian: “I always imagined for years what that moment would be like, and this topped all of my expectations... What more can you really hope for in this life than to feel that feeling with another person? It’s to me the pinnacle of our human experiences to be able to say ‘I’ve been through hell and yet found someone that I can definitely say I want to spend all the days of my life on this earth with,’ and the fact that it happened is fucking cool. It’s like heroin with none of the bad side effects.”

It was extremely stressful--but only the logistics. Apparently Matt’s proposal was extremely logistically intensive; Brian sympathizes.

And on that lovely, quiet note, we’re done for the night. Happy holidays, everyone. <3

#talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts #critical role #critical role spoilers

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chinmaster · 5 years ago

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An examination of RPG player behavior

How do the rules of a system encourage certain behavior? It's a massive topic and I'm only going into a surface level exploration- the following ideas each deserves its own lengthy examination but as of right now I don’t think I’m the person to do that examination. Additionally I'm sure that there are other areas that I will not have thought to cover that are at least as important as the ones I have. I would be happy to learn what others have found to affect player behavior that I haven't covered here.

I also want to be clear: I’m going to be using Dungeons and Dragons as a comparison system for a lot of this essay, but this is not a complaint piece about Dungeons and Dragons. The game is well known enough that I think it’s useful as a metric and, to me, it seems consistent enough in what it wants players to do that it seems useful as a 'control' game. It tells the sorts of stories it wants to tell very well, and if that’s the sort of experience you want then I would recommend using it. I should also clarify that none of these points are mind-control- playing a game that spends a lot of time detailing its investigative aspects doesn’t mean that a player is automatically going to engage the way the game is encouraging them to. But, just like advertising, I don’t think anyone is immune to being swayed to a certain extent by various factors.

Individual taste

Obviously, different people are interested in different things. For example, I really like delving into the way magic works in a setting (lore-wise more than mechanically, though the two generally have an effect on one another) and I frequently have an impulse to make characters that would interrogate it. So even if you’re in a system that doesn’t encourage certain behavior you’re going to have players that want to explore things that interest them. But I also believe that the game you play has an effect on player behavior as well.

Depth of which it delves into a topic

There is an inherent implication, to me at least, that the more time and energy that are devoted to explaining something, the more important it is. If someone spends 10 minutes trying to explain one concept to me and two minutes trying to explain another I’m going to come away with more of a focus on the first. Dungeons and Dragons devotes a vast amount of time to statistics, abilities, and strategies for combat situations. It has whole books detailing the combat capabilities of potential foes and the chapters in its core rulebook concerning what sorts of actions one can take in combat is much more granular than most of its other systems. Other things that a character could do in the game are less detailed/specific. To contrast, Blades in the Dark spends much of its time detailing ways characters can increase their chance of succeeding in tasks and how to avoid consequences when the dice don’t go their way. There is much less focus on detailed combat rules. Hence, at least to me, Blades encourages players to focus on their skills and ways to use them while D&D encourages thinking about ways to apply things to combat.

Amount of time it takes to deal with different kinds of problems

How does a character in Dungeons & Dragons locate something that is hidden from them? A single Investigation roll can do that, and we can just kind of elide the time that it takes to do so, so we can get to the interesting bit- how it affects the story. A combat though, even with an enemy that poses no real danger and has no significance to the ongoing narrative, requires a more in-depth scene to deal with. The game itself gives brutalizing a hapless goblin more ‘screen time’ than a potentially plot-defining revelation. Now, much of this focus is obviously up to the GM and the players, as player focus on a thing can extend its screen time a huge amount. But this discussion isn’t about how GMs and players focus on things- it’s about how a system in and of itself focuses on things. D&D’s rules played as written pushes more to the combat side of things. Ars Magica devotes a hell of a lot of time to magical research and innovating ways to learn and cast spells. It is likely that a lot screen time in a session is going to be spent in a wizard’s laboratory and how things are going with their experiments. So, to me, that time spent in the wizard’s lab is going to be more impactful on the game than what is comparatively little time spent blowing up orcs. The fact that certain things in a game receive more of this screen time is naturally going to cause players to focus more on those things.

Reward system

It might be pretty obvious but I still think it’s worth mentioning a game’s reward system. What does a game explicitly give to players that might encourage them to do things and for what reasons does it do so? Character growth is a pretty common one, but there is also narrative control, success in goals, and special considerations. Once again going back to Dungeons and Dragons, the only thing that is explicitly rewarded in concrete terms is combat. There is also advice for awarding experience points for social or exploration challenges, but they are much looser and mostly up to the GM’s discretion- advice rather than actual rules. As a game in and of itself D&D is only mechanically rewarding killing monsters. In Apocalypse World experience is rewarded for using certain skills selected by the GM (or MC if you prefer) and other players. In my experience, this leads to players angling to use skills that the other players and the GM/MC find interesting. Character success is another reward that can be mechanized to encourage player behavior. In 7th edition Call of Cthulhu, if a roll is a failure then the player may choose to ‘push’ the roll- that is, reroll the dice but with the threat of a worse outcome if they fail again than if they had just left the original roll. This encourages players to be a little riskier with their characters and to tell stories more in line with the source material of individuals getting in over their heads in pursuit of a goal. It rewards this risky behavior with the possibility of turning a defeat into a victory.

Punishment

On the flip side of rewards, a game can also punish behavior that it doesn’t want. Punishments can vary as much as rewards, though they are perhaps not as direct. To be clear, when I talk about punishment for unwanted behavior I am not referring to real life behavior or even intentional antagonistic in-game behavior. What I mean is that the systems of a game try to lead players to act a certain way and, whether intentional or not, may punish players if they deviate from that course. First edition Pathfinder, for example, tends to assume that players are going to optimize their characters for combat and if they don’t they can pretty easily become overwhelmed by the creatures they face as they advance through the game (this is, of course, assuming that character death would come as a punishment as Pathfinder does. Many other systems view it as less of a punishment and more of an interesting narrative turn). The second edition of 7th Sea, meanwhile, indirectly discourages the powergaming that can be found in something like Pathfinder by ‘flattening’ the combat. Pretty much anyone can excel in it and there’s not a lot of point to trying to optimize it. These diminishing returns are a sort of ‘punishment’ for focusing too much one one thing.

Player character abilities

What a character is able to do in the game is naturally going to affect the sorts of things they are going to do in that game. Dungeons and Dragons focuses a lot on how many hits a character can take, abilities that grant more damage against their enemies, spells to control a battlefield and blow things up, and things of that nature. There are certainly options that enhance a character’s ability to do other things as well, but there are far fewer of them than those that focus on death dealing and mayhem making. If your only tool is a hammer etc. The fifth edition of Legend of the Five Rings does have combat, even somewhat of a focus on it, but the characters also have other techniques to employ to a much greater degree than in D&D. There are courtly graces, among other things, that a character can master without ever interacting with the combat mechanics.

GM limitations/advice

I maintain that the GM is just as much a player in a TTRPG scenario as those that are traditionally referred to as ‘players’ though the distinction still tends to be useful and as coming up with even more terminology would be confusing to the point I’ll just refer to the normally held definitions of the two. The limitations and advice given to the GM in a given game is an important factor in player behavior. I have to admit that I’m not overly familiar with the advice/limitations given to a 5E GM as I have not run it, but I do remember back in the 3rd edition days (as well as in 1st edition Pathfinder) there weren’t really any limitations placed upon the GM’s authority and most of the advice centered around the pacing of a session, combat, and how to reward player actions in a ‘balanced’ way. Much of the GMing section was devoted to designing challenging but beatable combat encounters and exactly what kinds of treasure to award for completing the combat encounter successfully. This is naturally going to lead to an increased GM focus on combat and, thus, player decisions that focus on the same. In Apocalypse World and the games that followed the GM is limited in what they can introduce into the narrative and when they are allowed to do so. This opens up space for players to take control of the narrative, generally meaning bending it toward where they want to explore their individual stories. In Paranoia meanwhile, the GM is encouraged to act like a somewhat sadistic dictator which is going to result in player choices that uphold the eternal superiority of Alpha Complex and their good friend the Computer.

Setting

The setting a game takes place in is going to affect a lot of what players are going to feel like they are able/supposed to do. In a game like Good Society, a Jane Austen-style relationship drama, it’s unlikely that anyone is going to try to introduce a quest to seek a magical macguffin being guarded by a violent dragon. Similarly, the setting of D&D is not particularly well suited to exploring a love/hate regency era romance and maneuvering within its rigid social structures. But if you need a dragon fuckin slewn? You’re covered.

The hobby as a whole

This is sort of a meta category but I think it nonetheless deserves some amount of time. Dungeons & Dragons and its contemporaries have a huge influence on the hobby as a whole which I believe does affect how players behave in other games. They place an emphasis on combat oriented exploration with a strong guiding voice from the GM. Games that focus on other things or have different play styles can struggle to land with players that would otherwise enjoy them if D&D didn't set the standard for what a role playing game is 'supposed' to be. The fact that learning other systems can seem daunting can also lead to attempting to just use the D&D ruleset to try to get the experience of those other systems no matter how ill-suited it is to tell those stories.

So what was the point of all this? Honestly, like many of the posts I've written recently, a lot of it is writing down my own ideas for future design reference. But I think it also may be useful for examining how role playing games affect our thinking and how that can be used consciously by both players and GMs to make a more enjoyable experience. It's important for the game you're playing to match with what people want to do with their characters and disconnect between the two can suck the life out of an otherwise fun experience.

#ttrpg #table top rpgs #thoughts #game design

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obviouslyelementary · 6 years ago

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Sweet as Poison

Warnings: none

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A Destined Encounter

"Albus, we have a guest"

From the paperwork, his eyes moved up, towards the possible guest they were receiving so late at night. As he did, his eyes met with the ones from earlier, the ones he had seen before during the Durmstrang presentation, and those eyes met his back, staring at him just as deeply as he stared back.

The two of them stayed silent, until Serena turned back towards Albus, finding his silence strange. He shook his head just a bit and stood up, sending the Durmstrang student a small smile.

"Hello. How can we help you?" he asked, walking around his desk and approaching both the boy and Serena.

"He says he wants to find a Gryffindor's friend of his" she explained, as Albus kept his eyes on the boy in front of him, and the boy did the same, the smile a little more clear now. "Just tell us the year and name and we can go call them for you"

"Actually I don't quite remember his name..." the boy said, looking back at Serena, for the first time looking away from Albus. "In reality I... I think I will take your advice. I probably should be going, after all, I don't want to go against the rules of the school by being out of bed too late"

"But you already came all the way here" she replied, annoyed, and sighed. "Fine, fine. You can come back tomorrow, maybe you will find him through the halls. Do you at least know his year? I could give you a schedule for the classes the years normally take"

"I believe he is in the fifth year" he said, and Serena hummed, beginning to write down the classes of the fifth years. Soon, she handed him the parchment and nodded.

"Most fifth years in Hogwarts do these classes. Make sure to look for him tomorrow, and if you can't find him, return to us" she said, always politely, and the Durmstrang boy took the paper, nodding quickly.

"Excuse me, what is your name?" Albus asked suddenly, and the boy turned to him.

"Gellert Grindelwald"

"Pleasure. She is Serena Hochman and I am Albus Dumbledore, if you ever need anything" he said, because for some reason he didn't want the boy to go just yet. The boy smiled and gave him a little nod. "You can go now, I hope you find your friend"

"Actually…" Gellert said, looking back at the entrance door and furrowing his eyebrows "I lost myself from my group and never got to actually… go to the Slytherin chambers. I don’t know the way there and this school is awfully confusing"

"Albus, please" Serena said, already knowing what the boy would request, and Albus looked at her, amused. "I have so much stuff to do"

"Of course" he answered, smiling towards her. "As if I didn't. But sure, it will be better if I go. Specially to Slytherin dorms. I will be back as soon as possible"

"Don't worry about it. I will finish it up here, when you return go to the tower" she replied, before she looked at the Durmstrang boy and smiled. "Albus will take you there. Have a good night Gellert"

"You too miss Hochman" he answered, politely, and she chuckled.

"Serena is fine. See you later" she waved, and Albus smiled, nodding for Gellert to follow him out of the prefects room. Gellert followed, silently, and put the parchment inside his pocket as they walked to the hallway outside.

"Mister Grindelwald-" Albus began, amused, but the boy cut him off.

"Call me Gellert"

"Well then. Gellert" he started again, turning to face the boy once the door closed. He looked right back, silent. "You don't really have any Gryffindor friend, do you?"

