#My sister and I both got Gameboy Advances

[the-sonic-cafe]

I got Sonic Advanced for Christmas in 2001.

What was the first Sonic game or item you got for Christmas? Support us on Patreon

[korenlesthe]

Writing & stuff (Part 1)

So, I think it's time i use this blog for what it is : a blog ! Note : all french terms will be translated in parenthesis.

Writing : how it all started I'm a french writer, almost 40yo, gay, soon to be "Pacsé" (PACS) to my lovely Marine boyfriend (French Navy). Since I was a child I wanter to tell stories but at the time, i couldn't even try, too affraid and never had enough motivation.

Like a lot of people, videogames played a big part in my inspirations. One of the very first game that made me think about how deep a story could be was The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the Nintendo GameBoy. I was around 10 years old when I got the game and, as a kid, it blew me away (the ending still brings tears to my eyes 29 years later).

It was so different to everything I played so far on the Amstrad CPC & Amiga. And the first one to make me cry at the end. Not long after that, my brother got a Super Nintendo and I got The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past for my birthday and it unlocked something in me : medieval setting, magic, swords, secrets, exploration... basically everything I loved.

And a few years after that, my brother brought what probably motivated me the most to start telling stories : Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2 in Japan). I vividly remember when my brother started the game, a loud yet distant cry of a monster is heard while the "Nintendo" & "Squaresoft" logos appears. I said "Wow". My sister said "Why do you 'wow' ? There's nothing !" but then the title screen appeared with the amazing theme song "Fear of the Heavens" by Hiroki Kikuta. I knew there was something more than just the roar of a powerful creature on a black screen.

This game even made me fall in love with dragons ; I loved calling "Flammy" the dragon to fly all around the massive world, always felt sad to kill a dragon to advance the story and even the final one. I didn't knew back then "why" I loved dragons ; I just loved their design, how majestic they looked, and wondered what their stories was, why were they attacking the heroes while Flammy was helping us etc.

Off course, other games added their stone like Breath of Fire III from Capcom, Illusion of Time (Illusion of Gaia in the US), Terranigma, Secret of Evermore and so many more... even games like Metroid and Turrican, two of my most beloved franchises.

I finally started working on my first book : "Denaris I : Le Mot Oublié" (Denaris I: The Forgotten Word) -Note : The title of the first volume was originally "Les Seigneur d'Yseïr" (Lords of Yseir)- in August 2003 (the 08/06/2003 to be exact). It went throught publishing for the first time on the 6th of February 2010 but after my publisher lied to me (no corrections, never read the manuscrit, published the unfinished version instead of the one I completed) and tried to keep selling the books after I ordered their destruction, I got my rights back and took a break. I came back to work on it in January 2011 but I was never satisfied and I left the first volume in a corner to work on the second and third volumes. Then, between 2015 and 2019, I managed to fix the whole first volume.

It was exhausting and massively crushed my motivation. Feeling that I would never write again if I kept working on the first or even the other three volumes, I started another story, more or less linked to Denaris, in a different setting.

Another world, another story

I felt the urge to write something that was NOT about Denaris but yet, always wanted to link both stories, just with a few characters and never, ever force anyone to have read a story to understand the other. Denaris was medieval fantasy, so the next story would be its exact opposite : science fiction with a little bit of cyberpunk.

Thus, Soleil Lirien : Contrôle Total (Lirian Sun: Full Control) was born... but I couldn't even start the damn thing ! I was always fumbling around with the main character : A man ? Ok, another one. Probably gay. What's his story ? Linked to one of the characters from Denaris ? But if I do so, I'll have to tell everything to get to the point where it makes sense in both Denaris and Lirian Sun...

It went like that for a long time until I started watching "The Jimquisition" by James Stephanie Sterling. While I loved the show (and still do), the opening song of their show clicked right away with me. "I love the style and the lyrics", I thought. I searched for the artist, "DrillQueen" and looked at the cover art of her album and "voilà". I instantly knew what I wanted to do. Who would become the main character of Lirian Sun.

Jenneth McGuire was born this day and my brain became filled with lots of ideas. Working on Lirian Sun helped me so much, it made me like writing again. It made me cry, smile and laugh and care so much about the characters. This is also during this moment that I became much more aware of a lot of things I was very late to, like supporting Trans people (and I would like to thanks again James Stephanie Sterling and Laura Kate Dale for everything).

Thank God for them.

End of part 1. Coming soon : what went wrong, how not to write a book (aka : every mistake I did), motivation, troubles, characters, stories... I think I'll use this blog to talk about Lirian Sun & Denaris in the near future. If I'm confident enough, I might talk more about me but that's clearly something I'm not ready yet.

[trcelyneart]

13, 25, and 31 for the fe asks!

13 - What do you like most about Fire Emblem?

As a child I liked strategy games. I had FF Tactics Advance on Gameboy and I really liked the concept. So gameplay wise I liked the familiarity. And then I accidentally married Chrom on my first Awakening playthrough, discovered what that S-support thing meant, and the rest is history.

25 - Any general or specific headcanons you have?

Ooooo boi here we go:

Awakening

- Aversa is Robin's cousin (the daughter of Validar's sister), and got kidnapped and brainwashed by Validar because if he couldn't find Robin he could use her as a replacement to be Grima's vessel.

- Robin's name was Morgana, which explains why they name the kid after her (subconsciously)

- Emmeryn chose Lissa's name (from their mother Lissandra who died in childbirth).

- Lissa actually has the Brand of the Exalt. It's inside her mouth, on her palate.

- To wield Falchion, the person has to bear the Brand of the Exalt and receive Naga's Light, which is a benediction and basically Naga's green light to say "this one's a good one, you can trust them". It manifests once, when the person does something "heroic", their hair shine and they feel energy flow through them.

- Falchion can be wield by other people but it will be dull and impossibly heavy.

- Robin is "allergic" to Falchion. If they touch it, they get burnt. The sight of the sword makes them uncomfortable but they get over it in battle.

- If Robin has a second child, they will have the Mark of Grima on their sternum.

- Lon'qu and Olivia have a sibling relationship, they're actually closer than their supports suggests. Their supports are weird imo, since they're both Basilio's adopted children it feels strange that they know so few about each other. She's the only one who can approach him without him freaking out (besides his wife).

- Frederick only gets maried with serious women who have their lives together (namely Miriel, Panne, and Cherche). Aversa's an exception but it's a crack ship anyway

- Lon'qu and Sumia deserved supports

- Emmeryn is soft and gentle but does not let people walk over her. She can be as scary as her father whenn she wants to (she has to remind her advisors who's the boss sometimes)

Three Houses

- Lysithea is ace (I mean, have you seen her colors?). She has no time to be horny, she's got things to learn. Same goes for Linhardt.

- I don't know how it can work in the lore but I'm a firm believer of the "Marianne is Berkut and Rinea's child" theory. He's a very loving dad even if he looks stern btw.

- Byleth is demisexual, Sylvain and Claude are bisexual.

- Mercedes teaches Marianne how to make embroidery

- Dorothea and Sylvain hate-fucked at least once

- Byleth has always felt Sothis' "presence". Like, they feel Sothis' subconscious sort of? Basically it doesn't surprise them that much when she awakens.

- Claude wears lipgloss pre-timeskip (have you seen his lip color and how it shines?). I've also read a fic that mentions he wears khol when in Almyra and I really like the idea.

31 - Some moments of Fire Emblem you keep thinking of?

The Ball Scene in Three Houses makes me weak. Like, Claude's wink? Dimitri and Edelgard dancing right next to each other and not even dare a peek at the other??? Also we were robbed of an opportunity for everyone to show off with amazing outfits and it's my personal mission to correct that in every single fic I write.

Also that scene when Chrom recognises Lucina is *chef's kiss*

And last but not least, when Lucina wants to kill Robin. The first time I had that scene I had to put my 3DS down and pace around my bedroom because my daugther wanted to kill me to save the world and honestly? What a dilemma.

Ask me something about Fire Emblem!

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #374

“doctor, doctor, won’t you please prescribe me something?  /  a day in the life of someone else...”

