#as far as I know they are the only characters that have starter deck together

[the-fatal-impact]

Zoro and Sanji: We don’t like each other. We actually can’t stand each other!

Also Zoro and Sanji:

[books-and-omens]

Okay okay, so I really want to talk about S2 Crowley.

I’ve been thinking about who Crowley is in the book and who he is in the show, and the gap is significant. (@tbutchaziraphale has fantastic meta over here which I think is spot on.)

Book!Crowley is an optimist, yes? I mean, we’re outright told this:

“Because, underneath it all, Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock-hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times—he thought briefly of the fourteenth century—then it was utter surety that he would come out on top; that the universe would look after him.”

Honestly, what a thing for a fallen angel to believe! And to me, it’s powerful, yes, but it never quite answers the question: where is he getting that certainty?

Tv!Crowley, in the meantime, is emphatically not this. He’s never been an optimist, not even in S1—although in S1, it might have been easier to look at A & C and consider them essentially similar to their book selves if a little out of sync.

In S1, Crowley gives the whole “don’t test them to destruction” speech. He cares about humanity deeply, even if he won’t admit it. He will try to stop the Apocalypse.

And there is still a moment when he feels helpless. When he has no innate optimism to carry him through, no deep belief in the universe looking after him or anyone. When his instincts tell him to run, and he tries to follow them. When he despairs. Aziraphale pulls him back out of that despair; they make a stand together. As we know, it works.

But the thing is, the thing is. I find tv!Crowley’s lack of optimism so very relatable.

I find despair so very relatable, too.

We live in an age of deep anxiety. (Climate change, anyone? Just for starters! The promise and wonder of the Moon landing and the end of the Cold War are far in the past; day to day, we deal with the effects of capitalism, of reactionism, of continued exclusionism. It’s far too easy to feel helpless.)

So in S2, Crowley is very much the same character as he was in S1, except we see it even clearer.

He is not an optimist. He wants to run; he wants to escape when faced with Gabriel’s arrival; he wants to protect Aziraphale and himself, and believes that the best—perhaps only—way to do that is by them retreating as far away from the problem as they can.

In Heaven, Crowley finds out about The Second Coming. His need to escape and to keep his angel safe become overwhelming. But he doesn’t tell Aziraphale about the Second Coming, does he? And his repeated offer to run away together doesn't even make sense to Aziraphale. (Not that Aziraphale would want to run if he knew. Quite the opposite, in fact, which Crowley must know.)

Anyway, Crowley already knows that the clock is ticking. Aziraphale is about to find it out. (Do you notice how often, in the last fifteen minutes of S2, we hear nothing in the background but the ticking of a clock?)

And just—the despair, the desire to retreat and escape when you are faced with overwhelming odds, with a fundamentally broken system, are so relatable.

And yet escape has never been the answer.

I hope, of course, that this is what we’ll see in S3 if there is a S3. Crowley deciding, emphatically, that running away is not the answer. 

We didn't get there yet. We were dropped out of the story at the darkest point.

But I think being at this point is precisely what makes Crowley’s confession at the end of S2 transcendent.

Because it’s the same conflict, isn’t it, except on a personal scale. Despair in the face of overwhelming odds, followed by the decision to not give up.

Crowley, who’d been ready to confess, sees what is likely to happen. He sees the way the deck is stacked against him, sees that he is unlikely to get through. He feels the coming loss. 

And then he does it anyway. 

He confesses anyway. He says what he has set out to say, gasping and clawing for every word. He does it at the point when everything appears lost.

And no, we don’t see the effects of it, not yet. We don’t see what he has launched, the hook that sank into Aziraphale, the change it has wrought in Crowley himself.

But his bravery won’t be lost.

We live in a dark timeline. I maintain that this is precisely what makes this story so compelling.

Be brave. Do the difficult thing anyway. Do it anyway. Do it anyway.

Even in the face of overwhelming odds. Especially in the face of overwhelming odds. While not being an optimist in the slightest.

This is what hope is.

This is what we have to do.

(And to all of us who’d lost a comfort story: I’m so sorry. I, too, am still grieving for it. I know, I know.

Emphatically: all is not lost.)

[aura-acolyte]

Since @normal-paldean-student did a Roleswap AU with Renee in Mare's place I wrote up a roleswap AU with Mare in Renee's place.

First big change: she doesn’t have Aura. Which is a problem because it means she can’t punch her way out of situations anymore. That means she has to get a lot better at battling. She also can’t heal. Which is fine cause her injuries go away when she goes to the next universe but does mean she can’t be as reckless about throwing herself into danger as she usually is.

Second big change: She starts with Crystal cause that’s the first game with a female player character option which also means she starts in New Bark Town instead of Goldenrod.

So, I’m gonna go through each gen individually and only cover mainline games because otherwise we’d be here all day and also I don’t have a lot of experience with a lot of the side-games. She went through those but I won’t talk about them. Also she still looks like herself just wearing different clothes. Also, also I’ll be calling this version Shifter Mare and the og version Auraverse Mare.

So, Crystal. Different town, same backstory except there’s no Norman to save them. Her mom encourages her to go on her Journey to get as far away from her father as possible. She doesn’t want to leave her mom but eventually agrees, promising to come back when she’s strong enough to face him. Her starter is a Cyndaquil.

She and Silver start off on the wrong foot when she just freaking decks him. This is, like, the only time engaging in physical violence actually works because it’s just really funny to me. What a first impression. They do eventually bond over having shitty dads and wanting to become stronger, though, and Silver’s probably one of her best friends of all time.

