#I'd probably risk option A over option B though

[elysianstars]

Trying to find a new tattoo/piercing place that doesn't a) look like a hole in the wall where half the clients get human trafficked and they sterilise needles in Redbull, or b) have any pink-haired girls with rancid vibes on the staff. Maybe this is an issue unique to the city where I live, but damn.

[gavin-plz-call-me]

i saw you did an nsfw alphabet for wannabe challenge so i was wondering if you could do one for tears of themis? i'd love to see one for artem

Hell yeah, alphabets are the only nsfw stuff I'm good at writing

AO3

Artem NSFW Alphabet

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

-Stills inside/beside you for a moment while you both catch your breath, then he’s combing through your hair, peppering your body with loving kisses.

-Has wet wipes/tissues to help clean you up at arm's length, so if let’s be honest, when you whine about not wanting to leave his side just yet, he can help you clean up.

-If you’re still clingy after a while, this man will carry you to the bathroom to get the rest of the way cleaned up.

-If you find yourself in a more dominant role in the bedroom sub Artem? It’s more likely than you think be prepared to pepper that man with so much love and care.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

-His favorite body part of himself is his eyes. They’re a nice color, but I don’t think he thinks about his appearance too much.

-As for you, would it be cliche to say your brain?

-While your beauty was what attracted him first, your mind is what really sealed the deal.

-Your mouth is a close second, because it helps you voice your thoughts in that beautiful voice of yours and, I mean, if you wanted to give him a blow job too he wouldn’t be complaining…

-Is an ass man.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

-Is hesitant on deciding where to cum.

-He thinks cumming anywhere in/on you would not be a very pleasant experience for you.

-But in the heat of the moment, he’ll probably end up cumming inside you if he’s wearing protection, or on your thighs/ass if he’s not.

-When he cums, whether it be in you or on you, he’s grabbing you a tissue when he comes down from his high to clean you up.

-If you swallow his cum he’ll be a little disgusted, but a lot turned on.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

-Has masturbated in his office after you’ve left on multiple occasions.

-Sometimes the perfume you were wearing was extra enticing, sometimes what you were wearing made you look extra hot, and sometimes your presence alone is enough to get him hot and excited.

-Is mostly ashamed about the times he did it before you two were dating because it felt like an intrusion of your privacy.

-Once Celestine came to his office right after he finished and he was so mortified that she’d somehow be able to tell that he did something. She knew something was up because of how much he was blushing, but she didn’t know what exactly

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

-Big old virgin

-I’m not even saying that to be mean plus being a virgin isn’t bad it’s just true.

-Sure, his lack of experience may be a bit of a hindrance at first, but he’s a clean slate.

-He’s not gonna be doing some weird thing with your clit because a girl he was with before liked that.

-Train him to perfectly pleasure you, and, trust me, he’s a fast learner.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

-Your first few times together he only did missionary, because, while he knew there were other options, he didn’t know how to initiate them.

-As he got more experience, however, he grew to absolutely love doggy style.

-Loves your ass, so it’s an obvious choice. Plus, if he’s extra flustered, he can easily hide it.

-Grips your ass extra hard while kissing your neck and back. If he’s feeling extra brave, expect a few whispers about how good you feel.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

-He has his goofy moments, but most of the time he’s 100% serious.

-Whether it be because he’s concentrating on learning how to pleasure you correctly, or, when he’s gained a bit of experience, just concentrating on both of your pleasure.

-I feel like as you guys get closer, however, an awkward moment may turn into a brief bout of giggles shared between the two of you before continuing.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

-Shaved himself completely when you two started dating.

-Was convinced you’d be disgusted by any hair down there. My poor insecure baby

-When he gets more comfortable around you, he’ll let it grow out, but he still trims it to keep it neat.

-Carpets match the drapes.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

-Is a whore for a sexy, romantic atmosphere.

-I’m talking rose petals, candles, and a couple of glasses of non-alcoholic wine.

-Wanna have the most romantic love-making session imaginable? Set all of that up for him instead of the other way around.

-He’ll be so in love with you at that moment he’ll have no choice but to give you the best orgasms you’ve ever had.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

-Before meeting you, he jacked off maybe once or twice a week, and it was more of something he had to do than something he wanted to do.

-When he met you, he thought you were the most attractive person he’d ever seen, so his sex drive and, naturally, his masturbation sessions increased.

-Increased to every other day, maybe every day. He tried to not think of you during these times as he felt it was an invasion of privacy emphasis on tried.

-After finally getting together with you, his sessions have decreased back down to once or twice a week.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

-Likes having sex in his office, but that’s the most public space he’ll do it in.

