#also ABYSMAL choice having most of the game be played as the person who kills Joel

[mythalism]

in my rook hating mindset now after that post this morning and cannot stop thinking about how they are literally the worst protagonist maybe in any story i have ever experienced JRHGKJERHGJERG. and like if you love your rook i am not saying you shouldn't. if you love your rook i am so so happy for you genuinely but you are also probably brilliant and have a huge brain because what the game gives you to build off of is so abysmal.

i literally cannot stop thinking about how insane it is that rook literally causes a double blight and worldwide catastrophe on a scale which thedas has not seen probably since the creation of the veil itself and just. experiences no remorse. and the story tries to tell us thats a good thing and makes them better than the villain/their foil. JHREGJKHERGJKHERG. HELLO?!!??!?!?! literally no one ever goes "hey maybe you shouldnt have done that" except solas and hes framed as the VILLAIN!!! WHAT!!!!!!!!!! hawke blames themselves for not putting the pieces together fast enough when a bouquet of white lilies arrived at their door? the narrative gleefully condemn anders with the immediate opportunity to kill him for his crimes. nearly every single character in origins immediately puts the entirety of the responsibility for the fifth blight on loghain's shoulders, regardless of the CLEAR SUGGESTION that the battle at ostagar could never have been won. and all of these makes sense for the world and characters!!!!! of course hawke would blame themselves for their families deaths when they were given the role of protector by leandra after malcom dies. of course the city of kirkwall is going to want anders dead for his extreme act of violence rather than start the uncomfortable process of acknowledging the beloved chantry's complicity in large scale abuse happening in the mage circles!!!! of course alistair and the warden are going to blame loghain for the blight and cailan's death!!!! it doesnt matter if they are right or wrong, it makes sense for their perspective and worldview to feel this way!!!!

have yall gotten the low approval conversations in inquisition????? solas's "Inquisitor. Tell me. How does it feel? Being you. Are you blissfully unaware or, deep inside, is some part of you banging on the walls, screaming?" cassandra getting drunk and practically spitting in your face how she regrets raising you up to such power? blackwalls' "Are you proud of yourself, of what you’ve built here? How about the lives you’ve destroyed along the way? Given much thought to those lately? Is this Inquisition all you wanted it to be? Because I’m disappointed. All I see is a gang of thugs led by a self-serving tyrant." and these SCATHING comments from those who once believed in the inquisitor enough to join their cause come from decisions that affect a fraction of the population that dies under the southern double blight. people will rip the inquisitior to fucking shreds when they fuck up. THATS THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE TRESPASSER DLC EHRGKJHERGKJHERG. like holy shit every decision carries the weight of "oh my god whos gonna hate me. who is going to die because of my choice. how is this going to come back to bite me." have we forgotten what its like to return to varric after leaving hawke in the fade and confess what we did? the call we just made? to look him in the eye and tell him that we sacrificed his best friend? WHY IS ROOK NEVER ASKED TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY OF THIS INTROSPECTION?????????? TO EVALUATE HOW THEIR DECISIONS AFFECT THOSE AROUND THEM BOTH PERSONALLY AND SOCIETY AS A WHOLE????? OH MY GODDDDD

the regret prison scene is so insane. first its insane because its solas at his best and most cunty. but secondly it makes no fucking sense even if im largely distracted by pookie being fun and villainous. solas tries desperately to play up rook's regrets during their conversations and we are supposed to believe that it was that manipulation that allowed him to swap with them in the prison. how does this actually work? blood magic? dont worry about it, kitten. but then when we get into the prison.... the only two regrets that manifest are things that just happened within the last 3 hours - your two party sacrifices. lets be clear that these are not even real sacrifices because literally all of these people volunteer to go and then argue about why they should go. this is so fucking stupid. then rook looks at the statues and says "i dont regret this because this was your choice". YEAH????? OF COURSE YOU DONT FUCKING REGRET IT WHY WOULD YOU. HELLO???? THIS WAS NOT ROOKS CHOICE THIS WAS ROOK JUST SAYING "SURE I GUESS". AND THEN THATS ENOUGH! THEY JUST LEAVE BC THEY CONQUERED THEIR REGRETS!?!?!?!?!??! WHAT!!!!!! there is no discussion of rook being responsible for the blight in the south that we find out via ooc inquisitior letter has KILLED LITERALLY EVERYONE. no suggestion that their recklessness and willingness to act WITHOUT ALL THE INFORMATION at the ritual is the reason for every single thing the evanuris do following their release.

and let me be very clear bc i know this was causing drama on twitter last week. i am not saying the double blights is rook's fault. i actually dont think it is their fault, although i do think they are stupid and reckless and shouldn't have acted so carelessly. but although rook is responsible for ghilly and edgar breaking free, rook is not responsible for the their actions following that freedom, and rook is not at fault for being put into an impossible situation (the need to stop solas's ritual) without all of the information on what the ritual was and what stopping it might incur. however, the double blight is rook's fault in the same way that the veil, the fall of the elvhen empire, elven mortality, and every demon's existence is solas's fault; which is to say, it is and it is not. solas was backed into a corner, in a desperate situation without knowledge of the potential consequences, and was forced to make a decision for the good of the world when he imprisoned the evanuris and blight with the veil. rook was backed into a corner, in a desperate situation without knowledge of the potential consequences, and was forced to make a decision for what they thought was the good of the world when they interrupted solas's ritual. but while solas feels immense guilt and responsibility for the choice he made, rook feels.... absolutely none. and the game tells us that... they're right? people should just not take accountability for anything? i will give credit where it's due here that varric's contribution to this scene is quite good and his line where rook tries to take responsibility for his death and varric says smth like "no, that was my own choice and you dont get to take that from me" is B A N G E R. WHERE WAS THAT ENERGY IN THE REST OF THIS FUCKING GAME!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

THAT was the lesson solas needed to learn, not that his regret was wrong but that it was MISPLACED!!!!!!!!! and that is why it is mythal acknowledging that their burden is shared and not his alone is the culmination of his entire story and what finally allows him to move on. pride stands alone, wisdom seeks out the input of others to make an informed and wise decision. this is also why he leaves such breadcrumbs for the inquisitor (a high approval one, at least) because he respects their opinion and their input and their existence and the way they treat him turns him back into wisdom from pride. this is why a romanced inquisitor mentions his name being pride and how its possible that hes not even CAPABLE of changing his mind because it would be so against his nature, and he needs someone whose opinion he values to show him the way. his flaw is his SELF INFLICTED LONELINESS!!!!! NOT HIS REGRET. varric even fucking says this in some random banter you get with his ghost in the infirmary but im too lazy to go find it on my desktop. its something about how he sees attachments as a weakness rather than a strength. his pride causes him to take on responsibility that is not his, his wisdom -> pride corruption has led him to believe he is the only one capable of fixing the world's problems and he will destroy both himself and those he loves in the process. he asserts that he is just a man but is unable to stop making decisions for the world like a god.

THIS is the solas/rook foil that should have been: rook relies on their friends and that reliance is ESSENTIAL; after all, the neve/bellara and davrin/harding sacrifice is essential to win. in contrast solas refuses to rely on anyone, and this isolation makes him increasingly cruel. when he has no one to mirror the way a spirit should, he becomes Pride, too proud and too god-like. his attachments make him more human. he is terrified of depending on others and will kill them rather than risk the vulnerability of dependence after what it has done to him (mythal, felassan). he has to unlearn this avoidance and fear, he has to admit that there "could have been a better way" that someone else saw and he did not. he must learn that he does not have all the answers. he is not Pride. its NOT that rook doesnt experience regret and doesn't take accountability for mistakes while solas is trapped by his own regrets. the message we got instead is so incoherent. but it was SO CLOSE TO BEING GOOD. the bones of this are littered everywhere in both the game and in the datamined content and for some reason it just could not be brought together in a way that makes sense.

the message that rook is "right" and better for not having regrets is genuinely insane, especially when the "regrets" they have to conquer are literally just. other peoples decisions. the fact that rook has the audacity to say to solas that he could never escape the prison while they could so easily because he is trapped by his own regret as if rook is better than him is genuinely so fucking dumb it makes me want to claw my eyes out for having been forced to read it. rook sacrifices nothing and learns nothing. the sacrifices within the game belong to the characters that make them, rook does not order people to their deaths in the same way that solas or even THE INQUISITOR do. rook never is asked to grapple with the fact that they ACCIDENTALLY unleashed a double blight, no matter how good their intentions. WHY DOES NO ONE BLAME THEM FOR THIS???? regardless of if it is their fault or not, the objective truth of fault does not matter, what matters is that you make decisions and PEOPLE JUDGE YOU FOR THEM!!!!!!!!! THIS IS LIKE FOUNDATIONAL TO THESE GAMES JEHRGJKREHGJKRHG. this is what the entire game is about doing to solas. judging him. based on his choices. and the game clearly wants you to have empathy for him in the end. but its so OBVIOUS that the vessel for building up that empathy should have been ROOK EXPERIENCING THE SAME THING!!! THE SAME JUDGEMENT!!! THE SAME GROWTH!!!!! FEELING THE BURDEN OF THE WORLD ON THEIR SHOULDERS. FEELING THE DREAD OF GUILT AND SHAME AND REGRET. TRYING TO DEFEND THEIR INTENTIONS!!! I DIDNT MEAN TO I DIDNT MEAN TO IT WAS A MISTAKE!!!! LEARNING THAT THEY HAVE TO OWN UP TO IT BUT THEY ALSO HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO MOVE FORWARD!!!!!! HELLO!??!?!?!?! they BARELY even express remorse for the treviso/minrathous sacrifice, even when faced with neve/lucanis's anger they just go "a decision had to be made and i made it". well. YEAH? LIKE YEAH THATS RIGHT BUT HUMANS HAVE FEELINGS??? YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A PERSON, NOT A BLANK SLATE VIDEO GAME PROTAGONIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ITS OKAY TO FEEL BAD!!!! YOU MADE A DECISION THAT RESULTED IN PEOPLE DYING. ANY HUMAN BEING WOULD FEEL BAD ABOUT THIS. ITS KIND OF FUCKING WEIRD THAT YOU DO NOT. HOW IS ROOK JUST BORN BEING OK WITH THIS. ITS SO ROBOTIC AND ARTIFICIAL LOL

rooks actions are such a clear, perfect parallel to solas putting up the veil and the guilt that haunts him afterwards that i KNOW it was intended that way and somehow it just got completely shafted. it literally feels like they did have a coherent parallel going and for some reason were forced to change directions last minute and thus we got some mish mashed barely cobbled together incoherent nonsense with clear echoes of its former self. instead rook has no flaws, makes perfect judgements at all time, has unconditional support from all of their friends who also make perfect judgements, are immune to making mistakes, and the message is its actually just really easy to not have regrets if you just choose right every time and refuse to take responsibility for anything as long as you had good intentions :D

[transmechanicus]

Actually looked up the plot for Last of Us 2 bc i heard such damning reviews at the time of release, and it really does just have the most dumbass little starting conflict spiral into a relentless and confusing slog of depressing bloodshed.

[thehappycampersystem]

About That Gollum Game and Portraying Plurality (LONG POST)

CW: Discussions of negative portrayals of plurality

🎵 With the news that the devs behind The Lord of the Rings: Gollum are no longer developing games, we've seen quite a few comments asking why they'd make a game about Gollum in the first place. And to be honest, I kinda get what they were going for, but oh my god was this the wrong way to go about it.

With all the marketing around it around the tail end of pre-release being centered around how it would explore Sméagol's "split personality" (which already raises several alarms due to the wording), it's pretty obvious on the outset that they wanted to write a narrative focused around plural existence. While the end result is awful, I can see the elevator pitch of "What if we took a classic literary work and applied a modern understanding of plurality?" being at least a little interesting.

And to be honest, in a vacuum some of the mechanics and treatment of the main characters as two separate people might have worked, if they were tweaked significantly and in an entirely different context. The fact that they differentiate between the two leads in subtitles is a nice touch. And there's at least an idea to the conversation/argument minigame, if a poorly thought-out one. If you instead frame it as headmates just discussing what they want to do next (without the whole "argument" framing), and treat it more as a player choice tied to specific members of a system, then that would be a cool way to show off what conversations are like in a system, and how they work together to achieve goals.

But this isn't that. This isn't a welcoming portrayal of how plurality works. It's fucking Sméagol and Gollum. And at least as far as we can tell they were never meant to be a portrayal of plurality in any way, but rather strictly as a metaphor for someone who's become addicted to the One Ring.

So to try and add a coat of realism over what equates to "The naive, innocent one vs. the evil murderous one" is absolutely abysmal, to be honest.

The first "argument" minigame is over whether or not to kill a bug. And apparently it only gets more drastic from there. To say that this sort of thing can lead to people having the wrong ideas of how these things work in reality is an understatement. These are the sorts of portrayals that lead to misunderstandings, disbelief, and outright refusal to accept plurality. Not only from others, but for plural systems themselves, who see these things and think "Wait, is that us? Are we really this dangerous?"

I'm glad this game's getting dunked on, and hope it gets forgotten like most Z-grade licensed games. But it also feels important to point out that it's entirely possible to portray plurality positively in a video game. In fact I'd argue that video games, especially those revolving around player choice, would be the best medium to really portray plurality in a positive manner! Imagine a game starring a plural system, where each member perhaps has a different method or idea of how to resolve an issue, but it's more "How do we go about saving the world?" and less "Should we kill this fucking bug?". And in the end the group gets along, without any sort of ulterior motive behind any of them. I'd want to play that game!

Definitely not this fucking Gollum game, though.

[uncouth-the-fifth]

imagine damian and the reader at the wayne gala. he gets jealous when he sees her flirting with someone else. he ends up pulling her into a bathroom and fucking her in front of a mirror while saying that other person can’t treat her like he does

and that’s how the reader finds out damian has feelings for her. all this time he acted like he hates her because he’s in denial

Title: More Than They Ever Said

Paring: Robin!Damian (18+) / Canary!Reader

Tags/Warnings: semi-public sex, oral (f receiving), vaginal sex, bathroom sex, slight underage drinking (reader is like 20 lol), mentions of golf.

Word Count: 7150

Notes: sooooo.... this def evolved beyond a drabble lol. the way gala sex kills me every time 😭 I was a little mushy w Dami here bc I miss his sweet side. This also sounded a lot like goldenspecs12's request from Wattpad, so I hope you don't mind that I meshed the two together 😚 I leaned toward Damian liking the reader more than being in denial, but that’s the only thing I sacrificed between the two requests. This one is my fluffiest and most romantic yet 💖

"can I request Damian w a Queen reader, like she's Oliver and Dinah's child? say the reader is a hero but not very active, like she comes in when her parents can't. so when she and Damian meet, they hit it off. The main request is that they sneak away at a gala held by Oliver and the reader and Damian have sex."

Ask to be added to my taglist for future posts!

The party was more fun than you thought it would be.

Benefits were usually chalk-full of old, wealthy people that thought they made good conversationalists. The board members of Queen Industries were tired of Oliver trying to escape their claws, so you’d been recruited in his place. While your dad got to play minigolf in the penthouse’s massive party floor, you were confined to the lounge, playing up what an intelligent, capable business partner you’d be when you were CEO. Fellow businessmen gruffed about their plans with you while their wives cooed and drank, pinching your cheeks.

You thought that you’d hate it, but the attention and the praise was nice. It made you feel like you were helping your dad and your family’s company, which was constantly criticized and judged for it’s choice in CEO. Everyone called your father a lazy silver-spooned idiot, but he was one of the only men in Star City who actually cared. By the time you had Q.I’s biggest donors laughing out of their seats, Dinah’s hands slipped over your shoulders and you were kissed on the side of the face. Thank you, she mouthed, and your position as family support-beam was covered.

Since most of the benefit-goers were at least forty years your senior, you gravitated to your dad. From the penthouse’s upper balcony, you could see his friends circling around the tiny green mats they were using as a makeshift golf course. Usually, Ollie made sure his public persona’s aim was as garbage as his taste in drink was. But tonight, he played as Green Arrow, who never missed. Not once. Especially when it came to Bruce Wayne, who’s golf game was abysmal at best.

But like Oliver, Bruce was a new man tonight. It looked like he was ready to break out the batarangs any minute now. The two men were barely civil about the viciousness of their competition, and if the view of the game from the balcony was interesting, then from below it must’ve been the greatest show of fragile masculinity ever displayed. You had to make fun of them.

The only opening in the circle of men, who all had their hands on their chins as Bruce lined up his next shot, was by the floor-to-ceiling windows to one side of the game. Just one man stood there, hands in his pockets. You slid next to him, unbothered, and squinted at the game.

Everyone in the crowd was dead silent. Bruce was lining up his golf ball so it would roll into a mug a couple of feet away, so you helpfully provided, “A little to the left, Mr. Wayne.”

Your words overlapped with someone else’s. Where you had said Mr. Wayne, they had said Father. Then the man next to you was his son, but...

You would have never guessed it would be him.

Reasonably, you knew that Robin was Damian Wayne. Oliver could be a little loose-lipped at times, and by his judgment you’d been a teenager just a year ago - what could a twenty year old do to Batman’s secret identity? Not much.

Until you saw Robin without his mask.

Damian was achingly beautiful. He was your age, but he stood and talked like he was much older. There was an angle to his shoulder that made him seem astute and sexy. His eyes fixed on you when you spoke at the same time, and they were a surprising mossy color that jumped out against his tan skin, like plants flourishing out of rich soil. There was just enough blue in them to make him seem haunting. Any moment, you felt like he was going to corner you and whisper your future throatily in your ear.

Looking into them, those piercing eyes, for longer than a second made you want to blurt, “You’re much prettier without your mask.”

But that would expose his secret to every golf-loving idiot in earshot, so Oliver had been wrong. A twenty-year-old like you could do fatal damage to Batman’s secret identity, but for Damian, the short-tempered, snappish leader of the Teen Titans, you would risk anything.

Damian stared, and you stared. He squinted, wet his lips, then turned back to the game. This was your only acknowledgment that he recognised you. His voice was deeper, smoother, than you remember it. “Queen.”

You shifted in your shoes, almost laughing in shock. “...Wayne.”

The game grew boring and Damian didn’t say anything else, so you said nothing too, sneaking glances at him. The last time you’d spoken to Robin had been in costume, when he’d thanked you for assisting with a mission. He’d really been thanking you for standing up for him. You didn’t team up often with the Titans, but when you did, you found that they were unusually snappy and mean with their leader. Not necessary on purpose, but you could tell that Damian couldn’t take as many bites as he pretended to. Standing up for him had been a simple thing. The good thing to do. Now, with that look in his eyes, it almost felt like he still thought about it.

He must have, because the kiss you shared at the end of that mission had glowed with heat. To be fair, you both may have believed you were going to die (before the team pulled through and saved you), so it could’ve been a heat-of-the-moment thing. But this was Robin - if he didn't want to kiss you, he wouldn't. And yet he did.