She takes beating the Pokemon League much more seriously than Auraverse Mare because that’s how she gets stronger. Eventually she beats Lance and kicks her dad’s ass (well, it’s more like she scares him away cause he has no Pokemon) then decides “Hey, that was fun, what if I did it again” and does the Kanto circuit before climbing Mt. Silver and defeating Red, something Auraverse Mare could never do. Climbing Mt. Silver really did a number on her though so as soon as the battle’s over she passes out…

…And wakes up in the back of a moving van. We’re in Ruby now. She’s a lot more hostile towards Norman in this timeline than even Auraverse Mare, partially because she just got force into a new timeline with zero warning and partially because, in her experience, dads are bad all the time. She, um, isn’t particularly nice to Professor Birch either but manages to hold it together long enough to get a Pokemon and Brendan (who she has a comparatively less hostile relationship with than Auraverse Mare because they don’t have the “We’re cousins so we gotta fight” attitude) seems happy enough.

She does have a bit of a crisis though because unlike Auraverse Mare, who put all her self-worth into being a hero, Shifter Mare put all her self-worth into being strong (Silver-type behavior, though she actually recognizes from the start that love and friendship works better than just using the strongest Pokemon like a tool) and without her Pokemon she’s not strong and if she’s not strong then what is she?

When she gets to Petalburg she is ecstatic at the idea of getting to battle Norman, who for his part is very confused as to why his daughter is suddenly acting hostile towards him and also doesn’t seem to know who he is, and when he sets the “you ned 4 gym badges to face me” condition she goes “Yeah, sure, I’ll do that, it’ll be more satisfying to beat you into the ground when I’m stronger anyways.” She also scares the shit out of Wally with how intense she is but they do eventually become friends and she’s quite fond of the kid.

She also bonds with Archie a bit. Not as much as Auraverse Mare but he likes her spunk and she likes his spirit. They beat Team Magma, she beats the Pokemon League, and gets to stick around long enough to take on the Battle Tower before being pulled away again.

Sapphire goes pretty similar. Shifter Mare’s less hostile towards Norman and Birch this time cause she’s figured out by now that maybe they’re not all that bad. She feels a little betrayed by Archie being the bad guy this time around even though she knows it’s an alternate universe so it’s not the same Archie. Bing bang boom, Emerald time.

At this point Shifter Mare’s growing pretty sick of this. Some mysterious unseen force refuses to let her get strong. Every time she reaches her peak she gets reset. But when she screams to the sky nothing answers so she’s forced to just go along with it.

It’s also worth noting at this point that Shifter Mare isn’t shy about the fact that she’s been traveling across universes. She’ll reference past adventures, mention things she should have no way of knowing about, and just say “I’m from an alternate universe.” This is really confusing for everyone else, who frequently question her sanity and also the fact that she finishes their sentences. Half the time she doesn’t even bother letting people finish their exposition, just cutting them off with “Yeah, I know already.”

Anyways, she’s mildly pleased to see that Emerald is more different than Ruby and Sapphire. Wallace being Champ instead of certified sopping wet cat Steven Stone is refreshing and the Battle Frontier is much more fun than the Battle Tower. But, unfortunately, it can’t last. Kanto’s next and Shifter Mare’s starting to think maybe she just wasn’t meant to be strong, maybe she was supposed to be weak and powerless and friendless forever. But if she’s supposed to be weak and powerless what else is there for her.

Anyway, Fire Red. Shifter Mare feels weird about this one because she knows this one and she knows it’s not supposed to be her story. To her, this is Red’s story. Blue is Red’s rival. Pallet Town is Red’s home. She’s not supposed to be here.

She does find a new purpose, though. If this is the past (technically) maybe she can find Silver and save him from his father. It wouldn’t be her Silver but it would be a Silver. And, hey, she kind of owed it to him to try. 

So she goes through the Kanto League, unnerved the whole way through, but no matter how hard she searched she couldn’t find Silver. Even after she became Champion and had all of the League’s resources at her disposal she couldn’t find him. Not that she got much time to search because she got sucked into another world not long after becoming Champ.

Take two, Leaf Green. For the first time and last time, Mare goes off-script. No Gym Challenge, only searching for Silver. And it has disastrous consequences. Though Mare is making herself quite the nuisance to them in her search for Silver, because she’s not following the main plot route, Team Rocket achieve all their goals and thus gain total domination over the Kanto region, just their first step on their way to conquering the world. And it was all for nothing too because she never finds Silver.

Next world! Diamond! Uh, Mare’s not doing too hot. She was just indirectly responsible for so much suffering. And she can’t talk to anybody about it because nobody would know what she was talking about. Plus she keeps losing her support network. So she makes a resolution to never allow anything like that to happen again. From now on, if anybody was suffering it was her duty to put a stop to it. That was the only way she would ever be worth anything and the only way to atone for what she’d done. There’s the Savior Complex. Took a while but we got there.

Aside from that, the new universe was pretty nice. She thought Barry was a bit annoying and she didn’t like the dress she had to wear (were there no clothing shops in Sinnoh?) but it was nice. Though she couldn’t help but be on edge, expecting something bad to happen at any moment. And she wasn’t wrong to be. Team Galactic was on the scene and they were far more threatening than any foe she’d faced in the past. The amount of suffering they caused and the Pokemon they abused infuriated Mare, who tore through their ranks with her Pokemon, completing the gym challenge along the way so she could use HMs. Why were there so many HMs in this universe?

Pearl was pretty much the same story but Platinum was different. Whereas in the previous two adventures she’d basically been speedrunning, here she slowed down a bit. This was her third run and she was kinda tired. This meant that she actually listened when Cyrus explained his motivations and it also meant that she saw how much pain he was in. Before she’d seen him as just a big bad guy she needed to beat but he had clearly suffered in the past. She tried to reason with him several times throughout her adventure but it ultimately didn’t work and he tried to go through with the plan anyways. It still taught her a valuable lesson, though: bad guys are people too. Oh, also people seemed a lot more willing to consider her alternate dimension story than usual. Well, Cynthia and Cyrus were, at least. Doing research into Sinnoh history makes you a bit more open to the possibility.