Does someone have a crush on you but you don’t feel the same way? No. Who do you feel most beautiful around? No one. What’s one makeup item you cannot live without? I could live without any makeup. What’s the most expensive thing you own? My snake, I think. Or my laptop, idr. Are you more of a book person or a TV person? Book. Relationship status? Single. What color are most of your clothes? Black. Did you french kiss before you were 16? No, I was 16. Last song you listened to? "The Heretic Anthem" by Slipknot. Would you ever go back to any of your past relationships? Yes. What’s your favorite thing about life? That's a big question. I guess seeing acts of mass love and kindness, reminders that we're all in this together through all hardships. Who pays for the first date? Whoever asked the other person out, imo. Who has always been there for you? My mom. Have you ever written on a wall? No, at least not to my memory. Do you play any computer games, if so, what ones? I think anyone who reads these by now knows, haha. I don't much play anything else. I prefer console games. What would you name a baby boy if you had one? Probably Damien or Victor. What would you name a baby girl if you had one? Alessandra, no questions asked. What lyric means the most to you? I mean there's tons, but the first one that came to mind is "for such a little thing, you sure are in your own way" from "Get Up" by Mother Mother. Like in the big picture, we humans are so so so minuscule, but with brains that are too complicated for our own good. It's my own head that creates so many obstacles for me. Who is the smartest person you know? Probably my friend Girt. Have your parents ever been to jail? No. Do you share a bed with anyone? My cat, haha. Does it flatter you when guys open doors for you? It's flattering if anyone does, not just guys. Do you enjoy taking naps? Yeah. That's like part of my daily routine. If your friend asked you to hold their drugs, would you? Nope. Is there anyone you try to be a good influence for? My nieces and nephew, but I don't feel like I am. I'm a poor example of an adult. Do you own a pair of fishnets? No, but I have a pair of fingerless fishnet gloves. Which do you prefer: french toast, bagels, pancakes, waffles, bacon or cereal? All are great, but french toast. Yes or no: eyebrow piercings? I'd actually have one if I didn't have glasses. I think I'd look weird with one as I look now. When I say "The Beatles," what is the first song that comes to mind? "Hey, Jude." In your opinion, what is the very worst type of weather? Extremely hot and humid. You can only listen to one band for the rest of your life, who do you pick? Ozzy Osbourne, of course. Can you snap with both of your hands? Yeah, but it's harder with my left. What is something that you had to learn the hard way? For some people, promises don't mean shit. If you could re-paint your bedroom, what color would you paint it? Maybe like a light peach. When was the last time you got butterflies? I think not since Sara told me I look really pretty in eyeliner. ;_; <3 When was the last time you felt like your heart was actually breaking? There was this one time I was listening to "The Ghost of You" by MCR a while after finding out about Jason's mom's death and I just like... broke. When’s the last time you were in a line? When I was getting my second COVID shot. Do you trust the media? HA! Fuck no. If you could kill off one species of animal, which would it be? At first I was appalled by this question, but like... do wasps serve a purpose? Of all fauna, they annoy me the most. I mean bees are already endangered enough, and they prey on them. They don't pollinate, so like... why are you here. I may be mistaken and they have a valuable role, in which case I take all this back. Who’d you last say I love you to? My mom. What’s the most overpaid job in your opinion? I have on idea. Most jobs are underpaid. What’s the last thing you wrote down? I was doing some paperwork at the TMS office on my first day there. When’s the last time you heard a gunshot? I don’t know. What are you looking forward to? Now that my tattoo (which looks fucking stunning, by the way) is out of the way, I can focus on other things. I'm particularly looking forward to hopefully seeing the results of TMS manifest (which should take 3-4 weeks). It sounds horrible, but I'm also keenly awaiting this dog we're stuck with to go somewhere... The person who gave her to my sister to give my mom won't take the dog back, and we can't find another option that doesn't risk her being euthanized, which we absolutely do not want. We just don't know what to do, but she's driving Mom and me INSANE. Do you listen to online radio stations? No. Have you ever done something sexual that you regret? No. Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret? Multiple things. Have you ever ate so much you puked? Ugh, no. That sounds awful. Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance? Very much, sadly. Would you rather eat cookies or brownies? I gotta say brownies. Which YouTuber have you learned the most from? I mean, this depends on the subject. From Mark, I've learned most about life and how (I think) to be a good person, but there's a lot of pet channels I watch that have taught me loads about proper husbandry. This answer just depends on what knowledge you're talkin' about. Who would you want to be the flower girl at your wedding? Probably a niece. Do you want to be married within the next ten years? It'd be nice. Do you feel like your life is too fast-paced, or do you wish it were busier? Ugh, I wish it was busier. My days are a COMPLETE, routine drag. What are some hobbies which you want to pick up? I want to just be more artsy. I wanna draw and write more, and I'd love love love to be in healthy enough shape to handle going on walks with my camera. There are sometimes I miss editing videos, too. I'm unsure about completely new hobbies. Does anyone encourage you to go after your dreams? My family and a few friends. Oh, and definitely my psychiatrist. What group are you most active in on Facebook? None, really. I mostly just observe. Are you ashamed of anything? A number of things. Primarily not having a job at my age or even being in school. What were your favorite Disney rides as a kid? I loved Splash Mountain, I think it was called. What were your favorite rides at Cedar Point? Never been. What are some places you want to visit that you’ve never been? South Africa, Alaska, Canada, Yellowstone National Park, Bahamas, Venice, Rome... What are some places that you’ve been that you’d like to go to again? Disney World, Chicago, and this one super clear lake I swam in once a few hours away that I don't recall the name of. Have you ever owned a succulent? No. While they're pretty, I've never been much of a plant person. Do you support small businesses? I REALLY want to start doing that more when I have the option to buy my own stuff/have my own income. As someone who wants to be a freelance photographer, I get it. Starting an independent business is hard as hell. If a brand were to sponsor you, which brand(s) would you prefer? Uhhh I dunno. Have you read the entire Bible? No. Do you make bucket lists for each season? No. That does sound kinda fun, though. How old were you when you first dyed your hair? I have no idea. Do you dye your hair regularly? No. :/ I desperately want to, though. It's just not something we can afford to spare cash on. What is the most comfortable type of pants, in your opinion? Pajama pants? haha Do you think you could ever be famous? No. I'm way too boring and don't want to be anyway. What are some jobs you’ve had in the past? Sales associate, cashier, and deli worker. None lasted long whatsoever. What are some jobs you want to or would like to have? List five. FIVE? I don't know. I just know I want to be a photographer. Well, being an artist or poet would be very cool. And a reptile breeder, maybe tarantulas, too, but that makes me kinda nervous with JUST how many babies they have. What are some jobs you have considered? In rough order from youth to now: paleontologist, vet, movie director, game designer, author/poet, artist, music video editor, wildlife biologist, photographer... Maybe there's more that just aren't coming to me. Are you thankful for social media, or do you wish it didn’t exist? Depends on the day for me, but I'm generally thankful for it so I can keep up with the lives of people who are important to me. It's just that it's a breeding ground for self-doubt and rampant comparisons that can easily depress me when I see some people are "further ahead" and more "established" than me. What are some of the best medications you’ve ever had? The combined efforts of Latuda and Lamictal saved my life. What was a video you watched over and over as a kid? There were lots of movies, like The Lion King, a certain Barney one when I was very young, and I watched Finding Nemo like crazy. Do you know a lot of people who were loving, and then turned cold? Jason????????????????? Is that you??????????????????????????????????????????? Do you own anything plaid? Ha, what a coincidence, I'm wearing my red plaid pj pants. Are you good at remembering names? Definitely not. Have the cops ever gotten on to you for anything before? No. What email thingy do you use? (yahoo, gmail, rock) ... Rock? lol anyway my main is Hotmail, but I inevitably have a gmail to have a YouTube account. What game system(s) do you own? PS2, Wii, Nintendo DS Lite, and a GameBoy Advance. Are you any good at Guitar Hero? I used to be; I played most songs on Expert, then some really tough ones on Hard. I was soooooo addicted to those games. I remember when I got the first one for Christmas, I literally played it all day. Have you ever played Call of Duty? Nah, not my jam. What is your favorite/most visited website? YouTube. Is your bed comfortable? Sure. I've definitely had way worse. Do you have a garage? No. Fun fact, I've never lived in a house with one. Should you be doing anything right now? What? There's a number of things I could be doing that are definitely more productive, like finishing decorating my damn room. Do doctors or dentists make you more nervous? Not really. I only ever get nervous to hear my weight at the doctor's. Did you ever think you were about to die before? I don't quite know. When I ODed, it was more like I didn't care if I did. Have you ever really had a near death experience? Was it cool? "Was it cool." Literally fuck off. I guess you could technically consider my OD a "near death experience," especially given how many pills I took, yet I somehow experienced almost no ill symptoms. Maybe because we got to the ER for fluids quickly enough, idk. I'm just glad I didn't die. What is your favorite kind of weather? Snowy! Like a steady snowfall of large flakes with no breeze and total silence. *chef's kiss* Ever tasted beer? Ugh, no. Just the smell makes me sick. It was my dad's drink of choice when he was an alcoholic so I just have a very negative association with it. Have you ever seen a dead body? Yes, at an open-casket wake. Ever poured salt on a slug? As kids, my sisters and I would get our parents to do it because they grossed us out. So, so cruel. I still have this weird but pretty extreme phobia of them, but I wouldn't torture the things like that.

[clumsydarknut]

Dear Game Freak,

I am not an avid Pokemon fan.

I have not finished the main quest of a Pokemon game thus far.

I do not own every game.

HOWEVER

I have nearly completed the pokedex in both of the two games I own. I played all the way through Gale of Darkness on the GameCube and grew up playing Pokemon Snap. I may not be a hardcore battle-hungry player, but some of my fondest memories are of playing Emerald in the back of my family's car on the way to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving. I watch the anime frequently. I would love nothing more than to leap into the world of Pokemon in a real-time fight against my rival. I've always wanted an open world to explore, to have misadventures like Ash and his friends as we spot a Mankey in the distance.

You gave me that with Sword and Shield.

You've promised a massive open area where Pokemon abound and spotting one isn't restricted to an encounter in the grass. I have never been more excited to join your world of wonder, combat, and camaraderie. At long last, we can step into the game in a natural visual splendor that hasn't been seen since Snap.

But you also took something away.

You took away my best friend.

You took away Torch.

Your Dex was leaked. And among the names on the list, Torchic, Combusken, and Blaziken did not appear. You may see this as an insignificant issue that most fans will get over eventually. That might be true. But let me tell you a story.

When I was small, my parents took me to a Best Buy. We had just gotten GameBoy Advances for Christmas - the clamshell SPs that fit nicely in your pocket. Mine was blue. I still have it. My parents decided I and my sister could each choose a game for our new consoles. I could barely read at the time, being so young, but near the checkout on a rack, at just about eye level, Pokemon Emerald caught my attention. My sister decided to get Sapphire, and our excitement as we rode home was electric.

Beginning that game was magical. I'd never played a real Pokemon game before, but I knew I loved Ash and his friends, and I'd played through Snap dozens of times. Finally, I was really a Pokemon trainer! When told to save the professor from a wild Zigzagoon, I had no knowledge of what the starters were or what they looked like, but I knew I liked fire. With a single press of a button, my future was decided. Out popped a Torchic, orange and fierce despite its size. Torch. My first Pokemon.

I know it may be strange to grow such a strong emotional bond with some strings of programming in a tiny plastic cartridge, but Torch and I were as thick as thieves. We explored and learned and grew together. My Torchic evolved into Combusken at the same time I graduated kindergarten. Combusken became Blaziken as I learned to play the piano. When kids at school made fun of me, Torch was there. Torch was strong. Torch was fierce. Torch didn't let his defeats define him, and together we could get through anything. Though I never finished the story, Torch and I dominated Hoenn and reigned supreme in the tournaments with my cousins. We adventured together for years. We were partners.

Or should I say, we are partners.

I didn't get another Pokemon game until late junior high, when I got a 3DS with the release of Ocarina of Time 3D. As always, I was a tad late to the party, so it wasn't until a few months after it came out that I was gifted with Pokemon Y. I missed the Torchic event, and though I was disappointed, Fennekin was just as lovable. I played it for a year or so, still jumping back to Emerald now and then to pick at the story.

When I got to high school, though, I met a hardcore fan. He had every game. Every game. A complete chain of games. From Emerald all the way up to Y. A complete trading path.

My friend dug out all of his games and spent an hour or two trading Torch up through the generations for me. The Blaziken I have in Y, the most recent Pokemon I own, is the same Blaziken I've had since the beginning. My companion since kindergarten. My partner. My friend.

But I guess he doesn't get to come with me any further now, huh?

So that's that. I've cancelled my preorder. I know you still won't regret the exclusion of a national dex. I know this won't do anything to change it. But I hope you know just how you've betrayed me. I hope you can see just how much you've hurt your fans - I know I'm not the only person with a story like this. Perhaps a loss of a single preorder doesn't mean much to you, but understand that you've made a grave mistake. Whether your sales are affected or not, we won't forget what you've done to our friends. Even if you bring them back later, know this:

I know what you did, and I will never forgive you.

[peepsilvs]

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Review

Warning: Includes major spoilers for the story of the game, although, it’s been 16 years, you have had your chance to play it.

When I was a child, my father bought me a Nintendo Gamecube. I was too young to understand anything about the games as I didn't speak any English, but I remember enjoying endlessly watching my sister play games on it. One of those games was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful life, and to this day it remains as one of the most nostalgic games to me. When I got older, I replayed it and fell in love with it even more, but there was always something so fascinating to me about this game. I wonder how it managed to capture my heart despite my dumb child brain not even understanding what it was about. Now, as an adult, I hope to take a more critical look into this game from my childhood and what made it so different from the other Harvest Moon games for me, aside from the nostalgia.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life was published in 2004 for Nintendo Gamecube by Natsume and developed by Marvelous Interactive. In 2005 it got a special edition release on the Playstation 2 and the special edition port was later re-released on the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. There was also a version with a playable female lead called Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life that was released in 2005 and its only difference from the original was the player character's gender and marriage candidates to choose from.