Gellert's eyes widened just a slight bit before he snorted quietly and shrugged.

"Is it that obvious? No, I don't have any friends here at Hogwarts. Not yet, at least" he said, smirking a bit, and Albus nodded, intrigued.

"What year are you on Gellert? Fourth?"

"Fifth. But on Durmstrang we go up to the eighth year, unlike Hogwarts. I still have a long way to go."

"indeed you do" Albus nodded, and began walking, with the fifth year right behind him, eyeing everything with a wonderous look that Albus hadn't seen in a long time. "So tell me, what was the real reason for you to come to the Gryffindor's prefect room in the first place?"

"Well, I was looking for someone" he admitted, and Albus looked at him curiously. Gellert looked back, and shrugged, a small curve on his lips. "I saw them wearing red clothes and when I asked the girls in blue, they said red was Gryffindor and if I should go anywhere to find a Gryffindor person, would be in the prefects' room"

"They weren't wrong. However, you didn't ask for anyone" Albus continued his enquiries. "Which tells me that you either gave up, or you already found who you were looking for"

"It could be one or the other. Or I was lying since the beginning and wanted the access to the Gryffindor tower for another reason entirely" was the response the Durmstrang boy gave him, and Albus became even more curious, turning to look at him and only receiving a sly smirk in return. "Something wrong?"

"You Durmstrang boys hold your reputation" Albus said, chuckling to himself and stopping to wait for a flight of stairs. Gellert stopped next to him, staring ahead like he was. "You would all be good Slytherins. Cunning and mysterious"

"Who told you I was cunning?" Gellert asked, sounding playfully offended, and Albus chuckled. "In all honesty, most of Durmstrang boys are stupid, that’s the truth. It is no wonder why I am one of the best students in the whole school and am only in the fifth year. They have everything handed to them, so they don't have to think. They just have to do. And when one of us thinks, the teachers take us as brilliant"

"That doesn't sound very challenging" Albus said, walking forward as the stairs stopped, and Gellert followed, both of them looking at each other. Gellert shrugged, tapping the stone handle as they walked down.

"It isn't. Not in an intellectual level at least."

"I've heard you have constant battles. That teachers encourage students to use spells on others. That you train curses on each other"

"Well, yes" they stayed silent for a moment, and Albus wondered how it would be like, to constantly be in alert inside your own school. "But that is the thing. In Durmstrang we learn how to actually do magic. I've heard Hogwarts is the best theorical school of all continent, but also that you are not allowed to test your skills in anything other than puppets or trained personal. That is no way of training the true potential of a spell"

"Hogwarts doesn't like getting students hurt"

"Sometimes you have to do things you don't like for progress to be achieved"

Albus looked at Gellert, his heart skipping a beat for some reason. Gellert looked back at him, his different coloured eyes making it seem like he was the most balanced creature in the whole universe. It was quite breath-taking, how one of his eyes could be so warm and inviting, and the other so cold and distant.

And then suddenly, there was a hand over his arm and Albus stopped, frowning and looking forward to see he was about to step over the edge of the moving stair.

"Thank you" he breathed out, leaning backwards and staring at the hand still on his arm. Gellert slowly removed it, and chuckled, tilting his head.

"I know my eyes are fascinating but please, don't kill yourself over them"

Albus saw the small smile on the boy's mouth and felt his cheeks burning in embarrassment, making him look away immediately, searching for the stair's base so they could get out and follow the path to the dungeons.

After a moment of silence, as they began walking again, Albus let the embarrassment go, and looked back at Gellert, who once more seemed distracted with the walls and the paintings around the hall.

"What were you really doing in the prefects' room?" he asked, a little more serious now.

Gellert looked back at him, from the corner of his eyes, and then looked back at the walls.

"I was looking for someone"

"Which someone? A friend? A teacher? Someone you know?"

"Someone I've heard about. Dreamt about"

"You've dreamt about someone from Hogwarts?"

Gellert stopped and looked at him, blinking slowly and keeping his face expressionless. Albus stopped as well and looked back, waiting for an answer.

However, he did not receive one.

"Why did you stare at me so intensely during the presentation?"

Albus was extremely caught out of guard by that question, his heart racing once more and his skin prickling with shame, although he wasn't sure of what exactly.

He had just been… drawn to the boy, that wasn't something strange or wrong, his magic was just fascinating, and he was the last one in his group, so the attention would be focused on him anyway.

And for the why they locked eyes… that wasn't only his fault. It was the boy's too.

"I… don't know" he answered, sincerely, and looked away, towards the hallway they should follow to reach the dungeons. "We should walk faster, it is almost time for bed"

"Dumbledore?"

"Call me Albus"

"Albus…" Gellert approached, and Albus only knew that because he could hear his steps coming closer. "May I ask something of you?"

"… of course" he nodded, but remained his eyes facing the hallway. Gellert, however, walked around him and stood in front of him, eye to eye. Even if they were one year apart from each other, Gellert was the exact size to stare at him without looking up or down. The simple presence of this strange, unknown boy already made Albus' stomach turn. It was almost as if he represented constant danger. It was something Albus had never felt before in his entire life.

It was intoxicating, and strangely pleasant.

"I know they will assign us someone to show the castle, but just in case they don't or I don't adapt, could you show me around?"

Albus looked at him surprised, and all the twisting in his stomach seemed to stop.

"You want me to show you around? To be your companion during the time you're staying?"

"Well, yes"

"Oh Gellert" Albus chuckled, shaking his head and fixing his glasses, before crossing his arms. "Believe me, Gellert, you do not want to walk around with me"

"Why not? You are the Gryffindor prefect, one year older than me, and seems to know a lot about the school" he said, smiling towards Albus. "I think you would be the perfect companion. Besides, I doubt I would do so well with a Slytherin"

"Gellert, trust me. If you stick around me, you will get no friends. I am not… very sociable, I like staying in my room and in the library, and I have so many things to do that I wouldn't have time to show you anything at all" Albus insisted, shaking his head, but Gellert moved closer.

"Please? I don't want to make a lot of friends. Only a handful of actual good friends. And even if it is just you, I am pretty much like you. No friends, studying all the time… Honestly I just don't want to be around someone that will actively try to show me everything. I just want to study and relax"

"I… I will think about it" Albus said, but Gellert smiled as if he had said yes already. "try out with the companion they will give you. If you don't adapt, you can come look for me"

"Alright" he agreed, and then nodded to the hallway. "Lead the way please"

And Albus did, wondering what he had said that was good enough for a boy like Gellert to want to stick around him.

Honestly, he had no clue.

----------------

Upon reaching the dungeons, Albus showed him the correct door and left him to return to the Gryffindor dorm room, while Gellert, stared at him walking away, an amused smile on his face. As soon as Albus disappeared into the shadows, Gellert smirked widely and laughed, rubbing his eyes and entering the dorm room.

Everyone was gathered around close to the fireplace, and no one noticed him entering or sitting down by the edge of the group. They were explaining something about the rules of the castle, but nothing Gellert was really interested in.

What he was interested in was in the fact that he had found the boy that resembled the person from his dreams, and he had easily convinced him of being his friend.

For Gellert it was obvious that he was lonely, and also that he was one of the best students in Hogwarts. Gellert knew how to read people like reading a children's book, and with this Albus Dumbledore was no different. From the way he had stared at him during the presentation, to his surprise at his arrival in the prefect's room, to the way he acted around Gellert, he already knew befriending him would be easy.

He was lonely, unhappy and intelligent. He had no friends and didn't really try to make any. He was the exact target Gellert was hoping to find, and better yet, he was so alike the person in his dreams that Gellert could swear it was him. But as he wasn't sure just yet, he would leave the information of whom he saw in his dreams to himself a little longer.

Now, he just had to convince Albus he wasn't adapting to the Slytherins and keep himself around him all the time, to find out more things about him and his family that could reveal who was the person in Gellert's dream and how he could get them to unite with him for the confection of his plan.

Perhaps he was a little obsessed, but he couldn't deny the connection he felt whenever their eyes locked into each other's. It was almost as if destiny lined up their lives for them to meet at that exact moment.

And Gellert Grindelwald was not one to play with destiny.

#my fanfic #sweet as poison #sweet as poison chapter 4 #grindeldore #gelbus

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ad-ciu · 7 years ago

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Of Gods and Dice: Conclusions

The depiction of the ‘Celtic’ Pantheon in Dungeons and Dragons, Fifth Edition is a good example of the general failings to make resources on ‘Celtic’ religions and mythology accessible to the general public. There are several notable issues, and challenges that the presentation of these Deities illustrates rather clearly to us.

For people who are not particularly bothered about my thoughts on this matter, I’ll start this post off with a collection of updated or revised information for the ‘Celtic’ Pantheon if anyone wants to look at that specifically. If you would like to read my rationalizations for any of these, check out the individual posts linked below.

The Dagda - The Good God - Link

Alignment: Neutral Good.

Domains: Knowledge, and War.

Holy Symbol: A Cauldron.

Arawn - Lord of Annwn - Link

Alignment: Lawful Good or Lawful Evil.

Domains: Trickery, Grave (XGtE).

Holy Symbol: Head of a Hound with Red-Gold Ears.

Belenus - The Defender of Aquileia - Link

Alignment: Neutral Good. (No Evidence Remains)

Domains: Light.

Holy Symbols: Six Spoked Solar Wheel.

Brigantia - Teutates of the Brigantia - Link

Alignment: Neutral Good. (No Evidence Remains)

Domains: War.

Holy Symbols: Spear in a River.

Dian Cécht - The God-Physician - Link

Alignment: Neutral Evil.

Domains: Life.

Holy Symbols: Medicine Bag.

Dunatis - The Bulwark Upon The Mount - Link

Alignment: Neutral Good. (No Evidence Remains)

Domains: War or Protection (Unearthed Arcana).

Holy Symbols: A single stone taken from a hillfort.

Goibhniu - The God-Smith - Link

Alignment: Lawful Good.

Domains: Forge (XGtE).

Holy Symbol: Spearhead with three small hammers around it.

Lugh - The God of Upper Social Classes - Link

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral.

Domains: War, Trickster.

Holy Symbol: Spearhead.

Manannan mac Lir - God of the Sea - Link

Alignment: Chaotic Good.

Domains: Tempest, Trickery.

Holy Symbol: Ship with no sail.

Math Mathonwy - God of Judgement - Link

Alignment: Lawful Good.

Domains: Nature, Life.

Holy Symbol: Staff.

The Morrígan - The Great Queen - Link

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral.

Domains: War, Trickery.

Holy Symbol: Raven’s head in profile.

Nuadu - The Lost King - Link

Alignment: Lawful Good.

Domains: Protection (Unearthed Arcana).

Holy Symbol: A silver hand.

Oghma - The Champion - Link

Alignment: Neutral Good. (Not Really Established)

Domains: War, Knowledge

Holy Symbol: Ogam Stone.

Silvanus - Why Is He Here? - Link

Totally Got Uninvited.

I think they meant to invite Cernunnos.

But someone mixed up the address.

There are a few things I would like to spend some time looking at in relation to what we can learn about the accessibility of ‘Celtic’ Mythology to the general public from this. Firstly, the notion of a ‘Celtic’ Pantheon existing.

So, there is no such thing as a ‘Celtic’ Pantheon, at all. I discuss this here, my very first post from this collection. I find this to be a very interesting common misconception, but it makes sense. We, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘the modern Western World’ ‘get’ several Pantheons. The Greco-Romans, the Norse, and the Egyptians in descending order of how much we ‘get’ them. The differentiation between Greek and Roman Deities is something I am seeing more of online, people are getting that these entities are very different in several cases. Ares-Mars being the biggest in my mind. This is, I suspect, due to the massive presence classical texts still have in our world. The Song of Achilles (which I find problematic in a few ways, but it’s popularity interests me), the Percy Jackson series, all that. The Classical world still has a big presence in our pop culture, and the information out there with exceptions made to Persephone and Hecate, tend to be fairly good.

Comparatively to this, the resources out there for the ‘Celts’ is utter trash. I did a little experiment a few days ago and checked out the first page of results of ‘Celtic Mythology’ on Amazon. Utterly terrifying. Some good stuff! Some horrifically bad stuff, and the horrifically bad stuff is way more alluring, sweetly scented rot. Celtic Mythology: A Concise Guide to the Gods, Sagas and Beliefs by Hourly History is uncomfortably bad. Celtic Mythology: A Captivating Guide to the Gods, Sagas and Beliefs (I literally only just now noticed the similarities in names... strange) by Matt Clayton at Captivating History is even worse with a splash of climate change denial. And that’s just from the first three results.