Heart Gold is next. It wasn’t really that traumatizing compared to the others but it was weird being back in Johto. It was all so familiar but also very, very different. Her father was nowhere in sight, there’s this guy called Ethan hanging around, and there was a Battle Frontier apparently (that was exciting). Most notable, though, was this universe had a Silver and they started off on a really weird note because the moment Mare saw him she broke down crying and hugged him as tight as she could while apologizing so much. Which was weird for him because this wasn’t her Silver and he had absolutely no idea who she was.

Other than that it and Soul Silver were pretty standard affairs. Mare tried her best to put Silver on the right path but never quite had the same friendship with him as she had with her Silver. She may have cried… a lot. She actually freaked Whitney out by crying after winning the Gym Battle because that’s what she was supposed to do, not the Challenger.

After that nice little breather, we’re back on the heavy stuff. Black is next. She has a… complex relationship with N. She can see where he’s coming from and understands not wanting to see Pokemon suffer but she also thinks he’s a hypocrite for claiming to want to set Pokemon free yet also using them in battle. Even if the Pokemon do agree to it he’s still having them do the work instead of defending his ideals himself. She also decks him at least once.

In White she treats N with a lot more sympathy, knowing his whole situation and relating to it. The first thing she does upon meeting this version of him is give him a hug and promise to get him out of this which he doesn’t really understand. She actually manages to form a genuine friendship with him because she’s the first person besides his sisters to treat him with legit compassion and not see him solely as a tool, a king, or an enemy.

Black 2 and White 2 are weird. She was used to alternate versions of her friends but it was weird seeing Cheren and Bianca 2 years older than her while she hadn’t aged a day. It was also kind of depressing because they’d moved on to new things while she was still doing the same thing because she had too. Everyone else could move forward, she was stuck in the same cycle forever.

In other news, Hugh worried her significantly because he reminded her of Silver just with not terrible parents. His only desire was to get stronger to fight Team Plasma and it seemed like he was willing to go to any length to do it. His heart was in the right place but his head wasn’t. She made sure to keep a close eye on him and try her best to set make sure he doesn’t do something stupid that he’ll regret. Also I’m taking creative liberty and Ghetsis is killed by Black/White Kyurem in this version because I think it’s poetic that he’s killed by the beast he created and was foolish enough to think he could control, thus falling victim to his own hubris.

Pokemon X. She’s kinda surprised that she has this large friend group now. Usually she’s got one or two rivals and that’s it. It’s kind of nice cause it’s something she’s never really had before. Mega Evolution gives her quite the shock as well as the Fairy Type being a thing now. She thinks it’s all very cool. Name a more iconic duo than Mare and a Mega Lucario.

She pegs Lysandre as a bad guy immediately because she’s heard his rhetoric before from other villains and tries to alert somebody too it but everyone kind of dismisses her except for her friends. So with no adults to rely on (as usual, tbh) they’re forced to deal with this themselves. Also Mare hates Xerosic with a passion for what he did to Emma. Pokemon Y is more or less the same with the exception that she tries (and fails) to get into the Geosenge Base. Oh, also Mare is terrible at fashion. Like, just the worst.

ORAS. Oh I’ve been excited to get here. The first Region Mare ever shifted too. But unlike with Heart Gold and Soul Silver’s Johto, the Hoenn of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is very different from the one she knew. It was still familiar but at every turn she ran into something different. The people looked different, the cities looked different. A lot of the major events were still the same and yet they were so different. It was almost disorienting, going through the same events and yet not being able to predict what would happen next. But hey, at least she finally got her iconic ribbon.

She also falls in love for the first time. Shifter Mare finally gets to meet Zinnia and cannot handle the flirting. In Omega Ruby, Zinnia takes off before she has time to actually sort through these feelings but in Alpha Sapphire they actually manage to start a relationship… which doesn’t last long because Mare shifts again. Womp womp.

Sun is another entry in the “Your parent is terrible, I am going to be your friend now.” saga. As soon as Mare figures out what’s going on with Lillie and Gladion and their mom (she has her suspicions from the start that they’ve got something going on with their parent but she doesn’t know it’s Lusamine specifically until the reveal) she makes it her mission to ensure their safety. She also feels for Guzma and Team Skull and while at first she dismisses them as kind of silly by the end she actually has a lot of respect for them.

The Post-Game, though, that’s where things get real interesting. Because Anabel is a faller, making her the first person Mare’s ever met who has also gone through interdimensional travel. And she has no idea she even did it because her memory is gone. Mare’s not entirely sure how to respond to the whole thing and neither are Looker, Nanu, and Anabel who certainly hadn’t been expecting to meet a girl who had traveled to several dimensions. The whole thing gets very messy very fast.

Also Mare meets Red and Blue and is really unsure about what to think of the fact that they’re in their 30s and she’s still a teenager.

When Moon rolls around she befriends Lillie immediately, though this is still Mare so her aggressive and boisterous personality can be a bit much for her at times. Gladion is resistant but does eventually form a begrudging friendship, guess you can’t win over every Silver-coded rival. She also treats Team Skull like people instead of jokes and tries her best to get others to do the same.

I’ll be up front, I don’t know what happens in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon outside of the fact that Lusamine is kind of sort of a good guy but Mare’s suspicious of her the whole time. I do know what happens in the Rainbow Rocket Post Game, though. Remember that one world Mare accidentally screwed over by going off script? Well that Giovanni has discovered interdimensional travel. So, uh, this one’s kind of on Mare. Anyways, she beats him, he taunts her about how she never found Silver, time to move on.

Sword and Shield… is pretty by the book, honestly. Mare is extremely frustrated that Leon refuses to let her get involved in any way until the very end but other than that nothing remarkable happens. I didn’t play the DLC so I don’t know what happened there so… moving on.

Finally, Scarlet and Violet. Because putting Mare in a school is a good idea. She gets in trouble basically immediately but is let off the hook cause its her first day and Director Clavell’s nice like that. In regards to her friends, she bonds with Nemona over their shared love of battling, she deduces that Penny is Cassiopeia but doesn’t say anything (she also does not deduce that totally radical and regular student Clive is actually Director Clavell because I think that’s hilarious), and the moment she meets Arven she’s like “Yeah, I think we should punch your parents in the face.”