You’d kissed. And the energy of that kiss lingered between you now, drawing you closer together, putting tiny smiles on your faces. He was cute. Cuter without that mask on.

You stood in the stupid golf silence, feeling foolish. Flirting with boys was much easier in fishnets. It didn’t help how fine Damian’s profile was. He had soft, feathery lashes that occasionally touched down on beauty marked cheeks. His lips were even fuller from the side, forever drawn in a curious line. And those eyes, when they caught yours and danced away again, were much too nice to hide behind a mask. You couldn’t get that thought out of your mind.

When Bruce finally made his move, you leaned in to whisper something to each other at the same time, accidentally knocking shoulders.

“I - apologies,” Damian flushed.

“Oh, um, my bad,” you rubbed awkwardly at the spot where you’d collided. “...You were going to say something?”

Damian’s eyes flicked to your fathers, then to you, unimpressed. He lowered his voice so only you could hear. “They’re awfully hypocritical, don’t you think? Father snaps at me everytime I use my skills in public, and yet he’s putting with perfect aim like it’s not the very same.”

Chuckling, you rolled your eyes and scooted closer, ducking your voice into the bubble between your bodies. “My dad’s the same way. Don’t aim in the house, he says, unless it’s him trying to beat Bruce Wayne.”

Your company’s shoulders turned sideways, leaning into you. His breath ghosted the hair on your neck, standing it on end, and again that silky voice sent tingles down your spine. Damian must change his voice as Robin, because he never spoke like this then. So huskily, so low.

He shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

You watched him. He watched you. You ran your tongue over your teeth, and Damian subtly adjusted his slacks from his pockets.

At the same time, you asked each other, “Would you like to get a drink?”

_

Your hiding place was a loveseat in the lounge, between more businessmen and their ditzy heirs. The bartender was your family’s, so he smiled and turned down your request for a drink, courtesy of your dad’s strictness. Luckily, he didn’t recognise Damian. You watched him order it at the bar, his rings catching the light, the muscle in his arms peeking out from under his blazer.

“I think he suspected I wasn’t of age, so he only gave me one.” He took the place next to you, propping his ankle on one knee and lounging out like a panther. Damian offered the cocktail to you, once he’d decided the coast was clear. It was a cute gesture. “Is that acceptable?”

You fished a five dollar bill out of your purse. “Only if you take this for paying. Don’t think I didn’t see you try and sneakily get that past me.”

Damian scrutinized the bill, then you, somehow managing to be a smartass without opening his mouth. Instead of thinking about how nice it would feel to kiss the slight crease between his brows, you traded hands with him so the bill was in his and the drink was in yours. The gentle brush of you palm to his knuckles put way too many butterflies in your belly.

You talked about everything and anything. About home, family life, your cities. The best of it was when Damian dipped his head so only you could hear him, keeping your secrets close and your bodies closer. This was the only way he talked about Robin, so you circled back to any vigilante subject you could think of just so Damian would keep purring into your ear like that. Better yet, he was smart. Talking to him was engaging, and within minutes he'd entranced you, so you sat there talking for more than an hour. Around you, the party rotated and went on.

At one point, you took a drink of the cocktail and passed it to him to share. Damian placed his lips right where yours had been, licking up the cocktail salt and gulping it down slow, adam’s apple bobbing, like it wasn’t the taste of the vodka he was savoring.

Eventually, your bliss was broken. Damian was called over to his father, again, to discuss business, and he left you with your remaining cocktail and the memory of that mission. You couldn’t find a reason to move from your seat. When you’d realized that you and Robin had been led into a trap on that mission, it’d been too late, and your efforts to escape became more and more futile. All you could do was pray the Titans got to you on time. Robin had offered you his glove as the walls closed in, and you’d watched up-close as he assumed you were both about to die. The fear in his eyes was strange - like it was familiar to him. At the same time, you cupped his neck and he held your upper back, and you’d kissed fervently, sweetly.

Damian had put his forehead to yours, and promised even as the trap shrunk around you, “You were excellent. More excellent than they ever said.”

In the big picture, it was a strange last remark to make, and afterwards you’d been too happy about surviving to think about it. But in the moment, you understood. You were understood. Somehow, Damian had reached into your soul and gouged out the words you’d been dying to hear, from your parents, from anyone, and uttered them to you with burning conviction. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe he meant it. Damian found you excellent. Someone, somewhere, didn’t think you were a failure.

Odd, how you’d never seen the face of the man you thought you’d die with (until now), and yet he saw you so easily. You watched him follow his father into the party crowd now, wondering. The Titans had saved you before you could ask what he’d meant. More importantly, before you could tell him the same. He was excellent.

_

Once you’d finished off your drink, you left it at the bar and grinned evilly at your family bartender. He rolled his eyes and slyly delivered you another, which, on your superhero schedule, would not have you drunk yet. Another heir to some big company was seated at your right, ignored by his father enough to look for some small talk with you.

He was one of the cute, nerdy types that were usually in awe of you. Girls, available girls, were typically rare at these kinds of parties, so he took you not having a boyfriend as permission to flirt with you. Unfortunately for him, your seat gave a perfect angle on Damian across the party floor. He was impressing the wives of Wayne business partners, who flocked around him like they’d flocked around you, pinching his cheeks. You could almost read their lips enough to guess what they were saying. What a handsome young man you are! Oh, Bruce must be so proud.

“...and then my father flipped over his kayak! Would you believe it? Two thousand dollars, thrown right in our family’s lake.” Your company snickered, howling at his own story.

You circled the rim of your glass, watching how Damian tried to teach some of the women phrases in Arabic. Unknown to them, they were some pretty funny swear words. It threw you into a bout of giggles, and the man next to you kept talking, spurred on by the noise.

The flock of hens around Damian receded, and his shoulders slouched in relief. That was cute, too. It wasn’t often that people understood how draining these parties were, but for people like you and Damian, it was a racetrack of endless, boring circles. Everything was a formality. Few things were genuine. Damian turned, and you caught his eye to let him know you were going to meet him. He nodded toward a side hall, his mouth a curious line again. If you looked at it long enough, it felt like a smile when he mouthed, escape?

Your company was still talking. He stopped when you grabbed his tie and planted a pity-kiss on his cheek, waving to him as you bounced away. “Sorry, kid. Not my type.”

_

You planned to bring Damian to the secluded balcony on the second floor to unwind, but instead, you were taken by the wrist and maneuvered into an empty powder room. It was colder than the steaming party air and smelled like champagne, with couches to sit on and mirrors to powder at. For a bathroom, the lights were warm and low. The noise of the party went quiet the instant the door was shut, like you and Damian had entered your own little world. No more circles. No more back and forth.

“Here,” Damian said, noting the mirrors. He tilted his head as he asked, like he was nervous, “Is this acceptable?”

“It is the ladies powder room, but I’ll give you a pass, since you’re cute.” You joked. Damian didn’t make a move to relax on one of the couches yet, hanging in front of you like there was more he wanted to say. There was more you wanted to say, too, but no good words came to mind.

But the silence wasn’t awkward. Again, Damian stared, and you stared. The glass he brought with him was set down. He put one fist on the counter beside the door, and like honey had been poured on your nerves, you realized how easy it would be for him to push you up against it. Kiss you senseless. Heat drooled off of him this close, and you wondered if he’d still lean in to whisper to you even if you were alone.

The lack of words drew to a point where something had to be said, anything, but his eyes felt so good on your skin and it was interesting to see him nervous. Something strange told you that Damian liked the silence, too.

You wet your lips with your tongue. Damian cleared his throat, and took a sip from his glass. “Was I interrupting something?”

“Between me and that guy?” You smiled gently, like you were reassuring him, and laughed to yourself. “Oh, man, you should’ve seen it, Damian. Poor kid really thought I was flirting with him. He’d totally convinced himself, it was hilarious.”

His profile was tense in the mirror, which you stole glances at to watch how the amber light played on his handsome skin. When Damian swallowed his drink, his throat rolled in the sexiest way, and immediately your mind fed you with visions of suckling, kissing, tonguing his neck.

“Why’d you ask?” Your eyes sparkled. Damian drew a step closer, and you used the opportunity to swipe a drop of alcohol from the corner of his lip with your thumb. “You jealous?”

It was the touch or the suggestion that made Damian pause. He didn’t stutter, but lagged over what to say, eyes vast and wanting as they raked over your face. “I don’t get jealous,” he clarified, “but… I do intend to be the only man to kiss you tonight.”

Damian’s hand took your chin. Your belly exploded with instant arousal, hitting you like a bullet of liquid lust. “You’re the only man who’s kissed me like that,” you whispered, taking his tie in hand. “I hope that’s always true.”

His voice had gone throaty. “May I kiss you again?”

Again, he reminded you.The two of you had kissed before, and it had been spectacular, terrifying, and excellent.

“Please,” you said, and Damian rushed to your aid.

Not a moment more was wasted. Curling his tie into your fist, you drew him in, slow and deep and wonderfully. Damian’s cologne hit you before his lips did, and both made your core throb for friction. Two broad hands slammed your hips into the door. His fingertips smoothed up the fabric of your dress, pressing you back and squeezing you in until you could feel his belt buckle against your belly. Damian was a sweet, magnetic kisser, chasing your lips like he was on a crusade to save them. Each time they met, he swam deeper. The point of his nose bumped against your cheek. You hummed your laugh against his lips, and Damian groaned as he pulled away, readjusting, twisting, testing the limits of the kiss. And you followed him at every step or more, revelling in his taste.

You didn’t want him to think you wanted the kiss to end, so you drew the hands braced under his blazer around his neck. Soon, that didn’t feel close enough, so you cupped each side of his face and pecked Damian until you were breathless. He brought you in until your arms were flat to his chest, the kiss almost vertical in its intensity.

He groaned when you parted, gasping and blinking just inches from your face. Your mouths were still connected by a thick string of drool, which hung until it split and clung to Damian’s chin and fell, marking a wet strip down into his collar. You panted, watching it go.

Damian left your waist to hold your wrists, keeping your hands around his face. He settled warmly into your touch, basking in it, and the pure enjoyment on his face made you smile. You wondered if anyone else had cared for him like this. If Damian had ever felt someone hold his face and treasure it. The thought gave you a strange urge, so you followed it.

You brought Damian’s brow level with your mouth and sweetly kissed his forehead. Then his nose bridge, then his temples. His face was so quickly warm that you giggled. In the most unsubtle way possible, Damian drew back his hips so you couldn’t feel the heat there, and closed his eyes, begging you to continue.

“I want you,” you whispered against his jaw.

Damian shivered. “You have me.”

You shifted one hand to his shoulder, giving yourself more room to nuzzle and kiss his neck. The line of drool was still there, so you cupped his skin and tilted his jaw up, and in one stroke, licked all the way to his earlobe. Damian’s moan poured from his mouth like a growing flood. You even felt his thighs press together between you, and pleasure tingled in your throat when he choked at the glide of your tongue.

He released your wrists, reached beside you, and locked the door with an audible click.

Then, Damian devoured you. Both hands hooked around your back, arching your chest into his, and finally, bringing his bulge between your hips. You clung to him for dear life, helpless as his teeth pressed into your neck like a vampire. Damian fed like one, too, suckling the skin there like he was starved. Your panties were so wet that you were desperate to get out of them, grinding your core against his.

Damian retreated, gasping. He licked the spit off of his lips and glared into your eyes. Bluntly, he said, “I want to eat you out.”

Once more, you kissed him, delirious with excitement. Your lungs burned for air, but your core burned harder for him. “Take off that suit and you can do whatever you want to me.”

His eyes gleamed. “I plan to.”

Quickly, you shoved your hands into his sleeves and pushed them off his shoulders, giving you a crisp glimpse at his carved shoulders. Damian's fingers blurred from button to button, but he saved the last for you on purpose. You worked in tandem and with little thought. If he could, Damian would steal a kiss, and you would bite his lip and chase him into more. When that last button was popped, his white button-down parted for a gorgeous plane of hard-earned muscle. His abs, ribs and pecs were pockmarked with scars, shrapnel marks and in some places, bullet holes. You stopped.

At your staring, Damian pressed his lips together.

“It's.. not appealing, I know,” he monotoned.

“No,” you disagreed, palming his stomach, “it’s impressive. All these do is show how strong you are, how long you've survived. You're so… built...” you didn't hide your thorough examination of him, “...I mean, we have to be to do what we do, but still… It suits you. It's sexy.”

You worried you'd ruined the moment with your babbling, but he glimmered under your praise. Damian brightened in the way only Damian could, smirking devilishly and towering over you like a supervillain.

“Sexy?” He pressed his naked chest into yours, whispering hotly in your ear. You could feel his silk tie pinned between you. “Does that mean I'm your type?”

You rolled your eyes. “Eavesdropper.”

“Temptress,” Damian replied, just as easily.

To claim your title, you found Damian's belt and pulled on it until the clasp gave. It made a satisfying whipping noise as you ripped it off of him, shouldered into his space to grab his waist in one hand, and cupped his throbbing boxers in the other. Damian's sigh came hoarsely and wanton from his mouth.

“Fuck me,” you demanded, grinning with delight.

Instead of wasting time on a response, Damian fell to his knees, a faithful worshipper. He did the gentlemanly thing and helped you kick off your heels. The tile was icy on your bare feet, but it only mattered until Damian ran his hands up your thighs. Sliding his fingers underneath the fabric, he bunched it up your middle, peering up at you smugly through his lashes. You could feel the debauchery of it - Damian, on his knees, tie hanging still from his neck, pinning you to the door. You, your legs spread and wanting.

Damian sucked in a breath. Your panties had an obvious wet patch, put there by him. He thumbed it carefully, watching your brows tense and your eyes close, basking in your initial whine. All of it enchanted him. You were soaking because of him, trembling because of him, marked because of him. There was not one place he would rather be than here.

Damian collected your sweetness and sampled the taste on his thumb, trapping it behind his smug smile. He ran his tongue over his teeth, spreading the flavor around his mouth, savoring it. As Damian rolled your underwear down your legs, his cock twitched in his open fly. You were beautiful. Oh, he was going to enjoy this.

“Put your leg over my shoulder,” Damian ordered, smirking, “I want to taste you.”

Warmth exploded in your cheeks. “G-go ahead.”

Gradually, you situated your leg across his back, pussy tensing at the touch of the cooler air. This didn't matter for long. Damian's warm lips nuzzled and kissed the thigh closest to him, painting messy reflective circles on your skin with his kiss. Even that made your legs tense wildly, so Damian shoving his wet, blazing tongue into the folds of you cunt pumped moan after moan from your mouth.

“Damian!” You yelped.

Oh, he definitely liked that. Damian pinched your ass and used his mouth so passionately that his head shook back and forth. He darted right for your clit, sucking it until his cheeks were hollow and humming smugly between your legs with every squeal. Parting your folds with one hand, Damian kissed your core just as dirtily as he'd kissed you. The dangerous glint in his eye never faded. He plunges his tongue inside you in earnest, slurping obscenely, purposefully. There's no need for Damian to shoot you cute looks or put on a show - his skill was the performance, because that skill was unbeatable. Your pussy was already tender, fucked nerveless by Damian's filthy mouth. He vibrated your cunt with a deep groan before he drew away, face dripping with slick like a pornstar’s.

“You're suitably wet,” he said, matter-of-factly, “would you like me to use my fingers?”

All the strength you had went into a weak, pleading nod.

Damian was polite enough to grant you your bearings first, letting you grip his hair and squeeze the counter before he resumes. You give him the sweetest, most precious whine when Damian licks you open again. He wisely starts with one finger and builds from there, earning you with pumps and curls of his digits. Damian's talents quickly become a currency, one that you exchange with mewls and pants of praise.

“So good,” you whine, “oh, fuck - fuck, just like that…”

Damian smirks between your legs, jamming his fingers faster into your sore pussy. Lust sizzles low in your gut, ramped up again and again by his thrusting. It’s so powerful that you roll and buck off the door, your hips in his face. You want him - want him more than you want anything.

“You're ravaging,” Damian hums between licks. His eyes are closed, but that only gives the way he touches you more meaning.

It’s so surprising from his mouth that your hold on his hair slips, setting Damian free. He pants, catching his breath, and it’s easily the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. The effort has slouched him from his knees to his calves, further spreading his legs and opening up the fly of his pants. A solid bulge has formed and spilled out there, straining to escape his briefs like an arm in a sling that’s too small, way too small, for someone of his size. Three of Damian’s fingers are still twisting inside of you.

Slowly, Damian tipped back his head and hung down, arranging himself beneath your cunt. “So beautiful.” His free hand splayed where your leg met your hip. “May I touch you?”

“I-I get it’s the gentleman thing to do, to - to keep asking, but fuck, Damian,” you cursed, “you can do whatever you want to me.”

Damian’s intense jade eyes were so dilated that you could barely make out the color. He dragged his cheek against your thigh, fingers still circling inside you, and grinned like a shark. It was probably a bad idea to give the heir to the Demon’s Head that much power over you.

His other hand squeezed your skin, slow to passionate, from your belly to your breasts beneath your dress. It’s clear by the way Damian looks at you that he loves what he sees. The texture of his veiny, calloused hands feels good on your waist and ass, dragging you closer to him. He chuckles when your back arches, when your nails press into his hands, his back muscles, throwing himself into his task. Damian’s nose prods your folds as he licks you clean, tongue dipping and sliding against your sore clit. It’s like he’s done this for you before, in this exact way. Though he utilizes his tongue the most, his lips too are brutal, matched perfectly to fit your pussy lips.

But that tongue - how Damian’s jaw isn’t tired, you don’t know. He parts your folds and latches onto your clit, flicking his tongue at superspeed until drool and cum bubbles from your sensitive core. Your back winds tighter at every vibrating lick, paralyzing the muscles in your legs with glorious pleasure. It’s so exquisite you start to melt to the floor like warm clay, only to be bolstered back up by Damian, both hands viciously squeezing your ass. He keeps going not for you, but himself, sucking down every last drop of your juices.

Shattered, you twist hopelessly into his mouth, chasing the strained feeling like it’s the last you’ll ever glimpse. “Fuck, fuck - D-Damian, ah…”

“Did it feel good when I made you cum?” He teases, “It certainly tastes good. All those filthy little noises you make for me…” Damian shakes his head at himself, like it’s too fantastic to indulge again. He leaves your clit with a satisfied kiss. “Beautiful.”

Once more, the words are surprising to hear from him. You always considered Damian the prude type, but here he is, on his knees for you, mouth and chin glittering with your juices while he teases you in low, sexy tones. At your surprised look, Damian has the gall to blush.

With his ring finger in his mouth, he ponders, “If a man has never said that to you before...” pop, “consider me surprised.”

“Never while finger-fucking me, at least,” you admited, legs still trembelling. “It was sweet. You… you meant that?”

It was hard to imagine Damian Wayne finding anything beautiful. Even you, who was pretty enamored with him, figured he would judge by quality or skill, not beauty. The words tasted new on his tongue.