Harvest Moon Game play With a Twist

(Source: Harvest Moon Wiki)

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life offers the player two save files and is, as expected, a farming simulator. This means the players basic game play consists of watering and fertilizing crops, taking care of farm animals and trying to earn money to upgrade your old plot of land. As in other games in the series, certain crops only grow during certain seasons, and aside from farming, the player can visit the small town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley to get to know its residents. While the game play follows the same formula as most farming simulators, A Wonderful Life proves to be a bit more difficult due to its connection to realism. No  matter which way the player prefers to go, both farming and ranching require a lot of effort and time from the player, not to mention money. In the beginning, the player is already offered a farm with a barn, chicken coop and three fields for farming, along with a cow to help them get started. However, since all necessary buildings are already in place, there is no way to upgrade the space or layout of the farm, meaning the player must work with what they are given. This means limited barn space and understanding of how the different soil types of the fields work instead of just planting whatever comes to mind during the seasons.

The game also encourages the player to choose between animals and crops. While it is possible to use both, completely devoting themselves to one is more rewarded in game play. Cows have several different species in the game, some producing more profitable products than others and naturally selling for more than a regular cow. Unlike in other Harvest Moon games, there is also a male counterpart for chickens and cows. A rooster and a bull are needed in order for the animals to reproduce and the player can either invest in their own bull to cut down fees or pay for a Miracle Potion meaning another farm's bull is used. The cows also don't give milk or stop giving milk if they aren't impregnated regularly, a feature that does not exist in other games in the series.

If planting is more to the player's taste, they have to be ready to invest in fertilizer and better watering cans. While the basic idea of buying seeds and planting them is present, the player can also invest in their own seed maker and create hybrid crops by befriending a talking plant in their neighbor's house. The more the player invests in creating their own seeds and raising their quality, the more profit can be gained from farming. Nevertheless, both farming and ranching have their own set of new challenges, and instead of upgrading their space, the upgrades mainly focus on bettering the original products like making milk into cheese or using quality crops to make quality seeds.

The more difficult and realistic aspects of the game are mostly a hit-or-miss. The more devout fans of the series might not appreciate the added difficulty taking away the simplistic game play of other Harvest Moon games. On the other hand, it can be fun to try something different for once, even though earning money for upgrades is more difficult. There is also a lack of several other usual Harvest Moon activities, such as mining and festivals. Instead, mining is replaced with the excavation site, that offers ancient fossils and crystals instead of gems and festivals are more like small events. This means no cow festivals or chicken festivals that, up by then, had been a very huge part of the Harvest Moon franchise. Other notable differences are that the seasons now only take 10 days to change and that the game is split into chapters, with some chapters having requirements. If said requirements (marriage in the first year for example) are not met, the game ends.

All in all, while there is a lot of good, the most frustrating mechanic is how long it takes to complete the game. In the original version, it takes 20 in-game years for it to reach the end. The special edition fixed this by lowering the needed years to fifteen, but even so, it can be hard to keep interest for long periods of time, as the game mechanic very much compliments the game's themes. This means that even though every day is meaningful in some way at the end, it can feel boring to go through them, running the same errands without any certain festivals or events to look forward to. This doesn't mean the game lacks content, but rather that the content is very much hidden and that there are no simple tutorials on how to reach it. Most of the game play outside of farming or ranching is trial-and-error based and requires the player to search for events and what the characters enjoy. It doesn't help that the relationship meters of all characters aside from the marriage candidates are hidden, so the player has to guess how close they are with the villagers.

The Story is A Lot Darker

A Wonderful Life aims to be more realistic in game play, and thus, ends up being a bit darker with its themes too. Like the title suggests, the main goal of the game is to live a so-called "wonderful life" and uncommon for a Harvest Moon game, A Wonderful Life has a story attached to it, and the story is most defiantly the game's biggest strength. Each chapter of the story progresses the player character's life, all the way to his death, and all the choices the player makes during their life finally come together at the end.

What A Wonderful Life is going for is a lot different from the staple of the series, but it also makes the game feel more alive. The town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley does not  have many villagers nor marriage candidates, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. The residents, along with the player character, grow older with time and depending on who you marry, befriend or choose not to befriend, changes what kind of events you can encounter each chapter. The amount of events very much replaces the lack of festivals as relationships with other characters feel meaningful and alive. I have personally played through the game many times and there are still a lot of events that I have not seen. Seeing them is not necessary to complete the game, aside from the heart events of the marriage candidates, but encountering them really feels rewarding, because it feels like being a part of the community.

The most perfect way to describe A Wonderful Life's story is "bittersweet". Getting to know the residents is surely rewarding and hearing them comment on gifts that they received from the player a day earlier is nice, but the game also makes it very clear that everyone has their own set of issues in life. Everyone has regrets and how all you can do is to try to live your best life with the choices you make. This feeling is perhaps the most apparent in who the player chooses to marry. In the original A Wonderful Life, there are 3 marriage candidates with a 4th added in the special edition. Each of them benefits from the player marrying them, with one getting out of a loveless arranged marriage, one receiving a home and third fulfilling  her dream of having a family as an aging bachelorette. Whoever the player chooses, they have to see how this negatively affects the other two, who most likely never receive what they wish for.

An odd addition to marriage is also the fact that neglecting the relationship with the chosen wife and child leads to long consequences. In the worst case scenario, the wife will divorce the player and the game will end and in some milder examples, the player's child might end up hating them for being an absent parent. In A Wonderful Life, it matters what the player chooses to do with their relationships. The friends the player makes influence their child and what the child does when the game ends. In the original version, the player can only have a son, but the special edition gives an option to have a daughter.

If the player also has a copy of the GameBoy Advance game Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, they can connect between the two, leading to the villagers commenting things about mineral town and bringing special goods with them. This can be a very nice feature for returning players of the series. Unfortunately, I did not have access to said feature so I cannot comment on it more personally.

Forget-Me-Not-Valley is Beautiful

The open world of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is not very big, but it feels homely. The town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley is covered in earthy tones and the lack of music actually works well for the game's benefit. While the graphics in the original version for Nintendo Gamecube are not top notch and you can see the game's age, the re-release on PS3 and PS4 cleared them a lot, making the world come across as beautiful as it was meant to in the first place.

As far as Harvest Moon games go, A Wonderful Life is certainly not the most colorful, but it has its own charm. The town takes after a rural Japanese town, with most houses being rustic and brown, and nature being the most attractive piece of it. Being in 3D, the player has an excellent view of the sky at any times during the day, and the game very realistically has a cycle, meaning fresh sunrises and warm sunsets, along with a sparkling sky of stars and grey clouds when it rains. Fitting to its world, the weather might change in the middle of the day and it might snow in the final days of Autumn, as in real life.

These changes make a big difference in the atmosphere of the game. They compliment its themes and story, and even if there isn't a large area to explore, there are certainly many things to find. The valley's colors change each season and it is worthwhile to explore the same places during different times of day and year. The lack of music compliments the rural, peaceful aesthetic, as it makes it easier to hear the ambient sounds that change depending on which area of the valley is being explored. At the beach, the sea can be heard slowly crashing against the hills, and in the forest birds are singing. All villagers have a signature sounds they make when talked to, giving them their own voice and making them feel real. The only area with music are the homes of other villagers and the player's farm. The player can unlock different records by playing and customize what kind of music they want on their farm or if they prefer no music at all, they can remove the record. 

To put it lightly, A Wonderful Life has its own idea of an aesthetic and it sticks to it all the way down to sound design. Once again, it is more of a preference question on what the player likes, but having it any other way would defiantly break the feeling the game is going for.

Verdict

While in no ways a perfect game, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life has a goal and is successful in portraying it. Despite being an old game, its story has aged well and never fails to be relevant, as life may change from the outside, but at its core it will always have the same questions lying beneath. The graphics on the other hand do look a bit outdated for today's standards, yet can be overlooked and even be seen as charming to some. Other frustrating traits it has is its slow and repetitive game play, that ironically compliments the game's story, but fails to be engaging for long periods at a time. Still, the game is worth experiencing, even for players not familiar to the Harvest Moon series, for the exact reason that it is so different from the entries in the series.

[thundercaya]

Virginian Insight

James had met plenty of important people in his life. With the amount of money his parents had it wasn’t unusual for schmoozing to be going on in his general proximity, but it was only after he’d decided to pursue a career in politics that it ever mattered. It was certainly fortunate that such connections had been made over the years; though graduating from Princeton summa cum laude certainly made him stand out to potential employers, his timidity and fluster during interviews might have hurt his chances at internships and staffer positions without the weight held by his family name.

Of course, being a part of his particular family did have its downsides. Being the oldest of many children, James had given countless hours over the years towards the care of his younger siblings. Even now, living on his own as an adult, he was not free from family obligations. At least, he couldn’t seem to let himself be free. While his other adult siblings often found ways out of doing favors for their parents, James could not seem to say no, especially to his mother. And so it was that on a rare day when he had no obligations from the campaign he was working on, he was at his family home, watching over his youngest living siblings.

The no-longer living siblings were the reason that James’ presence was needed--it hadn’t been long since their untimely deaths and his parents were doing the sensible thing and seeing a therapist to help with the loss. Not that a therapist had ever helped him, but he hoped his parents could be happy again at some point. If not, then an afternoon spent with still-in-diapers Fanny and teenage drama-king Billy, watching terrible music videos for terrible songs on MTV, was decidedly not worth it.

“How do you sit through this?” James asked as some pop star waved through the window down at a crowd of young people in the street below the TRL studio--maybe if young adults were as excited about politics as they were about celebrities, the country wouldn’t be such a mess.

Eyes glued to the screen, Billy gave a half shrug. “Quddus is hot.”

The VJ. Well, at least a VJ was almost a journalist, which was a better occupation to admire.

James’ phone began go buzz in his pocket. He’d gotten into the habit of always keeping it on vibrate, always paranoid about a call coming in during an important meeting or a speech. He slipped his phone out, and seeing the name of the campaign manager, he flipped it open.

“Hello, Matt. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, great. Everything’s great James. I just heard that General Washington is visiting a couple injured vets at Culpeper Medical.”

“I didn’t know he was in town.”

“Yeah, it was kept pretty quiet. It’s not a publicity thing. No reporters invited or anything. Great opportunity for you to go talk to him.”

James stiffened. “What? Talk to him? To General Washington? There’s no way I can--”

“James, James, James, calm down. I’m not expecting you to get McIntyre his endorsement. God, no. You’re not ready for that, and that isn’t the place for it bsides. I just want you to have a light chat with him and make sure he leaves knowing your parents endorse McIntyre. See?”