The notion that there was a ‘Celtic’ Pantheon is perpetuated by works like these, accessible, sweet smelling, rot that is peddled to the general public in a more accessible way than Celtic Studies is managing to produce. This is what consider the ‘First Hurdle’ for the field to deal with, to educate the general public enough to realize that just as the Romans and Greeks are rather different, so too are the Irish, Gauls, Brythonic Britain, Manx, Welsh, Picts, Cornish, and Galatians.

The second important note I think we can see with the presentation is that the the author was using some sort of dictionary of Celtic Mythology to write the Deities here. As I discussed in several of my posts, the authors got just enough points about the Deities to make an okay guess at their details, but lacked the details of the culture that spawned them, or the actual features of their character to properly develop an alignment or holy symbol.

Further, I suspect that this was not the best dictionary due to the depictions of Math Mathowny, The Morrigan, Oghma, Brigantia, and Lugh. They have some telltale marks of curious depictions, such as Math being a horrible evil person, Lugh just being Lug, Brigantia and Oghma having their military functions filed off, and The Morrigan just being depicted oddly.

This again comes back to the utter proliferation of bad resources, bad money drives out good. The abundance of dodgy resources creates a level of ‘noise’ that accurate depictions can’t pierce. Honestly, I think the only way to resolve this well is to take a lesson from the creator of Theoi.com, and put an enormous amount of effort into forging something as brilliant as that for the general public. It would be really hard... maybe a good PhD project... hm. Anyways, yeah.

Oh, and, I still don’t know why Silvanus was invited. And someone should write on the notion of Dungeons and Dragons that nature is a non-morally aligned thing.

Until I can get my hands on Deities and Demigods, I’m going to look at Smite probably. I will sort something out.

#mythology #irish mythology #celtic mythology #gaulish deities #dnd 5e #dnd #celtic

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sg2tiger · 7 years ago

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Back again for another year of games!! I dunno, making these lists is kinda fun, and it also tends to help me actually finish games I’ve started, so I’ll probably keep doing it at the end of the year for as long as I can be bothered.

As usual, the images mostly speak for themselves, but the obligatory TL;DR reviews are under the cut. May contain spoilers.

—————————————— Kingdom: New Lands (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— For a game that only requires one button and a joystick (or some WASD if you're into that sort of thing), Kingdom is surprisingly fun. I hesitate to call it 'tower defense' because it's not, but it's definitely got a similar sort of feeling to it. Like tower defense meets resource management/building game. You - the monarch - ride around on your horse and use your carefully-managed budget of coins (and by carefully-managed I mean you can and will probably run out at some point and fuck yourself over if you haven't planned well) and recruit peasants to join and defend your steadily-growing kingdom. Give them a coin and either a bow or a hammer and a peasant will become a worker, to build and repair your towers, or an archer, to hunt by day (to earn you coins) and defend your towers from the monsters who come out at night. You can have workers cut down trees to expand your kingdom further, allowing more room for towers and eventually farms to be built to keep your coin supply steady, and upgrade your intially-tiny campsite into a true fortress. Your goal is essentially to keep building your kingdom out as far as you can across the island, while making sure it's not overrun by the monsters who get steadily more powerful every night. The monsters can and will destroy your towers, and if they catch your workers and archers they'll turn back into wandering peasants who you will need to seek out once more to give new coins. This can be tricky, too, since their campsites may be deep in the woods, and night can fall quickly if you venture out there unprepared - having the monsters attack while you're not behind the safety of your castle walls can instantly spell game over. If you manage your resources right, though, you will eventually have enough of a coin surplus to repair the broken ship lying somewhere in the wilderness, which you need in order to escape the island and move onto the next level.

All in all Kingdom is as mechanically simple as it gets, but can prove quite a challenge to survive. I think my best game lasted about 38 days, and I did manage to get at least to the second island. Plus, the visuals are absolutely gorgeous, with beautiful pixel art and lighting. It's a great game to play if you just want to unwind without thinking about anything too complicated.

—————————————— Stardew Valley (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— If you like Harvest Moon, you'll like Stardew Valley. I'm sure this has been said a million times, but really it's about as simple as that. That's not to say SV is just a 'HM clone' of course, but the similarities and inspirations are abundantly clear. There's a lot to do, interesting characters, and even a lot of mods if you get bored of the base game after a while. I think I got through about my first year before I started losing steam, and never got around to tinkering too much with mods. I should go back and give it another go sometime.

As consequence of writing this review practically an entire year since I last played, I can't think of anything more specific to say. But I do remember enjoying it.

—————————————— Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— If you liked Borderlands 2, I can't think of a good reason NOT to play TPS. It seems to get an awful lot of undeserved hate simply because 'it's not BL2', which, well, is stupid. Borderlands 2 is a great game and I can understand people feeling like TPS didn't quite live up to that reputation, but that alone doesn't make it a bad game. It's not Borderlands 3 after all - it's The Pre-Sequel. It exists to fill in the gaps between the first and second games while providing an experience and humor more similar to the second, if somewhat shorter.

One thing I particularly liked and hope we see again in future installments is that the player characters felt more real. They actually TALK to the other characters during the storyline quests, rather than feeling like essentially blank slates outside of their combat banter and backstory Echoes (of which I was never able to find all in BL2). It made me feel like my character was more involved in what was going on, and actually had more of a connection to these events and characters. I played Athena in my singleplayer game because she's the narrator of the framing story, but I was Nisha in my multiplayer game and played with a Baroness and Holo-Jack. It was fun hearing the vastly different types of commentary depending on which one of us handed in a quest, which gave more variety to the characters. I'd like to do another solo run as someone else someday even just to hear all their unique quest responses.

Also, managing O2 isn't THAT bad once you get used to it. It's a little bit of a pain early on, but once you get a decent Oz-Kit it's pretty manageable. Oxygen bubbles are plentiful on the moon's surface, and there's a lot of zones that take place almost entirely in oxygenated areas to boot. Plus, slamming is a lot of fun. I thought the mechanic was a nice way of differenciating the game a bit more from BL2, in a sorta gimmicky way without feeling terribly frustrating. Also, the grinder made getting Legendary weapons somewhat feasible compared to BL2, and there were many times I'd just spend over an hour going between the loot chest and grinder over and over. ...I mean, I don't do that. Using a save editor to give yourself infinite gold keys and playing the whole game with purple guns is cheating, and I would never do that in BL2 or TPS. Not ever.

Anyway, TPS was fun. I never got around to playing the DLC, so I guess I'll have something to look forward to next time I get the urge to do a new solo playthrough as a different character.

—————————————— Riff Racer (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended ——————————————

Another one of those 'zip around a track to your own music collection' games, so naturally I had to take a look at it. Audiosurf was my first Steam game, after all. Unlike Audiosurf, though (to which comparisons are inevitable since they're similar at a glance), Riff Racer is actually a RACING game. At least to the extent that one can race against oneself. You basically load up a song to generate a track, just like Audiosurf and similar games. If you're the first person to ever run that song, any other player who ever plays that song will be racing against your ghost - likewise, if you do a song someone else created first, they're the score you wanna beat. There's no actual other cars on the track though, just you and a lot of obstacles to avoid, ramps to jump and curvy tracks to drift. Drifting is the main way to earn points, and is also the most fun part of the game. It took me a bit to really get the hang of it, but once I did I started seeking out songs that were likely to have a lot of tight corners to drift around. I was floored when I actually managed to pull off the achievement for drifting 16 beats in one maneuver, because for the longest time I could barely manage to drift 4. And the feeling you get when you're actually able to beat a powerful ghost is [relieved] [okhand]

Of course, a lot of people play this sort of game just to chill out and not worry about things like leaderboards and high scores. That's totally fine too!! It's a great game to just sit back and chill out with, just drifting along the track with your favorite tunes. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who's into games like Audiosurf - I get the feeling it's a bit of a lesser-known gem, and it totally deserves some more love.

—————————————— Persona 3 Portable (PSP) FINAL VERDICT: UNFINISHED —————————————— I started playing this in March, I think...as I write this, it's December, and I still haven't finished. I know P3 is one of those games that makes the 'must play' and favorite lists of a LOOOOT of people, and many will hail it as the best JRPG of all time...but I have to wonder how much of that is just being blinded by nostalgia. I certainly don't think there's ENOUGH of a difference between the Portable and PS2 versions that I'm missing some great secret that makes this game so much more amazing than I can see, at least.

I haven't picked it up in a while (I've played it on and off throughout the year) but I believe I'm somewhere around the end of September or beginning of October in-game. So I'm certainly not dismissing it after only a few hours. In fact, I'm not dismissing it at all - as a MegaTen fan, I do want to finish it at some point. Really, I just keep getting burned out by Tartarus. For me, games are games - if all I wanted was a compelling story and interesting characters, I'd read a book. A game needs to first and foremost engage me with its GAMEPLAY, and while I do enjoy story-driven games with interesting characters, that alone isn't enough to save it if the GAMEPLAY isn't engaging me enough first!! And Tartarus is just...bad. I'm sorry, but one dungeon with semi-randomized floors where the decor only slightly changes periodically as you climb higher and every single floor is practically the same grind of collect items/attack or avoid enemies/find the stairs...that's just not fun. Like not even a little. It got old somewhere around the second block, and by now I'm on, what, fifth or sixth? I can't remember, it's all the fucking same. And while I enjoy MegaTen combat, and P3 is sorta similar to the push-turn system, even those get old after a while of the same 3 encounters ad nauseum for the next 15-odd floors until you hit the next boss. It didn't take long for me to start playing with my volume muted outside story segments (I use the undub patch, otherwise I'd probably have it muted for the entirety of the game) because I was sick of hearing the same OOOOOH YEAH!!! DADADA-DA DADADA-DA!!! over and over again. One thing I've always hated is games that run on having a LOT of battles and grinding, but only one piece of battle music outside boss fights. It's cruel and unusual.

Anyway. Tartarus aside, the game's alright. I personally find social links a little odd, because I'm linking with people unrelated to my struggle against the Shadows (I still haven't hit lofty the requirements to link with the girls, and outside the PSP-exclusive non-canon Girl Route you can NEVER link with your male teammates). It's this bizarre sort of disconnect - I understand that these people are part of my life in their own ways, but it feels very segregated. I should be bonding with the people in my party, the ones living in my dorm, my fellow Persona users who understand the stress we're under and can relate to my struggles. Instead, I'm cringing at a wannabe playboy who thinks his teacher wants to bone him, or a rules-obsessed student council jerkbag, both of whom I have to tell what they WANT to hear and not how I ACTUALLY feel because it's all about leveling up those sweet sweet link ranks. Devil Survivor 2 used a similar link system (most likely inspired by P3, since I believe that came first), but instead of being random people from my class/town I was actually linking with my party members. Being able to bond with the people I'm spending most of my game with felt a lot more meaningful to me than the P3 links - in fact, for the first in-game month or two, I kept waiting for some of my early links to find out about Shadows and get moved into the dorm as playable characters. I was very surprised to find out that they just ultimately had nothing to do with the main gameplay and storyline whatsoever. Maybe that's the point. Maybe there's some profound reason for this that I don't know yet because I haven't finished the game. But to me, it feels disjointed and unrelated to the main game I'm supposed to be playing here.

Social Links, and Tartarus. Aside from the storyline itself, those are basically what make up this game - and I'm not terribly fond of either. Sure, I'm enjoying the story well enough, and the glimpses I get of my party members through the main storyline and things like the hidden camera videos...but that's not enough for me. The GAMEPLAY needs to win me over as much as the story, and it's just not. I'd like to stick it out and finish it, and I do still pick it up from time to time...but there's a reason I haven't finished it despite starting it so many months ago, and this is basically it. I simply don't find it fun. And it's great if it's the favorite game or best JRPG for a lot of people? But it's not that for me.

(I'd also like to play P4 and even P5 someday, but I don't own any consoles so I'm basically riding on the popularity of things like Dangan Ronpa to convince more Japanese developers that porting their games to Steam is worthwhile...otherwise I'll probably never get to play either of those)

—————————————— Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— While I ultimately burned out before I could finish my NG+ all the way through and then go to Bitterblack Isle, I had a lot of fun with this game. DLC aside, I basically 100% completed everything else - all normal quests (had to catch a few missable ones on my NG+ for the achievement), all regular notice board quests (including the annoying ones like mining a fuckton of that one rare mineral or getting 100 clumps of hair or whatever it was, and the one with all the skulls), and even got all the badges (also including the missable ones on my NG+). The badge sidequest should absolutely have an achievement attached. I'm not sure why I bothered actually...personal satisfaction, I guess. Either way, I only bother to put that kind of effort into a game if I really enjoy it, so that says it all right there.

