#and how they created their own flamethrower that they canonically use in-game

[immunetoneurotoxin]

Just wanna drip by and say Incendiary has made itself a permanent resident in my brain.

Your writing is absolutely amazing, every scene got me gripping my seat in excitement. Seeing someone write a Pyro-focused long fic, let alone texas toast is so so so rare, I think I've only read 3 (including incendiary) that I've liked so far.

I love this little fire guy with all my heart, and I absolutely adore how you didn't make him too much like a child like how many mischaracterize him. There's the childlike wonder in him but he is capable when push comes to shove and I like that a lot! Every single characterizations in this fic is wonderful, I would love to give Engie a little kiss on his bald head.. he's so adorable.

I'm probably rambling but I just love this fic so much. I'm dealing with semester's midterms, stressed as all hell and this fic has been keeping me going. I practically cheered when I saw chapter 10 update in my inbox lmao. I would love to maybe make some fanart when I have the time, should I just tag you on this site?

Thank you so much for writing Incendiary dude, no kidding when I say it changed my life. I can't wait for the story to unfold! Please take care of yourself and rest well. Good luck on the job hunting as well!!

Omg stranger whoever you are, I just about teared up seeing this in my Inbox -

This is the most grandest, heartfelt comment I think I've ever received in my entire writing career and my heart is GUSHING rn!!!! I was literally out running errands when I saw this and I couldn't stop thinking about it -

When I joined the TF2 fandom in like... oh god, 2014 I think, I was really shocked to see throughout the years that there weren't many Pyro-centered stories out there, which blew my mind. Like how could there not be a deluge of fanfic for Pyro, who is this extremely mysterious, multi-faceted character with so much room for interpretation?! When I first watched Meet the Pyro, I KNEW I had to write a novel about Pyro. Who they are, where they came from, and what happened to them before the events of the gravel war. Massively inspired, of course. But still nonetheless, an origin story that could very well be canon if squinted at, hehe.

This rings true for texas toast content, too!! There isn't a whole lot of it out there and it makes me so sad - I love their dynamic so much! When Incendiary is finished, I do plan on writing some more texas toast oneshots on my AO3 to fill that void. <3 One of the plans is to write a short story about their relationship during the gravel wars as well, that takes place after the events of Incendiary. (plus, Incendiary has only just started to crack the surface tension of the slow burn, and it's only a matter of 1-2 chapters away from when the texas toast really starts showing through so there is that to look forward too as well. (｡˃ ᵕ ˂ ))

also I literally hollered when I read your comment about Pyro's characterization in this story especially, because THAT is THE ONE THING I have been working so incredibly hard towards holy shit - when I tell you the amount of stories I've read that writes them off as this danger-child that needs supervision - which don't get me wrong is not an entirely bad thing!! they do have this massive childlike side to them, but there is also so much more to them than how the fandom perceives them, not taking into much consideration how they typically canonically act in the comics/in-game, and taking into LARGE consideration Meet the Pyro. I was reeling when I realized that a lot of people seemed to completely forget about that interview. I could go on a whole rant about this sdfghjkl but yes, Pyro is definitely more than capable when push comes to shove! they are in a war, after all ;)

and engineer, oh man. I love that soft Texan so much. :') I could talk your ear off about him too!

man I am definitely rambling now, but I literally cannot even express how genuinely happy I am receiving this message, it means the actual world to me. and FANART?!?! oh my god YES - you can definitely tag me here if you do make fanart for Incendiary!! I would be BEYOND honored omg

Thank you so so much for brightening my entire year with this feedback literally - I'm so honored to have you here as a reader and a fan. <3 And I'm sending you all of the luck with your midterms!! You've got this!!

[doom-nerdo-666]

"Alternatives for Doom 3"

I always thought D3 could have been a spin-off ("Doom: The horror" with a subtitle, while coexisting with a different game at the time) and its issues are more on execution than concept alone (Including what goes wrong with later releases like BFG edition and beyond).

But i don't entirely buy the "not a real Doom game" comment, with one reason being whether or not Doom was meant to be that consistent of a series (Since Carmack expects us to understand why he released the source code of the originals in the first place).

Plus all the typical arguements of "Doom things that still exist in D3" or why the game exists and the good parts to like etc.

But if one were to look at other games to replace D3, i can see certain candidates:

Doom 64

An obvious one, since it follows the main 2 games in terms of story (Even if story was always a mess and treated like nothing in Doom) and has some gameplay changes, while also doing horror first.

But there are things to point out:

It was made by Midway, not id.

It took years for another re-release (Hence fans relied on fan ports), so id almost neglected the game for a long time and so did most people outside the fanbase (With stuff like thinking it's another port, FPS moving into real 3D, maybe people having Doom fatigue at the time etc).

(And also because of trademark issues).

It could have had more gameplay changes/additions but didn't because of cartridge limitations and not even the new release's new levels change that (Imagine a timeline where we could have gotten the themes like Mayan/Egyptian levels, the "early laser gun" coexist with the Unmaker as a flamethrower and those cut new enemy types).

At least the GEC team was working on resurrecting the unused D64 monsters, while also doing other projects like porting the id RPG games.

Final Doom

It's literally 2 D2 megawads by other people, but unlike Master Levels and NRFTL, TNT and Plutonia exist as "IWAD's" (And were technically owned by id, unlike most addons on the Unity ports).

I think the Doom Anthology or something even marketed Final Doom as part of the "Doom trilogy" and unlike D64, Final Doom still had some releases and wasn't entirely ignored due to trademark issues (So id owns it, unlike Sigil which is an addon that just happens to come from Romero).

Still no gameplay changes but there's maps with specific things people remember, even if they're gimmicky or stuff like "look they created a truck in the Doom engine".

And in guess the manuals have "lore", even if non-canon (Like Doomguy owning a pickup truck).

These wads also had their influence on a lot of fan wads, be it unofficial sequels (Plutonia 2, Plutonia Revisited, TNT Revilution) or wads having occasional nods to Final Doom.

If you wish Final Doom had "new content", the mod Final Doomer imagines new weapons themed after the 2 episodes (And some fanmade wads).

Quake

For this to make sense, think of Doom itself as a "sequel" to Wolfenstein 3D and maybe consider Quake's rocky development history and cut content.

Quake is its own IP with a new setting (Even with Q2 having the Strogg and all the potential crossover/multiverse stuff), but Quake is technically a build up from Doom's formula.

Using the Ring of Shadows to "stealth" around unalerted enemies is like an upgrade to Doom's Partial Invisibility just making enemies innacurate.

You can also see Quake draw a bridge between classic Doom and 2016/Eternal, when you try to think of "how do we get there".

In general, a lot of these early FPS games were defined by specific gameplay/engine features and "underdeveloped" premises/settings, which is why later games start to borrow each other's features (And would make it harder to bring back certain IP's).

Meanwhile, Quake 1 never had a "real Quake 2" (Which unlike Doom 3, Q2 was meant to be a new IP) but at least the Q1 mission packs add a lot of content and then there's mods, including the popular Arcane Dimensions.

Heretic

Yet another different IP/setting but it still retains most of Doom's formula, unlike Hexen/Strife which go further for the RPG elements and connected levels.

You could think of the inventory as predating Eternal's inventory shoulder cannon, where the player uses items without interrupting main fire.

Or the Tome of Power being "weapon mods" in a way.

Meanwhile and unrelated, but i heard something about Rise of The Triad originally being a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D.

Doom 2016/Eternal

These games are meant to be reboots (Even with the obvious lore) and one game simply titled "Doom (Year of release)" seems like proof of that.

Plus all the differences in gameplay, art style, story tone, direction, music and so on if one were to examine differences.

These games are also "responsive" to outside factors, be it the state of FPS games over the years, the development hell behind the cancelled Doom 4 or even the public's interpretation of Doom and certain memes around Doomguy.

Another thing is how 2016 and Eternal sort of "mirror" D1 and 2 (Good example being certain boss fights), so some fans expect a "Doom 6" that mirrors 64 and is horror focused (Maybe bring back the Mother Demon and give her new attacks).

And again, done by different developers except maybe Kevin Cloud still being at id.