She’s actually kind of on edge the whole time, actually, because the whole thing is so low level. No world ending catastrophes, no large scale criminal organizations. The stakes weren’t necessarily low, the life of Arven’s Mabosstiff was very much in danger, but it wasn’t the same “everyone’s gonna die” stakes she was used to. She was almost glad when they had to face off against AI Turo/Sada and destroy a dangerous time machine.

And, uh, that’s it. She’s kind of in the same position as Renee, waiting for the cycle to repeat once again.

[cheemken]

what are the things you love and hate about all of the pokemon games you played?

Well now I can say I have played gens six and seven, but I haven't finished them yet so I'm just gonna post down what I like abt em so far hahah

I'm also adding the spin offs bc they're also pkmn games

Anyways under the cut hahah

Red/Blue/Yellow - honestly... I just liked that Pikachu can follow us on Yellow, wish they kept that feature all throughout each games, it only came back on HGSS, SwSh, BDSP, and ScVi. Also the fact I can get all three starters hahah

Starting from gen one

Crystal - Kris supremacy, the highlight of it really, also really dope we can visit another region post game

TCG for the GBC - it's fun, made me understand the card game a bit better back then hahah

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - HOENN SUPREMACY ough this is home in game form fr, this and BW/BW2, but more on this really hahaha it's cool the contests are cool actually, love the starters, they're the first starter trio where I liked all of them, love the characters, I love my son Wally so much, May/Brendan too, Wallace the true Hoenn Champion in my heart (Emerald bias), the best roster of mons, I could go on really

FireRed/LeafGreen - I mean.. idk. It's an improved version of gen one I'll tell you that but yeah

Platinum - Torterra, Garchomp, Riolu, and the contests (yes I liked the contests here too, the contests here low-key better than in gen 3 ngl)

HeartGold - love the pkmn following feature for real, it's so cute, it's dope, wish they added that in gen five hcnxnx

PMD Red/Blue Rescue Team - Red Rescue Team was my intro to pmd, fucked me up so much I had to use the HP cheat lmfaoooo but it's fun tho hahaha

PMD Explorers of Sky - changed me as a person, really dope, the characters are cool, I just hated Chatot at the start lmfao, but dude this game is so fuckin dope pls cndmdn the way Hero and Partner are so soft and I love how they're still together even post game they mean so much to me your honour🥹

White - my absolute beloved omfsssss everything's so cool okay everything abt it is so cool, love the characters man and the story too, dyou know how cool it was seeing all the Gym Leaders interact and fight Team Plasma, dude that blew my mind back then lmfaooo also c'mon the Tao Trio? You mean the greatest Legendary trio? Hahaha

Black 2 - same w White, it's so cool, everything's so fucking dope, plus PWT

Conquest - I like the art style lmfao

X - Diantha my beloved, also the pokemon petting thing I'm just sad it's a bit lag on my emulator but still I really love this feature hahaha

Ultra Sun - the starters, and the pokemon petting thing again hahah

Omega Ruby - look you already know how much I love Hoenn, plus this has mega evolution and it has the dexnav! Also the pokemon petting thing ofc lmfao also also love how they improved Magma and Aqua really idk I just cnmdnd god ORAS Team Magma and Aqua my beloveds jcdmdn

PMD Gates to Infinity - look I just know that Hydreigon isn't really the big bad guy okay and I'm so happy abt that bc it's usually the Dark/Ghost types that are villains in these games so it's a nice change that Hydreigon isn't a villain

Super Mystery Dungeon - man the scene from the start w Nuzleaf looking at the hero and the hero was giving him puppy eyes killed me okay it lives in my head rent free and I wanna draw smth abt it

Unite - ah yes, the moba game, anyways it's dope if you're winning lmfaooo also it's dope Gengar's there they should buff him actually, I think Hex and Sludge Bomb deserve buffs

TCG online/live - the online one was dope, I still miss my Zamazenta deck to this day

Masters EX - the lore chdmdnd they should add more Diantha lore please I am begging😭

Cafe Remix - it's cute, I love the art style of it hahah

-

Now for my gripes for all these lmfaooo

Red/Blue/Yellow - it's boring as hell. I don't like the fans of this one too, most just couldn't accept that people like the newer gens and they always shit on people if they don't like gen one

Crystal - other than not being able to get Mareep, nothing much, they do have a point w the level scaling tho

TCG for GBC - I mean tbf I understand why it's not mentioned much there's not much to it but it's still fun for killing time

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - how back breaking it was finding Feebas I honestly gave up, also what the fuck was that Regis mission man💀

FireRed/LeafGreen - same w RBY

Platinum - it wasn't a fun experience for me, it's slow as shit, and I'm pretty fucking sure majority of the people who like this game only likes Cynthia. Fr, no hate on Cynthia, she's a dope character, but she's like the Charizard of the pkmn characs really, she gets everything and is everywhere, how abt giving a chance to other Champions

HeartGold - a bit slow, but not DPPt slow at least, also again w the level scaling

PMD Red/Blue Rescue Team - this would've been so so dope if it weren't for the fact that after the story, Hero and Partner became nothing but normal recruits. Like all that buildup of Hero wanting to stay for Partner, and suddenly they're just like normal recruits, it sucks

PMD Explorers of Sky - Aegis Cave

White - idk but for me it's hard to level up in this game, also the fact the E4 didn't do much on screen, like I wanna know what they did during Plasma's attack

Black 2 - it's,, well it's how the previous characters interacted really, I wish there was more of it, I wanted to see the Gym Leaders interact w each other during the games, pls I wanted to see Bianca and Iris meeting at Castelia bc I know they met up there again please I just know it

Conquest - I think it's a skill issue on my bit but the gameplay was just so confusing for this one, and no I don't mean the battle gameplay, that I got, more on the,, recruiting bit and using of items and everything else—