Dragon's Dogma, on the surface, is a fairly generic fantasy RPG. The world of Gransys is pretty dull - aside from the small village where you grew up, there's pretty much just the One Big City, and long stretches of wilderness with a fortress or two. The NPCs are mostly generic peasants with a handful of quest givers, aside from the story-important characters...and everyone talks in this weirdly forced archaic style where 'aught' is the most popular word in the entire world. Hearing your pawns say the same 3 stock phrases over and over again also gets really old - yes, I know that goblins ill like fire, I've probably killed more than a million of them by now!! The story is also told in a really confusing style to where you probably won't grasp what's actually going on until you go through a New Game+ - not because it's terribly difficult in itself, but just because of the odd way in which the game gives out information. Having to talk to an NPC 3 or 4 times in order to hear all they have to say in a given conversation doesn't help matters, either, because if you don't know enough to do that you may well only speak to them once and then walk away, simply not having enough information to know what just happened. It's basically Capcom trying to apply JRPG logic to an open, WPRG-style world, and it doesn't always work.

That aside, however...the real meat of the game is in the combat. The hack-and-slash combat and multiple character classes with their own abilities and playstyles is what really makes the game. I found it similar to Kingdoms of Amalur, if slighly more robust - not surprising, though, since it's from the same company responsible for Devil May Cry. So you can be certain that the combat always feels engaging and solid. The best part to me, though, is the giant monsters. After a while you'll get sick of cyclopes and chimera (the most common large monsters), but in the early game they're appropriately terrifying. You're ENCOURAGED to climb up on them and go after their weak points, rather than standing at their feet slashing away like an idiot. If you're fighting a cyclops, naturally you'd go for the eye. But what if it's an armored cyclops, with a helmet protecting the eye? Then you have to get the helmet off before you can really damage it. If you're fighting a chimera, each part of the beast does something different - you generally want to kill the snake first so it can't poison you, but meanwhile the goat is shooting magic at you and the lion is tearing you to shreds with its claws, so situationally it may be better to take out one of those parts first. With each part, you disable and severely weaken the beast, making it easier to finish it off. Every enemy has a weakness like that, and it's particularly important for the giant ones. And God forbid you don't take advantage of the weaknesses when fighting a dragon (sorry, a drake/wyvern/wyrm), you're pretty much guaranteed to die.

Another thing I really liked was how much nighttime really ups the terror of encountering giant dangerous enemies like this. Gransys isn't nearly so big a world as it tricks you into thinking, because there's no mounts and fast travel is fairly limited/difficult for the first half of the game or so. This means that if you want to get anywhere significantly far across the map, you're going to have to pack enough lantern oil and prepare to travel during the night. Night in Dragon's Dogma - even with a lantern - is PUNISHINGLY dark. This is the kind of darkness you WISH your Skyrim lighting mods and ENB could achieve. Your lantern only illuminates a small circle around your character - just enough to see where you're going and not bump into things. But not enough to warn you of a chimera about to leap at you from the darkness before it's far too late to dodge...something that happened to me once during the early game and nearly gave me a heart attack (I don't play horror games because I can't handle jump scares, but this chimera had more or less the same effect on me). You have to be very cautious and very quiet, and sticking to the roads can mean the difference between life and death. Resource management is also important and you can't just stock up on 300 mega-heal potions at once - even in the late game, you'll still only be buying/finding the lowbie herbs, so you've got to combine them together yourself to make more powerful healing items. The crafting system is also forgivingly simple (a case of 1 + 2 = 3, across the board) so it doesn't get overly tedious to have to spend a little prep time rifling through your bank storage and combining some items before adventuring.

The pawn system is also a lot of fun (despite how much their repetitive dialogue will grate on you after the first hour). I've always preferred that JRPG feel of traveling with a party of adventurers to the WRPG style of being a wandering solo hero (I'd travel with 3 followers in Skyrim if having even one follower didn't tip the game balance so far in the 'too easy' direction). By mid-game I'd basically settled into Magic Archer as my class, so I'd usually have a fighter (my pawn), a mage (dem heals), and either a ranger or strider to fill in the gaps. It really captures that sort of oldschool JRPG feel of traveling the little 8-bit lands with your little 8-bit party...but like, in a 3D third-person open-world(ish) way, so more immersive. I only wish there were more dungeons - after backtracking to the catacombs and the canyon place 300 times within a playthrough, it got pretty stale. But the first time through the Water God's Altar I remember feeling like this was a JRPG-style dungeon given life, with the puzzle solving that's almost never present in WRPGs.

In the end, while Gransys itself always left me wanting something more, the core mechanics of the game were solid enough to keep even the multiple backtracking trips to the same 5 places fun. And while the story was a bit convoluted in how it was told, once I really put together what HAPPENED in the end, I was speechless. Not to say it was some kind of incredibly profound, award-worthy storytelling experience, but it was one of those moments where it all clicks together at once and the realization sets in and you just sit there for a few moments thinking, 'oh my God'. I won't say anything more so as not to spoil it, but don't be quick to dismiss the story as just an excuse plot for a game that's only about the combat, either. All in all I'd definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys RPGs, J- and W- alike, and I really really wish we'd get Dragon's Dogma online someday, or another single player game as a sequel, or something. I just want more.

Guess I'd better get my ass to Bitterblack Isle.

—————————————— Sunless Sea (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— Having played Fallen London before (on and off, with very long breaks in between because I keep forgetting it exists...then I go back for a bit, rinse, repeat), I sorta knew what to expect with Sunless Sea in terms of narrativ style, setting, and general weirdness. What I didn't realize was just how HARD it was gonna be. Within less than 5 minutes of making my first character, I got eaten by a shark. Amazingly though, through numerous EXTREMELY CLOSE brushes with death and, dare I say, miracles...my second character (Tigeru 2, in a name scheme that shows just how long I expected this character to last) is miraculously STILL ALIVE. In addition to surviving, though, Tigeru 2's life goals consist of finding the bones of their lost father and also killing crabs. Lots of crabs. Like, all of them. Because fuck those guys. Anyway, it's hard to REALLY give a solid verdict on this one given the general style of the game and the fact that I haven't gotten very FAR yet...but it's good at being what it set out to be, and that's a difficult exploration game set in the Fallen London universe.

—————————————— Darkest Dungeon (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— I had my eye on Darkest Dungeon for a while before it left early access, but was never quite ready to drop any money on it because the reviews would often swing wildly between positives and negatives. Conceptually, I loved the idea - that the reality of dungeon crawling would not just be heroic, climactic battles but also stress, resource management, and fear. But while it sounds good on paper, it also sounded like something that might work better as an anime plot than a video game, because maintaining those exact same resources could quickly go from 'fun' to 'chore'. Anyway, I finally decided to take the plunge during the summer sale, and it's almost addictively fun...in small bursts. It's the kind of game where I can get caught up in the 'just one more level' dynamic for a while, but also the kind of game that feels repetitive and tedious after so many runs fighting the same enemies over and over. But I also think that I'm playing it 'wrong', in a way - because I don't want to lose the characters I've worked so hard to build, I'm playing it too safe. I'm so terrified of dying against bosses that I've actually OVERLEVELED my best characters, not realizing that characters who are TOO strong will refuse to take on levels and bosses they deem beneath their ability. If your heroes are too strong for the weaker missions, you just won't be allowed to bring them.

Some might call this a type of 'fake difficulty' but I'd disagree because it really does enforce the game's entire theme. Which is actually kind of nice because it ensures you're forced OUT of that 'playing it safe' comfort zone that I was trapping myself in, waiting until you're so OP you can stomp anything that comes your way. That sort of gameplay goes against everything Darkest Dungeon stands for - the whole point of the game is that you're NEVER going to be truly prepared for the horrors that lurk here, and that there's no such thing as weak enemies or an invincible party. Your preparedness to tackle a dungeon lies not in your character's levels and OP abilities but your ability to manage resources, trinkets, phobias and diseases, and picking the right heroes for the job instead of steamrolling every level with your 4 favorites. And even then, there's the RNG...which is something I really hate, and the subject of many negative reviews, but I honestly think it also makes sense for this game. Again, no matter how prepared you are, you're going up against unspeakable eldritch horrors here. YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY ACCOUNT FOR EVERY CONTINGENCY. Sometimes you can do your absolute best and things will still end up going terribly wrong because you were just unlucky. Heroes will die. You may have to drop rare treasures and flee just to save at least one life. It's bound to be frustrating, sure, but it's the very nature of this game to be like that. All you can do is make the best of a bad situation, and rebuild from your losses to continue on. No, it's not going to be easy - but if that's what you expected, you picked the wrong game in the first place.

—————————————— Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: BUGGY AS FUCK ——————————————

I grew up on Baldur's Gate (well, Baldur's Gate II moreso) when I was just a wee child. Thus, when I found out they were rereleasing 'enhanced' editions, I was very excited. However...anyone who has played Baldur's Gate or similar CRPGs from the days of yore knows that they're long, and often tedious games. So while both enhanced editions sat in my Steam library for a long time, I could never bring myself to actually want to sit down and PLAY them because the idea of starting such a long saga was daunting. But during the summer, some friends I often play co-op games with proposed the idea of doing a multiplayer run...and it sounded fun!! At first.

At least, until we realized that Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition was barely 'enhanced' at all. Aside from a few new characters, it was basically just the original game...bugs and all. And there are a LOT of bugs. In fact, this is quite possibly the buggiest game I have ever played, and I wish I were exaggerating. We tried our best to deal with the snags and press on, but it eventually just got to be too much, and none of us were really having any fun with it. Thus, we decided to call it quits and do a multiplayer run of Neverwinter Nights II instead.

Unless you're a hardcore fan of the originals or a serious masochist, I couldn't recommend this game. Maybe the enhanced BG II is better...and maybe someday I'll find out. That was literally my childhood game, after all. But BG I EE...is just bad.

0/10 would not Enhance again.

—————————————— Tabletop Simulator (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— Simultaneously not an actual game, but yet, every game known to man. You know that feeling when you walk into the local comic and games shop and see all these really cool games that you and your friends would have a lot of fun with...if your friends didn't all live halfway across the country - if not other countries entirely? Because I know that feel, and it sucks. Enter Tabletop Simulator, where those games probably already have mods...and if they don't, you can make your own with just a little ambition and elbow grease!! In fact, I've got 181 hours in TTS currently, and I'd wager less than 50 of that was spent actually playing games with friends - the rest has been me MAKING games to play with my friends. I made Umineko Clue (AKA Clumineko) as well as a version skinned for my friends and our roleplaying OCs...then I adapted the Risk-based game of gang warfare that I'd made as a final project in my game design class in college...then I just spent ungodly amounts of time decorating a 3D room with 3D objects to play games in with my friends, AND applied the same treatment to revamping the Clumineko mod into an entire 3D room based on the iconic witches tea room. Never in a million years would I call myself a 'modder', but I actually learned how to do some basic stuff in Blender and Unity ENTIRELY so I could make fun games and shit to do in TTS with my pals.

It may not be a 'game' so much as a sandbox physics engine with which to make and play many games with ease, but even so I'd be hard-pressed not to call it one of the best games of all time. If you have a good group of online pals I seriously could not recommend this one enough.

—————————————— ICEY (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— At the very last minute I found out about the Steam Link bundle deal in which you'd get the normally-expensive device for $1 with purchase of a little-known little 2D action game. Despite not having a great interest in the Link, I could hardly pass up the offer to get it for a dollar, and the game seemed pretty fun besides. On the surface, ICEY is a pretty fun little action platformer...but ALSO on the surface, it's a meta game. And that's because it advertises itself in exactly this way. That's the biggest flaw with ICEY, I think - you don't make a meta game and then say 'hey, this secretly is a meta game!!'. If it had downplayed those aspects and just branded it as an action platformer with maybe some cryptic hints that there was more to it than that, encouraging players to explore and find out what's going on in the game's multilayered world...it would have been a lot better, and maybe could have gone on to become a cult favorite instead of flying under everyone's radar. That aside, it's a pretty good game. The action is actually quite fun on its own, and uncovering the various endings is entertaining. The English voice over could use some work, but it's a Chinese game that only recently even GOT an English voiceover, apparently, so it's hard to fault that too much. Again, the meta aspects would have been more enjoyable if the game didn't advertise it outright, but it's alright.