James did see, and he didn’t even mind the use of his family connection. Matt was a genius, of the level James could only aspire to.

“Yeah. Yeah, got it. Culpeper Medical?”

“That’s right. Good luck, James. Can’t wait to hear how it went.”

After the call ended, James slipped his phone into his pocket.

“Do you have to go to work?” Billy asked, suddenly reminding James of where he was and what he was doing.

Shit. James looked from Billy to the armchair where Fanny was down for her nap. He looked back at Billy. “Do you know how to install the carseat?”

James wasn’t worried about his parents beating him home. They always took the time to eat after their sessions, and often ran errands, both to give them some time to decompress before seeing the kids again. He should have plenty of time to get to the hospital, talk to General Washington, and get the kids back home. That was, if he could figure out how the hell he was going to put himself in a position to talk to General Washington.

As soon as they walked into the hospital, Billy made a beeline for a vending machine, pulling some money out of his pocket to buy himself a snack. James carried Fanny to a set of chairs; catching Washington on his way out seemed like a better idea than trying to figure out what rooms he was visiting and trying to find reasons to be near them. Fanny was fortunately in a good mood after her nap and well entertained by her Strawberry Shortcake doll. At least, she was until Billy joined them with a Hostess cupcake.

“Gimme!” she said, reaching towards Billy.

“No,” Billy said.

“Gimme!” Fanny insisted.

“No. I paid for this myself.”

Fanny tugged on James’ shirt.  “Jimmy!” she whined.

“You can’t have it,” James agreed. “You’ll get it all over yourself.”

“I want it!”

“Billy, put it away for now. You can eat it when you’re not in front of her. See, Fanny? No one’s getting a cupcake right now.”

Billy traded his snack out for his Gameboy Advance, which quickly captured Fanny’s attention as she kept asking “what’s that?” to everything on the screen. It wasn’t much longer before an elevator opened, and out walked General Washington along with a uniformed soldier. James started to stand up instinctively, but stopped himself--he couldn’t just walk up to Washington out of nowhere and start talking to him.

Washington said something to the soldier, then started to make his way down the hall. The soldier began to follow him, but Washington held out a hand and the man stopped. Washington then proceeded to enter the mens restroom.

Good, the man was cornered now. James could run into him with no problem. However, the thought of having a conversation with his dick out was nothing short of horrific, so James needed to find an excuse to enter the restroom that didn’t involve forcing himself to take a piss.

“Billy,” he said. “Give me your cupcake.”

“What? No. It’s mine.”

“I’ll buy you another one. Just give it to me.”

“Fine,” Billy huffed, handing it over. James ripped it open and passed it to Fanny. She squealed with delight and went right to work on it.

“What the heck, Jimmy?” Billy demanded.

“Relax,” James said, pulling out his wallet. He handed Billy more than enough to cover the cost of the treat, then he pushed Fanny’s hand, squishing the cupcake more firmly against her face than it already was. She continued to eat, unperturbed as several crumbs and chunks of chocolate frosting littered down onto her dress. “Can you handle waiting here by yourself for a few minutes?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m not six.”

“Don’t leave the building and if anyone tries to make you, scream for help.”

“Okay, but can I go inside the gift shop? I’m pretty much rich now.”

“Fine, fine,” James said, standing up and picking up his sister. “All right, Fanny, let’s do this.”

When James entered the restroom, General Washington was nowhere to be seen. It was just as well that he was in a stall--James might not have caught him in time if he were only peeing. He sat Fanny down on the counter, wet some paper towels, and waited. When he heard a toilet flush, he began wiping up the girl’s face and clothes. He glanced up at the mirror, and there was the general.

“General Washington,” James greeted over his shoulder. “Long time no see, sir.”

“Hm?” Washington glanced at him. “Oh, yes…. Jimmy, was it?” He reached for a handshake, seemingly instinctively, then quickly drew back, clearing his throat before turning on a faucet to wash his hands. James elected to ignore this near faux-pas.

“James now, if you don’t mind. Unless my father is around.”

“Oh, of course. You’re a grown man now.” He nodded to Fanny. “Your daughter is beautiful.”

“Oh, she’s not mine.”

Washington’s eyebrows shot up. “Really. She looks just like you.”

“She’s my sister.”

“Oh. I thought….” Washington cleared his throat. “I mean….”

“That was the four year old and the seven year old. This one, however, is perfectly healthy. Isn’t that right, Fanny?”

The girl smiled up at him.

“I see. Very sorry for your loss, of course.”

“Thank you,” James said, rather graciously. He could certainly relate to saying the wrong thing and wasn’t about to give the man a hard time about it--not while he was trying to get something out of him, anyway.

“You must be done with college by now,” Washington said, changing the subject.

“Yes,” James said. He’d been out for several years now and wondered when that would stop being the topic of choice for older adults to bring up. “Political science. I’ve had a couple staffer positions since then. Right now I’m on the McIyntre campaign.”

“Ah yes, McIntyre. Haven’t looked into him very much. Not much time for that currently, you know. Seems like and upright man, though.”

“I certainly think so, or I wouldn’t be working with him,” James said. “He was over at the family home for dinner not too long ago. My parents were very impressed with him.”

“I’ll need to meet him some time soon.”

“I’m sure he’d like that very much as well.”

Washington cleared his throat. “Well, I should be going.”

“Yes, of course,” James said. “Good to see you, sir. Hopefully there’ll be less of a gap between meetings this time.”

As Washington made his way to exit, the door swung open and there stood Billy.

“Jimmy,” he began, “the gift shop has--”

His eyes locked onto Washington and he instantly went silent.

“Excuse me, young man,” Washington said, edging past him. Billy watched him go. Once the door shut again, James let out a deep breath, body going almost limp as his calm demeanor melted away. He grabbed the counter with one hand to keep himself on his feet, while his other hand stayed on Fanny to keep her on the counter.

“Wow,” Billy said finally. “Why didn’t anyone tell me General Washington was handsome?”

James glanced at his brother, straightened himself back up, and shook himself off. “If you’d change the channel away from MTV once in a while, you might have seen him sometime.”

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Detective Pikachu

Disclaimer: This will be my non-spoiler review of the movie with a spoiler review coming in the next few days. However this review is being posted the day the movie is released in the U.K. so if you haven’t yet seen it and want to go in fresh then don’t read on.

General Reaction:

Best Ryan Reynolds performance and best Pokémon movie I have ever seen.

Yes, I am a 26-year old who still enjoys Pokémon, but in my defence it's still a great property to be a fan of having taken a recent influx of new and returning fans with Pokémon Go!

This movie however is an elevation of that elevation which allowed Pokémon to be seen in the real world thanks to AR visuals, whereas in Detective Pikachu you see humans and Pokémon interacting and it feels very genuine and organically done.

In terms of my own history with Pokémon, I have been into the franchise since the late 90s/early-noughties along with my sister when were granted the original Pokémon Red, Blue & Yellow games on the original brick GameBoy Colour and then liking the Pokémon animé series. I did stop watching the series around the Advanced Generation series and stopped collecting the game with Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

It is noteworthy that while the advancements in storytelling Into the Spider-Verse made were Oscar-worthy, Detective Pikachu's seamless blend of CGI Pokémon in a live-action setting similarly pushes the boundaries of both storytelling and film-making that much further forward.

In regards to story, I saw this movie as a Pokémon fan from the late 90s/early-noughties. However, I saw the movie with my fiancé who is a recent Pokémon fan whose only knowledge of the series is Pokémon Go! Yet we both had a similar enjoyable experience with watching it.

To clarify, I have never played the Detective Pikachu game but that’s okay because this movie is so accessible not just for pre-existing Pokémon fans like me but recent fans like my fiancé and really even newer fans than that.

For fans of Pokémon like me and even my fiancé, it’s a who’s who/spot the Easter Egg type of game in the movie because there are dozens of Pokémon that are simply cameos in the movie with no introduction or even interaction. Some are literally a fly-by appearance.

Long-term Pokémon fans will also get an enjoyment as to just how this movie connects with the wider Pokémon universe, more specifically the Animé series.

However, the enjoyment of this mystery movie, and I am so thrilled to see a genuinely intelligent mystery movie, is there for fans who aren’t in the know on the who’s who of these Pokémon.

Also, the trailers and promo material really do well in hiding a large chunk of story, much like Avengers: Endgame. Maybe because the promo material are only about the basic synopsis of the movie and then promoting the amount of Pokémon the movie has. But I was really surprised by both the story and the actors that the promos managed to hide.

Finally the ending, twist after twist after twist. Genuinely, the final act of this movie has so many different turns that just when you think you’ve worked out the mystery there is another layer to it that smacks you in the face.

Cast:

As I said before, the cast here shocked me but in terms of the live-action cast, there are three surprise appearances with substantial roles, at least to me they were surprising anyway but I have done no research into this movie outside of watching trailers.

The movie does however belong to Ryan Reynolds and Justice Smith. Ryan Reynolds delivers my favourite performance of his with Pikachu, beating Deadpool because of his family-friendly nature while still being Ryan Reynolds enough to impress.

Justice Smith meanwhile steps up his game from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom going from the comedic sidekick to a more fleshed-out co-lead. There are a couple of great emotional scenes from him that actually got me moving which I didn’t expect to feel in a live-action movie about Pokémon.

The voice-work for the Pokémon as well do a great job. For the majority of them it’s a deviation from the original series in terms of tone. For example, Bulbasaur here sound very high-pitched and almost feminine whereas in the original series they sounded gruff and almost like they smoked too much.

Recommendation:

I would say this is a movie for anyone to enjoy on a certain level, if you are a fan of mystery movies you will enjoy this movie for that. If your Pokémon knowledge is only Pokémon Go! you will get another level of enjoyment out of this, if however you have been a fan of the franchise for years you will definitely get a high level of enjoyment from it.

So that’s my non-spoiler review of Detective Pikachu, what do you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews, including my upcoming spoiler review of the movie, as well as other posts.

[maxismatchccworld]

Hi you lovely Simmers. It’s time for our new Spotlight of the Month. Please give a warm welcome to Katie aka @simmingbee!

Sul Sul! I’m Katie, I’m 28 and I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan in the USA.

I was first introduced to The Sims by my dad, who got me TS1 back in 2001/2002.  I really really got into the Sims with the release of TS2- I always loved how weird and funny the sims were and I was quickly hooked on the series. I really loved TS2 Life and Castaway stories and me and my sister both loved The Sims Bustin’ Out for the GameBoy Advance! (Shoutout to anyone who remembers that game!) I had a love/hate thing with TS3 and I have really enjoyed the direction the sims team has taken with TS4!