X - I can't say it's easy just yet bc I really haven't made much progress so hey, for now I'm gonna say at how fucking long it takes when you get an item like dude why does it take so fucking long💀 also the lack of Diantha scenes, she deserves more, honestly she deserves so much better

Ultra Sun - have not finished this so no solid judgement but for now Imma say it's how tedious it is levelling up your mons and idk if it's a skill issue on my bit but like,,, do they really give off such a small amount of exp?? Idk, granted, my pkmn was a bit over levelled hahah

Omega Ruby - Granite Cave man I can't get Aron early on now ncmxnx

PMD Gates to Infinity - again, haven't progressed much so I don't really have a solid judgement for this

Super Mystery Dungeon - same w GTI

Unite - the abysmal matchmaking, the fact that ftp players don't have a way to get gems even if it's through events or missions, the devs thinking gem locking pkmn was a grand fucking idea, the way they can't balance their mons some are just too squishy and some are still strong despite the nerfs, also have I mentioned the matchmaking? Dude fr standard is either full of bots or I get matched w players who don't even know the objectives even if I'm telling them where to gather chxmxn

TCG online/live - live was honestly so so shit and a lot of players agree like even the cards aren't balanced Jesus Christ also it's lag as shit you can't even do anything most of the time and suddenly you lose also fun fact this game almost broke my fucking phone I almost couldn't exit the game and I had to forcefully reset my phone to save it lmfao

Masters EX - I haven't played this much yet for a solid judgement too but damn is the download time for this is slow as shit and fucking crashed on my tab. Also the lack of Diantha lore, pls they should add more abt Diantha she deserves it

Cafe Remix - idk ig it's the fact I'm broke and can't afford stuff in this game bc almost everything needs real money to get, I really thought this was an offline game at first hahah

[all1e23]

Between the Stars [Pt. 2]

Pairings: Past!Steve x Reader, Bucky x  Reader

Summary:  Struggling with the death of your husband, you find comfort in someone unexpected.

Series warnings: CHARACTER DEATH. Grief. Overall sadness. Depression. It’s pretty angsty if I’m being honest. Things mellow out as the series goes on. TW: Military/Spouse death

A/N:  This chapter is strictly Bucky’s POV. If you haven’t figured it out yet each chapter is another month since Steve has been gone. It’s a heavy chapter but the whole series is heavy. No beta and it was lightly edited because I was lazy. As always for this series, flashback are italicized. If you like it write a book report, sing me a song or come scream at me.

***My fics are not to be saved or posted on any other sites without my written permission. Reblogs are my jam, though! Thanks!****

“We’ve got two months left. You gonna tell him before we get home or just let him find out after you're gone and really mess with his head?” 

Bucky huffed at the sarcastic tone coloring Sam’s snark. At least Bucky didn’t have to guess what his opinion on the whole situation was. Sam was shouting it loud and clear. Bucky didn’t have much choice regardless of what Sam thought. He let this all go on far too long, and if he didn’t do something, this whole mess would come unraveled and hurt everyone involved. Bucky could deal with the hurt he put on his own heart, but he wouldn’t hurt Steve or Y/n.

This was the only option because Bucky simply couldn’t take it anymore. 

The zipper on Bucky’s rucksack snagged along the way, and Bucky cursed under his breath as the metal teeth stuck leaving the bag half-zipped. He yanked the sides open as best he could and aggressively shoved clean socks, underwear, and shirts into his pack. Thankfully, it wasn’t cold at the moment, so the weight on his back wouldn't be extensive this time around, and according to Steve, it was a short mission. In and out, gather some intel and back in time to lay low until it was time to catch a bird home. 

Going home was the problem, though. 

Bucky could navigate this life. He could handle being a soldier and all that came with it, but being back in the ‘real world’ complicated things, and Bucky had trouble figuring out how to…  exist without bullets flying by his head.

“What do you think is going to happen when you tell him? You’re like his brother, man. He deserves to know that you’re leaving town and the reasons why.” 

Bucky sighed and tossed his ammo pouch down next to his water. Sam and Bucky didn’t always see things eye to eye. It was a bit of give and take, tug of war between the two of them. It usually came down to what things they were willing to say and what they weren’t. Sam liked to talk things through, whereas Bucky would rather let some things die the way they are meant to -- so Bucky said. No need to kick up a fuss when it only ends in three broken hearts with no good reason for it.

“No,” Bucky grunted. “I’m not going to tell Steve, my best friend as you like to remind me repeatedly, that I am in love with his wife and I have to leave because I can’t stand to see them together a second fuckin’ longer. There ain’t no point. Only gonna hurt him and Y/n. It’s easier if I just go.” 

“Easier for who? You didn’t do anything wrong, man. You’ve been in love with her--” 

“Hey!” Steve shouted across tiny space and grinned at the two men sharing whispers. “You boys ready to go? The quicker we get this done, the faster I get to talk to my wife.” 

Bucky watched as Steve tucked a black scarf around his neck, hiding it under his BDU’s and it made Bucky’s stomach twist with something sharp and painful. It was Y/n’s scarf. Bucky knew that. He would recognize it anywhere. Y/n gave Steve one before every tour, and Steve clung to it -- Steve’s good luck charm. Just the sight of the damn thing made Bucky ache. He hated all of this, how he felt. Bucky loathed what he was doing to the two most important people in his life. As much as he wanted to stop, he couldn't. He tried. He tried over and over again. So when Steve mentioned starting a family when they all got back to civilian life, Bucky knew it was time he moved on. 

It wasn’t because he was doing some noble act by allowing the two of them to have a life and family without him interfering. It was purely for him. It was for selfish reasons, and Bucky wasn’t trying to spin it any other way. He had to leave because he couldn’t stand by and watch. 

“It’s easier for everyone. I’ll tell him I’m leaving, but the reason stays between you and me.” 

“Bucky…” 

“Swear on it, Sam. I need to know this doesn’t go past us.” 