Whatever the fans make

Doom's living power relied on fanbase, whether it's simple discussion or even creative and supportive content.

Something you can see in some mods and fan assets is attempts at "exploring/studying" the classic-but-otherwise-messy aesthetic.

Some mods give the impression of trying to "expand the universe" in a way that doesn't "reboot" it.

You also have mods that are essentially fanservice or just based on "what if" questions you can make about Doom.

So in a way, "the real Doom 3" could be someone's personal idea of what a follow up to D2 could be.

One example of doing such thing is looking up cut content like the Doom Bible and all those alpha/beta versions or even looking at concepts in later games and think "what if Doom had a Heaven before Eternal had Urdak?".

Even D3 has cut/concept content like unused demons.

Thoughts on D3 itself

I think Doom 3's problems aren't even a case of "it's not a real Doom 3", but rather "this game isn't doing a good job at being itself".

Because the modern Doom games have their differences from the original Doom's (And you can see what outside factors lead to them) but they do a good job at their direction.

I also think BFG edition and later versions of D3 deserve hate for being worse versions, EVEN IF you already dislike D3.

Seriously, look at this:

And

For a series with a great history of "open-ness" (Modding, documentation, preservation etc), more people should be mad at this.

If you think D3 deserves a follow up or second chance, i think D3 deserves a respectful release that avoids the problems of these re-releases.

Maybe the one thing that would always be cut is a specific light/shadow tech because Carmack might've borrowed it from somewhere or something.

[inmh01]

I think one of the things about Video Game Discourse that just... Exasperates me the most is the constant confusion between Canonical Narrative and Gameplay Function.

I’ll use Far Cry 5 for an example.

I consider Canonical Narrative, in a video game, to include anything

Absolutely required to complete a mission, whether that mission is necessary to finish the game or not (Ex., it is canonical that Deputy Rook drove the Ryes to the doctor so Kim could have her baby. it is canonical that you drive the Ryes’ truck, not Mary May’s. You don’t have to play this mission in the game, but the fact that you are capable of doing so at any point make it part of canon.)

Present in a cutscene (Ex., it is canonical that Whitehorse, Burke, and Deputy Rook walked into the church at the beginning of the game; it is not canon that Deputy Hudson went in with them, because she stays outside for the duration of the scene.)

Far Cry’s a bit tricky just because they have alternate endings (secret ending, walk away ending, nuclear ending) and determining which one is the “real” ending becomes sticky when you consider Far Cry New Dawn (which follows the nuclear ending) and Far Cry 6 (which seems to follow the Walk Away or even possibly the Secret Ending).

I would argue that each ending is technically canon; the creators just created alternate timelines for each ending.

-

But then you have Gameplay Function. Sometimes it overlaps with narrative, but other times it just stands on its own.

A place in Far Cry 5 where Gameplay and Narrative overlap is in the scene in the Fall’s End Church, where you have to take the bible. If you refuse to hit the button, John will instruct his henchman to pistol-whip Jerome. Refuse again and it repeats, this time with Mary May begging you to say yes. Refuse a third time and the resulting pistol-whip will cause Jerome to drop the bible, revealing the gun tucked inside; here, the scene unfolds as it would have if you said yes from the start.

Is it canon? I wouldn’t give it a hard ‘yes’, as failing to say yes three times does not (to my knowledge) change anything about the narrative later on.

This is where story and gameplay blend together: There are alternate ways the scene can unfold if you refuse, and this can be tempting once you know about the secret ending at the beginning; sometimes Far Cry rewards you with Easter Eggs or trophies when you do the opposite of what’s expected, but not always.

As for an example of pure Gameplay Function: It is canonical that Deputy Rook is capable of finding a flamethrower and a weird alien space gun. It is not canonical that Deputy Rook used them, as they are not required to complete any missions.

In games like Far Cry, crazy weapons are not a function of the plot so much as they are an added feature to make the game fun. This is the same with so-called “Fetch Missions”: In real life, people would not be standing around waiting to tell you where an outpost is so you can go raid it solo; this is a function of the game to offer you missions (and in this particular game, as you are capable of finding these things on your own, you don’t strictly need the NPCs to tell you anyway, although it saves time).

-

What bugs me is that although I see plenty of people joking about these things good-naturedly, there are people in fandom who make judgments about character development and storytelling based on gameplay functions.

Like for instance- I can’t exactly recall if this was about Far Cry or a different game- I do recall someone unironically, as in not humorously arguing, “How come everyone in this game relies on you to fix their problems for them? Why am I being asked to do X when there’s an evil villain running around?"

Because it’s a video game.

Those side-missions are a function of gameplay. They are there to give you fun things to do. They are not meant to be an accurate reflection of what someone would be realistically doing during a hostile cult takeover.

Additionally (and this I do remember being a Far Cry related discussion some years back) there were people arguing that the Far Cry protagonists were psychopaths because they were running around killing people with trucks and flamethrowers and whatnot. Except (although it’s been a while since I’ve played 3, 4, and Primal) there are no missions in Far Cry 5 that require you to murder enemies with flamethrowers, or trucks.

There might be trophies attached to it, it might be convenient depending on what the mission is, but there aren’t any missions that I can think of that require you to use these weapons to just mindlessly kill people. You have a choice; it is not, as I said above, absolutely required to finish a mission.

If that’s how you choose to kill enemies, cool; but calling it the canonical actions of the main character, whose characterization is then affected by the notion that they’re just running around setting people on fire, isn’t accurate or fair.

tl;dr Your choices in gameplay do not reflect how everyone plays, before you go screaming that a character is “evil” or “psychopathic” maybe ask yourself whether it’s actually canon or not.

[annatao]

[ -  Bad English - ] This was a necessary update, because in the comic book, that's exactly what she looks like+ it must conform to the canon. I also updated the information about her.

Cona Dei Basic information

Class: Alchemist Type: Protection Health: 135/in uber – 245 Speed: 110% Team: RED Weapon To kill effectively, the Alchemist must increase his damage with his potions. The main thing: the Scorpion submachine gun is an experimental weapon that was developed by the “MannCo” corporation intended as an upgrade for the standard class. However, it was stolen by a certain thief who had all the necessary access. Later, this weapon underwent a change, and then went to the Alchemist. Ammo is coated with acidic composition. - 20% damage + causes bleeding from burning acid Burning sensation: 4/sec x 5sec Secondary weapon: a one-handed crossbow that fires poison bolts. *If hit in the head-crit * damage 25-60. Depending on the distance Close Combat: Hopesh is a cold weapon that was once given by Henrik as a decoration. Now she uses it in battle. 4 slot: potion set. In total, Kona can carry one potion of 3 types with her. For example, a regeneration potion (for yourself), a poison that causes bleeding, an acid bomb. * In the game, the mechanics worked like this: holding down the 4 button and scrolling the wheel, you select 1 of 3 potions that the player selected in advance in the menu. After use, they would recover for about 30 seconds. The distributor has about 20 seconds (She would take resources from there) Special opportunity: Margo the rat – if you sneak up on the victim from spita, the Alchemist will release his pet and it will get under the enemy's clothes and start biting, thereby causing bleeding for 6 seconds. Alchemy Kit There are 3 categories in total: *For yourself *For your team *Halloween