I started doing recolors in June of 2017 and I was taught by some seriously wonderful and talented simmers and creators . The creativity of our community and the cc creators/modders never cease to amaze me with their skill and imagination!  I am so so thankful to them for not only teaching me but also letting me pester them with questions and encouraging me when I felt like my content was no good. I mainly do recolors at this point because I feel like I’m filling a little gap in the EA content and it’s something that makes me happy. Recently I’ve been making and releasing some color palettes- If you’re a simmer who is looking to “dip your toes” into cc-making, creating palettes is a really good way to get started!

While I do play many legacy-style challenges in my personal gameplay, my longest-running challenge on Tumblr has been my Carver Commune Challenge~ I started posting it in May of 2017 and even though I take the occasional break to post other challenges or gameplay, I always come back to my silly hippy sims and their desert camp. It’s helped me to go easy an just let my sims be sims, which I find helps me enjoy the game and just play.

Recoloring EA meshes is not nearly as tricky as it may seem and if I can do it, just about anyone can! I recommend this tutorial by @coliswonderland for anyone using photoshop and this tutorial by @smuhbuh for anyone using GIMP! 

I also want to just say a quick thank you to the hard-working cc-rebloggers in our community like maxismatchccworld and sssvitlans who work to share the cc of “big” creators and small creators alike! It means so much to me that people even want my recolors in their game and I love seeing my content on other people’s sims.

My favorite recolor I’ve ever done: My simlish Maternity tees! I had so much fun finding ideas on pinterest and re-creating them in simlish! It was something new for me and I really really enjoyed making them.

First recolor - “Bee Yourself” Tank top - from the Parenthood GP.

One of my most recent recolors I’ve done-

Rusty-sims’ Easy Shirt

.

So that was it for now. If you want to, you are invited to visit my download page.

[theultimateegghead-blog]

Gaming history and releases in 1990.

Welcome to a new series of mine, a celebration of video games over the last few decades. In this series I will be looking over some major events and releases based off of the year. We will start with 1990 and end with 2012. The reason behind this is because this series is not only meant to celebrate gaming, but also some of my friends as well. Thusly every year is dedicated to all my friends and readers born in that year. I am ending at 2012 because that was the year my sisters were born. If you were born before 1990, you are still an awesome person! Consider this prologue in dedication to all my pre-1990 readers. If you were born after 2012, then how did you get here? Regardless, without further ado, lets take a look at some gaming history!

Some major events include...

The first Nintendo World Championships is held.

The first Nintendo World Championships begins on March 8th, 1990. One of the first ever video game competitions, the world championship would make a nationwide run across the united states. (Somewhat defeating the world title.) Contenders would compete with various games that were made for the tournament and would win various prizes such as trophies, money and Nintendo products. The cartridges made for this tournament are considered to be some of the rarest, if not the rarest, video games. The cartridges were given to winners of a Nintendo power contest and they are estimated to be worth 150 grand!

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THQ is founded.

The video game company THQ is founded in April of 1990. Originally a toy company that occasionally dabbled in video game production, it eventually became a full-fledged game development company. The company lasted until 2016, where it filed for bankruptcy and sold its brand to Nordic Games, now called THQ Nordic. THQ makes licensed games based off animated movies and cartoons, but also has their own original games. Some of there most famous original IPs include Darksiders, Destroy All Humans and Red Faction.

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The Sega Game Gear Launches in Japan

The Game Gear was Sega’s response to the success of the Nintendo Gameboy. It was released on October 6th, in Japan, seeing a release in America in the next year. While it did support full color graphics and had a technical edge compared to the Gameboy, it also sported a cumbersome size, poor battery life, small library and minimal support from Sega. It was rushed in production and was not able to surpass, let alone match the success of the game boy. It would be discontinued in 97, having sold over 10 million copies in those 7 years.

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The Super Famicom Launches in Japan.

The Super Famicom, known in America as the Super NES, was one of the most well known and renowned consoles in gaming history. Taking gaming to the next level per se, it had new advanced hardware that allowed it to process games far better than the original NES. Some of the greatest games of all time, such as A Link to the Past and Super Mario World was released on this system. It sold nearly 50 million units and was available in retail until 2003.

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Some of the most critically acclaimed and important released of this year are…

Super Mario Bros 3

Super Mario 3 would be released to critical acclaim in February 1990. This platforming adventure boast colorful levels and plenty of new things that would become long standing tropes in the Mario franchise. It was one of the best-selling games of all time and had heavy promotion both before and after its release. It was featured in the video game themed move “The Wizard” and then afterwards it spawned a cartoon series that has amassed a cult following in recent years. It is considered by many to be the best Mario game.

------------------------------------------

F-Zero

This Super Famicon/SNES game would see its initial Japanese release in November of 1990. While it was not the first racing game, it was in a way Nintendo bringing racing to home console and it was praised by many for pushing the graphical expectation of games to a new level and for spawning the F-Zero IP, which unfortunately has been left neglected for several years now. While it may not have been the first, it has been cited to be the game that set the standard for racing games to come.

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Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario was Nintendo’s attempt to create their own puzzle game. While they owned the rights to Tetris at the time, Tetris was not their original creation. Dr. Mario was released for the Gameboy and super Famicon in July 1990. It received generally favorable reviews and would establish Mario as a doctor as well as a plumber. While the series itself has not seen much flare since the 90s, Dr. Mario is playable in several Smash titles.

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Metal Gear II Solid Snake

Metal Gear II Solid Snake is the second instalment of the Metal Gear franchise and was initially released in July of 1990 for the MSX2. This game would not see an official English release until over a decade later. This game is praised for not only improving on the original Metal Gear game in almost every way, but also establishing the stealth genre. It is considered to be one of the most innovative and advance games of its era, and it was also praised for its more mature theme and story when compared to other titles of that year.

------------------------------------------

Smash TV

Smash TV is an arcade game that came out in April of 1990. This game was one of the first twin stick multidirectional shooter and featured cooperative play as well. It was a game that pushed boundaries with its violence but would not spark as much outcry when compared to future arcade games such as Mortal Kombat. Nevertheless, this game did establish a genre that appeals to those looking for classic arcade fun, games like hotline Miami and Call of Duty Dead Ops could owe a part of their creation to Smash TV.

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The Secret of Monkey Island

Monkey Island is one of the most revered point and click series gaming has to offer. With various sequels and remakes this game defined a genre. It was initially released in October of 1990. One of the first major games with an emphasis on character and story, this took gaming narrative into a new spotlight, while it was not the only contributor, it was a major contributor to story driven games. It wasn’t half bad graphically either.

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Railroad Tycoon

The first game in the Tycoon series. This game was a simple railroad business simulator, where you built a railroad empire and try to maintain it. While the concept might sound boring to some, it did herald the beginning of a long running series and could be considered one of the origins of the simulator genre. While I cannot say it is solely responsible for later simulator games like the sims, it could be considered the grandfather of business simulators.

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Alpha Waves

This game is relatively unknown, but it does hold some importance. Released in August of 1990, Alpha Waves is one of the first ever full 3D games. This game was somewhat of an art project and is rather abstract and artistic in design. While it does hold significant importance in the evolution of graphics, it is more of an experience than an actual full fledged game.

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Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

The Fire Emblem series is a long-lasting series of tactical RPGs that remained primarily in Japan until the 2000s. This is the first Fire Emblem game and it was released exclusive in Japan in April of 1990. This game was deep for its time, featuring a story and characters who could die permanently. While America never saw this title, they eventually got a remaster nearly 15 years later.  This game stabilized the tactical rpg as a genre and is considered to be one of Nintendo’s greatest series.

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This concludes my analysis on some gaming events and releases of the year 1990. If you were born in 1990, then happy birth year to you! See you in 91!

[pirates-yeah]

in my dream, the government has been assigning everybody numbers.

some of us have had them for nearly a year by this point; others, like me, slipped through the system and have only just been caught and given our number. mine arrived this week, a sheet of paper detailing in bold text how important it is that I memorise it immediately. there are fifteen digits in this number; it’s never happening.

but everyone else has theirs down, because now there are random inspections at times and you have to be able to recite your number. they’re lenient about people who only got theirs recently; I’m planning on playing on that leniency for as long as I can get away with it.

I’m also part of the resistance.

that’s new, too; I was brought in by a friend, who I can’t picture now except - sand - so I bet I know who that was; he’s always in the resistance in my dreams, one way or another. it took a long time for him to be sure I could be trusted, which is fair enough; I spin a lot of rhetoric. but I like to be part of a fight. I’ll never forget the faces of those girls who saw me break down the common room door.

the girl I’m in love with has been part of the resistance for almost as long as there has been a resistance, and today we are meeting at her family home, which is based on my family home, more or less. she and I are crazy crazy about each other, and because I never dream about being in love with girls these days and because I try to never fall in love with girls these days, it’s a love like the ones I had when I was at school - emotional, tearful, fragile, highly-strung, lovely, under fire, chaste. awake, I know my brain based her on Holly, a girl at school who fell in love with me - kind of - but was more in love with someone else - kind of - and destroyed...a lot of whatever I had left at that place. 

in any case, in my dream, we’re in love - the clinging, crying love of two sisters who might be pulled apart by men with guns and shot in front of each other any minute (so a lot like school). some weeks ago I’d written her poetry, and she has carried it around in her emergency exit bag, the paper growing soft already, folded and unfolded. today, she says she has something for me, but before we can get that far, there is a knock at the door. inspection, a man’s voice barks, and we all look at each other; we think they know that we’re a resistance cell, but with no proof, there’s still nothing they can do. they could arrest us anyway, of course, but then they wouldn’t have anything they could parade before the public. our lookout, a kid I vaguely recognise now from a kids’ tv show I haven’t watched in maybe fifteen years, comes down the stairs with a stricken expression. sorry, he mouths, and shrugs expressively, mimes playing on a gameboy. we’re nailing it, I think, looking around; most of us are in our 20s and 30s but we all still feel like teenagers.

my friend who’d brought me in told me that during the last random inspection he’d got the sense that they were looking for the one person who was likely to crack and sell out the rest of the cell. don’t be that person, he’d said, tired and worn and as lovely as ever, and I’d laughed and said, you know enough about me, you think I’d give under torture? he’d sighed. they won’t torture you; they’ll offer you stuff. I’d said, I do love stuff, and thought, I love her more.

we open the door to the men with the guns. as practised, we show them around the house; nothing behind the curtain, nothing up our sleeves. our bags are buried in the garden, mostly, the overturned earth covered again with dry dirt from somewhere else. there is nothing for them to find, and they don’t find anything, though they spend a lot of time looking through her father’s collection of antique books. 

they line us all up downstairs, have us rattle off our numbers. when they get to me, I tell them I just got mine this week and I don’t know it yet. one of the guys in charge of this group of men with guns says to me, gently and slowly like talking to a child, that if I don’t learn it soon, there’s going to be trouble. when I tell him, I know, officer, I’m so sorry and I see a familiar strain in jaw I think, maybe I’ll make it be me. once they’re done with our numbers, they bring out some small television screens, and tell us they have a film we have to watch. it’s standard propaganda, and they break us up into groups of three or four for it; the guy who spoke to me makes sure I’m in his group. I know you, I think, with a snake in my throat, and I bite my lip where he can see.