Slowly, Damian stood and stretched, his shoulders tight after staying in the strange position for so long. Lifting his arms coincidentally let his waistband sit lower on his hips, flashing his green boxers your way while showing off the huge, carved muscles of his arms. Truly, Damian’s subtlety was unmatched. You didn’t mind his miniature bragging fest - not when he had so much to brag about. Eating you out had put an excited shimmer in his skin, so the gold-toned lights of the room reflected sexily off his sweat, already accenting his kissable tan.

“I did,” he told you, moving on to his sucking middle finger. His other hand played on your thigh, stroking it. “I’ve always been… drawn to you. Every mission we’ve had together. I have a profound feeling that we are very similar.”

You laughed. Not at what he said, but the timing of it. “Would you believe me if I said I felt the same way?”

Damian made a face like his heart was doing jumping jacks. “A few hours ago? No. But now…” he barricaded you against the door, first with his hands and then his hips, closed in so tightly that you had to look past your nose to meet his eyes. “Your crush is adorably obvious. I’m annoyed that I didn’t see it before.”

Your rounded your hands against Damian’s shoulders, then his tie. It twisted nicely around your fingers, silky and cold in comparison to your flushed skin. You were tempted to fix your dress, but nothing, not even the world ending, could make you leave this room.

“My crush is obvious? Damian, all you’ve done for the last two hours is sneak me drinks and imply how much easier it is to be around me.” You grinned, “What’d you say earlier? There you are, Queen. Finally, someone intelligent enough to speak to me.”

Damian shrugged. “It’s true. Your knowledge of bioluminescent ocean life is fascinating.”

“I can’t believe you said that after giving me head for ten minutes.”

“It’s actually been closer to twelve,” Damian smirked.

Playfully, you pinched Damian’s cheek, then pulled him by the tie into a starved, energetic kiss. He must’ve been praying for your permission to continue, because the plan he’d been forming is quickly put into action. You’re hugged, arms scooped under your back as you kiss him. Damian surrenders his mouth to a bit of revenge tonguing while undoing your dress. No amount of kissing will pull him from his task, but your hand is a special case - it smooths down the front of his boxers and Damian melts.

“Y/N,” he groans.

Damian petulantly resists the temptation to close his eyes, but your touch is soft and sweet, demanding him to yield. Your lips suckle on his neck and Damian’s knees buckle. If getting his mouth between your legs didn’t turn him on, then this will finish him for sure.

“I missed you. Kissing you.” You purr into his throat. “One could never be enough for me.”

Is this what it’s like to be wanted? Damian asked himself. The only possible answer thrilled him, and he found himself pouring even more passion into the kiss, into you, wanting to share that rush of affection. You respond to his every touch with vigor. Damian’s heart stalls each time your thumb strokes his face, each time the other strokes him through his slacks.

“Me either,” he rasped, and helped you out of your dress. His tone was shy, but his words held too much depth to be meaningless. I want a wealth of them. I always want to kiss you, was what he wanted to say, but Damian was too embarrassed to raise the words. This moment was too special to ruin with his hopeless romanticism. He kissed you again and again, and to his amazement, you kissed him right back.

“Fuck me,” you begged him between breaths. “Right here. I don’t care if we’re caught.”

I don’t care if we’re seen together. I want to be seen with you, I’m not ashamed of you.

Damian cupped your face and almost knocked you both over with the strength of his kiss. Nose-to-nose, eyes closed, he commanded, “Bend over the fucking counter.”

In a blink, Damian turned and there you were, open and waiting for him. The sink was hip-level, so the bend was nothing but perfect - Damian could fuck you from behind and watch your lust-blown reflection without issue. Your perfect pussy drooled leftover cum down your legs, making your sex shine in the light.

In the mirror, you watched Damian’s eyes darken in delight. His pupils followed the line of your ass to your back, appreciating it like an artist would, like he intended to paint you later and needed to memorize the greatest shapes of your figure. The marble was icy against your hard nipples, which Damian had exposed when he’d impatiently shoved down your bra. Now, he cupped one of your breasts as he bent over you, kissing and suckling his way down your back.

“Perfect,” Damian hissed.

Shyly pressing your butt back against him, you buried your face in your arms and bit your lip, waiting for him to open you up. Damian’s shadow came to hover over you, and in the mirror his eyes were vicious, pools of circling sharks. “Are you ready?”

“Mhm,” you nodded. “Take your time.”

Though you weren’t being sarcastic, Damian took it that way and pinched one cheek of your ass. “With you? I will.” Then, with the same smoothness, Damian asked, “Condom?”

“Pill,” you replied, and Damian nodded his approval.

His pants rustled as they fell down his legs. Where you couldn’t see, Damian committed the sight to memory - his cock in hand, your pussy spread open, all for him. You squeaked when his hot tip touched your cooling clit, and squeaked again when it glided down your pussy and tested your opening. He knew he’d found the way when you winced.

In an unsurprising moment of compassion (for those who truly knew him), Damian kissed the top of your head and offered you his hand. “Would you like to hold it while I…?”

You took his hand and squeezed it to your chest, squeezing him closer in the process, too. “Thank you. Go slow, for this part…”

Damian complied. His sweat-sticky chest hovered warmly over your back. Even if Damian was big, you were wetter than you’d ever been in your entire life - any pain would quickly slide into pleasure. He braced himself with a deep inhale, and a hot, sharp sensation told you that he’d entered you. Where you choked in a needy gasp, Damian poured out his version of a whimper. You both held it. Then, breath by breath, you were struck with the realization that you’d been dying to feel this for weeks, for months, and only now was that heat being satisfied. Damian’s tongue and fingers had come close, but this is what would cure that aching emptiness - his big, girthy cock.

The deathgrip you had on Damian’s hand loosened. “You look perfect,” he murmured into your hair, instantly making your core flutter. “Oh,” he chuckled filthily, “you like that? Funny, how badly that idiot at the bar wanted to be in my place right now…but it’s me who gets to pound into—”

“Damian,” you warned.

He smiled smugly against your neck. “Nothing.”

Dutifully, Damian withdrew his hips, taking all of the heat with him. When he rolled back in, a hot, tingling sensation roared over all of your senses, and you let the moan at the top of that tsunami loose. It was clear that he couldn’t fuck you like he wanted to with one hand fished down at your side, so he glued both to the base of your back and started to thrust in earnest.

“So full...” You mewled, and Damian became a human pile-driver.

Your head seemed to roll off your shoulders with every crazed, rhythmic slam, so you grabbed the faucet and held on for dear life. Every slap was so loud, so powerful, that you prayed this one random bathroom in the penthouse was soundproofed. Anyone walking past would know you were getting railed out of your mind. You tried to compensate by moaning and squeaking quietly, but with force came volume. It didn’t matter how silent you were, Damian’s hips, your ass, the squelch of him inside you - each noise filled the bathroom, echoing off the tile.

The only way you could think to describe him was filling. First, there was the hot, cinching tension of his hands fused to your waist. Then there was his cock, which begged to be squeezed more and more with every pass. You responded to each throb with a mighty clench, which bent Damian over you like an animal, gasping for breath. His balls were painted with your slick. The closer you came to orgasm together, the closer Damian came to you. His hands migrated to higher on your sides, then up by your shoulders, then around you, where Damian kissed your back and rubbed your belly while he made love to you. He talked more than he moaned. Your ear was filled with sweet nothings, with vicious promises of what he would do with a whole night alone with you.

Damian’s reflection was wild with lust. He met your eyes as he fucked you, whispering how beautiful you are, how good you take his dick. His deep green eyes were so dark you couldn’t make out the brown in them anymore. The long muscles on his arms drew taut with each thrust, making his biceps bulge and pin your hips to the sink. Soon enough, a bruise would form from the pressure. One of many treasures from tonight - you would be thinking about Damian in his crisp suit for months to come, and the mess he’d become with you now even longer. Your pleasure built and built and built, like a nail struck further into the ground with a hammer. A very, very big hammer.

“M’ cumming,” Damian husked, slowing his plowing to a sloppy glide. Even his endurance was spent, and you were glad he’d spent it all on you. “Where d’ you…?”

You braced your hands on the counter, then on one of Damian’s. Together, you smoothed his digits down your stomach and between your soft, abused folds. “Inside me, please, please please—” you begged him, “fuck, a-as deep as you can go.”

As a test of your flexibility, Damian turned in and kissed you. Just as he parted your lips with his tongue, he parted your folds with his fingertips, overriding your clit as his cock throbbed inside you to the hilt. He took the invitation as a command. Damian pressed in until you could feel his abs mold to your ass, then stuttered his hips in quick, agonized dips to get himself there. With his fingers and his cock putting stars in your eyes, you finished first.

The white marble counter fizzed in your vision, until all you could see was that powerful, endless white, humming in your mind’s eye. Still, Damian wasn’t finished yet. You bumped your temple against his chin and hummed, “Cum for me, baby… fuck, a-ah!”

Your pussy’s throb raced and raced until it spilled over, pulling Damian right under the current. One clench and he was done for, so the velvety, periodic squeeze of your cunt emptied his store. You hung there, spasming in unison, until that overwhelming heat spurted in a ring around Damian’s cock and flooded out of you. Only then did his fingers stop on your clit, and you settled warmly in each other's arms and tried to remember your names and who you were.

Damian pulled out, then snuggled back in. He would’ve been nervous any other time, but he’d just put his dick inside you, so a little instinctive cuddling could be forgiven. On shaky legs, you turned around and sunk into him. You could tell by how he was eyeing the sink that he was desperate to get clean again, so with one kiss (on the cheek), you set Damian loose.

In companionable silence, Damian cleaned up and you collected the clothes abandoned on the floor. Staring at the corner where you’d just had the best sex of your life put an embarassingly pleasant warmth in your chest. Interesting, how one terrifying moment could become something as special as this. Fascinating, how you’d felt like you’d known him all your life.

“You know… I think you’re excellent, too.” You told him, finishing off the knot for his tie.

Damian dipped his head to hide his smile, but something so bright was impossible to hide.

[the-irken-pony]

Henry Vs. Frisk essay. Because I need to fulfill my twisted fantasies.

Okay SO

We know that Frisk and Henry have a couple of things in common: timeline awareness, ability to come back from death, and remembering their own deaths. There are probably other things, but those are the most common. Thus, a battle between the two could potentially go on forever, if given the chance.

But looking at the outcome of a battle isn't nearly as interesting as looking at the different mechanics that they take advantage of and seeing how they play off of each other.

Frisk:

The biggest determinant in Frisk's power is not their stats as a result of their LV or weapon, it is their intention behind each attack--whether they want to actually inflict pain or not.

When they don’t want to hurt someone, they’ll only do 1 HP, whether they're doing a fake hit or actually charging their attack.

If they’re feeling particularly murdery, they can kill someone instantly.

In a neutral state of mind, stats will be the biggest determinant.

Frisk is capable of seeing someone's stats by checking them.

Their ACTs are their biggest and most invaluable toolkit. Even when they have no choice but to fight, they're able to give themself the upper hand by acting in ways that lower attack and defense.

In battle, Frisk acts first...... with one exception.

Frisk is always given the opportunity to dodge attacks to avoid damage.

Frisk seems to have very little agency outside of the player's control, despite being explicitly a separate person from the player. The most agency they actually have is in a True Pacifist route.

Besides being aware of resets, Frisk is bound by the game's rules. Anything "game breaking" is done by the player separately from Frisk.

Frisk's involuntary resets happen as a result of death. If they fuck up, they can choose to keep that as long as it didn't kill them.

Henry:

Henry is consistently a weak character with low stats. He dies in one attack from anything, and his damage output is almost always abysmal.

Henry's HP is considerably lower than Frisk's; in the Mr. Macbeth fight, Henry is at LV18 (which... wow 😶) yet he only has 50 HP. Frisk would have 88 HP at this level.

Henry consistently relies on items that he's given rather than his own stats, with exceptions being few and far between.

Henry apparently has ability to make anyone within a certain radius only have 1 braincell.

Henry ALWAYS acts first. Even if there’s a logical reason for him not to, he does anyway. *side-eyes RHM for letting Henry attack first for no reason in Master Bounty Hunter*

Henry, in most circumstances, is forced to simply take whatever hits are coming at him. The options to dodge or deflect attacks are notably uncommon.

Henry has a surprising amount of agency for a player character--he has arguably more control over what he does than the player does, which is rare for player characters in games.

All of the games in the Henry Stickmin series, especially the later ones, emphasize the fact that Henry is capable of things other characters aren’t. However, what’s really interesting is that Henry’s able to access cheat codes in Fleeing the Complex and Flash’s transformation tools in Completing the Mission, both of which suggest a level of 4th wall awareness that not even Frisk is implied to have.

Henry’s involuntary resets happen as a result of him failing whatever goal he’s trying to achieve. The game makes a peculiar distinction between him failing his mission because of dying and him dying as a consequence of succeeding his mission.

So, what would happen if they went up against each other? Well, that’s where things get... complex. A number of factors would need to be taken into consideration: which route is Frisk currently in, what is Henry’s chosen goal, is it just a contest of who kills the other first, is it a question of who’s more of an obstacle for the other, is it a contest of stronger wills among these meta-aware video game protagonists, etc. etc. etc.

The answer largely depends on what question is being asked, exactly. So I’ll go over multiple questions and answer them!

Q: Uhh, the normal “who would kill the other first” question, duh.

Easy answer: Frisk. Henry would make a first move, but neither of his options are satisfactory. His direct attacks are weak, and his item-based options, while powerful, could still be dodged. Meanwhile, not only are his defensive options weak, but Frisk is capable of killing people with one attack based on intention alone. Even if we assume a neutral Frisk, Henry would fall eventually, simply due to his inability to avoid attacks.

Q: Assuming Henry’s resets also take determination levels into account, which one would take control?

I’d argue that this one would also go to Frisk. Frisk, through all things, strives to keep moving forward and to stay alive until the very end when they leave the Underground. Henry, in most circumstances, is the same way, but there are exceptions: in The Betrayed in FtC, and in Revenged in CtM. Henry dies in both of these endings, yet neither of these are counted as fails because, as far as Henry is concerned, he did what he set out to do in the first place. So in the event that they had to compete for timeline control based on determination, Frisk would prevail

(For those questioning why I also include The Betrayed as an example despite Henry coming back to life later, it’s because what brought Henry back to life was cybernetics, not a turning back in time.)

Q: Who would be a better obstruction, assuming they both have their normal reset abilities?

This would actually go to Henry, for multiple reasons. As long as whatever goal he’s trying to achieve doesn’t require killing Frisk, he can go right ahead with what he was planning to do.

Meanwhile, Frisk has to worry about losing their progress every time Henry fails to stop them in their tracks, even if they don’t kill him. The only way for Frisk to get past Henry is to give him enough of a motive to let them through that it changes his end goal entirely.

Q: Who’s got more freedom to act separate from the player?

Another easy answer: Henry.

What, don’t believe me?

The most we get from Frisk as far as resisting the player is when you approach the showering amalgamate in the True Lab. When you walk towards the amalgamate, you move much slower than normal, but you go back to normal speed when you walk away or to the left or right. They can slow you down, but they can’t outright stop you, even if they desperately want to.

Henry, on the other hand, becomes increasingly hesitant to use the teleporter that you give him starting as early as Escaping the Prison, until he eventually straight up refuses to use the teleporter that you give him in Completing the Mission.

Is it possible that Frisk could’ve developed this level of resistance over time, had they been given as much opportunity to do so as Henry has? Perhaps, but as it stands now, they don’t have that level of resistance, so Henry would still be the winner here.

---

Hoo boy, I think that covers everything. I may have missed some things but I’ve covered as much as I think I can.

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR: On Branching Storylines

I saw a discussion on the official forum about the lack of story and the branching storylines happening in SWTOR. It’s something interesting to discuss.  First, the rate of story releases in SWTOR is abysmal. 2017, where they released Iokath, Umbara and Copero now seems like the good old days, and that’s a bit sad. I really don’t count two minute companion returns or interstitial story pieces as “story updates.” It’s like saying a TV commercial counts as a TV show.  Admittedly, one can’t fault any delays happening this year, so I am not complaining about 2020. There’s a global pandemic happening, and the goal is for people to remain safe, not to risk themselves so I can play a Star Wars game. If they need to delay story until 2021, so be it. However, the story releases have been so slow in previous years that this does make it even more frustrating.  The other complaint I saw mentioned: the branching storylines from Ossus onward. I’m a fan. 

(discussions and story spoilers for Onslaught, Ossus and whatever that two minute story thing in the spring was). 

One of my gripes with KOTFE - traitor arc is that with very few exceptions, no matter what you do, regardless of how DS or LS you are or the choices you make, the outcome does not really differ. You can be the most benevolent ruler or the most murderous; you can recruit none of the Alliance Alert companions or all of them; you can kill everyone who is killable or spare them all; it's all the same in the end. It doesn't matter who you side with on Iokath, not in the long run, because both factions' rulers do the same things and end up the same way. The only two exceptions I can think of are the way Koth Vortena and Elara Dorne are handled. Koth leaves if you make certain choices, and even if you spare his life he does not come back. Elara breaks up with a romanced trooper if you've taken certain DS choices that kill civilians in KOTFE. That's about it, friends. But after Ossus, depending on the faction you have played and the choices made, several characters can die. In Onslaught you can heavily alter the course of the war. Arn Peralun doesn't seem to exist if you're playing Imperial. Gnost-Dural is an active member of the Republic's task force if you're Republic; he's dead or in prison if you're Imperial. And I personally think it's better; that there's actual cause and effect and the player's character has direct influence over outcome. It's setting up a scenario where the faction you are supporting can actually win, even if they lose in someone else's playthrough. 