For myself: *Fire Resistance Potion-Reduces fire damage by 50% for 5 seconds *Potion of the feather-gives the effect of a smooth fall, thus it saves itself from damage. The effect passes as soon as the Kona touches the ground. *Regeneration Potion-the effect lasts for 5 seconds and restores 5 health points each. For the attack and for your team: Potion of power-Gives mini-crit. Apply an effect can, as well as himself, and on any player from his team, but only one. The effect lasts for 5 seconds. Freeze Potion-slows the victim down, and the victim takes a small amount of damage for 6 seconds. You can get rid of the effect if the friendly Pyro warms up with his flamethrower. Poison Potion-a small dark cloud is created when thrown. Causes poisoning within 5 seconds, removing 4 health points each. Bacon's Potion-removes negative effects from the team A bandage-An alchemist can give a bandage to a teammate who is bleeding. If this effect is not present, the item will not work. It does not regenerate and does not heal, only removes this effect. Acid bomb "surprise" - is a throwing glass projectile with acid. When it hits the ground, it releases an acid cloud. * Works on both enemies and allies. *When igniting such a cloud, it deals additional damage to everyone who was in it * Only an Alchemist or a first-aid kit at the base can cure this "poison". * Does not work on the Alchemist himself, as the cloth that hides her face is soaked with the antidote and does not work on the Arsonist, as well as on those who are in the uber. Halloween ones. On maps where the Alchemist acts as a boss, these potions are available to mercenaries ONLY in the alchemy machine (there are 3 of them for the entire map) : 1. Explosive potion "Griffin's Feather". It is enough to throw a potion at your feet and it allows the player to jump high and smoothly descend without any damage. Valid for 20 seconds. It works by the type of parachute. 2. Death Potion-turns the player into a zombie (cosmetic effect) 3. Potion "???» - an unknown potion that, once applied, turns the player into toads, deer, elephants, jackals, panthers, chipmunks, bats, cats, and otters (cosmetic random effect.) 4. Reduction Potion-turns players into toddlers that squeak like chipmunks. It also gives you the ability to fly, but you can't use weapons. Exc: Taunts, Machine Gunner's food. 5. Potion of Fear-Scare the shit out of your enemies! But be careful, because it works not only on the enemies, but also on you, too. It can be repelled with compressed air. 6. Potion "blood of the Vampire" - causes a thirst for blood in the owner and if he does not "drink" it from enemies, he will slowly lose health. This poison works for 30 seconds. 7. Potion "Magic for weaklings!" - prohibits the player from picking up and using spells. A potion for those who want to play the classics on this map. 8. Potion of Regenerations – is there no Medic in the vicinity or does he not hear you? Were you injured or had your arm torn off? No question, use this tool and your problems will be solved quickly! Valid for 7 seconds. 9. There is also a new spell during the boss battle (Marasmus, Cona Dei) - challenge Margot. Summons a mutant rat that walks on its hind legs, wears skin clothing, and uses a heavy wooden hammer as a weapon. Health – 460 units. * Rarely when using this spell, during a battle, Kona may resent that Margot " betrayed her» Biography Age: 27 Origin: Greece Bad habits: no Motto: "You need to start all over again" Appearance: Dark brown hair, brown eyes. Normal build. From clothing she has a T-shirt, over which she wears a bulletproof vest with straps for securing weapons. Dark skinny trousers,army boots. On the belt there are two pouches, and there is on the leg. Description Little is known about her past. She doesn't really tell outsiders about it, rather evasively and reluctantly, missing a lot of details. She keeps silent about how she got into the ranks of the mercenaries, because she doesn't really want to talk about it. However, her current goal is to start all over again. Many people will think that she has a secretive character, but in addition to such a trait, you can notice calmness, and an Alchemist can easily be caught off guard when a girl is passionate about something. If you make her angry, the girl will think of a very good plan of revenge, and as for the consequences for her victim, she will not care much. Good and bad qualities: a good friend, not against putting his shoulder to "tears", lack of sleep often cause her indifference to the environment, with which she began to struggle, before she could score a bolt on it. She is careful in her work, but when it comes to working with a Medic, she puts more effort into it. Attitude to other mercenaries Scout-friend (the best option for a direct attack, like " hit and cover») Soldier-dislikes, often comes into conflict with him. This is mostly due to misunderstandings, or the Soldier starts them himself. Arsonist – best friend (fire-acid duo-effective, especially ambush attack on the very crowd of opponents) Demoman- friendly. Do you have someone to borrow gunpowder for experiments Machine gunner – at first she was afraid of him, but over time she became more friendly to him Engineer-work colleague Medic - Teacher-Student relationship Sniper-neither friend nor foe Spy-neutrality Ada Gilbert-passive-positive. Sometimes Miss Gilbert's obsession annoys her Jeanne-neutral Evidence * The last name " Dei "is taken from the song "Green day" and supplemented, since she does not have her own. * The Alchemist keeps a pet-a lab rat named Margo. *Her first mercenary friend was an Pyro. * The girl participates in a joint project with a Medic and an Engineer, building the first prototype of a helmet for viewing dreams, which also records them. *Because of her 8 years of solitude, it is difficult for her to communicate with the rest of the classes outside of combat. *The Alchemist has a thick notebook where she draws different happy moments from life. *The Alchemist has no education, but she was taught all the standards and everything else by her so-called brother. * In non-combat, he wears light but closed clothing, and prefers to wear an arafatka over his face. * The alchemist almost never takes off his gloves.

[raeloganthesonic06fangirl]

What is one aspect of Quackerjack’s character that you feel should be/have been expanded upon?

This is a bit of a tricky question to answer and narrow down to one specific aspect. QuackerJack himself is a relatively mysterious character outside of what we've been shown, and is probably the only member of the Fearsome Five to not have any origin story episode at all throughout the original series. Yes, even Liquidator, a character who doesn't have even half the screen time as a majority of minor recurring characters (a crime, really, I feel like Liquidator is one of the most underutilized characters of the franchise, especially when his powers have the most devastating potential), has an origin episode.

Liquidator fell in a vat of chemicals while trying to poison the water supply, Megavolt got fried with electricity because of a school bully, Bushroot conducted experiments on himself to impress a colleague he was smitten with, and Negaduck is an alternate form of Darkwing who has almost no inhibitions whatsoever.

QuackerJack... supposedly lost his mind after a bad chain of events and stress that he blames on the encroachment of the then growing video game industry, but we also know that QuackerJack has a tendency to be contradictory and is also a genius lunatic who doesn't experience the world the way its presented. Can we trust all the information we've gotten from him? The franchise overall hints that recalls could have played a part in his business going under, but it also makes it clear that he went absolutely bonkers with quality control and continues to push products that are clearly hazardous and are a safety regulations nightmare. Explosive, unreasonably sticky, sharp edges, bear trap mechanisms, built in flamethrowers, animatronic toys with retractable claws, bone crunching, even nuclear components. QuackerJack is like Willy Wonka with toys. He's a mad genius, emphasis on "mad".

But we never got a concrete backstory to how and why he is as he is.

Also, other things I'd liked to have seen expanded upon would be, but not limited to:

Where was and what happened to the old QuackerJack Toys™ Factory, and if the salvaged bits were what QuackerJack used to create his Toy Kingdom in "Toys Czar Us", like, there's assembly lines and factory machines there, but that's all underground, so did he rescue what he could before the city condemned the building or what??

Did he always wear that hat, or did that become a thing after his descent into madness? Like, did he run the company as a plain clothes civilian once upon a time, and then just showed up to a meeting one day dressed as a jester and his staff just noped out of there or what?

For that matter, does he ever actually take that hat off willingly, or is this a Jervis Tetch situation where he becomes completely unresponsive and overestimulated the longer that hat is off his head?

Really, who was he before he took on the persona of QuackerJack? I don't mean like if that's really his name or not, I mean who was he, and how much of that personality remains intact at his core.

Does he not have any relatives that have filed a missing persons report on his civilian identity, or is he the only one of his kin in Calisota? Has his family completely disowned him, or are they not aware of what he's become? If his parents aren't around (based on my estimates, they could be somewhere in thier 60s or above), then surely he has siblings or cousins or something. A lifelong family friend? A parental figure? A mentor? Did anyone who was familial with him at all know what happened to him?

Does everyone in St. Canard over the age of 20 just happen to know who he really is because of his prior life, or is his identity really as mysterious as his profile reports claim? Is he not a St. Canard native, like, did he spend his youth in St. Canard or did he just show up to town one day as a young entrepreneur and built his toy business from the ground up, or did he inherit it as a family business thing? He's gotta be at least 40ish by the time the series starts, since Megavolt and Darkwing are confirmed to be age 38 by the end of the series, so that's an entire chunk of lifetime that could be factors in what made him what he is today

Really, what's the real reason his company tanked? He says he was the greatest Toy Maker in the world, he insists on it, he's even made himself a mug and makes that his defining trait, but he somehow cracked because something new came around? Either there was more to the whole Whiffle Boy thing, or he messed up somewhere in his products that caused a massive disaster with casualties, and he can't rationalize that he had something to do with his failure. He's a canonical hypocrite and will lie on the fly to save his own butt while in a pinch, so I don't think we can 100% take his own explanation as gospel truth. I feel like video games are only part of the reason he went bankrupt, but he just won't admit that he made a mistake on his part.