the film is about the government and how great it is, but it’s also about surveillance, and a technological advance in distance firing weaponry that means the gun you hold can now tell you about the person you’re pointing it at and let you know instantly whether you should shoot to kill or not. ignoring all of the many reasons and television plots detailing why this is bad, I ask a couple of questions; I make sure I sound impressed. my friend is in our group, too, and I can see him glance at me once, and I think about his tired eyes, his tired hands, the colour of his hair like - the end of the summer - and I lay some velvet on my voice. this - this tech is proprietary, right? I ask the man with the gun, and he laughs at the look on my face. yes, he says, it’s all for us. it’s good, isn’t it? on the screen, a man is shooting at people in a town square like it’s an arcade game, picking off targets without hitting any civilians; there’s no panic, because we are supposed to see it as a tool to maintain order. I say, it’s beautiful. 

after they leave, and my friend has stood in front of me going, you don’t have to do that, you don’t have to do that, you don’t have to do that like a broken record and I’ve shrugged and said if he comes back, I’ll see what I can get out of him, and I’ve made everyone uncomfortable by reminding them that I was beaten and raped and tortured and almost killed before the government started doing it to their friends, the girl I’m in love with puts her small hand in mine and drags me off into another room. she’s crying when she sits down, and I kiss her tears away, and she pulls out the poem that she’s written for me and presses it into my hands. I say I’m going to read it and she says no, please, wait until I’m not in the room, put it away for now, you’ve got time to read it later and that’s when I know that if I don’t read it now, narrative dictates she’ll have to die, so that it’s only after she dies that I finally read the poem. you know? like in a movie. I try to tell her that, and then both of us are crying too hard, and I kiss her and wake up.

he’s waiting for me to; tired himself, he says, I miss him, colourless. I suppose in some ways it was just another dream about his Draco.

[thewolfisawake]

If I Had to Pick 7 Games that Define Me, What Would They Be?

I’ve been on this binge of watching various videos as I slowly cleaned my room and get through my Sunday and this was one I thought of doing. Rather than putting it in the hellscape that was the YouTube comments section, I’ll put it somewhere that a) I’d actually remember where it is and b) may be a little more fun and interesting if any one else does something like it. So here goes, this is my list and for the most part, they are not any particular order so much as what I remember.

7) Sid Meier’s Pirates!

Oh way to kick off this list and probably sets the tone for the rest of this list. I didn’t really play this game alone as I was just not adept with keyboard controls at the time. It was a big game for me because it solidified that I did like games and while it wasn’t realized at the time, RPGs would rule my life. I spent hours with my stepdad playing this game. Of just planning who we’d attack and who we’d let go. I actually picked up on patterns to the port minigames while my stepdad could navigate the naval battles. Once we’d been playing so long, we ended up staying up until 11 or so at night...well past my bed time and us hopping off and promising we not tell my mom how late we played. My relationship with him has deteriorated since then but I do have these memories of these late nights of gaming and him to thank for both my love for gaming and animation. As such, I have a lot of love for this game and did want to pick it back up on Steam whenever I convince myself I have time for games.

6) Assassin’s Creed 2

So it was hard to not keep up with games when you had a parent in the house that also played games. As such, I was aware of games like Bioshock and of course, Assassin’s Creed. I...was not interest in the first game, finding playing as an assassin to not be appealing. This was way before my more...intense books and series. I did watch my stepdad play the first game and became interested because of history (because I’m a fucking nerd like that) and when I heard of a sequel and my stepdad bought it, I decided to give it a chance. My poor mother, because this the game that I was obsessed with. I actually completed the game faster than my stepdad because I got frustrated he wasn’t keeping up. And following Assassin’s Creed games were preordered because of me and my brother. It was, actually, really great to go through within a year of me taking European history in high school because ‘Oh my god, this is the sort of place this was going on.’

5) Kingdom Hearts

If it isn’t obvious, I’m not an ‘old school’ gamer. I actually didn’t really know much of video games outside of the sports games my cousins played and games on the cartoon channels I watched for a while. The first gaming system I played was a gameboy color and my first console was the 360 (yes, I got the gamecube AFTER the release of the 360). That was how long it took for me get into the gaming scene. And I fought HARD to get into gaming because of this fucking game. I remember seeing trailers for it and all I could think is how much I wanted to play with Disney characters with this kid. I had begged and even saved up the little money I did get so I can try to get a PS2 so I could play the game. It didn’t shake out like this so the first kingdom hearts game I did actually play was actually Chain of Memories on the Gameboy Advanced SP. It broke me. I got so frustrated playing because of the infamous card system and I was upset because I wanted to get through this story! I wanted to know what happened with Sora, dammit! It actually took me over a year because I got mad, hid the cartridge and forgot where the fuck it was. It was this game that made me realize the terrible ‘oh shit, you have to play this game too’ symptom of Kingdom Hearts really early and led me to my first forays into fanfiction. It is such an important series to me because of all the starts I had as a writer and an appreciation for the JRPG genre before I even knew what they were can all be contributed to this game.

4) Donkey Kong 64/Onimusha 2

This one is cheating because I technically didn’t play these. Or rather if I did, I got scolded a lot. Why? Because it was my aunt’s and I was a fucking kid, attracted to all the bright colors and sure as fuck gonna ruin the run. My aunt, I realized posthumously, was an avid gamer. I used to love going over her house even if it was in a terrifying neighborhood because I loved watching her play games. I even helped her find items she didn’t see and in the latter case, helped her beat a boss because I was paying attention to the item descriptions. She was something of a completionist too so it was amazing to watch these go on. I still remember the run throughs as each Kong member and the name of the protagonist and side character (it’s how I actually figured out what game she was playing). 

3) Halo 3

If you can’t tell a lot of these games have to do with who I played with or around. Because it used to be so much about the interaction that was important and will always be my counter that video games make you antisocial. Halo was no exception. It was one of the first video games I played the ever lonving hell out of. It was me, my cousin, my brother, and sometimes my sister all playing against each other in a round of slayer. My brother dominating despite being the youngest of us all. My sister who is very much not into gaming, became the assassin with the energy sword in her hands. My cousin as the cleaner in all our brawls. And me becoming a menace with dual wielding. We memorized maps and layouts for our favorite weapons, which actually usually never the same. Our favorite game was called Gotcha! Where we went through the game with the only kills counting were those from the rocket launcher and exclaims of “Gotcha!” as our people ragdolled across the screen. This became perilous team ups of capture the flag when it was switched to Reach. All throughout the summer, we didn’t sleep because of these late pow wows of Halo. It was amazing.

2) Tales of

I’m cheating again since this is a series, not a game but screw you, it’s my list! I got into the Tales series late. Like several years after most of the western releases. I heard of Tales of Vesperia first. I don’t remember how, I don’t remember about what but I remember seeing Yuri in action and was like “I have to play this.” And by my luck it was the 360, the only system I owned. And so yeah, I did play it. I sucked at it but I did finish it and had my standards of men ruined by Yuri Lowell. Thanks, you asshole. But what was real important was what came of this. I have a friend that loathed how much loved Yuri and wanted to dislodge him as my golden boy by sitting me down to play Tales of the Abyss. Oh. Fuck me. It was an emotionally rollercoaster that culminated in me bawling about this game as my friends were watching me play while drinking on New Years. Yep. And it became a slow decent from there. I think of them having some of the most interesting characters I’ve seen and a lot of them leading to terribly wonderful times I’ve had from the games. The latest being me and my best friend, who graduated and moved states away, came to visit me during my winter vacation and we played Tales of Xillia. We stayed up the entire night and literally less than an hour before she needed to be at the train station to leave that we completely the final boss of the game. Yes. We were that dedicated. I don’t think I’m as dedicated as some fans I’ve interacted with but I do love the passion for this series because it just is bursting with life and creativity and joy about this series I can’t explain. 

1) DragonFable

Yep, start with an odd entry, end with an odd entry. I don’t care what any one says, it’s a fucking video game. You can fucking fight me. Anyway, yes, I mention this game and get ‘oh I think I played that in ___.’ It was campy, it was cheesy, but it was great. I remember this game because it was one of the first games that wasn’t linked to some toy brand or cartoon on the computer that I can play. I also remember how I infected my school with it because it was a game not blocked by my school’s firewall. And bored children will do what they must. But I came back to it years later finding this immense story behind it and I made a brand new account, bought the amulet that let me in on the cool stuff, and played the entire thing from the beginning. Good lord, there was a lot. It was a game that wanted to grow up with its audience and I’d say it did. It did a lot. But it holds such an importance because it, essentially, is why I’m on here. I actually was set on giving up tumblr because I didn’t see much fun on the niche things I was into at the time. I, out of boredom, decided to see if DragonFable had a tag. It did and I stumbled upon an RP blog and while I had been doing RPing for years now, I didn’t think tumblr was a platform to do it on. It led me to making my own blog with the player character from DragonFable, just split between two people rather than one. I actually befriended this RP blogger and they were my first bout into this platform. I learned a lot since then and I made a lot of friends from just that fandom. Many of them I still miss dearly. It was probably my biggest dip into me learning as a writer with world-building, character development, and just experiencing them grow and change with their interactions. The one thing I consider myself more than anything is a writer so video games that have given me the link or chance to help me flourish there was pretty damn important to ones that define me. 

[shenashenanigns]

#Throwback to some old Christmas photos and memories of my family, some of these are from before my twin and I were even born! (Get ready for some reading 👀) 1 - Shira and I opening presents with Mommy in our cute little silk pjs 🎀 (our older sister, Lexi, made the hand reindeer banner in the background) 🖌️ 2 - My dad, the real Santa, showing his Christmas joy because of how much money he spends for a house full of women 😂 3 - My Tee Deborah (or like my nephew, Mazin, says, "Tee Bebrah"), my cousin Shayla (who always looks like she's up to something 😂), and my older sister Lexi at my grandpa's old house ♥️ 4 - My mom and my oldest sister, Kelli. She just happened to match her doll 💙 5 - This is the same year as the first picture. Also the year my dad said he got our older sisters $50 watches from the Disney store, but he never saw again after that day 🤦 6 - Lexi and Kelli again! One is having a better time than the other 🤣 7 - I remember this Christmas like it was yesterday 😊 peek those matching boots Shira and I got, and we STILL have the @ciara Goodies CD 💿🎶 8 - See that Gameboy Advance Shira has? We've never prayed for a gift SO hard 😂 and that copy of Pokemon Emerald was our first introduction into the Pokemon series, besides the anime lol The sad thing is, some kid from school stole BOTH the Gameboy and game 😞 we learned a lesson about not letting material things consume us so much. They're just objects and, as cheesey as it sounds, Christmas is about being with our family, reflecting on the year, and remembering the birth of Jesus Christ himself 😊♥️ also, we got another Gamboy from a friend AND bought another copy of Pokemon (Sapphire this time) a few years ago. We still have them both this time 😉 MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!! 🎄🎅🎁 . . . . #christmas #christmastree #merrychristmas #oldphoto #family #disposablecamera #90s #00s #twins #sisters #dad #mom #Barbie #ciara #gameboyadvance #Nintendo #Pokemon #pokemonemerald #pokemonsapphire #texas #louisiana #memories

[brachylagus-fandom]

12 Days of WIPmas - Day 5

The first chapter of They Are All Fire (And Every One Doth Shine), a 39 Clues/Hunger Games fusion.