Unfortunately with the latest story snip (it's not an update if it's two minutes, sorry), it seems like we're back on the "all roads lead to the same destination" theme, in that the factions land on Odessen regardless if you opted to stay independent or not. I hope that will change. Of course the issue is whether the devs and writers can keep up with the branches of the story they've created. Considering that story continuity was not even kept in the two-minute companion returns, I have my doubts as to whether they can maintain consistency. There's also the dilemma that the numerous branches reduce the possibility of many characters having meaningful inclusion in the story.  It's a longstanding problem that once an NPC is killable in SWTOR the "save" option is largely irrelevant; they won't be included in content again either way.  Theron Shan had some lines in Onslaught, but he and Lana have been largely relegated to the sidelines, and don't even show up to greet Darth Rivix/Gnost-Dural with you in the latest story snip. Torian had a line or two if you took him to meet Indigo, but it’s the first time the character’s said anything (if alive in your story) since KOTET. It establishes a situation where your PC will just encounter a revolving cast of completely disposable NPCs and doesn't have the opportunity to forge any lasting connections, much like Makeb. Considering that so much of the appeal of the story for many involves those connections, this is risky. I personally don't really enjoy the game as much if I am not with NPCs and companions I like, such as Lana and Vette. In Onslaught I appreciated the chance to run the flashpoint with Major Anri, since I'd liked her on Ossus. I don't want to just deal with Major Shark or Acina, I want my PCs to talk things out with their advisor(s) and trusted friends. I can see how this would all be an issue for RPers, since there's no consistent canon, but nothing about SWTOR is ever canon IMHO, and I dearly hope it stays that way. I suppose if one were with a RP group, they could always choose one story branch for their canon and roll with it. I have no idea what the future holds in this respect. None. I do personally hope that SWTOR keeps at least some of the branching story outcomes, though. We all want our faction of choice to win, and since the game is a work of fiction set so far before most of Star Wars' events, why the hell not.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #293

“your head upon a stick would look really sick, but they would call me crazy for the way i spoke to it”

Hey bitch, what's your fucking name? What a start, jc lmao. Brittany. What color are your nails? They're not painted. Last time you got some ass? Well this survey's gonna be a journey. Many years ago. Do your parents like your style/music choices? Yeah, at least most of it. Some music my mom really doesn't like or just hates, while I can't even imagine Dad's reaction to some bands I enjoy. Ever seen your parents make out? tbh would rather slam my ankle on a Razor scooter. What's your dream height and weight? Forget about my height, if I could just be at least 120 again... Do you put your hair up a lot or down? It's too short to put up. Most of the time do you straighten or curl your hair? Neither. What do you do when your house loses power? Light a bunch of candles and carry flashlights. What piercing do you hate? I'm not a fan of cheek piercings. Were you raised in a religious house? Yes. I grew up going to Sunday school and church, even though I hated both. Do your parents get mad when you're on the computer for hours? Gah... it was a very, very big source of argumentative fuel between Mom and me all the way up to my late teenage years when she just gave up; now, it's to be expected and is completely "normal." I always wanted to be on the computer once I was introduced to it; she tried to limit my time on it, and it was without fail what she would take away whenever I was grounded. I'd even sneak onto it when I wasn't allowed to if she wasn't home and Dad was in their room. My mom really did try to keep me from being hooked on technology, she really did, it just didn't work, but dear god I wish it did. I just about turn into a caveman without some form of it, and it's pretty pathetic. Dad meanwhile has never really cared much, but he'd make a comment here and there that would make me self-conscious about it. Have you ever been asked for a nude picture? No, and guess who would be ignored for the rest of their lives if they did. It's so fucking disrespectful and objectifying to me. If someone wants to send a partner something like that by their own volition, that's cool, but asking, that just seems incredibly rude to me and turns the person into an object of lust. Ever been so scared you pissed? Caaan't say I have. Can you watch scary movies at night and not be scared? Yeah, they've never really fazed me. Last reason you got your cell taken away? I actually don't know if that's ever happened, given the aforementioned computer thing. I was never hooked on my phone. Could you handle working on a farm? Nooooo, that is way too much physical exertion. Have you ever been attacked by an animal? No. Have you ever had to put an animal to sleep? ugh Do you have a favorite type of firework? Well, visually I really just like the big colorful ones, but I don't endorse the use of fireworks anymore. Some animals literally die from fear, they can be seriously upsetting to veterans with PTSD (you could have one in your neighborhood and never know you indirectly gave them a panic attack), and they're a large source of litter. Where would/did you get your first tattoo? My right wrist. What's your favorite kind of pet? Snakes. Favorite dinosaur? Spinosaurus is obviously the coolest. It's always been my fave. How many pets do you have? Sigh, just two. Our landlord doesn't want us to get anymore pets than what we came in with. What were two of your favorite Disney movies as child? The Lion King and Finding Nemo. They're still my favorite Disney movies. When carving pumpkins, how do you decide what you're going to do? I haven't carved a pumpkin in years... so idk. Do you own any art supplies? Some, yeah. Do you believe you have a higher IQ than most? Definitely not. What is the name of the doctor that delivered you? I have no clue. Mom knows him for sure because she's mentioned him from my childhood, but I don't. Have you ever seen a Lamborghini in person? Hunny, I live in rural North Carolina. You don't see that level of bougie here lmao. Shane Dawson: funny or annoying? I honestly think he's fucking hilarious. I just have such conflicting feelings about him after "the drama," hearing so many people's opinions (particularly from those who know him so well, like his fiance and Ryland's sister), fact checking, audio cutting and mixing, the whole "people change" philosophy... I don't know. When you have a container of Neapolitan ice cream, what flavor do you leave for last? I ain't touchin' strawberry. Gross. If you could choose to have any superpower ever, what would you pick? I'd wanna be a shapeshifter/druid. What would you be more embarrassed to buy: sex toys or adult diapers? Yikes, sex toys. Given my age, I'd say if I bought adult diapers, people would assume they weren't for me. I'm awkward enough with all things relating to sex to begin with, so. What’s the biggest animal you’ve ever killed? Yo wtf I never have and never will (intentionally) kill an animal. Well, correction: I've killed bugs before, the biggest probably being some spider or something, but I really try to avoid this now. Could you win the Hunger Games? lol hell to the fuck no, have you seen me??? For you, would getting amnesia be a good thing? ... Maybe? Not saying I wanna find out, though. Have you ever been punched in the face? No, plan on keeping it that way. Is morality universal or relative? I question this myself. Who is your favorite late night talk show host? I don't have one. Where do you put your keys when you get home? They stay in my purse. Do you prefer hot coffee or iced coffee? Neither. The sheer variety of questions relating to coffee and tea in surveys boggles my mind, always feel left out that I can't answer 'em lmao. What’s your phone background picture? My lock screen is this pretty, soft aesthetic screen that has "i am strong, i am loved, i am enough" written in the center. I've really needed it for my mental health lately. My home screen is some meerkats. I know, can you believe neither are currently Mark? Have you ever seen a snake in the wild? Plenty. How do you cope with anxiety? Deep breathing, mindfulness and grounding exercises, confiding in my mom, listening to music (usually my favorite calm, instrumental soundtracks, like from the Silent Hill franchise - particularly the second game! - or Shadow of the Colossus), try to nap, play a game as a distraction, watch my favorite YouTubers (typically something funny)... I'm lucky to have learned a lot. Now, if only I could cope with social anxiety... What was the last takeout food you ate? Oh Jesus, how embarrassing is this timing, seeing as it was one of my unhealthiest fast food orders: Son of the Baconator and Baconator fries from Wendy's. It was so fuckin good tho. Who makes you laugh the most? My friend Girt. What does a successful relationship look like to you? One with great communication and total honesty, and when you are able to build each other up and bring out the best in your partner. It's also imperative for you to feel safe being your authetic safe for me to consider it "successful." What do you like to put on your baked potato? "Salt, pepper, butter, cheese, bacon bits." <<<< That's how we do it, lads. What was the most memorable birthday you’ve had? My 16th, but not for good reasons. Would you rather go to the beach or the mountains? That's easy as hell, mountains. I don't like the beach. Do you look in the mirror before you leave the house? Yeah. Not gonna like what I see no matter what, but I'd like to make sure I don't look worse whan what's normal. Have you ever seen someone quit their job in a dramatic way? No. What do you like to dip your fries in? It varies between ketchup and honey mustard. What’s your favorite kind of museum? Science. Do you believe in alternate universes? Nah, I don't think so. Whose house did you last visit? My older sister's. What games do you play on your smart phone? Mostly just Pokemon GO nowadays. I haven't touched Dragons of Atlantis in a long time... Do you know anyone who is colorblind? Jason's older brother is red/green colorblind, I think? Are you the youngest, middle or eldest child in your family? Middle. What’s something you’ve been meaning to do but keep putting off? Ugh, I need to finish decorating my damn room... Got most of the stuff on the walls now, but it's still pretty skeletal in self expression. My motivation is abysmal. Have you ever flown a kite? Oh yeah, I loved to fly a kite with Dad as a little kid when the tobacco field just across the road was barren. Who was the last person you talked about sex/relationships with? My doctor. How many brothers does your father have? I'm almost certain he doesn't have one, just one sister. Do you think you act older or younger than your actual age? It depends on the situation. When it comes to "adulting," I don't have a fuckin clue what I'm doing. I doubt anyone would believe I'm a month shy of 25. In terms of general maturity, I think I act my age, if not older. When was the last time you swam in a pool? It's been years. What are your parents' views on your relationships? Mom is always very supportive so long as they treat me right; she's taken to all my previous partners very well and treated them like family, too. My dad is also supportive as long as I'm treated properly and happy. Is your best friend dating anyone? No. Have you ever babysat before? Twice, but not really willingly. Way too stressful. Do you delete pictures of you and your exes off of Facebook? It took a very, very long time, but all pictures with Jason are forever deleted. Ever had a huge crush on someone who still doesn’t know? Not a huge crush, no. Ever watched porn? No. You do you, but I don't see the appeal of watching some random people fuck. Ever performed in a talent show? No. Would you audition for a reality talent competition? Nope. How many celebrity crushes have you had? I'd say Jesse McCartney, Link Neal, and Mark Fischbach are my only BIG celeb crushes I've had. How many non-celebrity crushes have you had? I dunno, don't feel like reaching back and counting. Ever been compared to a celebrity? Not visually, but with my adoration of animals. Have any embarrassing pictures on Facebook? Oh, I'm sure. None that are horribly embarrassing though, or else I would have deleted them. Ever seen a therapist? I've regularly seen a therapist since the 6th grade. Ever purposely ignored a text? Yep. A Facebook message? Sure have, when I was beyond done arguing with a former friend. A friend request? No, I just decline or accept it. My page is private, so you can't see my activity, and it's not like they get notified if it's declined, Would you say you read into things too much? I am the fucking sovereign of this. If you turned out exactly like your mom would you be pleased? I love my mom to death, but no. I'd be disappointed. Ever had a credit card denied? I've never had one in the first place. Ever had the lead in a play? No. I do remember though in elementary school, I was real bummed that I wasn't Snow White for one we did for Music class. What about a solo in a concert? Never been in a concert. Would it bother you if you found out that your mother was pregnant? Well. One, she's long past menopause. Two, because of ovarian cancer, she had all those organs removed. So, that would be impossible. Have you ever had a threesome? No; I'm personally strictly monogamous and would feel it to be disloyal, even if my parnter was okay with it. What's the last game you used dice for? Not a clue. Are you interested in surfing at all? Have you ever been? No. What brand of bottled water do you prefer? Essentia. What is your favorite type of bird? Barn owls. What is your favorite chocolate candy? motherfuckin REESE'S Have you ever been called a racial slur? No, considering I'm Caucasian. Why did you last stand in line? I was at the doctor's office, I think? What is your favorite pirate movie? /shrug What is your favorite character from Orange Is the New Black? I've never watched it. What was the most unsettling film you’ve seen? Watching the ending to Paranormal Entity was VERY uncomfortable. It was a decently scary movie, but the ending was seriously intense. When was the last time you were snooping, and found something you wish you hadn’t? I don't recall. Which celebrity or band has the worst fan base? I don't know. What are you interested in that most people aren’t? The sheer degree of my love for meerkats would definitely be missed by probably most people. What smartphone feature would you actually be excited for a company to implement? I dunno. Anything I could think of, the most current products probably already have and I'm just uninformed of them. Like, I use a Tracfone lmao. What’s something people don’t worry about but really should? Their plastic usage and disposal. I'm certainly no saint when it comes to plastic either, but I try to do all I can. What movie quotes do you use on a regular basis? Hm, ARE there any? Do you think that children born today will have better or worse lives than their parents? This depends on what you consider "better" and "worse." Environmentally, I honestly don't think mankind can maintain itself for that many more generations at the rate we're currently at, so that's probably just gonna keep getting worse. On the other hand, advances in medicine and things like that will certainly continue to improve quality of life in that sense. Human rights are getting better and better. I do fear that we're becoming too comfortable with laziness and convenience, but I hope that's a decline we don't continue to venture down. What’s the funniest actual name you’ve heard of someone having? I had a college classmate named Apple. Which charity or charitable cause is most deserving of money? Oh, come on now. It's not a competition. What game have you spent the most hours playing? So. When you type /played in World of Warcraft, it will show you your total playtime, and mine is YIKES. Like, around a year's worth of time of pure playing since 2014, I think. What’s the most comfortable bed or chair you’ve ever been in? I don't recall. What’s the hardest you’ve ever worked? When I did WiiFit religiously and lost around 40 pounds in HS. I was in the best shape of my life. What movie, picture, or video always makes you laugh no matter how often you watch it? Oh, there's certainly something. Probably some Unus Annus clip. That channel was a fucking blessing and a curse all the same. If you could have an all-expenses paid trip to see any famous world monument, which monument would you choose? Oh boy, I'd have to think, but probably somewhere in Rome or Greece. What’s the coldest you’ve ever been? I'm unsure. Probably jumping in the pool as a kid. My sisters and I would nag Dad to put the pool up on like the very first day of spring, so of course it was cold, but as a kid, I didn't mind that. What’s the most ridiculous thing you have bought? Hm. What’s the most depressing meal you’ve eaten? Ha ha yiiiikes, struggle foods... I don't know, but I've had some. What outdoor activity haven’t you tried, but would like to? Herping, though I change my mind on-and-off about it. I'm not very into the idea of disturbing wildlife just because they're cool and you wanna check them out. I'd totally go exploring with a camera, though, and not actually pick anything up. If you were given five million dollars to open a small museum, what kind of museum would you create? Hm... I actually think something like an art museum for the mentally ill would be pretty interesting and educational? Even something that could build empathy. Maybe mix some psychology in there to understand conditions.

[moistvonlipwig]

Angel’s Redemption Arc

I think it’s interesting that in the Buffyverse fandom, which often concerns itself with debating and discussing redemption arcs, I don’t see much airtime devoted to the one that’s foundational to Angel as a show, namely Angel’s own redemption arc. Part of this is probably because Angel’s redemption arc is non-traditional in the sense that it has arguably begun even before Episode 1 of Buffy; part of it is probably because fandom has a tendency to dismiss Angel as “boring” and unworthy of time and energy that they could instead devote to talking about Willow or Spike or Faith. But I actually think Angel’s redemption arc is one of the best and most interesting in the pair of shows; IMO in terms of how well it’s executed it’s right up there at the top with Darla’s.

Now, when we talk about redemption arcs, it’s first important to establish what it is that the character is actually seeking redemption for. In the case of someone like Angel, it’s tempting to guess that the answer is “pretty much everything he’s ever done”. But ultimately Angel is a character in a narrative, and not everything he does, good or bad, is given equal narrative importance. Redemption arcs often focus on redeeming a character for what the narrative frames as their primary sin. So what does the narrative consider to be Angel’s primary sin? Again, it’s tempting to answer “everything”. But is the narrative of Angel really all that hung up on, for example, the time Angel nailed a puppy to the ceiling? Certainly as viewers we may squirm to hear that, especially if we’re dog-lovers, but it’s brought up maybe twice in the entirety of both shows. And while Angel has killed a ton of people, most of his victims died off-screen, years before Buffy began, and remain unnamed and unseen by the audience. Angel no doubt feels bad about killing them, but is the narrative of his show really all that concerned with them?

I would argue that the narrative of Angel does not consider Angel’s primary sin to be any of his actual murders at all. If you think about it, Angel’s problem can’t be that he kills people because that’s every vampire’s problem. That’s like saying a human character’s problem is that they don’t always drive exactly at the speed limit. It’s not technically wrong, it’s just not specific. What’s specific about Angel is that he doesn’t just kill people. He takes the time to psychologically destroy them. And often those people go on to do terrible things themselves, either because Angel sires them (see Drusilla) or because Angel’s actions beget a cycle of abuse that they perpetuate (see Holtz). Angel’s problem, therefore, is not that he’s a monster. It’s that he makes monsters of other people.

Examples of this can be seen throughout both shows. As mentioned above, there’s Drusilla, possibly the ur-example of this behavior pattern from Angel: she was a good person and he tortured her, traumatized her, killed her, and turned her into a vampire, both figuratively and literally turning her into a monster. There’s Spike; Angel didn’t actually turn him personally, but Spike refers to Angel as his Yoda and blames Angel for being the one to truly make a monster of him, which given what we see of their interactions in ye olden days is probably more or less true. There’s Sam Lawson, the vampire from “Why We Fight”, left physically and metaphorically adrift after Angel turned him, who turns to killing because it’s the only thing he can think of to do. There’s also Penn, the vampire from “Somnambulist” who, while not the most important to the overall narrative of the show, does say some things that I think are important to understanding Angel’s character arc; more on that later. And on a less vampiric note, there’s Holtz: Angel killed his family and, importantly, forced Holtz to kill his own vampirized child (again, more on this later). In turn, Holtz becomes so intent on revenge that he kidnaps, manipulates, and abuses Angel’s child right up until (and including) the moment Holtz dies. Holtz, like Drusilla, is symbolic of this behavior pattern of Angel’s; there’s a reason that both of them play such significant roles in Angel.

So, we’ve figured out what Angel’s primary sin is, according to the narrative presented by Buffy and Angel: he turns people into monsters. The next question that naturally presents itself is: how can he redeem himself from that? It seems fairly logical to say that one of the best ways someone can redeem themselves is to undo what they have done. Unfortunately, on a literal level, this is impossible for Angel: he cannot unmake the monsters he has created. But perhaps on a figurative level, this is possible. Angel may not be able to make it so that he never turned people into monsters. But he can try to turn monstrous people back into good ones. Angel thus commits himself to trying not just to redeem himself but to redeem other people. Along the way, he has successes (Faith being his most significant one) and failures (Lindsey, among others). But he always tries. He even offers Jasmine a second chance to become a better person, which says a lot about Angel and his commitment to his mission to make better people out of monsters, given how deeply and profoundly Jasmine ruined his life and the lives of his loved ones.

That’s all well and good. But this discussion is still missing a piece, and that’s Connor. How, you may be thinking, does Connor possibly fit into all of this? To understand that, we have to return to Penn and what he had to say about Angel in “Somnambulist”. Penn doesn’t just accuse Angel of making him a monster like Spike does, although that is probably the meaning behind his words. What Penn actually says is that he has spent his unlife trying to get back at his father, but he realizes now that all that was in vain, because Angel is his real father. The implication is that, when Angel engages in monster-making, he is also engaging in person-making, in an act of creation, in fatherhood. Angel doesn’t just make monsters, he fathers them. That, therefore, is Angel’s real problem: he’s a bad father.

Why did he become a bad father, I hear you ask? Well, like most bad fathers, he had a bad father of his own. In “The Prodigal”, we flash back to Liam’s interactions with his own father. His father is controlling and disparaging, and makes him feel worthless. Ultimately, the newly-sired Angel kills his father. But Darla warns him that this is not truly a victory, because it only lasted moments, while his father’s defeat of him will last his whole life. This clearly sticks with Angel, and he basically spends the rest of his time as a soulless vampire trying to recreate what his father did to him by doing it to others: defeating them not for a moment, but for the rest of their lives.