His time while employed at QuackWerks, specifically the gradual decline as when he began to realize that he was assigned to be a cog in the machine.

Also, his relationship with Claire. I really am intrigued to see how that specific time chunk went, because it's interesting to think that he had a period of time where he was genuinely trying to turn over a new leaf and was relatively functioning for a specific amount of time before falling back on his old ways. The only real hint we got was, quote Claire: "He can be really sweet when he wants to be." which can either be interpreted as him being at his most vulnerable around her, or, more darkly, could have been a precursor warning sign that he was resurfacing his old traits and putting on a facade.

Where the heck was he during "Crisis on Infinite Darkwings", and did he or did he not witness the towering behemoth that was an amalgamation of Negaduck and Paddywhack rising up out of the ground at any point? I know he broke out of prison and left a freaky doll replica in his cot, but he could have been out at the time Negawhack was a thing, and how did he respond to that visual, since this is a fusion of two individuals who have tainted Mr. Banana Brain for him? Did he just nope all the way to Duckburg until everything blow over, or what, because the streets are crawling with a lot of Darkwings too, did no one see QuackerJack at all, his jester costume is very colorful, and if he was in prison garb, I'd say an orange jumpsuit is very noticeable in such a drab city in ruins.

That whole thing about that last sighting of him in the Joe Books Revival comics, where the entire layout of the lair strongly hints that he was prepping to launch an attack on the St. Canard Toy Expo the following week, and the schematics and disjointed notes and the strong implications that he was singing to himself while prepping was really making me feel like this was going to be like a Toy With Me 2.0 scenario and it would take to long for me to explain that entirely, but I just... Imagine like the feel of the tail end of "The Killing Joke", and just... Hrmph, we were robbed, yo.

Overall, I really wish more was expanded on with who he was, not who he is now.

Granted, the mysterious nature makes for good fodder for fan content that allows a lot of us to create interesting ideas and all are equally valid theories... But I'm very much interested in QuackerJack Pre-QuackerJacked.

[toasttz]

How to make games: Hero Shooters

So, class, today I posit this little question to you all: Do you want to be the next Blizzard? Fuck no, you don't want to be "Don't you guys have phones?" Blizzard; you wanna be Blizzard from 5-10 years ago when they were at the height of their popularity. But that's not what I'm shooting for here. Do you want a fount of endless revenue? Do you want to do the absolute baseline minimum in terms of engine and game design to actually create a game but aren't creatively and ethically bankrupt enough to make a gacha game? Do you want to build a game whose rules, designs, and themes were just stolen from the effort of others? Do you really like Rule 34? Then it sounds to me like you want to make a Hero Shooter game! Hero shooters are easy to make on account they fundamentally have only three gameplay modes: push a payload, kill the other team, and kill the other team while standing on top of a glowing circular thing. They're also equally easy to design as they require no thematic consistency whatsoever and what little writing you'll be expected to bother with will simply be character bios, which you can keep so vague as to be virtually meaningless. There's never a 'story' in a hero shooter game and what semblance of one does exist is pretense for the non-canon aforementioned three game modes you'll be forced to build around. Best of all, the individual mechanics of each hero are easy to design - just steal them from whatever games came before. Now create about three or four maps with some different sorts of themes, but don't make them in any way mechanically varied - the most complex obstacles on any given map should be walls and maybe elevators that move at a very low speed. We're making a hero shooter, not Mario Party, dammit. If anyone asks why you are essentially just reskinning the same maps you can explain that it's to ensure that the game remains a "test of the players's skills" even though that's a bold-faced lie for the same reasons people who play Super Smash Bros as "tests of skill" are full of shit. Meta-gaming retards make games algebra homework instead of fun, but that's precisely what you'll be banking on in this genre. Once you have that, we need to get into the most important thing about hero shooters: the Heroes. Heroes in these games take one of three major roles: 1) The retard scrub DPS heroes - who will be played by the vast majority of your one-trick glory-chasing mentally-stunted community under the pretenses of being 'the most fun' and will be where the better part of your "cool" themes and motifs will be dedicated toward. These work under the key principle of "Shoot everything until it stops moving" and requires zero brainpower whatsoever. 2) The under-estimated doggedly persistent Tank heroes, played by those with either the willingness to learn something other than "Shoot bad guy with gun" or those who find pressing and holding a single button for the duration of the 10 minute match time to be the highlight of their bleak office-job lives. Though, on the other hand, some of the really cool designs will ultimately end up in this family. 3) The unsung gods among men known as the Support heroes, AKA: the ones no one will actually play. These characters will never be given cool or interesting mechanics or designs, but you'll be at liberty to make as many sexy nurse outfits as you can come up with and no one will be able to tell you otherwise. Like an ungodly amalgamation of tanks and DPS, your gameplay experience will boil down to pointing at your target and holding down the button the entire match - except unlike DPS heroes, you'll be shooting at the blue team and not the red team. Now, some might argue that there are technically other families of heroes, like flankers, zone controllers, pseudo-supports who can debuff enemies, but remember that the key to any good hero shooter is keeping everything rock-stupid. Every hero should have only enough abilities to fill a role for the left and right mouse buttons and the Q and E keys. F or R can be for reloading where applicable, but if you demand anything more of your players, you're going to lose their interest because Hero Shooters are hugboxes for sociopaths who care for nothing more than getting that sweet, sweet 5-second long "Play of the Game" replay at the match's end. This is why the character who invariably rips off Team Fortress 2's Demo Man and can kill people he doesn't have direct line of sight with will always be the most popular, without exception. I mean, sure, you can have 30 or 40 heroes, each with incredibly detailed outfits, backstories, kits, and personalities but everyone will just play the Not-Demo Man so you might as well accept that your userbase is going to be the only thing more toxic than a puffer-fish or a modern-day feminist. But I repeat myself. I don't have the time nor particular inclination to tell you exactly what you need to make but I can give you some character types that are obligatory by law to be in any hero shooter game. This will at least give you a start before you realize that being creative is hard and just steal kits from better games than your own. Call of Duty Man - The main DPS hero and usually the face of your game. Typically a grizzled war veteran man and almost exclusively an American if your game is set in the real world - remember, creativity is hard! He'll have a medium-ranged assault rifle and precisely one movement skill and one healing skill in his kit making him a jack-of-all-trades. Will either be loved or hated by your community with no room for in-betweens. Sexy Healer Lady - The main support hero who is literally just TF2's Medic reskinned and with tits. You really don't need to do anything more with her, as the fanbase will handle the rest. And the less said of that, the better. Big Knightly Dude - The main tank hero who has a big shield that, regardless of origin, will be transparent so Call of Duty Man and Not-Demo Man can fire through it while guarded. Probably wields a melee-ranged weapon even if in a modern warfare setting. By law, they can never be shorter than 6'6" (or 7200 cm. Pretty sure I did my conversion right on that). Flamethrower Guy - Literally just TF2's Pyro. Mechanic - Literally just TF2's Engineer. Sniper - Literally just TF2's Sniper. Probably also a voluptuous woman in a tight suit because creativity is fuckin' hard, man. Not-Demo Man - The cancer in your fanbase you will never nerf. Doesn't matter that he can party-wipe the enemy team single-handedly without being anywhere near them because Hero Shooter maps are literally just a set of narrow corridors so his kit is extremely OP. No, better just nerf Sexy Healer Lady again, since your DPS fanbase is pissing and moaning about her again and, this time, not in the same way a cat in heat does. Next, just make characters around elemental themes. Once you have 30 or so, you can get around to actually doing really mechanically interesting and varied heroes, since there's really only like 10-15 good FPS character ideas to begin with. So don't be surprised if you have some overlap. But by then we should hopefully have completed the next major step after the game is made: alienating your fanbase! This step is easy and requires no particular skill or coordination on your part. First, make some events seasonal, such that you have at least a major event every other month. Any more than that and your fans might actually think you're trying to be anything but another generic Korean eSport event, so be sure to space them out and have at least half of them be terrible. Valentine's Day is a good excuse to dress your female heroes sexily, summer games are a fun and not-at-all tired motif, and of course you need some kind of Christmas event. Just make sure these events only run maybe 2 weeks out of the year, have lots of stuff that you can only get during those times and, as said, that most of them are terrible and not fun at all to play. And don't -EVER- make any of them PvE, as that requires coding AI characters and effort and shit - what do you think think this is? Warframe? No, terrible gimmicky PvP events will be a good start because there is no frustration quite as severe as being told you didn't grind hard enough for: Loot boxes! Shit yeah, your hero shooter's gonna have loot boxes in them! Remember, we want maximum money for minimum effort and there's nothing like a Skinner Box within the hugbox that is the sweet dopamine high of popping a loot box open only to get common drops every time! If MMORPGs have taught us anything it's that Sub-1% drops are TOTALLY good game design and aren't at all unethical and an artificial, cheap tactic to keep people hooked on your game. This is why, in addition to the e-peen bolster that is your arbitrary profile ranking also drip-feeding a loot box upon level up that you have "Weekly Resets" for additional loot boxes. This runs on essentially the same principle as a cell phone games making you wait for additional tries to make it more a habit than a game - but that's okay! You can just rationalize it away as "it was the player's CHOICE to buy 300 loot boxes for the low, low price of 799.99 USD!" and not at all a psychological compunction found in human psychology! You're not an unethical douchebag in the slightest! And speaking of douchebags, it's time for the third and most important step in alienating your fanbase: Balancing the Game! What do I mean by that? You might think it's something like "Oh, this one character has an attack that is way too powerful and so it should be retooled in such a way that it either isn't available as-often, or maybe make its hitbox narrower to make the game more skill-based" but you're dead wrong. That requires actual effort and we all know how we feel about that. So, instead, just start an eSports team. Why? So you can listen only to the DPS players from each team and only implement THOSE changes. That way, only tanks and supports get nerfed into irrelevance and since no one in eSports is ever going to play those roles anyway, who cares? Who needs healers when you respawn to 100% after 7 seconds of dying?! Who cares if the majority of your fans hate these changes and that you end up completely destroying the kits and frameworks of their favorite heroes with needless, superfluous, unwelcomed tweaks? God-damn it, the Not-Demo Man needs to be able to wipe out an enemy team with a 3-second Time to Kill! No questions! I have a very specific vision!! Once your fanbase has been alienated - congrats! You're no longer obliged to release new heroes and levels! The responsibility of server upkeep and releasing new content twice a year are lifted! Now, just reskin the entire game top-down and release a new, better hero shooter founded on the same grounds to re-capture your fleeing audience and fleece them all over again! Now repeat ad infinitum and gain unlimited money. Congrats, you're now another Chinese game manufacturer that shits out products with no care for their fans or reputation but you get to go whaling every single day and fill your bathtub with money. You're ready to work for actual Blizzard now! You're welcome.