Chapter 1  - Omnium Rerum Principia Parva Sunt (The beginnings of all things are small)

Capitol

When Ian wakes, the apartment is entirely silent. Natalie is still sleeping (she seems to hold the odd belief that sleeping ten to twelve hours each night will magically erase her unibrow and the spots on her chin), and their parents are, of course, at Games Command, where they'll probably remain until the victor's train leaves. Ian stretches, checks his bedside clock - he's got an hour until the very beginning of One's reaping and two and a half until people will start to arrive for their watch party - and rushes to the bathroom. Natalie will probably want to take one of her absurdly long showers once she wakes up, and it takes forever to get his hair right.

Forty minutes before the first guests will start to trickle in, Natalie swears and rushes into the bathroom. Ian rolls his eyes; of course his sister would leave becoming presentable to the last moment and him to do all the prep work by himself. At least they prepared food in advance this year, so all he has to do is lay out the snacks around the screen room and the drinks along the PermaCool strip in the kitchen island. He doesn't bother to turn the screen on; the first two reapings of the day are almost always dull, and if something vaguely interesting manages to happen - if no one comes up to volunteer, or if the fights for the volunteer spots are more violent than normal - it'll be on the recaps.

Natalie, wearing a yellow dress covered in feathers, finishes getting ready and claims her favorite seat on the middle couch less than a minute before Chrissy comes in with a cake from Silversmith's, which she immediately sets on the kitchen island. It's only a one tier high, but even a one-tier cake from Silversmith's costs almost a months' (for Chrissy, probably closer to two months') allowance, and it's chocolate raspberry, Ian's favorite.

"Have you seen what's happened yet?" Chrissy asks.

"No," Ian says as he turns the screen on. Currently, the female tribute's name has been called in Two, and the race to get the coveted volunteer spot is turning into an all-out catfight, complete with hairpulling.

"Should we have?" Natalie asks. On the screen, a lithe girl with scratches on her face and a blood-stained handbag is announced as tribute.

"The boy from One this year is adorable," Chrissy says. "Not that you'd know adorable if it hit you in the face. Natalie, what are you wearing?"

"Next season's trend," Natalie says. "My dress is from Valentine Greene's latest collection, and I saw one of the stylists wearing a violet one the other day at Games Command. I'm not Chernova, Chrissy; I do have some taste."

"Sure you do," Chrissy mutters under her breath as the door opens again and more people trickle into the Kabra's penthouse apartment. In Two, a massive blond boy literally wades through the competition. The escort quickly announces him as Hamilton Holt, District Two's male tribute. There's a shot of the pair walking into the Justice Building, well-wishers and visitors already swarming around it, before the seal of Panem flashes across the screen and the feed cuts back to the commentator's desk. The pair of announcers at it right now, Calpurnia Young and one of the younger Heavensbees, are new to the Games and more or less passable; they're saving Caesar and Claudius for mandatory viewing tonight.

"Well, Hamilton Holt is certainly representative of the strapping stock District Two offers," Calpurnia Young, known to frequent the Victor forums (but not to partake, to the best of Ian's knowledge, not that he knows much) says. "I'm being informed that he's only seventeen years old, having skipped the last year of his training for an early Games showing! However, my bet's still on Sterling from One to take the crown."

"And this is a quick reminder that you can start placing your bets at your local Credit and Loans Center at noon Capitol standard time, after the District Twelve tributes have been announced," Heavensbee junior says. Odds may change, and standard interest rates apply. Now, on to District Three, land of technology! District Three was founded shortly after the founding of Panem, once it became clear that salvaging civilization would require specialized technology that couldn't be built in the Capitol…" Ian yawns; he hates the mini history lessons at the beginning of each reaping.

***

District Three

The sky is overcast on Reaping Day, dreary gray clouds promising rain, and Main Street is packed. Narrow aisles separate the holding pens, which are divided by age (eighteen-year-olds in the front, twelve-year-olds in the back) and gender (boys on the left, girls on the right) to allow the tributes to get to the stage in front of the Head Office quickly, but there's no other empty room in front of the cordons that parents have to wait behind. Peacekeepers stand in a straight line in front of the cordon and along the side streets, their expressionless white masks impassive. They get edited out of the outgoing coverage, Sinead knows - their presence is unusual, she infers  - but she's long since gotten used to the solid line of white-armored bodies. They've been doing this since she was eight, after all, since Maxwell Young got called, since the tiny twelve-year-old tried to run away and his parents tried to help him. (Since Sinead's mother tied the scarf holding her hair back around his face and Sinead's father took hers to do the same and they both told her and her brothers to stay together and go home and neither he nor Mom came back.)

Sinead glances across the aisle at her brothers. They're only fourteen, and even with all three of them taking out the maximum amount of tesserae, so is seventy percent of Shop Four, most of whom have larger families. The odds are in their favor. Any risk to them should be balanced out by the weight of the bodies in front of them and the mound of hers and Ted's productivity credits.

(It's just that the tributes the past five years have been… anomalous. Edith Young, Maggie Clarke, James and Frankie Williams, Kelvin from first shift, Thomas Swan the manager's kid, living in the lap of luxury without a need to take out tesserae… all of them had relatives - parents, aunts, uncles - implicated in the Young incident and shot for treason six years ago. Those odds are much worse.)

Their escort, Aurelius, is in his usual getup - gold wig to match his gold eye jewelry, shiny gold suit, and sequined gold shoes that look like they've never touched dirt - and plunges his hand into the ball with his usual amount of gusto, barely taking time to say "ladies first!" beforehand.

For a second, the square is totally silent. It's as if District Three is collectively holding its breath. Then -

"Our female tribute is… Sinead Starling!" Aurelius shouts, and Sinead gulps. She resists the frantic urge to straighten out her reaping outfit (otherwise known as the last set of work clothes she owns that don't have holes or non-matching patches) as she slowly, carefully, walks up to the stage; fidgeting will not help her here. Aurelius stares down at her like she's some strange bird; from here, she can see his irises, too, are tinted gold.

"And our male tribute is… Ned Starling!"

No. Dread pools in Sinead's stomach. A year ago, the card would have only evoked resignation that she would have to watch her brother die, but a year ago, her triplet brother hadn't mouthed off to Peacekeeper Willis and gotten a baton to the back of the head for it. A year ago, Ned wasn't stuck in bed with headaches for days at a time, and even if they can keep those secret during training, managing them would be impossible during the arena. Ned would die, and it would be Sinead's fault, and Mom and Dad told her to look after them (but it's Dad's and Mom's fault that they're in this goddamn mess in the first place because they decided to disobey an implicit Peacekeeper edict) - 

"I volunteer," Ted says, shaky but certain, and Sinead clenches her fists so she doesn't cry. "I volunteer as tribute."

"Well, what an exciting turn of events!" Aurelius says. "We haven't had a volunteer in forever! What's your name, young man?"

"Ted Starling," Ted says.

"Oh, that means he was your brother!" Aurelius gasps, eyes wide. "And our other tribute - Sadie -"

"Sinead," they say in unison, teeth clenched.

"Is your sister! Is that so?" They both nod. Aurelius claps his hands. "What a delightful, delightful games we'll have this year!" He makes them shake hands; they only cling a little. The cameras flick off, one by one. The Peacekeepers start to lead them inside. And then the crowd, which had been struck silent by a most unusual reaping, starts to scream.

***

Capitol

As the coverage switches from District Three (two teenagers, both with fiery red hair and emerald green eyes, jaws set and heads stubbornly raised - they look like statues on the Road of Honor, like figures in one of the murals in the Hall of Heroes, like proper Panem citizens, not dirty district kids who will be dead at each other's hands in a week) to Honorius Heavensbee's nattering about odds (as if this had anything to do with chance), Ian turns down the volume. It'll be at least fifteen minutes until Four's reaping starts, and although that occasionally turns up surprises, it's still not good TV.

"So," Chrissy, flung out across Ian's third favorite couch says. She's sipping at a pomegranate cocktail made with Trinket vodka - only the best for the Kabra family, after all. It looks more than a little like blood. "Sibling tributes. You've been holding out on us, Gameboy." Ian grimaced and picked at his piece of cake.

"Chrissy, you know Mom never says anything until the Games are over," he says. "She's not as dumb as Crane, for Treaty's sake. And tribute management isn't her department until they're in the arena." At least, it wasn't until her most recent promotion; now, Ian's not sure. (He hopes it isn't. Mostly because he doesn't want to think of his mother as deciding explicitly which kids out of thousands deserve to be offed so the Peace can be preserved. Sure, volunteers can come, but unless they live in One or Two or Four, they won't. And the Chosen are never from One or Two or Four.)

"Still… any more surprises this year?" It's Chernova, who's wearing an emerald sequined dress (to complement the District 1 synthetics implanted into her cheeks as a birthday gift - Lilya's parents let her get alterations, Natalie constantly whines) asking this time. Natalie giggles.

"You'll just have to wait to find out," she says. Ian rolls his eyes - he doesn't think she knows anything more than he does, and what he knows is nothing - and turns the volume back up. The history of District Four is almost over - they've gotten to the clip from Finnicks' victory, at least, where he decapitates the girl from one and then licks the blood from his lips, and Ian is pretty straight but hot - and the reaping is set to begin.

The girl they call up is nothing special - fourteen, bone thin, sobbing when her name's called, probably taking out tesserae for a dozen siblings and aunts and uncles like every other stupid district citizen - but is quickly replaced by a Career, eighteen, muscle-bound and golden-haired. Her name is Andi - short for Andromeda - and her partner, just as tall and broad and handsome, is named Perseus. Chernova yawns.

"I thought this year was going to be interesting," she whines. Natalie tosses a pillow at her.

Five is equally as predictable - two scrawny factory kids. The boy, whose name is "Pony" of all things, is eighteen and stoic; the girl is twelve and cries when she's selected for the honor of being in the Games. They don't share a surname, but there's a likeness there, beyond what Ian would expect from the founder effect in a district as large as Five.

Six, though. Six breaks the mold, just a little bit.

***

District Six

The sky is gray. The sky is always gray in District Six; if it's not raining, it's filled with exhaust fumes from the car plants, and just because it's That Day doesn't mean that the factories stop running, running, running for the people who don't have dependents of reaping age. Nellie's eighteen, on her last year in the ropes, and to celebrate she has a half-shift tonight to sate Peacekeeper demand for hovercrafts. Next year, she'll have only two hours off to watch the reaping itself.