I haven't actually finished it yet (think I have another boss or two to go; I got stuck and haven't yet gone back to it) but if the story actually ends up making sense in the end that'd be nice. I'm sort of waiting for that kind of payoff because right now everything just seems a little nonsensical. For what it's worth, though, I did have fun playing it.

—————————————— World of Warcraft: Legion (PC) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— I first included WoW on my 2015 games list, back when I first started playing. My verdict was essentially 'it's okay I guess, but it feels super dated all around and not very welcoming to players expecting a more modern game'. Well, obviously that hasn't changed - old content is still old content - BUT, with Legion, I feel like the newer content is at least taking steps in the right direction towards making the game feel less dated overall.

Legion was actually my fourth WoW subscription. Since my best friend has been playing for like 8 years and is really into the game, I get free subs thrown at me at least once a year, and I play for a few months until next time. My previous subscription ended just on the heels of Legion's release, and the changes to all the classes hit me pretty hard when suddenly my preferred Rogue spec (Combat) was altered so completely that I just did not want to play anymore. Everything I was used to was retooled, if not completely gone...and I was angry. But having an entire year to cool off and lose that muscle memory, I came into Legion with a fresh spec (Outlaw) and a new region to explore.

Legion content was definitely the most enjoyable to me so far. After making it through all the older content during leveling, my highest version during my first subscription (and review) was Pandaria, so I spent by far the most time playing in that zone. I liked the aesthetic, but the gameplay still felt dated, and I spent most of my time working on my farm or building rep with two factions who had mounts I wanted. Draenor wasn't TERRIBLE, though I had more fun building my garrison than I did questing the actual Draenor zones. Legion was the first time I felt like I actually had a LOT of different things to do, and had a real sense of character progression for the first time. I admit I know almost nothing about WoW lore (nor do I care to go down the rabbit hole of learning it), so there was a lot of ??? during the main Legion questline, but I still felt like I was being engaged in a real STORY for once. The cutscenes and voiced dialogue went a long way to making the game feel less old-fashioned, for one thing. For another, having the order of each zone be up to player's choice because of leveled enemies gave me some much-needed freedom during leveling, and not feeling like I either had to stick around in a lowbie zone with no EXP for the sake of following a storyline...or moving through the zones so fast that it wasn't even worth bothering to follow along with the stories because I'd only abandon them all halfway to move onto the next higher-level area. In Legion, I ended up doing basically every single quest in a zone before moving onto the next one (though I'd then do all the mandatory dungeons in one burst rather than one at a time). I actually read through the quest text instead of skipping along and just trying to hit 100 as soon as possible. And when I DID hit 100, halfway through Highmountain (having done Azsuna and Val'sharah already), I continued the Highmountain quest to the end and then did all of Stormheim.

Hitting level cap no longer felt like I'd met the 'goal' of the expansion, and had nothing really left to do but fuck around. After finishing all four main zones, there was Suramar, and the Broken Shore. There were world quests and the reputation tied to those. There were the class weapon quests, and the goal of gaining the class mount. There were even the falcosaur quests which I just barely managed to finish before my sub ran out!! Plus, having played September/October/November, I also had a lot of holiday events to work on (it was my first Brewfest, and then I went about finishing the Halloween and Thanksgiving achievements I didn't get last time I played in the fall). And in addition to all of THAT...I also got my Hunter through the rest of Draenor so he could do Legion content, too. I had wanted to make a Demon Hunter after that because it seems like the sort of class I'd enjoy playing, but I didn't end up having the time for that. Point being - for the first time, Legion gave me a whole lot of stuff to do, and I never really felt like I was 'done'. Every time I met one goal, there was another to work towards. That's the kind of experience I feel is really important in a game like this...but something I always sorta felt I was dragging myself through in past subscriptions, where I'd spend more time doing pet battles or trying to get transmog gear and mounts and basically anything but actually questing. This time, the questing and dungeoning didn't feel like a chore, or just a means to an end. The whole Legion experience managed to be enjoyable - and I never even wound up going to Argus.

By the time I play next, the newest expansion will be out, and I'll have even more to do. I hear there's gonna be new playable races this time, so maybe I'll even end up making another alt once I get my Rogue and possibly my Hunter through the expac content. Plus I can still make that Demon Hunter and go through Legion again. All in all I think WoW is finally breaking through my initial perceptions of it being a dated game, more fun for long-term players or hardcore raiders and not so much for newcomers who are more into PVE. What the new expac brings remains to be seen, but for once I'm optimistic that I'll end up having some fun with whatever that is.

—————————————— ARK: Survival Evolved (Steam) FINAL VERDICT: Recommended —————————————— Growing up, there were three things in particular that captivated my interest (and also conveniently my Lego sets): pirates, ancient Egypt, and dinosaurs. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag captivated the first. Assassin's Creed: Origins will no doubt captivate the second, once it drops in price enough that I can actually buy it. And since I somehow doubt that assassins existed in the prehistoric eras, picking up the third interest is ARK.

I'd been watching ARK with a close eye since the early access days, precisely because the very concept of taming and riding dinosaurs sounded rad as fuck. It made it from my 'following' list, to my wishlist, to my 'groans sadly' list during every Steam sale when it'd drop no lower than $18 which was still far more than I was willing to spend on an early access game whose reviews were always swinging wildly between positives and negatives - particularly in the optimization department, as I had doubts that my computer could even RUN the game comfortably in its then-current state. Finally a friend of mine (who had bought and refunded the game several times already, also I believe due to optimization issues) had started playing it comfortably and generously gifted it to me about a year ago, just a short time before it finally left early access and went for full standard retail price. As predicted, I could barely run the game...even on the lowest graphic settings, with no sky effects and on the low memory setting, I was getting about 15 FPS just trying to walk around on the initial beach where I'd spawned. I sadly had to shelf the game and hope that I'd be able to play it someday in the future, when it was either optimized better or I'd upgraded to better hardware.

Now, both of those things have happened, so I decided to give it another go. Now that I can run it at an average 50 FPS on a mix of medium to high graphics settings and have actually been able to PLAY the game, it's the early days of Minecraft all over again, and I can't stop. I've been playing both singleplayer and multiplayer with a friend on an unofficial PVP server, and each game is sort of its own experience. The PVP server has everything set to 10x, so gathering resources and EXP all goes REALLY fast. I'm already like level 70 after only playing two days of multiplayer, and we've gone from a somewhat crude houseboat base to a slightly less crude base in the mountains with a decent crop of early to midgame dinos (we had more, but some died to alpha raptor injuries with others being on the wrong end of a tame and otherwise non-hostile T-Rex and its fertilized egg). Meanwhile in singleplayer, which I've actually spent more time in (only doing multi when my friend is available), I just hit level 30 and am only now starting to feel confident enough to venture away from my crude campsite on the beach where you first spawn...and have faced more than a few setbacks already. I did turn my dinosaur tame settings up to 10x (because waiting several REAL WORLD HOURS to tame critters is like, unreasonable) but otherwise I'm running just standard growth rates for everything, plus going solo...so it's a much slower experience overall. I want to keep my singleplayer experience a bit slow and steady, with more of the intended 'harsh survival' feel to help me better grasp the basics of the game before getting too adventurous playing on servers without the help of my friend, but once I feel that I've got a good handle on the game and its dangers I will definitely branch out more.

Between PVP, PVE and mod-based servers, not to mention the other official DLC maps, ARK is a game with a LOT to do. If I ever actually manage to conquer The Island, there's still a ton of content left waiting for me, giving the game a long life with lots of replay value. The only thing is that I tend to get burned out on games that have SO much to do and little in the way of like, actual endgame goals, so I'm sure I'll hit that at some point - but for now, I'm just having a blast enjoying the ride.

—————————————— Fire Emblem Heroes (Mobile) FINAL VERDICT: S'Alright —————————————— I don't normally include mobile games on these...well, probably in no small part because I don't normally PLAY mobile games. But, being a fan of the main Fire Emblem games, I decided to check out Heroes back when it first launched earlier this year. And it kept my interest for several months, which is impressive considering, again, I'm not really that into mobile games. I was impressed by how much it captured the same basic feeling of a Fire Emblem game despite being distilled down into a simplistic bite-sized mobile system - incredibly easy to just pop on and kill some time, but also enough to provide a challenge for those who want it. The 'story' was never really anything more than an excuse plot, but it's not as though I would have expected much more for a game like this in the first place so I don't really dock any points for that. All in all it's very good at being what it set out to be - a simple implementation of Fire Emblem as a mobile gatcha game.

Before long, however, it got very stale. For quite a while, new characters were introduced few and far between. It felt like 90% of the roster either came from Awakening or Fates (at the time the most recent games in the franchise), with almost everyone else from the Marth games. Games like Path of Radiance and Sacred Stones had next to no representation. As someone who has yet to play Fates, having that HUGE pool of characters from both games making up most of the heroes felt alienating from the start. Naturally, in a game like this, you most look forward to getting your favorite units...so for me, that part of the appeal was already lost, since most of my favorites weren't even IN the game. By the time they started adding in more variety my interest in the game was already waning, because it just felt like there wasn't much to DO. Once you've cleared all the story maps, it's basically just grinding your units up in the training tower, doing the arena 3 times a day (unless you build up a small fortune of dueling swords over time from the daily login rewards, which I did), and waiting around for a decent challenge map Tempest trials didn't even exist at that point. Of course, there was always quests, which for a long time I did try to complete as many as possible of before the month was up - the problem is how incredibly unfair so, SO many of the quests are. Almost every one with a worthwhile reward requires all 4 units to survive, which is fine...good rewards should be earned through challenge. But when you add to that '...and you have to use all red units' or 'a team of fliers' or something extremely specific like that, and the map is specifically designed to pit you against a bunch of blue units or archers...asking all four units to survive ON TOP OF THAT is just outrageously unfair. There's a big difference between the sort of strategic challenge of a regular Fire Emblem game and the kind of 'fake difficulty' imposed by these quests, and it got to where they just plain weren't fun anymore.

Without wanting to do quests, things got boring quickly. Sure, they introduced skill inheritence, adding a new layer of customization...but not only does that sort of micro-managing not appeal to me personally, but having to go up against ridiculously overpowered units in the arena and losing constantly made THAT not fun anymore either. No longer was it just about what units you got lucky enough to pull in a summon and took the time to raise to 5 star max level, but ALSO about what units you were lucky enough to pull and feed to your 5 star max level units to create the most broken and unbeatable character builds. That was around the point where I stopped logging in every day, only playing sporadically...and then, eventually, almost never at all.

I know by now they've introduced even more changes. Suddenly there's been a huge surge of new characters from the new and upcoming games, and then I log in and see that winning in the arena now nets you coins and other items that I have no idea what they're used for, or how I see some kind of element marker next to my name that I also don't understand. There's new story mode quests now, it seems, but for me it's all just too little too late. The initial months of the game were very stagnant compared to now, and it wasn't enough to keep my interest. By now, my lofty arena rank has fallen due to inactivity, and my once massive stockpile of orbs has dropped down to less than 10 because the most I might do is hop on and run one of the new summoning events in hopes of getting a character I actually care about, but end up walking away with 5 3-star Ests yet again.

I'm a Fire Emblem fan, but not a mobile gatcha game fan. It's hard to really say whether I'm FEH's target audience or not. All I know is that I had some fun for a while, but that time's now passed.

—————————————— Dragonball Z: Dokkan Battle (Mobile) FINAL VERDICT: Bretty Gud —————————————— After the above review, it may be surprising that I ended up giving another mechanically similar mobile gatcha game a try. It's no secret to most who know me personally that I have a very love/hate relationship with Dragonball. It was my adolescent obsession and the reason I even got into this crazy anime world in the first place, and will always hold a special place in my heart...but I also despise literally everything the franchise has become, and Super just plain does not exist in my world. So why would I play a game that basically exists to promote the Dragonball of today, full of Super characters and weird SSJ3 fusions and all kinds of other stuff that I hate? Peer pressure, mostly.

That aside, I've only been playing for a few weeks now (I think my consecutive logins are in the 20s, and I've logged in every day since I began), but I'm enjoying it so far. There are a lot of systems that are naturally very similar to FEH given they're both the same genre of mobile game, but in most cases I feel that Dokkan implements them better. For instance, duplicate units. In FEH, all those 3-star Ests are useless. 3-stars are almost never worthwhile for skill inheritence, and the effort it would take to rank them up is simply not worth it when you could invest your feathers in 4-star characters. In Dokkan, however, I can use those duplicates to increase the special attack of the original, or to unlock paths in their hidden potential. Plus, ranking up weak units is a lot easier. A 3-star Est may not be worth investing the time into raising, but an R or SR Dokkan unit can be trained with very easy-to-acquire training items and awakened to a higher level - and oftentimes awakened even further if they're given a Dokkan mode. In the event that you pull characters that truly are useless, you can at least cash them in for some trade points that can be used to buy rare items or characters in Baba's Shop, or just sell them for Zeni, which will get you more use than the small pittance of feathers you'd get for releasing duplicates in FEH.