[sttheorycraft]

"El opened the “door” to Will’s mind and unleashed the repressed memories of his father."

I think you might be right about this, though I haven't worked out the exact connection to my own version of the theory yet.

"That manifested into the upside down- and all the monsters that inhabit it."

I think I might disagree here - I do think it plays a part, but I think being in the Upside Down is generally a metaphor for being in the closet. (By the way, have you seen the script for the S1E2 scene where El hides in the closet? They describe it as "DARK". (In caps.))

And I think the monsters that inhabit it aren't all "monsters," as Dart illustrates, and as we'll see soon. But to some of the characters, they are. It's like Owens referring to the Upside Down leaking into our world as "weeds." What is a "weed" and what is beautiful is in the eye of the beholder. Having said that, I just came back to this section after reading the rest, and if what you're talking about does become canon, this obviously becomes way more complex.

"In one of the stories there was a boy named Duncan who could “open portals to other dimensions and periods of time”."

This sounds like what I think the show is doing!

"Will created everything the demorgorgan, the mindflayer,demodogs, etc- and his ‘story’ is very susceptible to other peoples’ suggestions ."

Not sure I agree here - I see these as more symbolic than happening BECAUSE of the game.

On the other hand, I wouldn't die on this hill. It's totally plausible, I just don't see it as conclusively shown compared to foreshadowing/the insane craftsmanship the show's writers are exhibiting. Not sure how to distinguish between those two possibilities just yet.

Btw, "the Demogorgon is attracted to blood," what is that on about?

...

Really interesting zombie and bite observations. And the Thing. I need to unpack these...

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"And Dustin says “ No, No, fireballs you summon an undead army.”"

Like the one in Season 3?? Holy shit, @strangerthings4theories

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Re: the lightning, how would you tie in the "sexual electricity" that Steve refers to in S2E6?

Because Dustin outright confuses it with weather phenomena, I'm pretty sure it's tied to the UD.

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Re: the scarecrow. The thing that jumps out to me is this is something that looks scary but isn't an actual threat. Again, maybe my own internal biases, but feels more compatible with the closet and coming out?? Not sure...

...

"We've seen this with soldiers." That is a curious line, not sure what to make of that either... And they refer to the Hawkins lab workers with flamethrowers as "soldiers" too, not sure what this represents.

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Old memories at the back of Will's head: could be memories about reality? About "now?" (Not the 1980s?)

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Definitely agree there's a parallel between Steve and Barb and the hanging on... And Billy! I didn't make that connection, holy crap. Nice catch. Seems really clear in retrospect, not sure how I didn't.

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Yeeeeahhh you're starting to convince me about the Lonnie abuse aspect at least. Definitely those trunk parallels also make sense. And the sticky stuff on trees.

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Re: Will and secrets: Will lies. A lot. Throughout the show. Including about whether he's okay. He may be used to that?

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Not sure about the shed scene, I don't remember any blankets, etc. I've actually ironically watches S1 the least for hints so far... (Ironically because I like that season the most)

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AHHH "they basically become him" <- Max expresses that explicitly to Lucas in S2, she doesn't want to become Billy (like her father)

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Ahhh there's too much to comment on. I think a lot of what you're saying is dead on (though you're saying a LOT so it's hard to comment on everything :p)

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Yup you mention Will lying too.

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Ooh, nice catch with from Heroes: "the shame was on the other side!"

...

Oh God, this was so long. I'm going to try to do at least one of these a day, @kaypeace21, but will stop here for now. I definitely think your theory has legs, especially the abuse part. I think ours can possibly co-exist as well. Will take me a bit to process though, so probably even more reason to spread it over time.

Will created the mindflayer & Upsidedown theory

I wanted to explore this theory again after the recent release of “Will byers: secret files” (which is Will’s cannon journal). Essentially, to keep a very long story short.El opened the “door” to Will’s mind and unleashed the repressed memories of his father. That manifested into the upside down-  and all the monsters that inhabit it. So lets begin.

Will has always been hinted to have powers.

In the 1st episode, Will wins Dustin’s xmen comic in a bet- and Dustin later asks the gang “Do you think Eleven was born with powers like the xmen?” While in the last ep of s1 (when Will returns) Dustin says to him “she’s like a wizard.” COUGH ‘Will the wise’ , Will’s alter-ego who happens to be wizard.  Mike even corrects Dustin and says she’s not a wizard. So the fact that Dustin’s Gf references Wizard stories relating to Will is kind of brilliant!Her room references 2 stories Wizard of Oz and A wizard of Earthsea.

In ‘the Wizard of Oz’- the land of Oz (the upsidedown) was a figment of Dorothy’s (Will’s) imagination. 

-‘A wizard of Eathsea’- Is about a male wizard Ged (Will) who casts a powerful spell, but the spell goes awry and instead he releases a shadow creature! The new Archmage, Gensher, describes the shadow as an ancient evil that wishes to possess Ged. But the ‘shadow’ turns out  to be a representation of the darkest aspects of his personality.