Irina's dressed in gray, too, maybe to set her apart from everyone else onstage. The morphlings wear bright colors, sky blue and safety orange and powder pink and lime green all running into each other, and Cordelia, their escort, has picked a feathered violet gown this year. After finishing a chipper speech on loyalty to the Capitol (she must be angling for a spot in a better District), Cordelia chirps "ladies first!" and delicately plucks out a name from the girls' bowl.

The odds, relatively speaking, are in Nellie's favor. She's eighteen, sure, and she's taken out tesserae, but she doesn't have any siblings, and everyone in District Six takes out tesserae if they can. That doesn't change the fact that the name on Cordelia's lips is "Nellie Gomez."

Nellie barely needs to walk to reach the stage; the pens for eighteen-year-olds are right up against it, and she's been pressed towards the front by people who arrived after she did. Cordelia grins down at her; Nellie can now see that she's embedded amethysts in her teeth and filed them into points. Then she reads out the boy's name.

Sammy Mourad is not someone Nellie knows; from the stink that permeates his clothes, he probably works in one of the refinery plants, so the last time they could've met was maybe pre-career training nearly a decade ago. They shake hands nervously and head into Main Station. Nellie's parents take her excess jewelry - she doubts it'll still be in their possession when she returns - and give her a nose stud shaped like a snake to take into the arena and hug her goodbye. A man in a jacket made from actual leather sneaks in the back entrance to visit Sammy Mourad; Nellie gets the distinct impression he's not on the up-and-up with the peacekeepers.

They head out of the district on a high-speed train. Its wheels thud against the track just out of sync.

***

Capitol

"They look like contenders," Ian says absently, and they sort of do. At least by District Six standards. They're both eighteen and relatively well-fed, and their eyes are clear; not being morphlings puts them a step above most tributes from the Transportation district.

"They look like cannon fodder," Chrissy says. "I'm saying beginning of week two, max. A batch of those new tea truffles from Gardener's?"

"You're on," Ian says. "I think at least one will make top eight."

"I hope it's the girl; she's got a sense of style," Natalie offers from her spot to Ian's left. She's picking at the gold-leafed cookies Chernova brought. "Real punk chic. Or will be, once they get the soot and grease off her, at least." (Ian can practically see her thought process: maybe if we get a Victor with piercings, Mum will let me get some before I'm a hopeless eighteen-year-old virgin.) Ian rolls his eyes. "The boy's awfully exotic, too. Rather dashing."

"Natty's got a cru-ush," Chernova sings. Natalie chucks an empty glass at her head, shrieking "shut up, Lilya!" Ian rolls his eyes and glances back at the screen.

The reapings from Seven rush past; a twelve-year-old boy and fifteen-year old girl who share a last name. (They're cousins, the girl says, and from the group home. The odds weren't in their favor; the group home kids are directed to take out tesserae for all of each other, not just their biological siblings. Ian still doesn't think it's chance.) Then they're on to the introduction for District Eight:

"District Eight specializes in the production of thread, fabrics, and clothing. Its most famed exports are the embroidered garments from its Rainbow Street…"

***

District 8

"Young lady!" Beatrice snaps. "In what world would that be appropriate for the Reaping?"

"I-its the best outfit I have that st-still fits," Amy stutters. She'd finally outgrown her old Reaping outfit - an itchy dress that's tight at the shoulders and loose at the bust - over the winter, and the blouse and skirt she thinks were once her mother's fit almost perfectly. Besides, it's not like she'll be underdressed in them; at least half of the kids will be wearing work clothes.

"Fine." Beatrice rolls her eyes. "Daniel, get dressed! We need to leave soon." While Beatrice is distracted, Amy goes over to Beatrice's one and only bookcase.  (Half of which, of course, is populated by ceramic cat figurines and faded childhood photos of Grace and Beatrice and a boy Amy's never met but who looks just like Dan; most of the books on it are - were - actually Grace's.) One of the benefits of this particular outfit is that the skirt has pockets deep enough to hide a small paperback, and a good book will take away some of the stress of the endless wait in the pens. 

They report to the square two hours early; any later and getting there from Beatrice's inner-city apartment would be next to impossible. Parents are already starting to cluster around the back of the square, where the younger kids stand, but Beatrice stands as far away as possible. She's never liked this place; it has too many bad memories, Amy thinks, between Grace and Hope and maybe even things that happened during the Dark Days. (She's old enough, Amy knows. Barely, but Grace won the Eighth Annual Hunger Games when Beatrice was twenty, which puts her at ten when treaty negotiations started, and that has to count for something.) Discreetly, Amy takes out her book and starts to read.

Amy's seventy-five pages into a history of weaving (and this had to have been Grace's, because this can't be on the Approved Texts List) by the time Theophania coughs into the microphone to start proceedings. Her pantsuit is robin's egg blue this year, to complement the turquoise gems implanted into her forehead like a crown, and her wig and lipstick are bright silver.

"Greetings, District Eight!" Theophania begins. "We are gathered here today to commemorate the end of the Dark Days and the Signing of the Treaty of the Treason, which stipulates that as a method of reparation…" Amy fights back the urge to yawn. She can recite Clause Seventeen from memory - all of District Eight's citizens over the age of ten can - but Theophania insists on repeating it, with emphasis on important phrases, every year. She only tunes back in when Theophania says "ladies first!" and dives her hand into the glass bowl.

Amy's odds are good; Dan's are as well. Beatrice absolutely refuses to let them take out tesserae (not that they really need them; the Cahill family, home to two of Eight's four total victors, is relatively wealthy even though said victors are now dead), citing bad luck, so their names are in only a minimum number of times. Of the thousands and thousands of slips in the girl's ball, three have Amy Cahill written on them in plain, bland typeface. But the odds of a victor's daughter - of the daughter of a victor's daughter who was a victor herself, and one of the youngest in games history to boot - are never in her favor.

The name on Theophania's silver lips is "Amy Cahill." Suddenly, Amy's world shrinks to her sweaty hands and the sound of her heart thudding in her ears.

The walk up to the stage is interminably long. The camera crews that have mounted themselves on top of Mill B zoom in on her face and blast it onto the screens on either side of the stage; absentmindedly, Amy glances at them and notes that she doesn't look scared. Not really brave, either, but her eyes are dry and her mouth is set. Fierce, maybe. Strong enough for a fourteen-year-old from District Eight. The others stare at her as she walks up, trying to place her as the mouse who works inventory for Mill F. (Or, maybe, the victor of the Forty-Fifth Games reborn and re-reaped; Amy has always looked like Hope, even when she's not wearing her hand-me-down clothes, and she could use all her mother's luck right now.)

As soon as Amy is on stage and staring back at the audience, Theophania digs her hand into the boys' bowl. Her manicured nails barely graze the top layer of slips before one is in her fingers, and Amy's not watching closely, but she swears it was up her long bell sleeves and not in the bowl. Theophania unfolds it, and Amy's close enough to read the name over her shoulder.

It's "Dan Cahill." 

The world goes from silent to impossibly loud very, very quickly.

***

Capitol

Coverage from Eight (brother and sister and Cahills, Ian didn't even know there were any Cahills left but they're there, they're tributes) cuts out abruptly due to technical difficulties. Natalie whines; the boy wasn't even on stage yet, and the girl - so stoic, so fierce, so brave - looked like she was about to start crying. The reapings are going to be the best TV until at least interview night if not the games themselves, and they just cut out right when things were getting juicy. It's not fair.

The rest of the reapings are much more subdued. No surprises. No tributes who are related or even look like each other. Just a normal year of the Games. Chrissy and Chernova and the others file off, promising to come back for the interviews, just after the boy from Twelve - a miner's son, and a well-fed one at that, black-haired and broad-shouldered and spitting anger - is reaped. Coverage then goes to short biographies of the Career tributes, as it usually does before the Reaping recaps. The fours, surprise surprise, were practically born with net and trident in hand if their friends are to be believed. The boy from One, Jonah, already has something of a pop Career; his partner, Sterling, has her own jewelry line, which she models wearing it and little else. The twos fulfill the general "mountain man of the people" image; Hamilton's entire family, from his parents to his younger twin sisters, embodies the Career mindset, and Marble's father raised her and her six (six!) siblings on his own after her mother died of the pox. Calpurnia mentions that Dan and Amy Cahill are indeed children of dearly departed Hope Cahill, and there's the money shot of Hope luring the boy from Two into a pit trap and then going for the jugular, but it's glossed over quickly.

Ian wonders if the house cameras are on, if Lavinia's stopping by tonight. He needs to look at mother's records.

[error-320]

Story time with Error: Pokémon

When I was little, my dad decided to get me something other than Barbie dolls at the time, since I never really showed interest in girl things. I think playing Pokémon for the first time in 2007 shapes who I am today. I was 5 at the time (born 2002 and it was Christmas) and I was spending Christmas at his ex-girlfriends house. So I first unwrapped a gameboy that looked like a Pikachu on the front (this was a brand new one that closed and opened I think it was a Gameboy Advanced) and asked what it was. My dad told me it was Pokémon and then gave me an old cartridge for it. It looked a little brand new (reminder the game came out in 1999 and we were in the 2000 range) and it was the Yellow version. The color was a little worn out and there were possible scratches on the cartridge and picture, but it worked. So when I got home that evening, my aunt and my brother helped me with the game. They showed me how to start the game, what to name characters, WHAT THE FUCK A RIVAL WAS (I had a limited vocabulary spare me), and what kind of Pokémon I should get. I got a Pikachu at the start (since this was the yellow version and you always started off with a Pikachu). I would carry this thing on me 24/7 and I got distracted with it at dinner, during school at recess secretly, and even during bed. I stayed up one night just trying to beat one of the gym leaders. After I completed the game a few months later, my brother got me to start watching Pokémon for the first time. I think we made it up to the finale where Ash turned to stone, but I still remember watching the first episode. A few years later, 2012 maybe, my mom got me a DS system that had just came out last year since she was saving money for one for both my sister, my brother and me. When I found out there were games for it later in I got HYPED. I begged my dad to take me to the game stop two towns away when I went with him for the weekend last time and he bought me the Diamond version and then when I beat that, the Pearl version. He bought my brother Heart gold and Platinum, and we still have them. Soon enough after that we got trading cards from vending machines, my dad and mom on Christmas, and more games when they came out. The more recent games I got were Pokémon mystery dungeon: explorers of sky, White, X, The new mystery dungeon, and the one that just came out last month as well as downloaded Pokémon GO when it came out. I just got Moon on Christmas and have played through half of it, and every time I play a Pokémon game I try and find Pikachu and catch it. I think Pokémon affected my life in a positive way, making me interact a little bit more to people. My dad had always asked how I liked the Pokémon games and I rambled off about them at most times. If you're a mother or a father or a caretaker of a child and are looking for something to entertain them, try getting Pokémon for them.