Sam sighed but nodded his head. 

“Yeah, okay. It stays between us.”

Sam had been right it turned out.

Bucky should have told Steve the whole truth that day. He deserved to know who Bucky was and what secrets he was hiding from him. Especially after everything they’ve been through. After he asked Bucky to… Bucky shook his head and stared down at the photo in his hand, fifteen years changes a few things. Time adds a bit of wrinkles, a little grey, and maybe a little extra weight, too. Bucky ran his thumb over the photo and shook his head. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. Steve stood next to Bucky, a shy smile on his clean-shaven face and blonde bangs flopped in his eyes. Wasn’t much different from pictures they took not that long ago if he was being honest, only Y/n was on Bucky’s other side, perched on the deck railing and her chin resting on his shoulder. 

He should have been upfront and told Steve what a coward he had for a best friend, and now it was too late to make confessions. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

Bucky looked up over the toe of his boots to find Natasha standing at the foot of his cot, arms crossed and brow arched in the way that said she was disappointed with him. There was a lot to be disappointed by at the moment, so Bucky was unsure what defense he should start with. He tossed the picture on the rickety table next to him and folded his arms behind his head, he was going to play dumb. That was his best chance at getting out of this unscathed. 

“What--” 

“Don’t give that bullshit.”

Okay, that wasn’t going to work. Clearly 

“Have you called Y/n yet? We are set to be airborne in thirty-nine hours, and it’s been two months since the mission. You need to talk to her.” 

That was how Steve was being talked about now. Natasha has refused to say anything else since Steve died. She has called it “the mission” from the moment they came back bloody, broken, and missing a brother.  It had been hard on everyone, but Steve was one of the few people Natasha trusted without a doubt, and she took his loss hard. On the day of Steve’s funeral, Natasha didn’t speak to anyone but somehow ended up with a bottle of scotch and three paper cups. Bucky didn’t ask how she got it. Clint wasn’t about to question the first bit of booze he had seen in over a year. Knowing Natasha Bucky didn’t want to know where it came from and as her superior officer, it was better that he didn’t. 

Not that any of them owed The Army anything anymore. As far as Bucky was concerned, he paid his dues when he watched his best friend bleed out in his arms while he begged Bucky to take care of his wife. 

“I haven’t called her,” Bucky admitted, guilt showing through the tough facade he was putting on. He hadn’t meant to ignore Y/n these past eight weeks. There were roughly thirty unfinished letters wrapped up in his pack, likely to never see the light of day. They were awful and sounded like something you would read in a grief pamphlet. All the things Y/n would hate to hear and every time Bucky reached for the phone to call her, he couldn’t. Bucky didn’t know what to say: I’m sorry. I know I told you I would bring him home and I swore I would protect him with my life, but I didn’t. 

If he could, Bucky would trade places with Steve for Y/n in a heartbeat. It should have been him. It never should have been Steve. Steve was the better half of the pair. Everyone thought so, and Bucky didn’t have someone who loved him waiting on him back home, not the way Steve did. Yeah, his mom and sister would have taken the blow the hardest, but they would have leaned on each other and made it through like they always did. Y/n didn’t have anyone else, and Bucky should have done more to protect her from this. He was standing right there when it happened.  He shouldn’t have walked away and left Steve standing there out in the open--

“You need to talk to her before you go home. At least let her know you’re coming to crash on her couch.” 

“I don’t know what to say to her, Tasha.” 

Natasha stared at him long enough to make him squirm from unease. She had a way of making me feel like an idiot without ever saying a word. Natasha sighed and locked eyes with him, ensuring he wouldn’t look away before she spoke. 

“Tell her you love her for starters.” 

Bucky felt panic rising in his chest. How did she know? Only Sam knew. Sam was the only one that he told all those years ago, he was the only one there the night all went down. Bucky relaxed as she went on, “She’s your closest friend--” 

Natasha doesn’t know you can relax, Bucky repeated to himself a few times until his hands unclenched and his heart rate returned to normal. 

 “--and she doesn’t deserve to be ghosted by one of the few people she has left because you’re awkward with emotions.” 

Bucky knew Natasha was right, but that doesn’t make it any easier. One thing hadn’t changed in the past two months; Bucky was still a coward. 

“Hey, Trouble.” 

Bucky held back his chuckle as he watched Y/n nearly jump out of her skin at the sound of his voice. Once she realized it was merely Bucky she narrowed her eyes, and he could no longer contain his chuckle. Y/n dug an elbow into his ribs, and he feigned a groan for her sake. Bucky leaned against the railing, resting on his elbows and doing everything he could to keep his eyes focused on the water before him, not exactly where he wanted to look. 

He wasn’t sure he could look at her. Not right now. Bucky’s nerves were jumping like a live wire, and he was worried if he saw her pretty eyes staring back at him, he would chicken out. 

“Sorry,” Bucky said, soft and unsure. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

That was true. Bucky hadn’t meant to. He only wanted a few minutes alone with her. 

“It’s okay. I’ve seen one too many horror movies. I feel like Jason is going to come up out of the lake or something,” she said with a shiver and instinctively slid closer to Bucky, letting their arms brush against each other. 

Shit, she was adorable when she said things like that. Bucky grinned and leaned his head towards hers with his eyes trained on a piece of driftwood floating nearby. He took a deep breath and whispered in her ear, “I’ll protect you, Y/n. I promise I’ll always protect you.” 

Bucky didn’t know why he said that. That was so utterly stupid. They were friends, and it didn’t matter what he wanted, Y/n never crossed that line or hinted that she wanted him to cross it. He should know better, but then she turned to face him, and the driftwood floating against the black water couldn’t hold his attention a second longer. He swallowed the lump in his throat and watched the way her lip reddened from the friction of her teeth, her eyes were brighter tonight under the moon, and her voice never sounded as sweet.  

"Always saving me. How’d I get so lucky to have a friend like you, Buck?”