Of course, aside from sharing those gatcha game staples, they're two totally different games and it's probably not entirely fair to compare them...but since I have played both and have no experience with other gatcha games, naturally I'm going to compare my experiences. Gameplay-wise, Dokkan seems at first like a pretty simple 'tap to match the colored line' game, which is a far cry from even the simplified Fire Emblem strategy battles in FEH. The complexity of Dokkan comes less from the orb tapping itself and more from the other aspects of team building. Using units with good skills, and who share links to power each other up, is often just as important as getting your purple character to get a long chain of purple orbs. Gathering medals from maps and using them to train and awaken your characters, and unlocking their hidden potential, are all more important in the long run than tapping the pretty colored lights. Basically, the actual 'battle' of Dokkan Battle is the least important part...though they can still require some strategy in the more difficult missions (where just having your purple unit grab a lot of green orbs isn't going to be 'good enough'), and you can still feel satisfied if you manage to pull off a really long chain and activate a super attack at just the right moment.

As I said, it hasn't been long. I may very well get bored of Dokkan in a few months just like FEH before it. But for now, I'm having fun, and I think a lot of the gameplay is more fair and balanced than the often-frustrating FEH. I will probably continue playing at least a little bit each day for some time yet.

#video games #SG2 plays video games #SG2's game reviews #game reviews #my shit

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shazyloren · 7 years ago

Text

The Room: Chapter 8 - Chewing the Fat

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12710496/chapters/29134314

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Jon found himself being constantly surrounded by the sound of voices whispering at Dinner after his first day back. Why? Because he'd had an argument with Daenerys in double charms at the end of the day, sou naturally, the whole school knows. In all honesty, Jon hadn't even meant for what he said to sound as bad as it came out, but apparently saying that she's about as level headed as a dragon in heat wasn't a good idea. He'd had to go to the hospital wing after being hit with a stinging hex and he'd become severely red and blotchy.

He needed to figure out what her problem was; yes he'd probably pushed it over the line but she'd called him a moron after he'd defended her so he had felt the need to defend himself in the end. It was all rather confusing. He really didn't know how it happened; she'd seemed in a reasonable mood when she'd entered the classroom and was talking with the Sand twins from Slytherin. She'd even cracked a smile, which immediately disappeared when she saw he was looking. She was almost two different people sometimes.

As he was Head boy and she was Head girl (this whole unity thing was really going to kill them both); Professor Flitwick had seen fit to partner them up together. Aguamenti was the charm and while they both knew it well it was non-verbally that needed to try and water the flower pot in front of them. They'd been polite to each other for most of the lesson, it wasn't until someone from the back of the class shout out that it went wrong. They asked Daenerys if she had all her toes or if because her parents were brother and sister they wondered is she was missing some digits.

Jon had been fuming. It was downright rude to disrupt the class and even though he may not agree with her people's practices, she was their Head girl. Jon; forgetting their was a higher authority present in the room; deducted ten points from Gryffindor to make a statement. There was a shock of silence that rung through the room.

His own house; people were shocked. And defending Daenerys too; something he thought would never happen.

None more so than Daenerys.

He'd turned to see her fuming and couldn't understand what her problem was. 'Don't stick up for me when you make just as awful jokes about my family when you don't know anything yourself' she'd said. Jon knew it to be true; but he asked her to calm down, saying she was overreacting. A rough exchange of words were flung at each other and thus he called her as levelheaded as a dragon in heat, and he got a stinging hex on his face.

And some joke Professor Flitwick was, he'd become a shadow of his former self since he began teaching after his death in ghost form. He just floated there and watched the whole debate take over the classroom as Head boy and girl came at odds with each other. Jon just left to go the the Hospital wing with no further comment after the stinging hex, leaving Daenerys to scowl at the place he'd been. Madam Bones had fixed him up easily enough and by the time he reached the Great Hall everyone was filtering in from classes too.

Robb sat next to him at the Gryffindor table then, drowning out the whispers with his presence. He looked smug; as if he had a million jokes to make at Jon's expense but he did not know which to pick. Jon knew everyone was going to know what happened by the time the evening meal was over. "You took points off of Gryffindor on the first day... some impression as Head boy you've made"

"Shut up, Robb" Jon grumbled as he poked at his chicken on his plate. He hadn't eaten much but he really didn't feel like doing so. Daenerys had pretty much been on his mind since he'd arrived at school over twenty four hours ago and he just couldn't work out why. "She's just frustrating; I wish we didn't have such a spiteful past and she'd truly let me know why she's such an arsey little shit sometimes. I've spent the entire day thinking about everything she said in the great hall last night and now, I have no idea who she even is"

"I think you're in love" Robb tried to tease.

"Fuck off" Jon snapped. "I'm just confused"

"Because you're in love" Theon agreed. Jon found himself scowling at them both. Theon yielded. "...with yourself?"

Jon sighed, they were both really no use sometimes. Theon was Robb's lapdog at the worst of times; and they both liked to gang up on Jon on occasion leaving Jon to brood for several days. One time, they'd forced him to go to Hogsmeade with a girl Theon liked to try and plant seeds of how nice a guy he was but she and Jon had ended up making out in the Three Broomsticks. When Jon came back and told him what happened Robb was the first one to state a sabbatical of ignoring him and Theon followed suit. That was the longest period they went ignoring each other. And the girl had ended up liking Theon and dating him for a bit anyways so it had worked out in the end.

There was a sudden silence in the hall and as Jon looked up, Daenerys was walking towards him with a hint of anger present on her face. Oh drat what had he done now? Think Jon think, he said inside his head. He thought about all the duties he'd doesn't so far as Head boy and concluded he'd not missed anything. Whatever he was about to be yelled at for; it was obviously something he wasn't aware of, so he just braced himself.

Bracing himself he watched her march slowly towards him; her face became less anger based and a little passive as he did watch her. He blinked, scared for what was coming. "Jon" She said void of any affection or emotion really. He almost had to laugh at this. But given not half an hour ago she'd flung a stinging hex at him; he held it back. He was still pissed at her. "Six fifth years thought it would be funny to have a skiving snackbox challenge at lunchtime and four of them happen to be prefects. We're short on cover in the dungeons this evening. I told Professor Lannister we'd cover"

"Oh alright, sure" He nodded, thankful he hadn't done anything wrong. At least she was only annoyed at having to patrol with him and not because he'd forgotten to make a change to the rota in the Prefects meeting room or something. "I'll meet you outside the Slytherin Common Room at Seven" He said to Daenerys as a confused look gathered on her face. "What?"

"How do you know where the Slytherin Common Room is?" She exclaimed.

"Really? I've been at this school seven years and you think I don't know where the common room is?" Jon let out a belly laugh to which everyone around them started sending him strange looks. It was funny, how confused she was. "That's really funny. Do you know where the Gryffindor Common Room is?"

"Yes" She said a little guarded, huffing at him.

"Then why is it difficult to think I don't know where th-"

"I get your point Merlin, shut up" She grumbled as she walked away. Jon found himself blinking. He did not know how he was suppose to survive an evening of patrols with her; but he had done it the night previous so he knew he could make it through. He hoped perhaps he could get some answers from her, but then again he may as well just wish for eternal peace in the wizarding world. He watched her walk over to the hufflepuff table where her friend Missandei had just arrived and they sat together eating their food, she was a piece of work.

Robb grunted and so Jon turned his attention away from Daenerys to see what he was doing. He was reading the daily prophet. Jon raised an eyebrow and so Robb showed him the front cover which had the title 'MINISTRY COVER-UP?'. Jon was instantly intrigued as he saw a picture of Waymar Royce with the story and wondered what was going on. So Jon took the article and began to read.

'Minister for Magic, Tywin Lannister, has come under fire once again as more ministry cover-ups are being unearthed day by day. We reported two weeks ago the sudden disappearance and subsequent death of Waymar Royce, talented Auror and beloved father and husband. Yet according to our sources inside the ministry, there is no record of Waymar having even been out of the country to have died or indeed how he did in fact die. This comes as a bit of a shock to the family who are still wanting answer but are having a door closed into their face. While rumours of dark magic rising in the east has people worried, the ministry has never confirmed this yet had let the rumour continue. A spokesperson for the ministry has said that they've got a full enquiry going on into the death of Mr. Royce, but until they have the full details, they cannot make any statement as to what actually happened.

This is just a month after the high profile sacking of Senior Undersecretary to the minister of magic, Robert Baratheon, his son in law and long time family friend. Reports were that Robert Baratheon was a hands on man and after several complains from females in Tywin's charge he made a choice to get rid of Robert's job position entirely and thus he left the ministry. This had caused outrage amongst the females in the Ministry according to sources yet none of them have come forward and condemned the minister. Perhaps they've been given hush money?

Whatever is happening in the Ministry of Magic, there is definitely a divide between people and one wonders if perhaps Tywin Lannister's time as Minister of Magic is coming to an end. We'll have to wait and see'

"Father didn't vote for him" Jon snapped as he shoved the paper back onto the table. "It's an insult to Waymar's memory that they've not figured this out yet! And the fact they've decided to keep the family in the dark? Poor wife and son must be scared witless!"

"And the sexual assault that he just swept under the carpet" Robb added as he chewed on a roast potato. Theon was nodding along too although Jon suspected he wasn't actually listening.. "It's twenty ninety-nine, why are women still afraid to work for people like this. Everyone should know if a lady says she's uncomfortable then you stop; simple as"

"I'm confused though; everyone knows something is stirring in the east so why are their still so many questions about his death?" Jon mused while he forked his chicken once again, not really wanting to eat it. "I guess it's the unknown of what it is that's scaring people, and they've had no reassurance from the ministry that it's under control or that they know what they're doing"

Robb just nodded in agreeance. "Also; the fact that his 'friend' Robert Baratheon was one hundred percent guilty of groping those woman and he did nothing. The Wizengamot is there for that kind of thing; but I guess bad press is not Tywin's way. We should ask Professor Lannister about him; I'd love to hear his thoughts on the ministry cover-ups"

"I highly doubt Professor Lannister would agree with what his father is doing as minister, people have been calling for him to be Minister for Magic for years now; he's just that good. But instead he uses the knowledge and wisdom he has to be headmaster" Jon countered. "Anyways, this is where he belongs best. Since his six years as headmaster, the school has seen results like never before, over ninety percent of students passing all NEWTS and OWLs"

"Still, there's no love loss between them. According to the prophet they had a huge falling out in the summer" Theon added in. Jon had heard this too. Whatever it was, Jon was glad that Professor Lannister was here and not Tywin.

They didn't mention the article anymore after that; he just finished up what food he could stomach before going and putting his bags in the common room. It was quiet, most people were still in the Great Hall. He set down parchment and ink on his side table, ready to do some of his Transfiguration essay he'd got that day in first lesson; wanting to get ahead on the homework. he'd start after he came back from patrols. On weekdays curfew was eight, Headmaster Lannister had made it as a way to try and get kids to go to sleep earlier as there was a point where everyone was falling asleep in classes. Most people stuck to curfews, it was only the odd few trouble makers you'd catch out and about.

So he prepared himself, and when it was ten to seven, he began to make his way out of the common room and back down the grand staircase. People were filtering from the Great Hall and returning to their own dorms. Jon turned to the door on the right at the bottom of the grand staircase and began his descent into the depths of the dungeons. Following a few slytherin's from distance (even though he knew where the common room was) he made his way into the candle light halls. A constant dripping sound was the only thing you could hear besides footsteps. It certainly had a creepy vibe.

He reached the common room and loitered. It wasn't long after Daenerys came out. "Let's get this over with"

"Don't make it sound like a chore" Jon groaned.

"You are an annoying piece of work" She shrugged.

"Touche" He agreed.

Two days in and he already didn't think he'd survive Daenerys Targaryen any longer.