And, indeed, he succeeds in this mission. Not only does he make more monsters, but he even makes more bad parents. Holtz, a shining example of Angel’s work, is an abysmal father. Angel prompts his first arguably monstrous act as a father, namely the killing of his own daughter, which depending how you view vampires in the Buffyverse was either a terrible thing or a mercy, but regardless was not an action a parent should ever have to take. Later, Holtz kidnaps an infant Connor, emotionally and physically abuses him in a hell dimension for eighteen years, and in a final act of parental monstrosity, deliberately manipulates him through his own suicide.

Drusilla (who, I should note, frequently refers to Angel as “Daddy”) also becomes a bad “mummy” to Darla in “The Trial”, when she turns her as Angel looks on, completing the cycle that Angel and Darla started when they turned her. Significantly, Drusilla does this just as Darla, with Angel’s help, has come to a realization about her past actions and has decided she wants to try to atone for them despite knowing she can’t. In other words, Drusilla is directly interfering with one of Angel’s most important attempts at redeeming someone else’s soul. One of Angel’s own monster ‘children’ is the one to snatch away his ability to help create or ‘father’ a good person, and instead claim the mantle of parenthood for themselves. Angel’s actions thus are ultimately self-defeating, usually in a poignantly ironic way. But he does accomplish his goal of inflicting on others a worse version of what his father inflicted on him.

Ironically, however, every time he does this, he only succumbs further and further to his father’s defeat. His father is the one who made him a monster, just like Angel ends up doing to his victims, and thus with every monstrous action he takes, he only solidifies his father’s victory. Angel’s quest to control and corrupt his victims, aka his metaphorical children, stems from a desire to defeat his father by outdoing him at his own game. But in the end it only replicates and affirms his father’s defeat of him. To truly defeat his father, he needs to stop playing his game altogether and break free of the cycle.

Enter Connor. At first glance it may appear a somewhat random choice to give Angel a human son partway through his show. But if you look at Angel’s arc through the lens of him being a bad father, Connor’s narrative reason for existing is illuminated. As Darla puts it right before she stakes herself, Connor is the only good thing that she and Angel ever created together. In other words, he is Angel’s opportunity to truly (and literally) be a good father.

But Angel has had years of practice at being a bad one, and he doesn’t get it right on his first try. For one thing, Holtz obstructs his efforts to raise his son well by kidnapping him and taking him to Quor’toth. Again, we see one of Angel’s metaphorical ‘children’ denying Angel the opportunity to properly father a good person, only this time it’s more literal as it’s his actual child that gets taken from him. As always, Angel’s actions are cyclical and self-defeating.

But Connor does come back eventually. When he does, Angel tries his best but ultimately pushes him farther away, by lying to him (qv “Benediction”), denying him forgiveness (qv “Deep Down”), isolating him by kicking him out of the hotel (qv “Deep Down”, “Habeas Corpses”) and letting his jealousy influence his treatment of him (qv a good chunk of Season 4). (For the record: I am not trying to cast judgment on Angel for these choices, some of which were perfectly justifiable and some of which were less so. I am merely saying that they were not the ideal choices for Connor’s well-being.) These choices, combined with the abuse Connor suffered at Holtz’s hands (which wasn’t Angel’s fault, but which did ultimately spring from Angel’s actions) and Team Angel’s general dislike and distrust of Connor, make Connor susceptible to Jasmine’s manipulations, which ultimately lead to his emotional and psychological breakdown at the end of Season 4.

If there’s a common thread we can pick out between all of Angel’s choices regarding Connor after Connor returns from Quor’toth, I think it’s that Angel, for all that he loves Connor, also ultimately wants Connor to be what Angel wants him to be. This is more common among parents than most would ever admit. And it isn’t always a bad thing! Most parents, including Angel, want the best for their children. But they don’t always know what that actually is. And Angel’s desire for Connor to be happy and well-adjusted and, above all, a good person frequently expresses itself as Angel attempting to control Connor. Not for the same reasons he tried to control his prior ‘children’, but with unfortunately similar results. Angel lies to Connor because he wants Connor to think of him a certain way; he wants to control Connor’s perception of him. He kicks Connor out of the hotel because he wants Connor to learn a lesson; he wants to control Connor’s behavior. He disparages and tries to impede Connor’s relationship with a Jasmine-possessed Cordelia; he wants to control Connor’s relationships and feelings. (Again: not saying these actions were all unjustified, just that they were taken with Angel’s feelings in mind, not Connor’s.) In the end, although Angel is not trying to replicate his father’s treatment of him in his parenting of Connor, he ends up doing so regardless. His desire to do the opposite of what he normally does, to make a good person out of Connor, drives him to try to control Connor when Connor seems to go against that objective, which only further primes Connor to be more easily molded into a monster.

Thus the defining moment of Angel’s redemption arc is when Angel finally lets go of his need to define and control his child, who is now a sort of symbol for all his children, literal and metaphorical. I am speaking, of course, of the moment when Angel makes the deal with Wolfram & Hart to alter reality and wipe Connor’s memories. Ethics of memory-wiping aside, this is perhaps the greatest thing Angel could ever do for Connor, and it is the moment when Angel finally achieves victory over his own father, not by winning at his game, but by acknowledging he has lost and refusing to play any longer. In Angel, realizing you are wrong and have done wrong to others is often portrayed as one of the most crucial parts of the journey to redemption, and is usually a turning point for the characters who reach it. (See: Faith in “Five by Five”, Darla in “The Trial” and “Lullaby”, Spike in “Damage”, etc.) I believe Angel’s moment of realization is here in “Home”. This is when he understands that he has failed as a father, and that he cannot succeed just by continuing to try to control Connor’s behavior. To truly be a good father to Connor, Angel has to cede control entirely and give him over to a family who will do right by him. He has to stop playing any variant of his father’s game, and accept that the price of Connor being happy is that Angel cannot influence him for life -- for good or for evil -- the way his own father influenced him.

So that’s exactly what Angel does. He ‘kills’ Connor, and it is a terrible irony that the false prophecy Wesley feared so much, that the father would kill the son, comes true not as Angel’s lowest point or greatest failure, but as a moment of spiritual victory and redemption for Angel. In fact, it is a moment of freedom, for both him and Connor: freedom from the cycle of fathers and sons, like Liam’s father and Angel and Holtz and Connor, inflicting harm on each other ad infinitum. The power of the prophecy “the father will kill the son” lies not just in the emotional specificity of Angel and Connor’s own situation, but in its applicability to the general field of fathers and sons everywhere. In the world of Angel, every father, in some way or another, kills his son. Sometimes literally, often metaphorically; sometimes purposefully, often unintentionally. But always, the father kills the son. That’s part of why Wesley is so willing to believe the prophecy; he knows all too well that fathers are perfectly capable of killing their sons. Ironically, it is only by taking the prophecy to its most literal and logical conclusion and killing Connor (as we know him) outright that Angel is able to defy it, and end the cycle of fathers killing sons for good.

Now, all of this is not to say that Angel “wins” or achieves some kind of redemption badge that means he’s suddenly forgiven and cool now. Angel can’t win; that’s the point. He can’t win against Wolfram & Hart and wipe out evil forever; he tries that and fails, and when Jasmine tries and succeeds, he sees that such a victory is in a way its own kind of evil, and rebels against her. He can’t win against the weight of his crimes and become a human with a clean slate; in fact he gives up two different opportunities to do so on two separate occasions, because he too knows it’s just a fantasy and not real redemption. And he definitely can’t win against his father in the great game of child-rearing; he doesn’t get to raise his son at all, and children aren’t game pieces anyway. No, as much as he may try, Angel can never win. But if he accepts that, if he lets go of his need to win, he can do someone a great kindness. He can help someone like Faith be better; he can forgive someone like Judy who has done him wrong; he can set someone like Connor free from a seemingly endless cycle of abuse that he himself once perpetuated. Angel can be kind. And that, perhaps, is more precious than winning could ever be.

[fodlandancers]

Dancer Class Advices

Who to avoid

Characters who are not available on a certain route should not partake in the White Heron Cup if you plan to play that particular route. (Duh!) These are as follows:

Flayn on Crimson Flower

Edelgard on Silver Snow

Hubert on Silver Snow

There are also characters who will have to be re-recruited after the time skip and they only appear several chapters in, meaning you can make them your dancer, but you won’t have access to them for 2-4 chapters. These are:

Dedue

Ashe on Silver Snow & Verdant Wind

Lorenz on Silver Snow & Azure Moon

Dedue is a special case. If you did not complete his paralogue during the school phase he will not return to you at all.

Things to consider when choosing a dancer

There are pros and cons to every character but it ultimately comes down to what your average combat situation looks like.

If your dancer is used purely for support and kept out of trouble most of the time their bulk does not matter.

But if you need your dancer to take multiple hits because you throw them into the thick of battle along with your best units you might want to use somebody with decent bulk or avoid. Mind that the dancer class has -5% growth rates in Str, Def and Res.

If your dancer spends a lot of time trying to catch up to the rest of the party, because you have only horses and fliers, using a unit with long range attacks or assists might be a good idea. However, that issue can be avoided by equipping your dancer with a March Ring and giving them the Shoes of the Wind stat booster.

Relevant Skills & Stats

Swords - The dancer class grants bonus experience to Swords, the Sword Avo +20 Skill and the Sword Dance combat art, making them the weapon of choice. Moreover, it’s the only weapon they will make a little dance with after a kill or level up.

Authority - The other skill this class gives an experience bonus to. The lowered growth rates make equipping a strong battalion a good idea. In case you want to equip your dancer with one of the dancer battalions, the Opera Co. Volunteers require a B rank and the Blue Lion Dancers an A rank.

Faith/Reason - Dancers can use magic and if a class can use magic you should consider utilizing it. Some of the utility spells in Faith can give the dancer an opportunity to do something even when they cannot reach an ally in that turn. Physic, first and foremost.

Riding - Upon reaching an A+ in Riding you get the Movement +1 Ability. This is useful to patch up the previously mentioned movement problem in the late game.

Charm - A character needs at least 13 Charm to win the White Heron Cup. Beyond that, a dancer needs Charm for 2 things: avoiding Gambits and Sword Dance. Getting hit by a Gambit means the dancer won’t be able to move, which is something you should avoid at all cost. You get 5 Gambit Avoid for every point of charm you have. The value of Charm increases with difficulty. The damage of Sword Dance scales off of Charm. Don’t fret about this too much, though, since you probably want to dance most of the time anyway.

The Candidates

Flayn - Squishy type (below 40 Spd growth and at least one poor defensive stat). The original “I don’t know what to do with them so I might as well make them a dancer“ character. Has a talent in Faith and a budding talent in Reason. Boosting her movement by leveling Riding will prove difficult since she has a weakness in it. Might need some stat boosters to patch up her middling Spd. But has the highest Res in the game. And a pretty high Charm, too. You could give her a Levin Sword and go Sword Dance on the opponents’ collective assess. Oh, wait, we were supposed to be dancing.

Black Eagles:

Edelgard - Balanced type (40 or above Spd growth with good defenses). Has bonkers stat growths, therefore the -5% to Str/Def/Res don’t hurt her too much. Has talents in Swords, Authority and Reason. Personally, I’m biased against Armored classes due to their bad movement, cruddy Spd and Res, so I’d say her unique endgame class should be changed for something more worthwhile. Dancer is a valid option.

Dorothea - Speedy type (40 or above Spd growth with at least one poor defensive stat). Tailored to be a dancer, with talents in Swords and Magic. Her budding talent gives her White Magic Avo +20 and she learns Physic for that ranged heal in case she can’t dance. Has a weakness in Riding, though.

Ferdinand - Speedy type. Has a talent in Swords. His personal skill gives him Avo +15 at full HP. His talent in Riding can make it easier to get that +1 Movement ability. The ability to use magic is wasted on this guy. But he 11/10 wants the job just so he can do the Sword Dance.

Linhardt - Balanced type. Has a talent for both types of magic and comes with Physic. Not a bad choice in terms of overall stats, except for his horrendous Charm. May be better off as your main healer.

Petra - Speedy type. Oh, boy, is she! Has a talent in Swords. But also a weakness in both types of magic and her stats reflect that, both offensively and defensively. So, that’s wasted potential there.

Hubert - Speedy type. Talent in Reason and Authority. Weakness in Faith. Great Res. Probably your main magic nuke and would likely hate you for making him a dancer.

Bernadetta - Speedy type. Weakness in Swords but a budding talent in Riding, which gives her Pass. Learns Physic (with a 20% Mag growth, PFFFT!). ngl I’d just let her stay in her room and forget about her.

Caspar - Speedy type. Weakness in Magic and Authority. No relevant talents. Cruddy Charm stat. He’s bad but he’s bad at everything else, too. (This is going to be a trend with the “Heavy” of each house.)

Blue Lions:

Dimitri - Speedy type. Has a talent in Swords and Authority but a weakness in Reason (and magic in general). A little more hurt by the negative growths of the class since his Res is already bad. Budding talent in Riding. He might be better off as your main damage dealer, though, because he’s such a beast and the movement of his unique class is at least okay.

Felix - Speedy type. Talent in Swords and a budding talent in Reason (though his Mag growth isn’t all that great), but weak in Authority and his Charm is below average. You’ll likely want to equip him with his Relic, which means you cannot equip him with the March Ring.

Sylvain - Balanced type. Has a budding talent in Reason from which he gets Black Magic Avo +20 (his Mag growth is below average, however). Talent in Riding. Learns Physic. Amazing color scheme. “This is what a real man looks like.“

Ingrid - Balanced type. Has a talent in Swords and Riding and comes with Physic. High Charm. Great pick due to above-average defenses and godly Spd. She doesn’t hit all that hard anyway.

Ashe - Speedy type. No relevant talents. Bad Charm stat. Physic. Looks adorable. You are better off giving him a bow and putting him on a pony.

Annette - Squishy type. Talent in Reason and Authority. Makes an okay dancer in my experience but you should keep her out of harm’s way.

Mercedes - Squishy type. With great Res. Talented in both types of Magic but weakness in Swords. Learns Physic. She’s better off as your healer.

Dedue - Meh type. Weakness in Faith and Riding. Highest Def among all characters but abysmally slow. His Res is horrible and so is his Charm. If you want to make him a dancer then, ironically, this wall of a man will have to stay in the back most of the time so he won’t get picked off by bird men with jazz hands.

Golden Deer:

Claude - Speedy type. Has a talent in Swords and Authority but weakness in Faith. His personal skill gives him Pass. Best personal endgame class! Why would you want him to be anything else? He looks great as a dancer? Fair point. Has a ridiculous Charm stat, second only to Edelgard.

Lorenz - Balanced type. Talent in Reason and Riding. Has the same defenses as Ingrid but trades Luck and Spd for HP and better offenses. i.e. he won’t dodge as often but is pretty durable. Makes up for lack of Charm with excessive tea parties. Gets disowned over losing the dance competition.

Ignatz - Speedy type. Talent in Swords and Authority and budding talent in Reason. Learns Physic. His Charm is pretty bad. I had trouble even promoting the guy.

Lysithea - Speedy type. Has talents in both types of Magic, Authority and a budding talent in Swords. However, her Charm stat reflects her personality. Better off as a magic nuke. I mean, how else are you going to collect those Dark Seals?

Marianne - Speedy type. With great Res. Talented in Swords, Faith and Riding. Comes with Physic. Has a sword Relic. Has good Charm. Not a bad choice but, admittedly, looks 60% better as a Gremory. (That dark blue dress looks so nice!)

Leonie - Speedy type. Talent in Riding and learns Physic. Statwise, very similar to Petra. Her Mag and Res are horrendous. More Charm-ing than people will give her credit for. Still wants to bang my dad, probably.

Hilda - Speedy type. Weakness in Faith and Authority. No relevant talents. Bad with magic. Highest Charm stat of all non-lord characters. A delicate maiden who should really just cheer on her class mates from the sidelines and is totally not better off being sat on a flying lizard to one-shot people.

Raphael - Meh type. Weakness in Reason and Riding. No relevant talents. Statwise similar to Dedue.

Conclusion

For Black Eagles my top picks are Dorothea,  Edelgard or Ferdinand. For Blue Lions definitely Ingrid. Followed by Sylvain or Felix. And for Golden Deer I’d honestly go with Flayn. But for students I’d pick either Lorenz, Marianne or Hilda.

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 1989

Picking a #1 for this list was tough.

Obviously my first-hand experience of “hearing songs on the radio and actually liking some of them” starts when I was around 3 or 4, so nostalgia will have very little to do with the first top 10 lists I’m making.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

Surprisingly not a very good year, at least for my tastes.

10 - Like A Prayer (Madonna)

US: #25 / FR: Was apparently on the list but I have contradicting sources

I had a very (and I do mean very, two months at best) brief Madonna phase back when she released Die Another Day because I absolutely loved that song that a shit ton of people seem to hate. So I found a Madonna best of for 1€ in a garage sale and decided to listen to more stuff from her. This song was one of my faves but it wouldn’t be the complete truth ; actually, I loved the last third of the song, the bit where the music starts to turn epic and the choir swells and everything. The rest of the song? Well, I found it boring, so I used to skip it entirely most of the time.

Is one third of a song enough to get a spot on this list? I wouldn’t say so in another year, but since the choice is pretty slim for this one, I’d say it’s fair game this time.

9 - Il Changeait La Vie (Jean-Jacques Goldman)

US: Not on the list / FR: Again, it’s there but I have contradicting sources

I don’t have much to say about this song. It has a weirdly epic melody for a song about a guy who makes shoes. It’s mostly there by default too because Goldman made way better songs before and after that one.

8 - Smooth Criminal (Michael Jackson)

US: #93 / FR: Was apparently on the list but I have contradicting sources

Like many people of my generation I wasn’t there for Michael Jackson’s best part of his career and he was already considered a sad has-been by the time I started to actively listen to music.

What I’m trying to say is that I discovered this song mostly through the Alien Ant Farm cover. I know, I know. But hey, I still love the original.

7 - She Drives Me Crazy (Fine Young Cannibals)

US: #18 / FR: Was apparently on the list but I have contradicting sources

I remember my dad really liked this song and would play it from time to time. Like many other songs from when I was very young, I have vague, distant memories of hearing it a lot years later and enjoying it every time. I still like this particular one a lot, too.

6 - Listen to Your Heart (Roxette)

US: #22 / FR: Not on the list

Basically, everything I said about the previous song applies to this one, too.

Moving on!

5 - I Drove All Night (Cindy Lauper)

US: Not on the list / FR: #36

Just like Smooth Criminal, you will not like the reason which put this particular song on this list. It’s mostly here because of the Celine Dion cover that came out years later, around 2000 or so. I liked it so much at the time that I bought the single and played it quite often.

The original is much better and that goes without saying but... yeah.

4 - Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode)

US: Not on the list / FR: #11

I’m really glad the French charts thought so highly of this song, but at the same time, it’s not one of my favorites from Depeche Mode. Hell, it’s even my least favorite song on the Violator album. I usually love repetitive & aggressive songs but this one kinda stays at the same level from beginning to end, and said level isn’t very striking visually.