That night changed everything between Bucky and Y/n, and his friendship with Steve was never the same. Not that Steve noticed, and maybe Bucky never did either. They’ve been friends for so long, ups and downs came and went through the years, so it wasn’t unusual to go through a few rough patches. Well, they were friends. Steve wasn’t there, and even if he was Bucky doubted, Steve would want him in life. 

Not once he discovered the truth under it all.  

Bucky leaned his head back against the headrest and closed eyes. That night wouldn’t stop playing on repeat. He saw the flames from the bonfire like they were in front of him, he remembered the violet in Y/n’s shirt and the lines on her bathing suit top. He remembered being a chicken, Dot, and every single second that led them all here to this future. There was a heaviness in his heart, and it came from the weight on his lap. Bucky looked down at the stack of envelopes resting on his legs, wrapped with white twine. 

They were meant for him, and every one was written by Steve; Bucky hated him a little for putting that burden on his shoulder. Bucky already had to live with failing him; was that not enough? 

Steve had to ask this of him, too?

Bucky ran his thumb along the worn paper of the envelope. They were covered in dirt, and the ink his name was written in on the front had all but faded away. He wished he could ask Steve when the hell he wrote these letters. If Bucky didn’t know any better, the punk’s been carrying them around since their first tour. It wasn’t fair what Steve was asking of him, and it wasn’t fair to Y/n either. Steve should have left these to Y/n, not to him. Bucky didn’t deserve to have Steve’s last words. 

There wasn’t much that Bucky did deserve, and the little that he did wasn’t anything good. 

Bucky glanced around at his unit surrounding him, and everyone was preoccupied. A few were playing card games, some were telling stories about their families and what their plans were once the plane landed, but the majority were fast asleep. It was as good a time as any to see what this was all about. Bucky took a deep breath and pulled the first letter out of the stack, carefully running his index finger under the flap to loosen the glue. It wasn’t difficult to separate thanks to the age of the glue and delicate paper it was clinging to. 

Clint’s loud cackling laugh startled Bucky enough to make him hesitate when he began to unfold the three pieces of notebook paper in his hand. He eyed the group, making sure they went back to their own little bubbles before he forced his fingers to work. Bucky flatted the pages on his knee and shifted in his seat at the sight of his name in Steve’s handwriting on that top left corner of the yellowed page. Something Bucky never gave much thought about before, but now he wanted to hold onto that little piece of Steve.

It was dumb, but that was all they had left. 

He cleared his throat to rid it of the lump that was rapidly forming and adjusted the hat on his head, pulling it down over his eyes as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Not that anyone would dare come over when he looked as he did, it felt as though he needed to hide. Bucky stayed hunched over like that as he read the first of twelve letters. 

Buck, 

I’m not thrilled that you’re reading this. If you are, it means something went wrong, and I’m not going to be making it home. I hope you’re not with me. I hope you’re heading home and taking care of things for me. I know you will. You’ve always been there when I needed you. This time will be no different. 

I bet you’re wondering how this is possible or why I did this. After Y/n, I knew I need some kind of back up plan. I wrote this during our first tour. Remember when I was sitting at the table and refused to tell you who I was writing to? You said I must be writing in my diary. I was writing to you, pal. 

You might have noticed there are twelve. Twelve letters. One a month. I figured it will take about twelve months, maybe more. I hope it doesn't take more than a year from any of you. I don’t want that.

Listen, Buck… I’m writing these because I have a favor to ask, and you’re the only one that can do it. I need you to take care of Y/n, and the letters will help…” 

Well, Bucky certainly deserved this. 

--

The flight was fine, long, but it went by without incident. Everyone was too excited to get home to cause much of a fuss about anything. It had been a long, painful tour, and for most, this was their last. Clint, of course, made a show the second they hit the pavement, fell to his knees, and kissed the tarmac. He wouldn’t admit it, but Bucky knew he burnt his lips. Bucky watched the men and women being greeted by friends and family, his chest tightened, and it felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside. If everything had gone the way it was supposed to, Y/n would be there with one of those silly signs and a tub of cookies. 

Y/n wasn’t there because she had no reason to be, and part of that was Bucky’s fault. 

That fault extended beyond the loss they both were suffering.

Bucky asked his mother and Rebecca to stay home this time around. It wasn’t a secret how badly they wanted to see him, but he wasn’t in the right place to give them the reassurance they needed. They needed to see him, so they knew without a doubt he was home, and he was okay, but he wasn’t. Yeah, he made it back, but a big part of him died out in the desert along with Steve. He wasn’t worthy of some big welcoming party full of tearful kisses and bone-crushing hugs. A quick hello at his mother’s place, in private, would be all he got because Bucky had several promises to keep before he could move on like he had planned.

Being home wasn’t all bad, though. The weight of his mistakes still clung to him, but the air was lighter here, and the sun was brighter without being as hot. The trees rustled in the breeze making his skin prickle at the sound. Bucky had forgotten he liked that sound. There were times like this when Bucky could simply forget. It was as if Steve wasn’t gone. He would be waiting for him when they got home, and the last two months wouldn’t have happened.

Those moments never lasted long; reality was always lurking nearby. 

Bucky stopped on the front porch, letting the thud of his boots sound his arrival. His pack slid off his shoulder and dropped onto the aging wood with a thwack. He took a deep breath and waited. It took longer than he thought it would. Bucky was a minute away from ringing the bell when the screen door creaked, and Y/n stepped out onto the porch, eyes clouded and hesitant, bottom lip sucked between her teeth to keep him from seeing the quiver. She crossed her arms over her chest, using them to guard herself against whatever Bucky had to tell and to ensure he knew she was angry with him. 

Bucky smiled. 

Forced into a new life, but the same girl he left behind was wrapped up in there somewhere. He had no doubt a part of her was gone forever, just like him, but that little piece stuck around, and he was glad. As mad as she was, he hoped she would let him say sorry. He had a lot to apologize for, a broken promise he could never make up for at the top of the list.