#jon snow #daenerys targaryen #jon x daenerys #jon x dany #jon x dany fanfic #jonerys #jonerys fanfic #got #game of thrones #Hogwarts AU #au

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deardudley · 8 years ago

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potions partners (draco x reader)

in which draco is a little shit and both of you are a wee bit oblivious to emotions

Word Count: 5,098

Request: “Could you do an imagine where Draco’s crushing on a Gryffindor and does everything he can to be partnered with her and stuff to show his affection?” // @dolphindewott

Warnings: cussing and sexually explicit language

A/N: i actually went so overboard with this, im sorry to anyone who reads this super extra 5k word thing

Your name: submit

Your surname: submit What is this?

You’d only given in because you were, unfortunately, alone.

Potions class with Slytherin was the one part of the week you always dreaded. It was one thing to be stuck in a room for an hour with a bunch of Slytherins, but a whole other thing to be stuck in a room for an hour with a bunch of Slytherins and an odd number of fifth year Gryffindors. As a result, you were forced to partner with a random Slytherin in almost every lesson.

And today, it was Draco fucking Malfoy.

You stumbled into the potions classroom just a few seconds before the bell rang, earning you a nasty glare from Professor Snape.

“Sorry, Professor,” you said with a sheepish grimace as you passed him, scurrying to get to the last available seat in the room. Without looking to see who was next to you (you expected Millicent Bulstrode again, for what would be the fifth class in a row), you dropped your bag next to your worktable and rolled up your sleeves with a heavy sigh.

“Today, you will be brewing a mild Pepperup Potion,” Snape drawled with his signature sneer. Flourishing his wand, the ingredients and instructions were etched onto the blackboard with a levitating piece of chalk. “It is an astoundingly simple potion, and I expect the most of you will be able to brew it correctly.

You met Ron’s exasperated glance from the workspace next to yours.

“Assuming,” Snape continued, “that you’re not daft. You may begin.”

Ron chuckled and grinned in your direction. You smiled back, but by then, he had already turned back to Harry so they could begin their potion.

You didn’t even bother with a sigh, and instead looked at the person to your right. You had to do a double take when you saw Slytherin’s beloved platinum-haired prince next to you.

“Malfoy?” you spoke, the disgust and surprise both evident in your voice. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with Parkinson or Zabini, or one of the trolls you call your friends?”

“(Y/L/N),” he greeted, looking at the ingredients instead of meeting your eyes. “In case you couldn’t see, Blaise and Pansy are working together today, as are Crabbe and Goyle. Do you need glasses, or are you simply daft?”

“B-b… I…” You sputtered with a scrunched nose. “Is there no person you could switch with? I’d rather work with Neville’s toad.”

“Do you see any Slytherins here who are willing to switch with me?” He raised an eyebrow in your direction, scoffed, and then looked back to the board. “You can work with Longbottom’s toad if you fancy, though. I’m not stopping you.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you muttered, not enjoying the way he snickered at you in response. But you were relieved when he didn’t say anything back, and instead handed you some mandrake root and a knife.

You worked in silence for a good five minutes, only sparing the occasional glance towards the boy next to you. His normally pale face was flushed pink and his eyes were trained on the ingredients on the table. Sweat dripped from your foreheads; the flames lit under all the cauldrons caused the room to heat up far past the point of comfort.

“Can you reduce the flame?” Malfoy eventually said, wiping perspiration from his forehead. He was mincing the beetle eyes as you measured some castor oil for a later step.

“Yeah,” you mumbled, waving your wand at the heat source. That was the last time the two of you spoke for the rest of the hour-long lesson.

For the first time in ages, you managed to get into the potions room a couple minutes before the bell signalled the beginning of class. You’d been coming from Arithmancy instead of Ancient Runes like usual; Professor Vector’s class was closer to the dungeons than Professor Babbling’s.

When you shuffled into the cold Potions room, you saw that most of your Gryffindor friends had already arrived, as had most of the Slytherins. You started gnawing on your bottom lip, hands clutching the strap of your bag. Your eyes scanned the room, searching for a desk with a lone Slytherin who wouldn’t seem to mind a generally unwanted intrusion.

You were going to give up and sit at an empty desk when you saw Malfoy, alone at a worktable with a book curled in his long and slender fingers. His eyes were focused, but he seemed to have noticed your stare because he glanced up, shooting you a smirk.

You rolled your eyes in response but walked over and set your bag next to the table.

“Mind if I join you?” you asked with unrelenting caution, eyebrow raised.

“If you don’t prefer Longbottom’s toad then no, I don’t mind,” he said back, just loud enough for you to hear. You were silent for a moment, then let out an ungraceful snort.

“You know, you could probably be funny if you tried, Malfoy,” you joked, and he chuckled a little in response. You weren’t sure if it was normal to feel a shred of pride at making the infamous Slytherin prince laugh, but you did anyways.

The next class, you heavily congratulated yourself on not being late.

Professor Binns had let you all out of class early. Peeves had flown into the room and dropped a couple dungbombs (likely with the help of the Weasley twins), so the professor had released you and left to go nap in his office.

You walked with Harry, Ron, and Hermione to Potions, teasing Harry about his not-so-small crush on Cho and whatnot. When you got the the dungeon, class had only just been dismissed, so you went in and snagged seats in the back. Your friends went to the left-hand side of the room (where the Gryffindors tended to gather) and you moved to the seat you and Malfoy had been sharing recently.

Malfoy, Parkinson, and Zabini walked in a couple minutes later. You were reading your History of Magic textbook, trying to get a headstart on the essay due by your next lesson. As a result, you didn’t notice it when Zabini smirked at seeing you alone, closer to the so-called Slytherin side of the room.

“You don’t mind if I sit next to (Y/L/N), do you, Draco?” he asked, eyebrow raised as if it were a challenge. Draco just shrugged in response.

Zabini sauntered over and set his bag on the table, which caught your attention.

“Good afternoon, (Y/N),” he greeted, almost laughing at how you furrowed your eyebrows at the sight of him.

“You’re… not Malfoy,” you eventually said, setting your textbook down and turning to face him. “What are you doing here, Zabini? Shouldn’t you be over with Parkinson or Nott or… someone of the sort?”

Zabini smiled at you, moving his bag to the floor.

“Observant. No, I am not Draco,” he said. “I just realized that I’m one of the only Slytherins who hasn’t sat with you so far, and Draco and Millicent have been hogging you to themselves lately. Selfish buggers.” He threw a smirk at you that you supposed was an attempt at being charming. “Anyways, you can call me Blaise. No need for formalities.”

You scoffed, shoving your textbook into your bag and refusing to make eye contact with the irritating Slytherin. “Well, Zabini,” you hissed, “I don’t think I like you that much so far. Believe it or not, the Slytherin girls gossip a lot when I sit with them, you know, so I think I’ll go and sit over there. Away from you.”

You were about to pick up your bag and leave when Malfoy came up, stood next to you, and patted Zabini on the shoulder.

“Aye, Blaise, go piss off someone else, yeah? Leave my potions partner alone.” He removed his hand from Zabini’s shoulder and stepped back, closer to you. “Besides, you know this is my favourite desk, so get lost. Pansy says she’ll go insane if you leave her with Theo or Daphne again, you know how she gets when she hears them nag.”

Zabini just smirked at Malfoy, picked up his things, and left.

You sigh in relief, turning and smiling at Malfoy.

“Thanks, Malfoy,” you chirped, visibly relaxing in your chair. “I think I would’ve hexed him if he’d spoken to me again.”

He chuckled, got his potions textbook from his rather expensive-looking bag, and started flipping through it. You followed suit, getting your textbook as well as quill and ink to take notes in the margins.

“I’d prefer Neville’s toad to him any day,” you mumbled, and you thought nobody could hear you until Draco started laughing — a real, full-blown laugh that soon had him clutching at his stomach. The first few seconds were surprising. He looked softer when he laughed; happier, and younger. His lips, otherwise drawn into a smirk or a sneer, looked much better when he was smiling, and his rambunctious and loud cackles soon had you laughing as well. Ten seconds later and you were both busting at the seams, unaware of the fact that your housemates were staring at you. You were oblivious.

That night, in the common room, you were studying with Hermione when she brought it up.

“Hey, (Y/N)?” she started, voice wavering and eyes meeting yours with caution.

“What’s up, Mione?” you asked, then closed your book because the look she was giving you was worrying you a bit.

“You… uh… hold on a sec.”

She dropped her textbook onto the coffee table in front of you and scuttled across the room to where Harry and Ron were playing a game of chess. There were hushed whispers for half a minute, and eventually they all came over and sat on the couch while you were in an armchair.

They all seemed uncomfortable until Hermione blurted out a question.

“(Y/N), you and Malfoy don’t… you don’t fancy one another, do you?” she asked in a dropped whisper, eyes darting around the room. “Because before potions today, you two seemed a little… you know… close.”

You raised an eyebrow, set down your History of Magic book, and tried not to laugh.

“Are people actually worried about that?” you eventually asked, smirking in a way that reminded them a bit too much of Malfoy. “He and I are potions partners, guys. Potions partners. That doesn’t mean anything.”

They all still seemed worried when you packed your things and headed back to your dorm. That night, you dreamt of hexing Blaise Zabini.

A couple days later, you walked into class three seconds late (“Late again and it’s a detention reorganizing my store room, Miss (Y/L/N)”, met with a “Sorry, Professor Snape”). Malfoy was waiting for you with his cloak already removed and tie loosened.

“Morning, (Y/L/N),” he said, grinned for a split second, then turned to the instructions Snape had scribbled on the blackboard.

“Good morning, Malfoy,” you sighed, yawned, scratched the back of your neck.

He looked up at you for a couple seconds.

“You okay, (Y/N)?” he asked you with his eyes narrowed. “You seem tired.”

“I am,” you grumbled. “I didn’t get my regular nap in Professor Binns’ class.”

He laughed at you, gave you a handful of beetle eyes, and got to work counting lacewing flies.

You had to force yourself to not smile.

Transfiguration the next day was an oddly similar class to Potions.

You walked in (almost late), suffered your usual scolding glance from McGonagall, and went to grab the last seat. That was normally next to Parvati and Lavender, both of whom liked to gossip about some of your fellow Gryffindors.

When you looked to your left and saw Draco Malfoy (Transfiguration was yet another class you shared with Slytherin), you just rolled your eyes.

“Seems like you’re sitting next to me on purpose, Malfoy,” you stated as you retrieved your wand from your bag. “First Potions, now Transfiguration? Don’t be too eager, people are already getting suspicious.”

He scoffed, whispering to you when McGonagall had started the lesson.

“Oh, I’d bet you wish I was sitting next to you on purpose,” he teased with a smirk. “Blaise and Pansy are both being whiny arses about Charms class and it was pissing me off, so I moved over here. I had no clue that you’d be late and have to sit here, but I probably should’ve guessed. Being on-time doesn’t seem to be your forte.”

“I’m only late to this, Potions, and Charms,” you defended with a huff.

“If you say so, (Y/N),” he murmured, eyes still trained on your Professor. “If you say so.”

“I do say so!” you replied indignantly, before freezing as you digested his words.

“Wait, did you just call me (Y/N)?!” you whisper-yelled, which caused McGonagall to whip her head towards you.

“Mr. Malfoy, Miss (Y/L/N)! Pay attention, both of you!” she snapped with a warning glance.

“Sorry, Professor,” you recited in unison, not meeting one another’s eyes.

“Malfoy just wait, for fuck’s sake! I just want to talk to you!”

You chased after Malfoy, walking right at his tail. You were trying with desperation to talk about what had happened in Transfiguration, but the stubborn blond refused to talk to you.

“Fuck off, (Y/L/N),” he hissed at you, stopping and whipping around in the hallway. “Really, fuck off. I won’t talk to you because there is nothing to talk about. It was a tiny slip-up.”

You sighed and shifted your bag in your hands.

“But, Draco—” you started, trying to reason, before you were cut off.

He grabbed your arm and shoved you into the wall, knocking the air out of your lungs. His chest was flush against yours, and his breathing was deep and erratic.

“Don’t do that. Don’t call me Draco,” he snarled. Then he released your arm and left you there in the hall, back pressed against the stone wall of the corridor.

“And then he just shoved me into the fucking wall! What kind of asshole does that? What if I’d gotten a concussion?! Fuck him.”

You were (aggressively) hugging a teddy bear, sitting on your best friend’s bed. Ginny Weasley had noticed your anger, then proceeded to drag you into her dorm and onto her bed when you refused to talk to her.

“Maybe you do wanna fuck him,” she suggested, and you gasped.

“Ginny, ew! I don’t like Malfoy. We’re just potions partners, you know.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re making an awful lot of an effort to get to know your potions partner then, (Y/N).”

You just sighed, set down the teddy bear you often grabbed when ranting to her, and took her hand to drag her to the Great Hall. You were hungry, you didn’t want to talk about Malfoy anymore, and it was dinner time.