Still very good, and it’s incredibly tense, and the lyrics are weird and interesting. So yeah, it deserves this spot.

3 - Hijo De La Luna (Mecano)

US: Not on the list / FR: #18

There’s a ton of versions of this song, including one in French, and both that one and the Spanish version would play on the radio long after they became a hit - I have vague and distant memories of me playing with plastic dinosaur toys and hearing that song on the radio regularly for years. Weirdly enough, I remember the Spanish version was played way more than the French one on the radio, but it’s a good thing because it sounds much better.

Long story short it’s about a woman who sells her firstborn to the Moon in exchange for the returned affection of the man she loves, and he ends up killing her because their child is moon-colored and he believes she cheated on him.

It’s messed up, but in an interesting way, and the melody is great.

2 - Lullaby (The Cure)

US: Not on the list / FR: #17

I’m really surprised this didn’t make the year-end list in the US because it was really big in England and Europe in general, and we still hear it on the radio in my country from time to time.

Surprisingly enough, this isn’t one of my favorite Cure songs even though Disintegration is my favorite Cure album (I had to cut Lovesong from this top 10 because it’s not one of my faves either, put it as a honorable mention I guess) (also yes, I cut a Cure song to put Madonna on this list. What the f█ck). I’m not even sure why exactly, but I think it’s mostly because that breathless thing Smith does when he sings this particular song is a bit painful to listen to on repeat. The music is amazing though, it’s gloomy but full of little colorful patches everywhere and it’s real eye-candy.

I debated if Lullaby should be #1 for my 1989 list and at some point it was, but in the end, “I love this song but it’s slightly painful to listen to on a loop” lost against “I like this song a bit less but boy was it stuck on a loop on my cd player at times”.

1 - Poison (Alice Cooper)

US: #91 / FR: Was apparently on the list but I have contradicting sources

Woohoo. Look at that. What a surprise. The ex-edgy teenager put Poison at #1.

I know. I’m sorry. I’m a sucker for stupid edgy shit that you can sing angrily along with while walking and this is no exception. Wasn’t ever on my list of favorite songs (none of the songs in this top 10 ever were), but it was on a couple of my tapes, and yeah, I distinctly remember listening to this around 2005 or so while walking, and striking poses and singing along when no one could see me.

Haven’t actively listened to it in years but I definitely still sing along when it pops up on the radio in my car.

Next up: an absolutely abysmal list with only three (3) songs I actually like on it.

[fire-emblem-heroes-supports]

Summoner/F!Robin C-S Support

Written by  robluu321

C SUPPORT

F!Robin: Um, excuse me, (y/n).

(y/n): Uh?… Oh, Robin, good afternoon.

F!Robin: Good afternoon. Would you mind to answer me three questions I have?

(y/n): Sure. I may have work to do, but I’m not in a hurry. What do you want to know?

F!Robin: First… where did you learn your tactics?.

(y/n): Ah, that’s an easy one. Well, after I was summoned, I read a lot of books about military strategy… That’s how I learnt most of what I know about it.

F!Robin: Wait, so… you didn’t know anything about being a tactician before that?

(y/n): I had a little “experience”, I guess… since I played things called “video games”… but yeah. If we compare my knowledge now to my knowledge when I was in my world… there’s an abysmal difference. Part of the problem is, where I come from, magic does not exist.

F!Robin: Wow… weird… so you had to adapt to understand tactics with mages?

(y/n): Indeed. Honestly, all this stuff – dragons, magic, medieval life style… It’s all strange to me. There are legends and stories about it, but I never lived anything like this until now.

F!Robin: That brings up my next question. Many Heroes here say you describe stuff that we’ve never seen, many say you may be… um… crazy, and you just imagine them, actually… You said something about having played a… video… video game.

(y/n): It’s understandable. It’d be hard for anyone here to picture what a video game is, and I’d have a hard time myself explaining what it is. They don’t have to believe me if they don’t want to. The only way I could get you to understand would be to open a gateway to my world and bring back a video game and a console, or to bring you to my old house but… Well, I can’t do that.

F!Robin: That’s… convenient… but maybe it has something to do with my third questio Alfonse said you didn’t want to return to your own world… why?… don’t you have loved ones there?.

(y/n): I do. But opening a gateway to my world would be… Let’s say that, in my world, we have what we call… petroleum. It’s a mineral oil that we use for fuel, and very important for our economy. And… as you might suspect, it’s becoming rarer and rarer… I fear that if we open a gate, people would end up discovering Askr and come to steal its resources…

F!Robin: …Are you shaking?

(y/n): …Honestly, I am happier to be here… But you don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to. I guess that answers your three questions. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.

F!Robin: Wait!… They left…

[(y/n) and F!Robin have reached support rank C.]

SUPPORT B

(y/n): If only I could understand this better… Damn.

F!Robin: (y/n)!

(y/n): Robin? What a surprise.

F!Robin: I still had another question. Please don’t run away this time.

(y/n): …What is it?.

F!Robin: Why did you say you were happier here than in your home world?

(y/n): Well… Here, I’m more important than I am at home… Unlike all of you Heroes, I’ve never fought an evil empire trying to conquer the world nor an evil dragon trying to destroy humanity… I was just a regular person, like any villager.

F!Robin: So you were like Donnel before he joined the Shepherds, and your life here is more exciting.

(y/n): Pretty much, yeah… Okay, now may I ask you something as well?

F!Robin: Of course. (y/n): I don’t wanna sound rude but… why are asking me so many questions?

F!Robin: Let’s say… I feel a special connection with you.

(y/n): Connection? What do you mean? F!Robin: I’m not sure… It’s just, we’re very similar in some aspects: we’re both tacticians, working along a blue haired prince who has a cute younger sister and wields a legendary sword, our clothes are similar… The fear you displayed when you talked about an army from your world… It’s similar to the fear I had when I faced Walhart and his men… and…

(y/n): And? F!Robin: And we both worry too much about others, to the point we overwork ourselves to ensure their safety. We also both prefer to stay with the friends we made along the way than to live the destiny we were suposed to live before our adventure began.

(y/n): I see… let me test ask you something else. Did you decide to kill Grima, despite knowing it would kill you as well, because you couldn’t have lived the rest of your life in peace? Because it would have been selfish? Because it might have allowed the future where Lucina came from to happen again?

F!Robin: …I’m just one woman… Chrom and all the others didn’t understand that. My life is nothing compared to many lifes.

(y/n): But life does not care for what we want or what makes us feel better. For what it’s worth, I think you made the right choice, Robin. Even if it was a hard decision. Remember this: the hardest choices require the strongest will.

F!Robin: …Thank you for being so understanding, (y/n).

(y/n): You’re welcome. I’m gonna have to cut our chat short though… I still have a lot of working to do.

F!Robin: Would you like some help?

(y/n): Haha. Yes, why not?

[(y/n) and F!Robin have reached support rank B.]

SUPPORT A

F!Robin: You know, when you said you had too much work to do, I thought you meant making tactics, but all these… the telescope, compass, thermometer… They are just wonderful.

(y/n): They truly are. A shame the vast majority of people would be unable to explain how they work, let alone build them.

F!Robin: That makes sense, I suppose… After all, I would be unable to build a ballista. So you really are from a completely different world, aren’t you?

(y/n): Mhm. Feels weird to live in a medieval setting.

F!Robin: What do you mean by medieval?

(y/n): A long time ago, my world was very similar to Askr or Ylisse. Well, without magic, pegasi, wyverns, dragons and all that stuff, of course.

F!Robin: Ah, that’s right, no magic. Then it must have been pretty difficult to do certain things, and I guess battles were more simple, only melee fights… (y/n): Oh, no, actually. In modern society, we have weapons that allow us to fight from a distance.

F!Robin: Like archers?

(y/n): Sort of? I guess you could think of such weapons as evolved bows and arrows… Wait, I think I can explain. You see how Breidablik works?

F!Robin: Yes. You load it with orbs and then you push that thing here, and it fires. Like a crossbow.

(y/n): Haha, I didn’t think about it, but it does work a bit like a crossbow. To me, it’s more similar to one of the weapons I just mentioned – a gun.

F!Robin: Interesting… So, instead of orbs, you’d load a “gun” with another kind of projectile. Similar to cannonballs, but smaller.

(y/n): Exactly. We call them bullets.

F!Robin: Um… Would have been pretty convenient if Breidablik could do that.

(y/n): Ha! Yeah… I could have headshoted Surtr or Veronica and we’d all be happy right now. Well, in theory.

F!Robin: Such efficient yet deadly new weapons… I can see why anyone from your world coming here with ill intentions would be worrisome.

(y/n): Yes… The mere idea this could happen makes me… makes me… urgh…

F!Robin: You’re trembling again. Are you okay?

(y/n): Yes, yes… Sorry. I worry too much, don’t I? After all, there’s no way this could happen. As long as I’m using Breidablik with good intentions in mind, this will never… urgh.

F!Robin: …You know you’re not alone, right? Everyone here is your friend. We can support you. There’s no point in getting sick with worry. That’s what my own friends taught me.

(y/n): Thank you, Robin. I appreciate the thought. But as my duty-

F!Robin: Oh, please. Don’t give me the “duty” excuse. I’ll help you, everyday! I know how it feels to work restlessly… so please, just let me help you.

(y/n): In that case… Alright, friend. Thanks a lot.

F!Robin: Don’t mention it.

[(y/n) and F!Robin have reached support rank A.]

S SUPPORT

F!Robin: You!

(y/n): Argh!

F!Robin: Stay right here! Don’t try to run away!

F!Robin: You owe me an explanation, and I want it now!

(y/n): R-Robin? I… Um… I have to–

F!Robin: Work to do, yes, I know. That’s the problem! What’s gotten into you? All of a sudden, it’s like I’m not allowed to work with you anymore! I just wanted to make sure you’d be fine, as a friend, and now you are overworking yourself again! Why?

(y/n): I know, I just… You’re… distracting me.

F!Robin: Distracting you…? So you’re saying it’s my fault then.

(y/n): I mean… Do you have any idea how hard it is to focus on skills sets or strategies for Tempest Trials when there’s someone as kindhearted and pretty as you always standing near me?!

F!Robin: …Excuse me?

(y/n): You gave me a hand when I needed it the most… and after that, every time you helped me, the only thing I could think about was how smart and beautiful you are. Sheesh, I even spilled tea all over me the other day because I was thinking about your smile.

F!Robin: (y/n)… I had no idea…

(y/n): I know. I’m sorry I changed my mind about working together and gave you no explanation. Well, here’s your reason. I love you. It’s just… In order to stay focused on my duties, I needed you to stay away from my job.

F!Robin: …You are such an idiot. Instead of taking such a rash decision, you should have told me. Who’s to say I don’t feel the same about you? Geez… I hadn’t confessed and I still thought you had rejected me.

(y/n): I-I’m sorry… I never expected I had a chance. But… maybe we can try.

F!Robin: What do you mean?

(y/n): If we both feel the same, maybe I won’t have any problem being in love with you and working at your side.

F!Robin: Now that sounds like a good decision. Here, let me tell you something.

[(y/n) and F!Robin have reached support rank S.]

Confession quote:

F!Robin: “Your dedication to help everyone, your kindness, your intelligence… I love it all. You opened my eyes to wonders I would have never imagined. I can not imagine how my life would have been like had I never met you. Let’s stay by each other’s side, for the rest of our lives.”

[oveliagirlhaditright]

So... Honest question: Have you ever seen an adaptation that had one element you wished the source material had, but did everything else wrong?

You are tapping into my vast knowledge of book adaptations, friend. At first when I read this ask, I thought I had nothing. But now I think I have quite a bit. Here we go:

Twilight (I know you don’t like it–I think–and I get that. Neither does the world. But you asked this question about any adaptation. And I have one here that follows that ask, so I’m going to list it, if that’s okay:)) Tbh… I think the movie series did more right than just one thing… But that being said, I have more issues with the films than I have things I like about them (I think the books are better). But an example of the films being better than the books in one area–while I don’t like a lot of the rest–is this one line from the Eclipse film, that even Stephenie says she likes better there. Basically, in the books I (and Stephenie) feel like Bella got into this long, unnecessary rant about how Edward is contradicting himself (about the fight with the Newborns apparently being easy) and should stay with Bella if it is). In the movie, she gets this across in one easy line: “Okay, either it’s so hard that I should be with you to help out as much as I can, or it’s easy enough that your family should be fine if you bowed out… I think it’s dangerous for us to be apart. How many times to we have to prove that?” Paraphrasing here.

The Host made the good decision to show more of what The Seeker was doing in it–which is an improvement from the book–but they also ironically showed her too much, and this became the movie’s downfall for me (because all her screentime took away from building up other things that were important), so I sadly don’t really like this movie… Which is a shame, because it should have been great. Say what you will about Twilight, but many will say that The Host is actually a phenomenal book by Stephenie Meyer. And it is… And this good plot had a great cast, a wonderful director… and it still fell apart because of this one choice.

I liked The Vampire Diaries show actually giving the cast more of a personality, which is one of the things I will write home about the show and say that it did better (the book characters felt like cardboard to me. And never more did I feel this, than when they sat down to have a picnic at the beginning of book five–when everything was finally peaceful–and I thought they’d have a normal chat, and I’d finally know more about the characters them… only for them to go right into, “So, has anyone noticed anything weird about the town lately?” -face palm-). But the show was just way too different from the books for me to even give it a chance. It wasn’t The Vampire Diaries. And since it wasn’t, it just made me mad every time I tried to watch it until I gave up.

Gossip Girl… Though to be fair, with this one I don’t dislike the show. And I don’t know which I prefer–the books or the show, if either–because I haven’t read enough of the novels to tell. That being said, the show is quite different from the source material… But it doesn’t really bother me. And what change I actually liked for the show, was them deciding to make Chuck Bass an actually decent human (eventually) being instead of leaving him the ultimate asshole that the books did.

The Mortal Instruments… Shadowhunters has the perfect cast–way better than the movie’s one, in a lot of ways–so the show should partly have it easy just because of that… but it doesn’t (in my opinion. I know a lot of people love Shadowhunters). And for me the cast is the only thing the show has going for it.

The first Percy Jackson movie–The Lightning Thief–is a great family film if you haven’t read the books… and that’s it. And if you have read the books, oh boy.

I’m a weird Divergent fan (if I can even call myself that. As I really don’t like this series that much), in that most people loved the first movie and had issues with the second one (we won’t talk about the terrible third, that I’ve never seen and never will) but I’m the opposite. The first movie did make less changes to the source material, it’s true, but for some reason the changes they did make drove me nuts. And Insurgent (the sequel) had even more changes that made people mad, but I was oddly okay with these ones and preferred them (because I had a lot of issues with Insurgent the book and Tris in it… Though maybe I’d somewhat change my tune now. Because having Tris deal with the trauma of not being able to touch guns after one killed her mother probably would have been good to keep in the adaptation, instead of just making her full of rage and violence)… And sadly, these changes I liked did lead into the awful third movie becoming what it was…

I feel like most Phantom of the Opera adaptations are pretty bad in one way or another. But the one good thing they (arguably) have going for them, is how they always (mostly) make the Phantom sympathetic, the way that Leroux wanted him to be.

Beastly… Beastly’s a movie I don’t know if I love or hate, or if I’m somewhere in between with it. In some ways, I think them changing the ending–to it being simpler, and Kyle just admitting he didn’t think anyone could love him to a Lindy who finally admits that she does–does fit the story better… But at the same time, I also hate that they changed the original ending (though it is an alternate ending of it on the DVD, though sadly it’s acted horribly for some reason), where Lindy is kidnapped and held at gunpoint by the men who were threatening her dad and Kyle has to save her and gets hurt and nearly dies in the process (a closer version to the Disney ending). IDK. I’m really at a loss with this one. 

Maximum Ride is just… an abysmal movie. It is. There’s no other way to put it. And it’s so sad. But I guess what do you expect when it’s a Netflix one? But James Patterson was actually heavily involved with it… But then again, you look and see what he did to his own series via the books, is it really a surprise he fucked this up? The only good part in this movie is Max being so very much Max, when she has to go save the girl who’s being bullied–Ella–despite Fang telling her not to (ala the novel). That’s it.

Edit: I’m also adding Game of Thrones to this list, because while it did more than one thing right (arguably. Though it’s kind of hard for me to even believe that now), it’s clear that D&D never had a good grasp at all on some of the core stuff with A Song of Ice and Fire. Like, it’s not supposed to be as bleak as they made it. Yes: one of the messages is that being a good person can get you killed. But at the same time, one of the other messages is that if you’re a terrible person… no one will like you, and they’ll remember the crap that you do, and eventually they will get their vengeance on you. They also played down all the heavy symbolism, dreams, and prophecy that George has laid out in his books, because apparently “symbolism is for eighth grade book reports”. And they mishandled most of the female characters. Like, Catelyn is actually supposed to be a pretty good military strategist... and yet they changed most of her scenes into her crying about her children.

[proteusspade]

On the debacle with Fallout 76

 I feel like the debacle with Fallout 76 has become a testing grounds for a lot of the dominating theories and myths about video games and video game consumers in general, as well as more specifically about Bethesda studios and Bethesda gamers. I apologize for the LONG post ahead, but there’s a lot to unpack here and I want to make sure everyone’s on the same page before I try and make any big points. For those not in the know, I will attempt to summarize: - Bethesda released Fallout 76, a multiplayer installment in the Fallout franchise, with a set release date of November 14, 2018.  - The game was announced with the marketing that it would be playable and enjoyable as singleplayer, that every person you ran into would be a real person, that it was a new Fallout experience, that its graphics would improve upon Fallout 4′s graphics by 16 times, and notably, one collector’s edition which cost $200 was marketed as coming with a wearable helmet and a canvas bag.