-‘Never ending story’( the song susie sang , from the movie of the same title)- In the story the land of Fantasia represents humanity’s imagination and is thus without boundaries. However ‘the Nothing’ (the upside down) which has taken over Fantasia is a manifestation of the loss of hopes and dreams. The monster even bites Atreyu (El’s) leg. An Empress later tells Bastian (Will) that as he follows Atreyu’s (El’s) story, “others” (El/atreyu and the rest of the st cast) are following Bastian’s (Will’s), making them all part of the neverending story. And that they were all wrong - atreyu isn’t the chosen one, but sebastian (the human with the power of imagination, a bowl cut, single parent household, and who in the novel temporarily went evil after losing his memories)- aka Will.

-‘Suspicious Minds’ (ST prequel novel)- a psychic character named Alice, says “Monsters…of course my brain has them.”As long as they stayed in there, everything would be all right. “Wouldn’t it?”

-‘Montauk Project’- The original title for Stranger things was “Montauk”- in reference to the Montauk Project. It was about experiments conducted on psychic children, where the scientists would “break” them psychologically to strengthen their powers and to program them. In one of the stories there was a boy named Duncan who could “open portals to other dimensions and periods of time” . However, one day “Duncan let loose a monster from his subconscious.”

Will created everything the demorgorgan, the mindflayer,demodogs, etc- and his ‘story’ is very susceptible to other peoples’ suggestions . In the 1st episode Mike said demogorgan was attracted to blood- so when Will created it in real life, that was what it was attracted to. He also always asks his friends what he should do when facing the d&d monsters (the demorgorgan & thessalhydra) - and both times they suggested “fire balling it”  (which is all the upside-down creatures’ weakness). In S1 Jonathan/Nancy/Steve light the demogorgan on fire. In S2 they burn the mindflayer out of Will, and burn the vines. S3 they throw fireworks (fireballs) at the monster the mindflayer created. And in the 1st ep Will is captured by the demogorgan (in the game) so he was captured in real life.

In s2 , the gang read (in Will’s d&d manual) that mindflayers (the representation of his abusive dad/the thesalhydra shown at the end of s1) could be killed by zombies. Will was dubbed zombie boy in s2, and in s3 watches ‘day of the dead’ (a movie about zombies) and then writes a story about juju zombies. Will says in his d&d story “it bites your arm, flesh tears- aaaah!” But instead it bites El’s leg as she screams “ah!” as Mike rips it off her leg. Than the victims of the mindflayer turn into zombies and become ‘the thing’. Because when Will’s writing his d&d story he’s sitting right next to Mike’s ‘the thing ‘ poster. And when talking to Nancy & Jonathan he describes them as “those things”. In will’s journal it is also said ‘the thing’ is one of his fav movies.

In s3, Lucas and Mike even debate which version of the film is better- so obviously the whole gang (including Will) has seen it. And in s2, he lies to his mom and says the mindflayer sketch was ‘for a story he’s writing’. But unbeknownst to him, that’s what is actually happening. We even see in s2, the demorgogans become “demo-dogs” after his dog died between seasons 1-2. And in Will’s cannon journal he says he understands why Dustin is attached to it - since it reminds him of Chester (his dead dog) that he misses. In s1 Hopper even mentions the book Cujo about a violent dog, after that dog dies the owner even get a new dog named ‘Willie’.

However, s3 truly reveals how powerful he is. Because it’s not just monsters he creates . But he can alter reality itself (without a monster having to do it). When Mike hijacks Will’s d&d story saying ‘they’ll torch the chambers, sacrificing themselves killing the juju ’. Will gets angry and yells “Fine, you win.” And then Joyce and Hopper do just that- when they pull the lever, and Hopper ‘dies’ sacrificing himself, and the Russians literally are eviscerated.

And In s2 Nancy describes the mindflayer (but she’s actually describing Will).

“So this thing is like a brain that’s controlling everything.”

Hopper then says “So how do we kill this thing shoot it with fireballs?”

And Dustin says “ No, No, fireballs you summon an undead army.”

But Mike actually nails it on the head when he says, “If the brain dies the body dies … closing the gate will kill him(referring to Will).”

Because it’s not the mindflayers’ brain - it’s Will’s brain!

Will has a lot of powers and one is lightning/fire powers. And he accidentally created the mindflayer (since it represents the repressed memories of his abusive father and also the d&d creatures/stories) . So the reason the MF has lightning powers is because Will does.

In s2 we see the scientists investigating electronics being burned in the upside down. Similar to Joyce’s phones and the radio at school which was burnt in s1.Will caused the radio at the school to catch fire (not El). The U.S gov goes to the school-to verify it wasn’t a natural cause and then they go straight to Will’s house. Brenner even goes into the Byers’ shed and says “spectacular”- similar to how he referred to El killing those men as “incredible”. And we know the mindflayer is also associated with lightning/storms (but that’s only because it’s one of Will’s other abilities). When Hopper sees Joyce’s phone he even says “storm bq-ed this pretty good.“ And in s2 a scientist said the same phrase while in the upside down. Showing a correlation between Will and the mindflayer.

In the comic we see electricity come out of Will’s hands. And he drew his wizard character with lightning (BEFORE) he went to the upside down.  And in the comic he also gets the lights to flick (from another dimension) by closing his eyes and concentrating. Like Joyce said in the show Will did ‘blink once for yes twice for no’.

Then in Will’s cannon journal “Will byers: secret files”. We see Will draw himself with lightning. Will doesn’t consciously realize he created the monsters/upside down- but he is subconsciously aware he can manipulate lights and has electric abilities.

He draws his d&d character on a cloud with lightning and says how he can relate to El “having power like this… it can separate you. Make you feel alone. I think I know how she feels.”

Will in his journal even draws the mind flayer with red lightning, and later  uses red paper to sketch clouds/lightning and pastes a picture of himself on to it. Because deep in his subconscious (along with the memories of his father- he realizes he created the mf). And Joyce even describes the tunnels he draws as “like lightning.”

Will (like El) has a lot of powers:  Lightning/fire powers, seeing into the future/scrying/ intuition, mind control, creating things from his imagination/altering reality, shadow-walking/opening portals, techno-pathy, and remote viewing.

Will says he’s a wizard ( writing on a music tape in s3 “will the wise-wizard mix’ and having his password for castle byers be ‘rhadaghast’- a lotr wizard). The way they describe d&d Wizards matches Will/mf perfectly “Wizards are adepts and magicians who combine according to the type of their spells. Relying on the subtle weaves of magic that permeate the universe, wizards are able to create spells of explosive fire, sparking lightning, subtle deception, and gross mind control. Their magic summons monsters from other planes of existence, predicts the future, and turns defeated enemies into zombies. Their most powerful spells can transform one substance into another, summon meteors from the sky, and open portals to other worlds”

We also see Will has been associated with bears (along with 3 other animal symbols associated with other psychics- Terry, El, and Kali).Bears symbolically represent “wisdom” like ‘Will the wise’. Wicca even means ‘wisdom’. and in the show they are associated with the demorgorgan/upside down in s1 and 2 . Max and Nancy both compared demorgorgans to bears- and Nancy and Jonathan used a bear-trap to capture the demorgorgan in s1.

So when El tries to grab Will’s teddy bear (it was shown to be his in s1) with her powers. And Mike says “they’ll come back”. They might actually ‘come back’- but now be within Will. Since in d&d mindflayers have telekinesis (which we haven’t seen) and the mf may have taken them .

Seguir leyendo

[s4lmonsk1n]

bedridden w/ food poisoning and thinking abt Andromeda nonstop so time to Meme

30 DAY RYDER COUNTDOWN MEME: days 30-24 under the cut

30 Days: Will you play SisRyder or BroRyder first? Why? How does your Ryder define their gender?

i always play as a female on my first playthrough bc that’s the gender im most comfortable with -- plus, y’know, fem!shep was a goddess. The only bioware game I’ve managed to play FULLY as a male PC was da:o, and I think that was mostly bc they didn’t actually speak,,,,,

my Ryder is gonna be cis female too so she/her pronouns I guess!! this may change in time tho as I develop them bc I’m partial to they/them pronouns myself so haha

29 Days: What is your Ryder’s name? Why did you pick this name - is there a meaning or origin story behind it? Do they go by any nicknames? What would you name their sibling, father and mother if you were able to choose?