-Also loves it when you’re slightly dominant on him.

-Doesn’t want to do any of the more kinky stuff, tying him or you, depending on his mood with a tie is about as far as he’ll go.

-But just take charge, he loves it.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

-Can’t go wrong with the good old fucking in bed. It’s easy, comfortable, and you guys can take as long as you want.

-Get him riled up at work by wearing something that beautifully shows of your ass, or make sure he knows you’re wearing that pair of panties you know he loves or, fuck it, no panties at all he’ll polietly ask you into his office so he can fuck your brains out.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

-Loves when you assert yourself, especially at work.

-Get all confident during a trial because you know you’re going to win? That’s all the motivation he needs.

-Does not help his productivity at all, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

-Expect to fuck after a trial, extra hard if you won.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

-No threesomes/group sex.

-It’s not even because he’ll get jealous okay maybe a bit of that but you were his first and only. Everything he’s learned about sex has been about specifically pleasuring you, he wouldn’t know where to begin when having sex with other people.

-He’s more than content with you being his one and only.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

-Not skilled at the beginning like all things sexual, but he’s a fast learner.

-Good communication is key here, as it is in all aspects of sex with Artem. Guide him to where you want to be pleasured, praise him when you really like what he’s doing, and give him some delicious moans and he’ll be a pro at fucking you with his tounge alone in no time.

-Is too shy to ask for you to go down on him, and will insist you don’t have to when you try to initiate it.

-Ignore him and do it, the noises you draw from him are absolutely worth it.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

-Starts off at a weird middle ground sort of pace, not fast and not slow.

-Is fond of slow and sensual when he grows more experienced, but will occasionally get rough with you.

-That usually happens when he gets a bit too jealous of a guy who got a bit too close to you for your liking.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

- doesn’t really have a choice in the matter at the beginning, mr. 30 seconds (sorry Artem)

-For real, he prefers longer love-making sessions, but if you’re teasing him in the office a quickie will ensue.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

-Grows more confident the more the two of you have sex.

-He does like fucking in his office, so he likes a bit of risk, but there being too many people in the office, or the chance of Celestine walking in at anytime, Artem would much rather feign working on a case and take you home.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

-At first, like most virgin boys, his stamina is basically nonexistent.

-Let him take his time, he’ll get to fucking you until the sun rises in no time at all.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

-Has never thought about getting one for himself when his hand does the job well enough.

-Is very open to using toys on you in the bedroom, especially when he’s feeling insecure about his ability to please you which happens often, scream his name and make him forget those insecurities.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

-Not a teaser in the slightest.

-You want something specific in the bedroom? He’s already doing it, you barely have to ask.

-On the flip side, sort of loves it when you’re unfair to him.

-Just barely touch him and stop at the brink of his orgasm, he gets a sick sort of pleasure from that.

-It also helps him gain more control over himself in the bedroom, so it’s a win-win.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

-May try to stay quiet, after all, in all the porn he’s watched which isn’t a lot because I feel like watching it makes him feel uncomfortable the man is always basically silent.

-That does not work out for him, though. He gets so overwhelmed with pleasure that he can’t control what his vocal cords are doing.

-Gains a bit more control over it over time, but he realizes you like his moans, so he stops trying to keep them at bay.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

-Is a total switch.

-Can be pretty dominant at some times see his atmospheric card

-But I can totally see him wanting you to dom him sometimes. Loves seeing you dominate the court, if you bring that energy to bed, oh boy is he like putty in your hands.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

-He’s of average girth and slightly above average length. Has a nice, thick vein that runs the length of his penis.

-Uncut.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

-Has a very active imagination how else would he become such a great lawyer?

-And while that helps him out in his work, anything about you can really set him off.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

-Is out like a light

-Especially the first few times, his body doesn’t know what hit him.

-But even after a while, he works so hard that the moment he has the chance to fall asleep, his body is taking that chance.

-Make sures to stay up long enough to get cleaned off and help you clean yourself up.

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

[warsofasoiaf]

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 when you are ready/have finished the game. Maybe besides the game itself you have an opinion about the crunch, bugs and general feeling of disappointment in a good portion of the fans

Sure thing. It’s going to be a long write-up and there are going to be spoilers, so you better believe that this is going to have a cut. Reader beware. For context, I have beat the game, and I played it on PC and only on PC.