When you arrived, your eyes wandered, looking for Harry, Ron, and Hermione at the Gryffindor table. As soon as you spotted them, you and Ginny walked over and took a seat next to them. You were on Ron’s right, Ginny across from you. Harry was on Ron’s other side. Neville was across from Harry, Hermione across from Ron.

“Hey, g—”

“(Y/N) wants to have sex with Malfoy.”

You rolled your eyes, kicking your best friend under the table.

“I can promise you that having sex with him is the last thing on my mind right now,” you assured everyone, almost laughing at Ron, who whipped around to face you with a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

He tried talking through his mouth of food, but Hermione scolded him before he could get half a word out.

He took a few second to chew and swallow, then said, “You better not want anything to do with that slimy git.”

You shook your head.

“The only thing I like about him is that he’s a much better partner than any of the other Slytherins I’ve had to work with,” you confessed. “He never really talks, and he’s quite good at Potions, too.”

Ron scoffed, mouth already full again, but didn’t talk because of a sharp glare from Hermione.

“Just…” Hermione sighed. “Just be careful with him, okay? I don’t trust him.”

Your friends all nodded in agreement, and you just smiled and dug into your potatoes.

“(Y/L/N).”

“Malfoy.”

When Malfoy walked into the class your next lesson, you were beyond surprised when he strode right over to you and sat next to you, despite the fact that there was an open seat next to Blaise Zabini, and another next to Theodore Nott. Either way, you elected not to say anything on the matter, just greeted him and went back to your textbook.

Everything was silent between you two, and the tension was so thick that not even a knife could cut through it. He had shoved you against a wall.

“Listen, (Y/L/N),” he said about thirty seconds after sitting. “I… I didn’t mean what happened yesterday. Sorry if I hurt your head or something.”

Your eyes went wide.

“Did I just get an apology from the infamous Draco Malfoy?” you gasped, whipping around to face him. “Oh lord, I’ll never let you live that down. I will bring that up every lesson from now on, I swear on it.”

“Do that and you’ll have to find yourself a new partner,” he huffed.

“Neville’s toad?” you suggested.

You were relieved when he cracked a smile at you.

You were walking back to the common room with Harry, Ron, and Hermione when you heard the voice.

“Oi! (Y/N)!”

You turned around, then raised your eyebrow at the sight of Draco Malfoy walking down the hallway without Tweedledum and Tweedledumber.

You leaned against the wall, waiting for him to catch up with you, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

“What do you want with (Y/N), Malfoy?” Harry sneered, taking a protective step towards you. “Leave her alone, yeah?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes.

“Relax, Potter, it’s got nothing to do with you.” He turned to face you. “You forgot your textbook in Potions.”

He handed you a large Arithmancy textbook, and you smiled.

“Thank you, Dra— er, Malfoy,” you said in reply, hugging the book into your chest. “I dunno what I would’ve done without it, I have a load of Arithmancy homework. You’re a lifesaver.”

He smiled at you for a split second, then sneered at your friends, and finally started walking down the hallway again. You all watched him disappear around the corner.

“He called you (Y/N),” Hermione said, smile threatening to slip onto her pursed lips. “I thought you said you were just potions partners?”

“Shut up,” you mumbled, shooting Hermione a glare that didn’t actually hold any malice. “I need to go to the library. I have homework I have to get started on. See you lot at dinner, yeah?”

Your friends bid you adieu, and you hurried off in the direction Malfoy had gone. You turned the same corner he had and saw his retreating form; his hands were shoved into his pockets, bag slung in a seemingly careless way over his shoulder. You huffed out a sigh and jogged to catch up with him.

“Hey, Draco!” you said, smile widening when he turned around. His facial features softened at the sight of you. “Are you going to the library? Because I was planning on working on that potions essay, and I was hoping we could, you know, work together?”

Your voice was hopeful, and you felt rather vulnerable as you stood and looked Malfoy in the eye, hands gripping at the strap of your bag.

“We are potions partners, after all,” he shrugged, corner of his mouth just barely tilting up into a smile. You just smiled back and started walking, allowing him to fall into step beside you.

Sometimes, you really hated your friends.

Ron and Hermione had, yet again, gotten into one of their meaningless little squabbles and left you and Harry in the middle of it; your entire walk to the dungeons from the Arithmancy classroom was just a long, unendurable rant from Hermione on how immature and irritating Ron was being. Not willing or patient enough to put up with the pair’s antics, you and Harry had snagged seats near the middle of the room, leaving the others to deal with their issues without you.

As soon as Draco and his group of friends sauntered into the room, the platinum-haired menace’s eyes were searching for you. When he spotted you with Harry, he sneered and left his friends behind without another word.

“Potter, bugger off,” he half-snarled. “(Y/N) is my potions partner, yeah? Why aren’t you with Weasel-bee or Granger?”

“Draco,” you warned, hiding your look of confusion at his sudden outburst. “Just leave it.”

Harry ignored your words of caution to Malfoy and scoffed.

“Since when are you and (Y/N) on first-name basis?” he asked, and your stomach churned when the Slytherin’s cheeks turned a faint pink colour.

“Oh shove it, Potter,” he grumbled.

Then, without warning, Draco quite literally hoisted you up and draped you over his shoulder, walking towards your usual table.

“Draco!” you cried with indignation. “Draco, bloody hell, put me down!”

“Language, Miss (Y/L/N),” drawled Professor Snape, and you were just barely offended at the fact that he didn’t even notice when you were quite literally carried across the room by a fuming Slytherin boy.

A second later, you were set down on your usual chair, an amused crowd of Slytherins and Gryffindors watching your interactions.

“What in the bloody hell was that for, Draco?!” you huffed, slamming your bag onto the table with a glare. “What in the bloody hell was the purpose of that?”

Draco sneered in Harry’s direction, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I don’t like sharing,” was his simple reply.

“Brat,” you sighed, but elected to stay put and not move to sit with Harry again. “Why do I put up with you?”

“Otherwise, you’d be stuck with Longbottom’s toad,” was his reply, and you couldn’t hold back the laugh that soon bubbled from your lips in response.

Across the room, Ron sighed and slipped Hermione a handful of sickles under the table.

“I’m telling you, (Y/N), Malfoy has a crush on you!”

Hermione and Ginny sat on either side of you in the common room that same evening, the three of you occupying a couch. For a solid five minutes, they’d been pestering you about the whole fiasco during Potions class; they insisted that the infamous Draco Malfoy was harbouring a crush on you. The more ridiculous aspect to it, though, was that they thought you liked him back. Sure, maybe he had a nice face, and he looked kinda cute when he smiled at you, and he was surprisingly easy to joke around with… but there was absolutely no way you liked him back. Absolutely not. No way, José. Impossible.

“He does not!” you declared, eyes glued to your Charms textbook.

“(Y/N), mate,” Ron said as he settled himself into an armchair next to you, “sorry to say it, but it looks like he does. A bloke doesn’t carry a girl away from another bloke just because they’re potions partners.

“Maybe Draco does,” you said, not missing a beat.

“Oh, you’re right. Maybe Draco dearest does.”

“I do not speak like that! And not once have I called him… called him that!” You tried to defend yourself, but your friends just laughed harder.

“I need new friends,” you huffed, gathering your things to bring with you to your dormitory.

The last thing you heard before your retreat upstairs was Ginny’s chirp of “Go find Draco!” and her statement being met with laughs (at your expense) from your friends.

The next class, you beelined to your regular seat next to the already waiting Draco, ignoring the glances sent your way by Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

“Morning, Draco,” you greeted curtly, refusing to make eye contact with the blond.

He raised an eyebrow at you, responded with a cautious “good morning” and stared at you with a frown.

“Everything okay, (Y/N)?” he asked, and you just nodded in response.

He seemed to drop the topic and went back to the book he was cradling in his long and slender fingers — upon actually looking at it, you were pleased to see it was a book of poetry you’d given to him a few days prior.

“Why are you always reading those muggle books?”

You and Draco had been sitting in the courtyard together, backs leant against a large oak tree. Draco was doing a potions essay that you were planning on putting off until the last minute, and you were reading a book of poetry you’d bought on your last trip to a small bookstore near your house. His question lacked a heated or judgemental tone; it was a genuine wonder.

“Muggles have written quite a lot of wonderful literature,” you countered. “They’re quite talented, you know.”

Draco scoffed, and you rolled your eyes.

“There are a lot of great muggle authors, Draco! William Blake, Scott F. Fitzgerald, Shakespeare—”

“Wizard.”

Draco didn’t look up from his parchment when he interrupted you.

“What was that?” you asked him, eyebrows scrunched in moderate confusion.

“Shakespeare was a wizard. Didn’t you know?”

The smirk was evident in his tone, yet you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Of course he was,” you mused, then closed your book. Wordlessly, you slid it across the grass to Draco while hiding a smile.

“Just check it out sometime, yeah?” you asked, tilting your head. “It’s a good book, really! Just trust me on it.”

“Alright,” he acquiesced. “Fine. Just do your potions essay, then I’ll be happy.”

You nudged him with your foot but didn’t respond.

You stared at his hands for a few seconds before chuckling in a sheepish manner.

“This sounds ridiculous, I know,” you began, eyes darting back to your fiddling hands, “but the others… they think you’re, like, in love with me or something.”

Draco stayed quiet for a bit, smirked, then went back to his (your) book.

Class began minutes later, and it was while you were measuring Skin of Boomslang that he spoke again.

“What about you?”

You turned to face him.

“What… what do they think about you?”

His voice was uncharacteristically quiet, and the blood rushed to your face at his question.

“They, uh… they think I’m in love with you too.”

No other words were shared between you for the rest of the lesson, but you saw the smirk on his lips out of the corner of your eye.

When Snape dismissed you, you and Draco cleaned up your workspaces silently but efficiently, and you managed to finish before most of the other pairs in the room. Normally, the two of you would go to the courtyard or the library to study together, and as you walked for the door, the tension between you was thick enough to cut with a knife. You were fairly certain your friends could sense it.

You reached your favourite oak tree and sat beneath it, indefinitely refusing to make eye contact with Draco.

Half an hour later, he pulled your poetry book from his bag, set it next to you, mumbled a quiet thank you, and got up to leave. You sat in silence until there were five minutes until free period ended, when you opened the book to the first page.

In it was what seemed like a bookmark at first, until you turned it over to see writing scrawled in black ink. You knew the handwriting as soon as you looked at it.

They were right.

You smiled to yourself, tucked the paper back into the book, and went off to join Harry and Ron in Care of Magical Creatures.

The next morning — a Saturday — you elected not to answer any of the overenthusiastic questions directed your way by the idiots you called your friends. They demanded to know what had happened between you and Draco the day before, but you insisted that everything was normal. To prove your point, you smiled and waved at him upon entering the Great Hall, and he raised his eyebrows back at you.

“See? Perfectly normal,” you said.

You sat first, in a place you knew was visible to Draco. Without getting food, you opened the book you had carried with you into the Hall.

You could feel his gaze on you, and you looked up to meet it. He smirked at you, and you smirked back in a way that your friends decided made you look eerily similar to Draco.

A few minutes later, you got up to leave (met with a “But you haven’t eaten anything yet!” from Ron), and Draco followed a bit after you.

He found you under your oak tree, still reading the book; you were fairly certain he’d made the connection back in the Great Hall. Without saying anything, he came up and sat right next to you. Your heart was beating rapidly out of control. It felt as though it was trying to escape from the tight confines of your chest in anticipation.

“So, (Y/N)—” he started, but you cut him off in a rather effective way.

In a sudden storm of confidence, you turned to face Draco whilst setting your book next to you in the grass. You grabbed his tie — he’d abandoned his robes, just wearing his button-up and tie instead — and pulled him towards you, firmly planting your lips on his.

He immediately responded to you.

His hand came up to cup your cheek in an impossibly light caress. His other hand moved to the small of your back and you just melted into his touch; he kissed you softly at first, and then his presence was pervading into yours and you became oh-so dizzy. There was so much of him but not enough at the same time. His tongue probed your mouth. You were completely, absolutely breathless.

You pulled away, chest heaving and stomach fluttering. For a while, you were both silent; then you broke out into a fit of giggles and Draco soon followed suit. He pressed his forehead against yours and you reached out, grabbed his hand, and squeezed.

In that moment, you decided that Draco Malfoy was the best potions partner you’d ever had.

#draco #draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco malfoy x reader #gryffindor #gryffindor reader #hp #harry potter #hp x reader #harry potter x reader

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