My Ryder’s name is Emerson! She usually goes by Emery, and her brother calls her Em/Emmy/Emma (altho he’s the only one who can get away with calling her Emma tbh). I didn’t want anything TOO outlandish seeing as we can’t change the twin’s name, so I wanted something that would fit with Scott. Plus I’ve always loved unisex names for females, especially names that can be shortened into  a million nicknames like my own :3c

You know when your searching for a name and you read one and that’s just IT? even if you find one that might be prettier, or nicer, or suit them more, but nope, its just THAT one? Yeah. Once I started calling her Emerson that was her name for life. it feels weird thinking of her by any other name at this point.

i usually don’t bother with developing parents/parents names, so Alec and Ellen are fine for me. If I could rename Scott though, for some reason Lawrence seems to stick with me for him?? hmm.

28 Days: Are you going to use the default appearance or create a custom Ryder? If custom, describe your Ryder’s physical appearance (hair color, eye color, skin color, height, weight, facial features, any scars or tattoos, racial origin, etc). If you have art and/or a face-claim, feel free to add them here.

custom Ryder alllll the way. I have an entire pinterest board decked out for inspo just for ideas!! check it out here --> https://www.pinterest.com/charlottemonton/ryder-inspo/

I don’t have EXACT details planned out like hair style, face shape, etc, but I know that (right now at least) I want her to have long red hair (messy bun look ya feel me,,), hazel eyes, and a MESS of dark freckles. like freckles everywhere. she’s gonna be gr8. She’ll probably have her arms/hands riddled with tiny scars from being on dig sites and such, and from her long history of accidentally blowing stuff up when she tinkers with tech (and.... maybe an eyebrow scar. Just bc im a sucker for eyebrow scars wowowo)

as for tattoos, she won’t have any downright visible ones, but she will have a space/planet themed one down her spine like some of the examples in her inspo board !!

27 Days: Are you going to use the default appearance for Ryder’s sibling or customize them? Describe your ideas for their sibling’s and father’s physical appearance.

don’t care much about dad Ryder’s look, but ive always had a thing for identical twins. So, Scott and Emery will looks eerily similar and be really close to boot. Ofc, even identical twins can grow up to look vastly different depending on different outside factors, esp with the twins different personalities, hobbies, career, etc.

He’ll have the matching freckles, red hair, and hazel eyes, but as far as that.... it’s all up in the air! I’ll have to wait and see what kind of options there are in the CC before fully deciding on Scott’s look. Maybe a bit more rugged than her due to his more military-esque background? short hair? maybe some facial hair or smth? WHO KNOWS!!

(as a note, if we can give them heterochromia, I might give them blue/hazel eyes bc im a sucker for twins with opposite heterochromia whoops)

26 Days: Do you have a specific class profile or mix of class profiles in mind for Ryder?

Em is a full-blown tech junkie. PURE TECH. She’s always had a knack for tinkering even in her youth, and she prefers working with stuff she’s made herself and KNOWS will work over anything else (moving stuff with an implant in your mind??? unless she made the implant herself, no thanks, she’s good with her good ol’ reliable drone)

I’ve played both pure soldier class and vanguard in the original mass effect, and never touched any tech abilities whatsoever. But seeing all the cool stuff classing into Tech gets you in andromeda..... BOI. Apparently you get “something special” for staying faithful and only specing into one class too, so that got me awful curious as well,,,,,

so yeah. Tech goddess over here. with a HAMMER.

25 Days: Describe Ryder’s favorite combat style. Bioware call Peebee a “gunslinger” and describe Liam as a “close-range fighter” - how would you describe Ryder’s combat role/strengths? What are some of their favorite biotic/tech/other abilities?

Emery would probably be described as something like “tech firestarter” or “elemental engineer” (Emery the Elemental Engineer what a tongue twister gg). She specializes purely in tech offense, all of which she’s either built from scratch herself (like her drone) or tweaked gear she’s been given to give it her own little dramatic ‘flare” (like the flame/cryo omni-tool). What she lacks in biotic and combat prowess she more than makes up for in strategy and cleverness and plain ol’ fightin dirty.

I can already tell tactical cloak is going to be a personal favorite of mine, as well as a goddamn FLAMETHROWER. Freezing solid with Cyro + smashing to bits with a Krogan Hammer also seems,,,,, very coool,,,,,,,

and a lil drone buddy :3 def gonna be Emery’s little robo pet that causes all sorts of mayhem around the Tempest omg

24 Days: Which squadmates do you think will best compliment Ryder’s combat style? Alternatively, who do you plan to take out most in the field?

mmmmm this one is really hard seeing as I have no personal experience with how the Tech build works offensively/defensively, and we have next to no info on what the Squad’s abilities are like yet. Not that,,,, I really pay attention to that ANYWAYS I just take the people I like the most HAHA

Vetra is a definite must (*cough* spacewife *COUGH*), esp with her heavy armor that seems like it’ll soak up a lot of damage compared to the glass canon that Emery will most likely turn out to be. Drack is another obvious choice, and those two will probably be the ones I drag around most bc hey, you can NEVER have too many tanks. plus those are the two squadmates who interest me personally the most so far so !!

[duckandrollblog]

Continual engagement

 There are a lot of really amazing hobbies in the world. Games, skills, practices, toys, and sports that really captivate and take root in the hearts of those who love them. There are a great many factors to the success of these otherwise very diverse hobbies, but I think one of the biggest factors is “continual engagement”. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had a player message me between sessions with a character idea or a plot point, or rules question, or a head-canon, or theory, or even just to gush about game. I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that my players spend idle hours daydreaming about my campaigns, thinking about their characters, or otherwise thinking about game. I’ve had players tell me that they’ve only made it through their shifts at work because they focused on session, or that their rough times seemed more hopeful knowing another session was coming. And I want to help you all to build this continual engagement and recognize the different types of it.

 1.) Narrative engagement: This is one of the most likely types of engagement to occur naturally. Simply by having a story and narrative, you foster a desire in your players to explore it. Every masked vigilante, every mysterious evil puppet-master, every prophecy or locked vault is a mystery for your players to ponder over. Wondering about the secrets and history of your game or setting is a wonderful type of engagement that helps the player explore your setting in their mind, and encourages them to do so through their character.

 2.) Interpersonal engagement: This type of engagement comes about primarily as a result of having interesting and exciting recurring characters and organizations. This is your classic “Daydreaming” engagement. “Do you think the red Baron could take the lightning princess in a fight?”, “Who do should I court? Percival the pleasant or Lady space-razor?”. “How is the seneschal going to react when they find out that Redstone the harpy is an alien?”  These situations and scenarios focus on the interactions between characters, and the more you build exciting characters with motives and interests the more naturally these thoughts will form.

 3.) Objective engagement: One of my personal favourites, objective engagement is when players spend their time thinking about how to solve a particular problem in-game. The easiest way to create this sense is to give players problems they want or need to solve but can’t or don’t have to solve right away. This can either be done by giving them passive problems they can worry about later, or by presenting a problem at the end of session. In the first case, for example, the players may know that when they reach the heart of the dungeon they’ll have to empty the chalice of eternal tears. They may have already been given a riddle about the chalice, and have all the tools and information at their disposal but not yet pieced together how to do it. In the second example, you may have the session close out with a view of the imperial fleet jumping out of hyperspace practically right on top of the player’s ship. Personally, I end every session by telling players, without spoiling anything, what the next few in-game days have in store, concisely recapping events. “Alright we’ll call it there, but you can tell you have another day or two of riding, but then you’ll be at the ancient petroleum slime refinery, though the mysterious man with a flamethrower hand may well have beaten you there.”. Let them know what’s in store so they can focus on what’s important.

4.) Mechanical engagement: This takes two forms, one is in the actual mechanics of your system. Some players love to read through thousands of abilities and powers and decide what they want next. Some players like learning obscure rules or planning unusual tactics.  This is usually going to happen without you needing to do anything, but a great way to help build on it is to give your players access to new content. “Hey I just bought the Flavour Handbook, check it out, anything in there is suitable for my game”. But it’s also important for your player to feel like the mechanics they’re reading will matter. If they spend an hour learning about the various degrees of difficult terrain and then you decide it’s all just one kind they’ll feel discouraged. This is not to say you need to use the rules as written but make it clear to players that you intend to handle the rules your own way. The other way to build mechanical engagement using the campaign setting. “We know the soul-smiths attack anything with a soul, but would they go after a golem made using an elemental spirit?” “What happens if something with a metal arm punches the flesh-eater ooze?” “Would I die if I ate the gem of eternal night?” letting players wonder about how things work mechanically in your world is every bit as exciting as the rules themselves.