I’ve been a fan of the cyberpunk genre for a long time. Transhuman and techno-utopian sci-fi always struck me the wrong way; that it was too optimistic and ignored a less savory element of human nature that simply would not go away with the advent of new technologies. While I only briefly dipped my toes in the water of the Cyberpunk tabletop game (I was always a bigger fan of Shadowrun), I did enjoy the genre and was eager to see a AAA cyberpunk game. I also really liked CD Projekt Red with what they did with RPG’s like the Witcher 3. Particularly when it came to the smaller sidequests, they really found a way to bring a lot of noir elements and hard-hitting character moments to the game, and I believed that it could translate very well into a cyberpunk game. After all, noir was a similar response to detective fiction to what the cyberpunk genre was to earlier elements of sci-fi. So I was quite optimistic when it came out. What we got was...well, it didn’t quite meet up with expectations.

There are some good things about the game. Assuming you have a beefy rig, PC cyberpunk looks pretty good. Not only does it look good, but it looks like the dismal 1980′s inspired future that had defined the genre, with its neon lights, omnipresent advertising to the point of satire (amphetamines are available from vending machines in a variety of flavors and commercials are completely ridiculous). The fixers are great examples of different cyberpunk archetypes like Regina Jones being a media or the Padre being an underclass civic leader looking to protect his community with a bit of a violent streak. Plenty of the characters had great personality, the nomads and Panam were enjoyable, Judy had a great questline that detailed optimism and bitter disappointment (and the character looks cool and is a bit of a cinnamon roll), River’s quest was a perfectly serviceable cop questline with enough horror elements, they were all fine. Keanu wasn’t a great voice actor, but he did serviceably and was apparently just wonderful with the staff, so I’m willing to cut him a pass. The level design can encourage a variety of different play styles, with attribute points opening up certain pathways. Given that it’s an open-world sandbox game, the goal should be to immerse yourself in the world, and touch on elements of cyberpunk as you go through the various quests, and you do see some of that. You see the gross exploitations of dolls in the sex trade when you go to Clouds, the bizarre elements of self-expression that new technologies can offer such as the twins in Kabuki, Pacifica is an abandoned recreation ground for the rich with the nice image of rotting Ferris wheels and abandoned malls, and you can see the divide between the have’s and have-not’s on full display both in the opening (compare and contrast the Street Kid with the Corpo beginnings) or take a look at the Peralez’s penthouse apartment versus Judy’s cramped digs. Honestly, one of my favorite things in the game were just the consumables to highlight the different food and drink available to the people of Night City. The heavy population means that foods like fried ants or locust pepperoni are common, amphetamines are available in a variety of flavors, and there are no less than 20 burrito vending machines on every street (the future is not all bad it seems). I like little worldbuilding moments like this in video games because it does give a sense of completion and immersion within the world. I honestly felt bad for Johnny Silverhand, because by the end of the game I had to be a bloated man-ball of Holobites Peach Pie and Cirrus Cola. 

The game even took a few things that had aged poorly in the cyberpunk genre and improved them. The Mox is a gang specifically meant to stop the Disposable Sex Worker trope, it’s small and part of the reason it survives is that it’s small, but it offers a chance of improvement over the exploitation that the Tyger Claws offer. The cyberpyscho quest is probably the best one of this. Earlier Cyberpunk had cyberpsychosis as a serious concern directly correlated with how many implants you got. The Solo archetype even spoke about how you risk losing your humanity with your implants as you became stronger, better, faster. Even later iterations had depersonalization/derealization disorders as people who could see in the dark lost connection to those who couldn’t. A quick thought in our present though, changes this. My eyesight and hearing is just fine, but I don’t lose connection or common empathy with individuals who are blind or deaf. I have two arms and two legs and I have not lost empathy for amputees. Why then, would I lose empathy and connection with someone with average human eyesight after I get my eyes replaced and now I have the ability to see in the dark or have telescopic sight? The cyberpsycho quest actually took this concept to task; cyberpsychos around the city are seen as horrifying threats that need the high-threat response of MaxTac to deal with, but Regina is looking to see if she can cure cyberpsychosis. Mechanically, the cyberpsychos are boss-fights with elements of puzzle gameplay (how to handle the different skillsets that they have) and a bonus reward for non-lethal damage which rewards certain playstyle archetypes or prepwork for those who ensure that they have a non-lethal option. The information you find around each cyberpyscho showcase different problems in the target’s life, no real common thread or inciting incident that you can trace the onset of cyberpsychosis toward and identify a culprit. After you complete the quest, you learn the twist: there is no such thing as cyberpsychosis. Each of the targets were actually just experiencing different stressors within their lives, such as PTSD, losing their job, drug abuse, etc. and the breakdown is made much worse because these individuals have the ability to toss dumpsters like they were baseballs or pick the wings off a fly with a cybernetically enhanced brain with a .50 cal. Some of these individuals had terrible implant surgery done by bargain-basement ripperdocs and temporarily lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy, something that could easily be seen as a science fiction adaptation of temporary insanity brought on by a poor reaction to medicine. It’s backed up by the game too. V can fill every slot in their cyberware deck but never once experiences cyberpsychosis. Oda has ultra-legs and flaming-hot mantis blades and is in perfect control at every point in the game, even when he’s trying to jab those mantis blade through your sternum. Cyberpyschosis isn’t real, the irresponsible media just ran with it because fear sells. For all the flaws of the game, I respect the game for taking cyberpsychosis in that direction.