The beta was shaky and riddled with bugs, and upon release, the game itself was still pretty much broken -- far moreso than other Bethesda titles, and this coming from a company where the running joke since Oblivion has been that the bugs are so prevalent that they are a feature, not a flaw. An enormous patch was released shortly after launch, which was larger in size than the game itself, and which not only didn’t fix almost any of the bugs, but created hundreds *more* bugs, as if they didn’t playtest the patch at all.  For players like me who can go a surprisingly long time in a Bethesda game without seeing any bugs at all, I will note that these bugs include: - T-posing enemies which either spontaneously assume their correct animations only when you get close, or never do, or which teleport suddenly into you to try and display their attack animations - Horrendous enemy A.I. where a lot of them will just stand in one place looping an animation - Enemies spawning out of thin air directly in front of you due to slow loading - A bug where enemies spontaneously heal the exact amount of damage you deal to them, making them invincible - Falling through the ground out of nowhere - Clipping through and getting caught in the world - Frequent server crashes, often due to in-game happenings (the game eventually gives you access to nuclear bombs, but the same bombs can crash the server if you drop them) - Frequent disconnects - Frequent game crashes (with no ‘save game’ function) - Body horror bugs like the Wendigo Bug which have been present since Fallout 4 and haven’t been fixed by Bethesda yet, even though modders were able to fix them weeks after Fallout 4 came out. Three years ago.  Moreover, the game directly ported over most of its visual assets from Fallout 4. Most of the landscape elements come from Fallout 4, almost all of the weapons come from Fallout 4, almost all of the outfits and armors come from Fallout 4, most of the monsters come from Fallout 4, the physics and gunplay is directly ported over (minus the ability to pause the game to open your inventory, of course, and minus the time-slowing aspect of V.A.T.S, which makes V.A.T.S almost completely useless), the character creation is ported over, the loot is ported over, the base-building system and all of its assets (walls, floors, anything you’d use to build a base) are ported over. Basically, other than trees and certain monsters unique to West Virginia, you’ll have a hard time spotting content which isn’t directly ported over from Fallout 4, often without palette swaps. Is the promise of better graphics fulfilled?  Well, the lighting is significantly improved, and even very pretty and atmospheric -- though occasionally light will shine through solid far-away objects, like mountains. Modders had done this almost immediately with Fallout 4, too, though, so it’s not really a huge achievement. And the landscape is much more colourful than in any other Fallout game, which is admittedly a nice change of pace, even though it makes no goddamn sense why the trees would survive while everything else dies around them. But other than those two elements... yeah, it just looks like Fallout 4, but usually doesn’t render as well due to being on a multiplayer server and due to the graphical glitches. How about the promise that every person you run into is a real person? Well, that was true all right, but how anyone thought that was a good idea is beyond me. It’s one of those things that sounds really cool and innovative until you think about it for literally any length of time at all. Why would that be a good thing? Unless you have quite a lot of friends who you’ve somehow got onto the same server (which, by the way, I don’t think has much functionality in Fallout 76), you’re not going to be very interested in those people, and you have no reason to be. They’re just big lumps of immersion-breaking, as I seriously doubt many people are going onto the game to vocally roleplay their way through the game experience.  Moreover, this means no NPCs besides monsters and robots. No quests from anyone but robots and holotapes. Now, I like holotapes. I’m one of those unbearable players who listens to every holotape and reads every computer terminal. My favourite part of Fallout games is usually finding out the big stories behind Vaults or unusual locations. But when you are doing this quest for someone you will never meet, and have complete certainty of this fact, the reason to do quests in the first place starts to ebb away. You just get holotapes or robots telling you to go to a place, kill something there, rinse, repeat. That’s the entire game. Nothing is achieved; everyone who recorded those holotapes is dead, or a monster now. You’re not doing anyone any favours. There’s no one to help, there’s no one to hate, there’s just you (and whatever people you’re playing with, who, again, aren’t really part of the story as multiplayer gamers don’t typically roleplay). The main quest of the game revolves around trying to find the previous Overseer of the vault. There’s zero suspense, interest or urgency, because as a player, you know with complete certainty going in that if you find her, she’ll be dead or a monster. When you remove the NPCs, you remove all our reasons to care about quests. You also remove all interactions in the game besides “kill thing, loot thing, make stuff with loot”. And killing monsters with such laughable AI and glitches, AI designed for Fallout 4 where V.A.T.S could pause the game and dropped into a game where it doesn’t, isn’t nearly enjoyable enough to make that game loop anything but ghastly. How ANYONE thought this was a good idea is beyond me, and I’m pretty sure at this point that they didn’t do it because they thought it was a good idea, they did it because having NPCs function like they would in a singleplayer game, while in a multiplayer server, is an incredibly daunting task. When literally no one asked for the game to be multiplayer in the first place, but hey. Is the game fun to play alone? Not from literally anyone I know who has, no, and this is due to the above factors. Is the game, as the marketing said, more fun to play with your friends? Well, yes, but the same could be said of cleaning out a moldy garage alone versus with friends. Being with friends makes anything more enjoyable. The game does not cease to have all its serious underlying problems when you play with friends, you just have someone to commiserate with and witness this bullshit with you. Is this a new Fallout experience? Not really. It’s Fallout 4 with a prettier landscape, story constrained to holotapes and therefore constrained to the past (and not the present the player is actually playing in!), and it’s arguably not even a Fallout experience at all. It wears a Fallout skin but the core roleplaying, choice, and narrative features of the game are gone, and all that’s left is a world that’s much bigger, but where all the new space is pretty much empty anyhow.  Oh, and the canvas bags for the collector’s edition were cheap vinyl when people got them, Bethesda just went “yeah canvas was too expensive lol, u can have five dollars’ worth of the game’s microtransaction money for free tho if you want, just file a complaint”. The amount of the microtransaction digital money wouldn’t even buy a virtual canvas bag, mind. Then someone threatened a lawsuit, and it looks like people are going to get their actual canvas bags. But they still need to file a complaint, and WHOOPS! They accidentally doxxed everyone who filed a complaint, to some other people who filed a complaint! The absolute cherry on top. (Yes, it really was an accident, it’s even stupider than it sounds.) So what can we take away from all this? Well, I wouldn’t take away much hope for Fallout 76 as a game, for one. It’s a dumpster fire, and they keep pouring gasoline onto it. But the game has scored abysmally low basically everywhere. People have noticed, and they’re not pleased. The game’s price has dropped 30%, and that’s in the first couple weeks after launching, which is completely unheard of for a AAA game. Returns are going wild. Youtube is FULL of videos taking Fallout 76 to town. So clearly, gamers won’t lap up whatever you give them just because it’s a sequel to something they love. The sunk cost fallacy hasn’t run that deep, and people are suddenly extremely skeptical of whatever Bethesda releases next -- which at this rate, is going to be either The Elder Scrolls: Blades, or their new sci-fi game, followed by The Elder Scrolls VII (title as yet unannounced).  I would also suggest that studios may finally have been given a good indication that clumsily slapping multiplayer on something that had success as single-player isn’t the greatest idea. This is a lesson that probably should have been learned years ago, but better late than never.  I would also hope that game studios, Bethesda especially, develop a touch more respect for their fanbase and realize that player bases can be lost. Bethesda has relied upon their fanbase to mod away their bugs, laziness, and incomplete content hampered by release dates for many years now, but faced with a multiplayer game with no mod support, they are put in a position where they have to realize how heavily they’ve been leaning on those mods. But there’s another part of the story that isn’t being covered so much -- one which challenges the assumptions which has led Bethesda and the players to such a disaster in the first place. Red Dead Redemption 2 has been in the makings for a long time now, but was released something like a year late in comparison to its originally announced release date. The new Kingdom Hearts has been repeatedly delayed. I’d expect the fans would have reacted with nothing but outrage! But they ... haven’t, for the most part. There’s been some frustration and groaning, especially with people who have pre-ordered the games, but for the most part, the fans have been pretty understanding. It turns out they’d rather have a game come out finished than come out on time.  That seems simple, and even obvious, but for close to twenty years, it has been the prevailing logic that for a game to sell well, it has to come out at a pre-defined and specific date, and if it isn’t done, that’s just how the process of making games work, and we’ll fix it in bug patches, or wait for mods to fix it. This is such an assumed phenomenon that it shows up repeatedly in Extra Credits, a show which talks in great detail about the production of video games, and I’d be hard-pressed to name a game that I own or play which doesn’t have unfinished content, even if it’s fairly bug-free. But here we are, Red Dead 2 is out, and it’s a roaring success, despite considerable delays. The conventional wisdom is simply wrong. And it gets even better. This is the trailer for The Outer Worlds, a game made by Obsidian. I urge you to watch it. First of all, the game looks good. The graphics are good, the human characters are expressive and dynamic while still looking realistic. The backgrounds are great. The humour is great. The world-building, what we see of it, looks very promising. And oh my god, the shade they throw at Bethesda is gorgeous. Not only does Obsidian highlight themselves as the creators of Fallout and Fallout: New Vegas -- that is, the two most-loved Fallout games -- they play with the concept of a cryogenically frozen player character (possibly lampshading the use of the same concept in Fallout 4), and they point out that player choice isn’t just about a binary “who do you shoot” moment -- another moment from Fallout 4, and one of the few real choices you get to make in that game -- and implies that variety of choice, including non-combat choice, is going to be a Thing in this game. Look at the comments section for that video. You will see hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of comments praising the trailer, talking about the shade it casts on Bethesda, making New Vegas meme jokes, praising the music, lauding the humour, wondering about the characters it shows us. You know what I didn’t see? Even one single, solitary comment complaining that there’s no definite release date shown anywhere in that trailer. Seriously, watch it again. It doesn’t say exactly when it’s coming out. Just 2019. No month. No date. Just sometime next year. You know... when it’s done. What you might not have known was that The Outer Worlds was originally estimated to come out this year. You didn’t know that because they didn’t release the trailer until just recently -- when they were far enough in production to produce such a great trailer, for one, but also once they were far enough to be certain they would be finished with production within a year.  No one cares when it’s coming. They care that it looks like a good game with so much original effort put into it. That’s what matters. And maybe if the game studios can realize this, we’ll finally see an end to the exploitative bullshit that happens -- exploitative of not just the gamers, but of the thousands of overworked employees it takes to make a AAA video game -- in the service of an absolute deadline above the game itself. God, now that’s a thought. So don’t be discouraged by the failure of Fallout 76. There’s way better on the horizon. The myths that studios need a firm deadline to put out a good game, the myths that players in some way demand a firm deadline, the myth that players will sit there and take any level of bullshit, they’re all being thoroughly, publicly debunked. Feels good, man. Feels good.

[scoutception]

Final Fantasy I review: a pragmatic evolution

Final Fantasy; one of the largest and most influential game franchises out there, and my personal favorite video game series. It’s kind of surreal to think that it started out as what was basically an unlicensed Dungeons & Dragons adaptation from a failing company that only approved it to try to top Dragon Quest, like so many others back then. For all the faults it had, like being so utterly buggy that it artificially increased difficulty through things like mages not actually being able to gain more power for their magic, and several spells not even working, period, it pulled through with an innovative team building system, a great soundtrack that would help cement Nobou Uematsu as one of the great video game soundtrack composers, and a much more developed exploration system compared to Dragon Quest, giving you access to vehicles like an airship. For this review, however, I shall be reviewing the PSP version of Final Fantasy I, which is quite a different experience, for reasons I shall tackle shortly. Otherwise, in we go.

Story

The story is about a world home to 4 elemental crystals of earth, fire, water, and wind, which once blessed the land and its inhabitants with peace. However, the Four Fiends, the Lich, Marilith, the Kraken, and Tiamat, have since corrupted the crystals, depriving the world of their blessings and causing the appearance of monsters across the land. Despite the bleakness, however, the people keep faith in one thing: a prophecy stating that four Warriors of Light will appear one day to restore the crystals and defeat the Four Fiends. 400 years after the first of the fiends appeared, the Warriors of Light finally arrive at the town of Cornelia, where they are tasked by its king to save his daughter, Princess Sarah, from Garland, a traitorous knight, who has taken her to the Chaos Shrine. Afterwards, the king builds a bridge in gratitude, allowing them to skip over to the next town and beat up some pirates for their ship. Most of the “plot” of this game takes the form of fetching key items and chains of deals that stand in the way of you actually taking the fight to the Fiends, with the worst taking place right after getting the ship, involving almost every single area you can even visit at that time. It was probably a bit more interesting at the time, especially compared to Dragon Quest, but it’s a huge drag nowadays.

After killing all of the Fiends, the game decides to pull a twist: as it turns out, an evil force 2000 years in the past is still stealing the power of the crystals, originating from the Chaos Shrine. After traveling through a time portal, and killing all the Four Fiends again, the game pulls a bigger twist: they find Garland at the bottom of the shrine, having been sent back in time by the Fiends. Using their power to transform into the monster Chaos, he then used his power to send them into the present, creating some time loop that allows him to live forever. After defeating him, the Warriors of Light are returned to the present, having retroactively prevented any of the disasters from taking place, even ensuring Garland would never betray Cornelia. Doing this erases their memories of their journey, but the legend of it still lives on.... somehow. It’s not exactly a deep plot, but it can still be decently entertaining to go through, especially with the vastly improved translation of the later versions, which gives quite a bit of dialogue a surprising amount of charm.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Final Fantasy I is about the most standard NES era RPG you could get. You travel on a world map, exploring towns and dungeons and getting into random encounters, with the battle system also being a very standard turn based system, selecting all your party’s actions at the beginning of each turn, and having choices of attacking, using magic, using an item, defending, or attempting to escape. You gain the use of a ship, a canoe, and eventually an airship which pretty much invalidates any other form of travel for navigating the world map, though the ship can only dock at certain spots, and the airship can only land on grass tiles. This can pose a problem to a new player, as the continents are large and often force you to land farther away from your goal than you might expect. This is doubly bad as the game initially seems to lack a map feature, which can make navigation very difficult sense the map loops when you reach an edge of it. While there is actually a map you can access on the world map, which even displays the locations you’ve discovered, you can only bring it up by hitting a button combination the game never outright tells you, only being mentioned, and backwards, at that, by some brooms in an early area (it’s ok, it’s the home of a witch), which could be passed off as random nonsense if you’re not in the mood to think laterally.

The most interesting gameplay feature FF1 has to offer is its party building system. Instead of just gaining predetermined characters as you go on like, say, MOTHER, or only having one character, like Dragon Quest itself, you have 4 party members all the time that you select at the start of the game, picked from 6 different classes: the Warrior, the very standard physical fighter with great attack and defense, whose only real downside is being very reliant on equipment, the Monk, who is pretty much the opposite of the fighter, being a physical fighter who specializes in fighting unarmed, to the point of equipment actually lowering his attack and defense after a while, making him very cheap to use, and very broken after the first few levels. There’s also the Thief, which is bad on defense, but is good for attacking and has superior speed. The second half of the classes are magically focused. The White Mage specializes in healing and support magic, though they also have offense in the form of the Dia line of spells, which is effective against undead, and Holy, one of the major attacking spells of the series. The Black Mage, conversely, focuses on offensive magic, though they also have access to some very good buff, though they’re perhaps the most vulnerable of any class, with abysmal HP growth, at that. Lastly, there’s the Red Mage, the jack of all trades, master of none. They can use swords, have good defense, and access to both white and black magic, though they’re worse at all of those than the classes that focus on them individually, and can’t use most of the later game spells or equipment, though since you’re stuck with your chosen classes all the way, they’re never an outright burden, and plenty of people find them great regardless.

Aside from leveling up from fighting random encounters, you power up your party by buying equipment, or finding it in dungeons or other areas, and buying spells from towns. There’s 8 spell tiers in all, with all having 4 different spells per tier for both black and white magic. However, the spellcasters can only know up to three spells for each tier, with the red mage having to use those spaces for both white and black magic. Some tiers have better spells than others, with most spells more complex than simple healing or damage usually not being worthwhile. However, a lot of spells and equipment available around the time you get the airship is not actually usable by your party members, and this is because of a sidequest offered by Bahamut, the king of the dragons, to go within the Citadel of Trials and retrieve a rat tail. Doing so will cause for your party members to class change, aka basically promote into stronger classes. The Warrior becomes the Knight, the Monk becomes the Master, the Thief becomes the Ninja, the White Mage becomes the White Wizard, the Black Mage becomes the Black Wizard, and the Red Mage becomes the Red Wizard. This grants them better stat growth and access to stronger equipment and spells, and the Knight and Ninja gain white and black magic, respectively.

The NES version of FF1 is infamously difficult, but over the many ports, starting with the Playstation version, and most notably advanced with the GBA version, the game became much, much easier. Whether it be the fixing of damaging bugs or the ability to save anywhere instead of the world map, which, granted, was only sensible considering portable console, to switching the spell system from each tier only being usable a certain amount of times before needing recharging at an inn, something borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons, to switching to a much more traditional MP system, to just a general rebalancing of the classes, it makes for a much easier game to get through. Too easy, honestly. You gain experience much, much faster, so as long as you fight the majority of the encounters you get into, you’ll quickly end up overpowered. It’s very easy to reach level 99, and much of the best equipment is easy to get. However, I don’t think the easier difficulty, and the general simplicity of the gameplay, are necessarily bad things. On the contrary, it makes the game very easy to pick up and play through, and it’s surprisingly fun despite how simple the combat is. This, I think, is the saving grace of the game, and even if that doesn’t satisfy you, the bonus content added in the later ports are the highlights of the game.

The GBA version added four bonus dungeons collectively called the Soul of Chaos, unlocked after each Fiend you defeat. These dungeons consist of a set amount of different, and often wacky, floors that load in a randomized order. While the first two dungeons are fairly standard and short, stuff begins picking up with the third, and the fourth is a 40 floor gauntlet of fun and creative little challenges and maps. In addition, each dungeon contains cameo bosses from Final Fantasy 3-6, complete with remixes of their boss themes for the PSP versions. These include Shinryu and Omega, who are the hardest bosses in the GBA version, and Gilgamesh, one of the most famous characters in the series. All in all, these dungeons are actually really fun to go through, as long as you’re properly leveled, and are definitely refreshing compared to how most RPGs handle bonus dungeons. On that subject, however, is the Labyrinth of Time, added in the PSP version. It consists of time puzzles, 30 in all, though you only do so many in each run, that ends with a fight against a newly added superboss, and the usurper of the title of hardest boss in the game, Chronodia. The catch is that Chronodia has 8 different variations, with different rewards and bestiary entries for each, and which one you encounter depends on how many puzzles you finish in time, and how many you only complete after running out of time, causing a fog to roll in that saps you of your HP and MP, and allows random encounters while in the puzzle areas. While creative, the Labyrinth of Time is overall maddeningly difficult and not fun. This is one to skip if you value your sanity.

Sound & Graphics

The graphics of FF1, again, judging the PSP version, are actually really good. The characters look distinct, and the monster graphics especially are great, and represent Yoshitaka Amano’s designs for them very, very well.

The areas are also surprisingly well designed. From the ruins of the Chaos Shrine, and the complete version of it as the final dungeon, to the underwater ruins that house the lair of the Kraken, to, most notably, the flying fortress of the Lufenian civilization, home to Tiamat and far advanced compared to all the other locations, especially in the original NES version, where it’s a space station, of all things.

As for the music, it holds up amazingly. Aside from many of the most famous themes of the series, such as the Preude, themes like the town theme and the Chaos Shrine theme are amazingly atmospheric, and it overall still stands out as one of the best soundtracks in the series to me. Even if he wasn’t involved in the rearranging for the remakes, this was a significant step for composer Nobou Uematsu.

Conclusion

Despite how fond I am of this game, my recommendation rating depends. If you’re looking for a nice, easy to pick up RPG, perhaps as an introduction to the series, or to RPGs in general, I would give this a recommended. If you’re looking for much past that, however, I would give it a not recommended. As transformed as it is, it is still a very old game underneath, with unclear goals, very barebones gameplay systems, and with all the innovation it did have swept away over the years. Still, if nothing else, it’s a very respectable start to Final Fantasy. Until next time.