  Of course, with all of this said, it should be clear that building a campaign with depth, characters, intricacies and mysteries is something many GM’s may naturally do. But to really consider their role as a tool for investing players even outside of game is valuable. Of course, GM’s who follow all this advice may find themselves being messaged by players at all hours of the night with obscure or strange campaign questions, but that is in truth just the 5th secret method for building engagement that applies specifically to GMs! It’s also important to keep in mind that players do have their own lives, and sometimes they can’t afford to be musing over campaigns all the time, don’t let this be discouraging though when they have the luxury of it, they’ll always go back to a good campaign in their minds. 

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[yespoetry]

Jason Koo: Special Feature

NEGATIVE CAPABILITY

 But how do you measure yourself, as a poet, as a teacher? There are no analytics

for these vocations, as there are for basketball. Universities keep searching for better

evaluations and keep just making them worse, keep pandering to the student

as customer rather than trying to give teachers essential feedback they can use

to get better as teachers. The best feedback always comes in the form of answers

to specific questions about a class, such as the ones I ask students to answer

in their reflective essays prefacing their portfolios, but my university’s evals

make the comments optional and open to whatever they want to say, i.e. rant about,

and the most helpful communication, you would think, occurs between two people

who know they are communicating rather than a report one person is making

about the other in the form of numbers from 1 to 5 that “disagree” or “agree”

to varying degrees with questions neither person has approved and might not

even be interested in the answers to. Even with the evals we have, there are no

numbers I can put in a bucket at the end of every class to record how I did relative

to every other day, whereas LeBron literally has buckets he can put in a bucket.

I’ve always thought it must be hard to be a professional athlete in America,

despite all the luxuries it affords, especially one of LeBron’s stature, because every

one of your professional performances is mercilessly evaluated, everything you do

is translated into numbers, numbers pored over and broken down by stats geeks

who could care less about you personally, their sole interest being whether your numbers

justify what is spent on you or whether, perhaps, another player or two less famous

might provide the same numbers at less cost. Absurd, perhaps, to criticize

LeBron for not holding himself accountable when he is held accountable by the media

and analytics experts every day, how many of us could stand that kind of relentless scrutiny

of what we do? Imagine even one local paper

covering my performance every day as a poet. Did not write today, nothing to report.

Did not write today, nothing to report. Wrote a little in his notebook, a to-do list

of what he needed to do today as well as what he needs to do tomorrow, also scratched

some things off a list he’d made several weeks ago that he hadn’t done that ended up

on his to-do list today, yes, that means he scratched them off twice. None of these

things involved the writing or reading of poems. Should we even evaluate this guy

as a poet? He seems to be rather a kind of daily accountant. BREAKING: quoted

large chunks of Heidegger today in something resembling a poem although the best lines

seem to be Heidegger’s. Does that count? Unfortunately we are not poetry experts

and have no analytics to back up our claims, but this production seems rather dubious.

Plus it is endless. After the questionable gains he made yesterday, spent an inordinate amount

of time on social media today instead of writing. Woke up at 10 AM and did not have time,

he thought, if thinking is something he does, to write today, so he masturbated

in bed instead. Did not write today, nothing to report. Did not write today, nothing

to report. Did not write today, see previous r eport. Would all that constant scrutiny

help me as a poet? Perhaps. I would definitely write more, but writing more does not

necessarily mean writing better. And what does it mean to write better, how does one

evaluate that, except internally? There is no competition you can measure yourself against

save for the subjective sense of great writers who have come before you or great writers

out there right now, or the meaningless measuring stick of publications and awards.

Really it always comes down to your own internal sense of a standard, what you have done

to that point and how good you think it is, not what readers or other poets say, not

where a poem or book was published, not what awards were won. And there have been

so many examples of long stretches where you weren’t writing at all followed by great

bursts of productivity, where all that non- writing time seems to have loaded up

material and pressure, just as there have been so many examples of writing every day

that led to hack productivity, just words on a page with nothing compelling to make

anyone, most of all you, want to read them. As a writer you have to be thinking

about originality, how you can break new ground for yourself if not for anyone’s

canon, how you can move into subject matter or formal techniques you haven’t

tried before, or, looked at another way, how you can more fully tap into the well

of who you are, put your sense of the world on the page. An athlete, luckily, doesn’t

have to think about this, though one might work on developing new aspects to one’s game,

as LeBron developed his post-up skills after discovering he needed these when facing

championship-level defense in the playoffs, or reinventing oneself to adjust to changing

defenses or the decline of physical skills, as when a young flamethrower in baseball

becomes a master of changing speeds and pitch location when he loses mph on his fastball.

But there are tangible results to the work one puts in as an athlete to develop or reinvent

one’s game, one can judge based on numbers recorded in performance, but what results

does a poet see? More smiling, happy faces in a workshop? More, or better, publications?

More awards? Shining reviews? One is taught not to trust these things (though now I

wonder where or when one is taught this), as trusting them too much can lead to

complacency about the very originality one is pursuing. It is a life of vagueness,

the life of a poet, which perhaps Keats was trying to redeem with his impressive-sounding

“Negative Capability,” which all poets love. Double this with the life of a teacher, or perhaps

triple it with the life of a teacher of poetry, which almost all poets are, and one can easily see

we are moving in a sea of vaguery, vague after vague of vaguery no clearer for cognizance

of one’s French etymology. How does one measure oneself as a teacher of poetry?

By how many good poems each student writes? By how much better a student’s poems get

from the beginning to the end of a course? See previous report on how one evaluates

writing “better.” A student might not be able to apply what you taught her about writing

“good” or “better” poems until years after you taught her. You might even be dead.

Still, the only way that student’s poems could be judged “good” or “better” in the end

would be if she published them, i.e. got them judged by some other authority,

otherwise she and you would never really know if she had gotten “good” or “better”

or if you were just imagining things in your pretty little subjective heads.

See previous report on how trustworthy publications are to a poet who aspires to be

“good” or “better.” Or maybe this isn’t true, as the more I think of it the more I don’t

think it is, maybe all that matters is this poet sends you poems years after she took your class

and they’re better than Emily Dickinson’s, you’re sure of it, you don’t give a damn

what anybody else says or if she cares to publish them or has and the bog’s rejected them.

Would the development of this über-Emilying Emily Dickinson under your tutelage

be enough to measure your success as a teacher? Even if your other students hated your guts

and wrote the most putrid poems possible? If so, would that kind of teacher be better

than one who created four Carl Sandburgs? Or a Marianne Moore and a T. S. Eliot?

How many “good” poets equal a “great” one? How many “okay” poets equal a “good” one?

Is the impact of one great poet creating a world that sets forth the earth as an earth greater

than the impact of two good poets creating a world setting forth the earth as an earth

twice? If so, is it greater than that of three? Of four? Of five? One can easily see our said

sea of vaguery. Or perhaps as a teacher you’re just trying to help students become

a poet, no matter if they’re “good” or “great” or “better” or “okay,” just as a teacher

of law is just trying to help students become a lawyer, so they can go out there and practice

law and make a living. Should you be deemed a success if you taught a room full

of twenty students not intending to be poets and all of them, in the end, became poets???

Named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture” by Brooklyn Magazine, Jason Koo is the founder and executive director of Brooklyn Poets and creator of the Bridge. He is the author of America’s Favorite Poem (C&R Press, 2014) and Man on Extremely Small Island (C&R Press, 2009). He earned his BA in English from Yale, his MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston and his PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri-Columbia. The winner of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and New York State Writers Institute, he has published his poetry and prose in the Yale Review, Missouri Review and Village Voice, among other places. He is an assistant teaching professor of English at Quinnipiac University and lives in Williamsburg.