But for all those good things, the game couldn’t help but feel shallower than the Witcher 3. The side-gigs were formulaic to the point where they even led with a category. There were few twists and very little that was surprising. Exposition for these quests was limited to a short text dump and a minute voice-over. Night City was big but it was relatively sparse. NCPD never seemed to intervene in any crimes (giving the character the chance to do so) but every so often they were around a taped-off crime scene, giving a sense of inconsistency that hampered the world. While it was a bustling city, it felt empty, most of the people I saw on the street were meaningless, just NPC’s walking around to give a sense of activity. There was little in the way of things to see and experience that was unique or different about these NPC’s. They weren’t crowds I could hide in like Hitman, they didn’t have ambient dialogue that showcased something like the Witcher 3. Much like other open-world games, this sense of shallowness pervaded much of the empty space of the world; it was incredibly *big* but there was little in it. Much of the time I was driving or running through empty space that was completely worthless to me. Normal for city living, but all of that is wasted time going from point A to point B, and unlike the Witcher 3, there were no small in-game beats to help flesh it out or build it. I never had Millie from “Where the Wolf and Cat Play” give me a little picture, I never had people from a liberated village say “hey, look, it’s that guy Geralt, thanks for killing those harpies.” These were things that made the Witcher 3′s world really come alive. I didn’t have that, and I was left

Of course, we also have to handle the elephant in the room, and that was CDPR’s conduct both during production and after release. Crunch has become an increasingly common part of video game development and it’s not healthy to developers. CDPR had been called out on it once before, but it seemed there was little change in how that happens. I’m not quite sure if there’s anything we can do, and I’m sympathetic to the need to hit target deadlines to actually deliver a finished product, but there’s got to be a better way, whether that’s a change to the incentive structure, or something, because it’s hurting folks. I like games like Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but I understand that there was a real human cost to these masterpieces, and I wonder if there’s something we can do about that. 

Similarly, what happened after launch was beyond terrible. The last-gen console version were simply not ready for release and shouldn’t have been released to the public. CDPR openly covered up this, by only previewing the PC version, they hid the fact that the game wasn’t ready, and they avoided delaying the last-gen console version because they were looking to capitalize on holiday sales. I’m sympathetic for the need to generate sales, but the flip of this is that you have to deliver the product you advertise, and for last-gen consoles, they didn’t do so. Bugs are one thing, these games are massive undertakings of interacting systems and bugs are inevitable; some of my favorite games were buggy at release, notably Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 3, and so on. But this went past bugs and into malpractice and deception, and that’s something that’s less forgivable. I personally had few bugs that were out-and-out game breaking but things not loading, quests bugging out, floating bags and other physics wonkiness, all of that hurt the immersion. I’d be more willing to forgive the game without the deception; I can laugh at bugs but not at ignoring quality control to get holiday sales instead of delivering a quality product. Consumers are angry at CDPR and have every reason to be, and I’m one of them. I can express my disappointment and I will do so, we need developers to stop these practices and the only way we can do that is through our wallets and words. I’m not going to tell anyone not to buy CDPR games, that’s entirely your decision because I’m a radical individualist. But I am going to say that they’ve burned a lot of their good karma with me; credibility is a hard beast to gain back. Much like other big name developers, CDPR has hurt their standing in my eyes. Whether that means I need to resort to going to indie games for a little bit or something else, I don’t know, but it’s rough. I liked CDPR and wanted to believe it’d be different, but it seems to not be the case.

Overall, I think it’s another AAA open-world game only made better by my love of the genre, and that stings. I enjoyed some aspects of it, and I hope that through Free DLC, patching, and other good deeds, the game can redeem itself and stimulate new love of the genre. But CDPR needs to do a lot more than that to win back my affection. If anyone has anything specifically that they want to know about the game, such as talk about the main story, individual characters, or so on, just ask.

Thanks for the question, Khef.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King