-Scout

[invokingbees]

I finished Dark Souls 2

So you know what that means!

Absolute fucking Biblical CUBIT of text under the break.

Dark Souls 2 is an oft-maligned game. Once a radically different product, its director was fired half way through and replaced, and the game pretty much rebuilt from scratch using already existing assets, story included. The first time I played DaS2, I didn't like it. I played a caster and had much less experience with the series than I do now, so suffice it to say that I gave up and respecced into a pure strength build because of Fume Knight and vowed to never play the game again because I found it so unenjoyable. But after being disappointed with Sekiro and needing a Souls fix, I reluctantly picked it up again, and with much more experience under my belt, I found myself actually really enjoying it, even more so than my three playthroughs of Dark Souls 1, which to some people, is tantamount to blasphemy. So let me talk about why I feel this way.

In Dark Souls 1, you are the Chosen Undead, with only a scrap of legend to lead you on a quest to save a world on the brink of falling into capital D Darkness. Of course that's all bullshit and is basically a conspiracy against humanity by the gods of fire who feared an age of humanity, an age of Dark. In Dark Souls 2, things are a little different. It appears to have been many many ages since the first game, so much so no one remembers Lordran, no remembers the gods, or Anor Londo or anything. It's been possibly hundreds if not thousands of years. You are again an accursed Undead, who has found themselves in the decrepit land of Drangleic, which long ago was brought to its knees by a war with the Giants from across the sea, after Drangleic's king, Vendrick, took something from them at the bidding of his mysterious queen, Nashandra. Vendrick sought a way to cure or circumvent the Undead Curse which turns all undead, eventually, into mindless Hollows. Alas, although Vendrick was close, he didn't make it, and fled from his queen and his kingdom after learning of her true nature and reason for sending him off to conquer the Giants. You, the Bearer of the Curse, like in DaS1, must collect powerful souls, but instead of linking the first flame and becoming glorified firewood, you must prove yourself a worthy monarch, traverse the continent, gather the Great Souls and take the Throne of Want, to inherit the Fire and conquer the Dark, to overcome the curse, or to leave it and seek something else.

Dark Souls 2 has a more personal scope and is actually the main reason I really liked it. You arrive in Drangleic 'without ever really knowing why' but find your objective fairly quickly. You're gently nudged by the Emerald Herald (the level up waifu) to seek the king and eventually discover he was looking for a way out of the curse. In DaS1 you're fed a grand narrative about the fate of the world and the gods and how you'll be the hero to save it all, but in DaS2, you're the bearer of a curse, a lost soul who's stumbled upon possible salvation and has no real other option but to pursue it. It's a salvation with a lot of responsibility, and you must ask yourself (and are asked by the King's brother, the nefarious Aldia) if that's really what you want. In the end, taking the Throne of Want inherits the fire and links it, takes the power of the gods and keeps it all running, but Dark Souls 2 gives this action a much more personal angle. You could have easily been fed a tale that the king needs a successor and that you must prove yourself in his trials, but no, Vendrick went hollow a long time ago and there's just nobody left to pick up the pieces. But it's all there, if you want it. And Nashandra does so hope that you do.

The idea of Want plays a great part in Dark Souls 2, which really cements the personal angle the game takes. The curse of life is the curse of want. The desire for power, security, knowledge. Vendrick wanted a way out of the curse. But this want factors into the game's real antagonists, the Shards of Manus, Father of the Abyss, who fled through the world and became the queens of four lands, all of which fell to ruin. They were weak creatures, they sought safety, they were envious, fearful, and Wanted. And you have to wonder, are they even to be faulted for what happened? Perhaps. But what about you? Your journey isn't a necessity, it's a want, you rail against fate. You kill and take souls because you want a way out of the curse, to surpass Vendrick's failures.

Dark Souls 2's atmosphere has this almost fairy tale-esque, mythical feel with kings and queens, giants and castles, crowns and thrones, but with the weird and dark twist of Souls lore. There is nary a mention of Gwyn, the first flame, I don't think the game has a single demon outside of the one in Shrine of Amana, and for all the complaints of the game calling back too hard to DaS1, I never felt it was anywhere near as intrusive as people say it is. DaS2 almost could have been its own thing. The different approach to its fantasy feels refreshing, moreso than Dark Souls 3, although truth be told I love that game's idea of an exhausted world being artificially forced to continue and falling in on itself. Dark Souls 2 doesn't even present a world ending threat, because there's other lands out there, Volgin, Forossa and Mirrah come up numerous times and seem to be doing just fine. Drangleic is a ruin to pick through for answers. There is no rush to link the flame, everything is placed upon your want to succeed. Quite meta, in a way.

Lore and atmosphere-wise, I'm very fond of Dark Souls 2. I love the whole lead up to finding Vendrick, hearing about this king, going through the land, fighting your way through the castle, feeling like your hot on his trail, fighting his royal guards, his personal bodyguard and then...you find a mindless husk wandering an empty room. That's a fantastic reveal.

Gameplay-wise, though, it's now time to get tough on DaS2. The game has issues, I won't lie, and they're just enough to bug me.

One thing that really bothered me are the weapon movesets which are, for the most part, abysmal. Nothing feels particularly satisfying and most of the choices just feel janky and awkward. Combat in the game is perfectly serviceable and at time it does feel good but the combat, really, is just fine never anything more. It never feels particularly meaty, but sure, Souls games aren't combat games and this isn't Bloodborne which required a more in-depth combat system. Casting is another matter, Souls magic never felt very good but DaS2 has a pretty good amount of variety to its spells.

The main game has some great areas, but also really just terrible ones. The two most glaring areas, for me, are Black Gulch, a frankly bullshit almost straight hallway lined with poison shooting statues that eat your weapon durability like no one's business if you want to be rid of them (also, this game's durability is a joke). It also has OHK grab enemies and worm enemies designed to just completely block movement. It's a bad, bad area with a shit Dirty Colossus rip off boss as one of its Great Souls bosses. Of course there's also Shrine of Amana, an area that was once nearly unplayable and was reduced to just frustrating and unenjoyable. Instant death drops everywhere, a near constant movement penalty, ranged attacks coming from all sides, all the time. Bad fucking area. There's certain sections of other areas that stick out, too, like the run to the boss in Huntsman's Copse, or the foggy forest in Shaded Woods with almost literally invisible enemies.

As for the bosses, they're mostly forgettable. They range from pretty cool gimmick battles like Looking Glass Knight, to complete fucking trash like Royal Rat Vanguard or Authority. I really appreciate DaS2's amount of DeS-like gimmick bosses, especially since DaS3 went real hard with the JUST LIKE ARTORIAS stuff but shit like Executioner's Chariot, tone it down for fuck's sake. At least take out the necromancers if you must have skeletons. I wil say, DaS2 gets flak for having lots of dudes in armour, but to me, it fits the tone of the game, even if some of them are a bit crap. The base game's final bosses, though, are a shame. Nashandra is barely a fight and Aldia even less so. He's immensely tedious and there's just nothing fun, interesting or satisfying about it. He sticks out as one DaS2's worst moments and was clearly added as an afterthought.

The DLCs, I'm actually not the biggest fan. Most people say the DLCs are better than the main game, but Brume Tower? Kinda sucks. It's drab, its boss is frustrating, there's not much to do, Maldron the Assassin is there. Shulva, Sanctum City? Much better, great aesthetic, nice level design, but then it throws in LMAO POISE enemies all over the place, and not just that, but the constant threat of poison and the return of Black Gulch poison statues. Eleum Loyce? Has the best bossfight in the entire game, that's for sure, my heart aches for the Burnt Ivory King, but there's little things here and there and that sour a mostly fine experience. The return of Maldron the Assassin, for one, and of course the fucking spiky rat fucker Wheel Skeleton 2.0 bullshit enemies who can and will kill you in seconds.

Also the intro where you meet the Firekeepers is just fucking awful, oh my GOD.

Overall, Dark Souls 2's bad moments are bad, they're terrible, but let's not forget Dark Souls 1 had the entirely of Lost Izalith, the Demon Ruins and Blighttown, and Dark Souls 3 has TWO poison swamps. The good parts of Dark Souls 2, its amtosphere, its art style, its general tone, are sorely overlooked and sometimes outright ignored in favour of, in my opinion, overbloated nostalgia for Dark Souls 1. Dark Souls 2 has a lot going for it, it has combat mechanics like power-stancing which is great, it has a totally overhauled NG+, it has variety and weird gimmick weapons and armour the ass, it has fantastic fashion, it's a good fucking game and deserves praise for the good things it did. And like the other Souls games, criticism for the things it fucked up on. But regardless, I'm glad we have them, and I'm really glad I've played through Dark Souls 2 again. It deserves to be played.

[life-observed]

To speak is to blunder

Choosing to renounce a mother tongue.

By Yiyun Li

Illustration by Jun Cen

In my dream, I asked for the phone. Two women came out of a front office. I recognized them: in real life, they are both gone. No, they said; the service is no longer offered, because everyone has a cell phone these days. There was nothing extraordinary about the dream—a melancholy visit to the past in this manner is beyond one’s control—but for the fact that the women spoke to me in English.

Years ago, when I started writing in English, my husband asked if I understood the implication of the decision. What he meant was not the practical concerns, though there were plenty: the nebulous hope of getting published; the lack of a career path as had been laid out in science, my first field of postgraduate study in America; the harsher immigration regulation I would face as a fiction writer. Many of my college classmates from China, as scientists, acquired their green cards under a National Interest Waiver. An artist is not of much importance to any nation’s interest.

My husband, who writes computer programs, was asking about language. Did I understand what it meant to renounce my mother tongue?

Nabokov once answered a question he must have been tired of being asked: “My private tragedy, which cannot, indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural language, my natural idiom.” That something is called a tragedy, however, means it is no longer personal. One weeps out of private pain, but only when the audience swarms in and claims understanding and empathy do people call it a tragedy. One’s grief belongs to oneself; one’s tragedy, to others.

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I often feel a tinge of guilt when I imagine Nabokov’s woe. Like all intimacies, the intimacy between one and one’s mother tongue can be comforting and irreplaceable, yet it can also demand more than what one is willing to give, or more than one is capable of giving. If I allow myself to be honest, my private salvation, which cannot and should not be anybody’s concern, is that I disowned my native language.

In the summer and autumn of 2012, I was hospitalized in California and in New York for suicide attempts, the first time for a few days, and the second time for three weeks. During those months, my dreams often took me back to Beijing. I would be standing on top of a building—one of those gray, Soviet-style apartment complexes—or I would be lost on a bus travelling through an unfamiliar neighborhood. Waking up, I would list in my journal images that did not appear in my dreams: a swallow’s nest underneath a balcony, the barbed wires at the rooftop, the garden where old people sat and exchanged gossip, the mailboxes at street corners—round, green, covered by dust, with handwritten collection times behind a square window of half-opaque plastic.

Yet I have never dreamed of Iowa City, where I first landed in America, in 1996, at the age of twenty-three. When asked about my initial impression of the place, I cannot excavate anything from memory to form a meaningful answer. During a recent trip there from my home in California, I visited a neighborhood that I used to walk through every day. The one-story houses, which were painted in pleasantly muted colors, with gardens in the front enclosed by white picket fences, had not changed. I realized that I had never described them to others or to myself in Chinese, and when English was established as my language they had become everyday mundanities. What happened during my transition from one language to another did not become memory.

People often ask about my decision to write in English. The switch from one language to another feels natural to me, I reply, though that does not say much, just as one can hardly give a convincing explanation as to why someone’s hair turns gray on one day but not on another. But this is an inane analogy, I realize, because I do not want to touch the heart of the matter. Yes, there is something unnatural, which I have refused to accept. Not the fact of writing in a second language—there are always Nabokov and Conrad as references, and many of my contemporaries as well—or that I impulsively gave up a reliable career for writing. It’s the absoluteness of my abandonment of Chinese, undertaken with such determination that it is a kind of suicide.

The tragedy of Nabokov’s loss is that his misfortune was easily explained by public history. His story—of being driven by a revolution into permanent exile—became the possession of other people. My decision to write in English has also been explained as a flight from my country’s history. But unlike Nabokov, who had been a published Russian writer, I never wrote in Chinese. Still, one cannot avoid the fact that a private decision, once seen through a public prism, becomes a metaphor. Once, a poet of Eastern European origin and I—we both have lived in America for years, and we both write in English—were asked to read our work in our native languages at a gala. But I don’t write in Chinese, I explained, and the organizer apologized for her misunderstanding. I offered to read Li Po or Du Fu or any of the ancient poets I had grown up memorizing, but instead it was arranged for me to read poetry by a political prisoner.

A metaphor’s desire to transcend diminishes any human story; its ambition to illuminate blinds those who create metaphors. In my distrust of metaphors I feel a kinship with George Eliot: “We all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.” My abandonment of my first language is personal, so deeply personal that I resist any interpretation—political or historical or ethnographical. This, I know, is what my husband was questioning years ago: was I prepared to be turned into a symbol by well-intentioned or hostile minds?

Chinese immigrants of my generation in America criticize my English for not being native enough. A compatriot, after reading my work, pointed out, in an e-mail, how my language is neither lavish nor lyrical, as a real writer’s language should be: you write only simple things in simple English, you should be ashamed of yourself, he wrote in a fury. A professor—an American writer—in graduate school told me that I should stop writing, as English would remain a foreign language to me. Their concerns about ownership of a language, rather than making me as impatient as Nabokov, allow me secret laughter. English is to me as random a choice as any other language. What one goes toward is less definitive than that from which one turns away.

Before I left China, I destroyed the journal that I had kept for years and most of the letters written to me, those same letters I had once watched out for, lest my mother discover them. What I could not bring myself to destroy I sealed up and brought with me to America, though I will never open them again. My letters to others I would have destroyed, too, had I had them. These records, of the days I had lived time and time over, became intolerable now that my time in China was over. But this violent desire to erase a life in a native language is only wishful thinking. One’s relationship with the native language is similar to that with the past. Rarely does a story start where we wish it had, or end where we wish it would.

One crosses the border to become a new person. One finishes a manuscript and cuts off the characters. One adopts a language. These are false and forced frameworks, providing illusory freedom, as time provides illusory leniency when we, in anguish, let it pass monotonously. “To kill time,” an English phrase that still chills me: time can be killed but only by frivolous matters and purposeless activities. No one thinks of suicide as a courageous endeavor to kill time.

During my second hospital stay, in New York, a group of nursing students came to play bingo one Friday night. A young woman, another patient, asked if I would join her. Bingo, I said, I’ve never in my life played that. She pondered for a moment, and said that she had played bingo only in the hospital. It was her eighth hospitalization when I met her; she had taken middle-school courses for a while in the hospital, when she was younger, and, once, she pointed out a small patch of fenced-in green where she and other children had been let out for exercise. Her father often visited her in the afternoon, and I would watch them sitting together playing a game, not attempting a conversation. By then, all words must have been inadequate, language doing little to help a mind survive time.

Yet language is capable of sinking a mind. One’s thoughts are slavishly bound to language. I used to think that an abyss is a moment of despair becoming interminable; but any moment, even the direst, is bound to end. What’s abysmal is that one’s erratic language closes in on one like quicksand: “You are nothing. You must do anything you can to get rid of this nothingness.” We can kill time, but language kills us.

“Patient reports feeling . . . like she is a burden to her loved ones”—much later, I read the notes from the emergency room. I did not have any recollection of the conversation. A burden to her loved ones: this language must have been provided to me. I would never use the phrase in my thinking or my writing. But my resistance has little to do with avoiding a platitude. To say “a burden” is to grant oneself weight in other people’s lives; to call them “loved ones” is to fake one’s ability to love. One does not always want to be subject to self-interrogation imposed by a cliché.

When Katherine Mansfield was still a teen-ager, she wrote in her journal about a man next door playing “Swanee River” on a cornet, for what seemed like weeks. “I wake up with the ‘Swannee River,’ eat it with every meal I take, and go to bed eventually with ‘all de world am sad and weary’ as a lullaby.” I read Mansfield’s notebooks and Marianne Moore’s letters around the same time, when I returned home from New York. In a letter, Moore described a night of fund-raising at Bryn Mawr. Maidens in bathing suits and green bathing tails on a raft: “It was Really most realistic . . . way down upon the Swanee River.”

January 2, 2017

Illustration by Marco Goran Romano

Shouts & Murmurs

After Watching “Sully” and “Star Trek Beyond”

By Ian Frazier

Photograph by Laura El-Tantawy for The New Yorker

Fiction

“Most Die Young”

By Camille Bordas

Briefly Noted

Books

Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Illustration by Tom Bachtell

Recycling Re

“How do you feel about staying in power?”

I marked the entries because they reminded me of a moment I had forgotten. I was nine, and my sister thirteen. On a Saturday afternoon, I was in our apartment and she was on the balcony. My sister had joined the middle-school choir that year, and in the autumn sunshine she sang in a voice that was beginning to leave girlhood. “Way down upon the Swanee River. Far, far away. That’s where my heart is turning ever; That’s where the old folks stay.”

The lyrics were translated into Chinese. The memory, too, should be in Chinese. But I cannot see our tiny garden with the grapevine, which our father cultivated and which was later uprooted by our wrathful mother, or the bamboo fence dotted with morning glories, or the junk that occupied half the balcony—years of accumulations piled high by our hoarder father—if I do not name these things to myself in English. I cannot see my sister, but I can hear her sing the lyrics in English. I can seek to understand my mother’s vulnerability and cruelty, but language is the barrier I have chosen. “Do you know, the moment I die your father will marry someone else?” my mother used to whisper to me when I was little. “Do you know that I cannot die, because I don’t want you to live under a stepmother?” Or else, taken over by inexplicable rage, she would say that I, the only person she had loved, deserved the ugliest death because I did not display enough gratitude. But I have given these moments—what’s possible to be put into English—to my characters. Memories, left untranslated, can be disowned; memories untranslatable can become someone else’s story.

Over the years, my brain has banished Chinese. I dream in English. I talk to myself in English. And memories—not only those about America but also those about China; not only those carried with me but also those archived with the wish to forget—are sorted in English. To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, like a crucial decision.

When we enter a world—a new country, a new school, a party, a family or a class reunion, an army camp, a hospital—we speak the language it requires. The wisdom to adapt is the wisdom to have two languages: the one spoken to others, and the one spoken to oneself. One learns to master the public language not much differently from the way that one acquires a second language: assess the situations, construct sentences with the right words and the correct syntax, catch a mistake if one can avoid it, or else apologize and learn the lesson after a blunder. Fluency in the public language, like fluency in a second language, can be achieved with enough practice.

Perhaps the line between the two is, and should be, fluid; it is never so for me. I often forget, when I write, that English is also used by others. English is my private language. Every word has to be pondered before it becomes a word. I have no doubt—can this be an illusion?—that the conversation I have with myself, however linguistically flawed, is the conversation that I have always wanted, in the exact way I want it to be.