“Hey, Trouble,” Bucky said with the faintest of smirks. 

Bucky titled his head to the side, giving her a moment to process that it was really him standing there before him. Y/n’s arms fell to her side, and she threw herself into his waiting arms, hiding her face in his neck where she could finally let out two months' worth of tears and heartache; no one else would be able to carry them the way Bucky could. It turned out, she had missed him as much as he missed her. Bucky lifted her feet off the ground, she was lighter than he remembered, but losing half your heart will do that to you. He tightened his arms around Y/n, letting her feet hover off the ground as he carried her behind the safety of the concrete walls she’s been hiding within.

“It’s all right, Y/n,” Bucky whispered into the dark and empty house that already haunted him. “I got ya. We’re gonna be okay. I promise. I’m home, and we’re gonna be all right.” 

Sorry, and secrets could wait till morning.

Previous // Next 

[beck-a-leck]

Kissing prompt! Shamelessly asking for #14 Cliff x Claire! 😌

I live to answer shameless prompts!

Send me a Smooch Prompt and a couple characters for all your self-indulgent needs!

#14 - A kiss so desperate that the two wind around each other, refusing to let go until they're finished.

Featuring Cliff and Claire, and just the teeniest bit of angst and sadness to really make the desperation stick.

Cliff packed slowly. He didn't want to leave the inn, didn't want to leave Mineral Town, didn't want to leave his friends, and perhaps most desperately, he didn't want to leave Claire. But there was nothing to be done for it. He had no money. There was no work to be found in town. Doug had already given him as much of a break on rent as he could afford, and Cliff had relied on Claire to feed him for most of a season now. He hated how much he had to rely on the kindness of others, how much he took that he could never pay back. He had become a burden, and he couldn't stand that.

As much as he did not want to leave Mineral Town, a place that had begun to feel more like home in the last year than any place had for such a long time, Cliff had to go. He had to find a job, and there were absolutely none to be found. He'd thought something might have come up last autumn at the winery, Duke had hired him and another guy to be the manual laborers during the harvest, but at the end of it all, Michael had been offered the chance to stay on full time. Michael had gotten along with Duke like a house on fire, they laughed and joked like they were old friends, even though Michael had only rolled into town one one of the last boats of the summer.

Winter was coming to its close, Cliff had spent a year here, and the last six months truly visualizing Mineral Town as home, as the place he would grow old in with the woman he loved. Maybe even one day, have a family again.

But those dreams had dwindled as rapidly as his funds.

This wouldn't be goodbye forever, Cliff and Claire had had a very long discussion about this, about his leaving, and their future together. If he was lucky, he'd find work somewhere else, he could start earning money, and saving money, building skills that he could some day bring back to Mineral Town and then maybe, in a year or two, he could come back.

But... it was a heavy Maybe. Maybe Cliff would never be able to go back to Mineral Town. Maybe his travels for a job took him too far away. Maybe Claire would fall in love with someone else in his absence, someone who could always be here for her, who wouldn't leave.

Cliff shoved the last few items into his bag and zipped it closed. He slung the pack over his shoulder and turned towards the door. His eyes fell on the room's other occupant.

"I'm gonna miss you, man," Gray said, trying and failing to keep the emotion from his voice. "You sure you don't want anyone to go with you down to the pier?"

"No," Cliff said quietly, "That's okay, I'd rather go alone. I've said my goodbyes."

"Yeah, well, you've got one more." Gray offered his hand. Cliff took it, and they shook for a moment, before the two of them, with a wet chuckle, pulled into a hug. "Won't be the same here without you." Gray thumped him on the back before letting go.

Without another word, Cliff hitched his pack up over his shoulders, and walked out of the room he'd called home for the last year. Ann was sweeping the stairs, and she gave him a tight hug as he passed. Down at the bar, Doug shook his hand firmly and sent him off with a "Good luck, son."

It was snowing, and a bitter cold wind was tearing at Mineral Town. Nobody else was out in the streets, or in the square. With every step Cliff took towards the beach, his heart sunk. Claire wouldn't be here. he had specifically asked her to not see him off like this. They'd said their goodbyes last night, and he, quite frankly, wasn't certain he could get on the ferry if she was there with him.

Snow and sand crunched beneath his feet as he crossed the beach to the pier. He perched gingerly on the icy bench and watched the distant shape of the ferry grow closer on the roiling gray sea.

He shivered and pulled his coat tight around him - Claire's Starry night present to him - it was warm and sturdy. He'd get many good years of use out of it. Wearing it was like walking around in her embrace.

The ferry was almost there when another body settled on the bench next to Cliff.

"Hey," Michael said with a slight smile, he was always smiling. No wonder Duke had asked him to stay on at the winery with a sunny attitude like that. "Cold enough, huh?"

"Yeah..." Cliff didn't feel much like talking. And as much as he didn't want to resent Michael, because the man hadn't done anything to him personally, there was a mean corner of him mind that kind of hated the guy for taking his chance to stay in Mineral Town forever.

Michael was carrying a duffel bag, stuffed full, it looked. Cliff nodded towards it, "You taking a trip to the city?"

Michael shrugged. "For starters, yeah. Spend New Year's partying it up, from there, who knows where I'll go. Maybe spend the rest of the winter somewhere warm."

That didn't make any sense.

"But what about your job? The Winery? I know winter is a slow season, but surely Duke and Manna need your help still. They're letting you take a vacation that long?"

"Vacation?" Michael laughed. "Nah, bud, I quit the winery, like a couple days ago. Small town living is quaint and all, and nice for a little while, but I don't want to be in a little backwater hole like this for the rest of my life, you know." He grinned and nudged Cliff. "I mean, you're leaving too for brighter futures and greener pastures, right?"

Cliff's hands curled into fists. he'd never truly disliked Michael before, but right now he really wanted to hit that flippant, smug, carefree grin right off his face. Just to be certain he wasn't having some vivid hallucination, Cliff asked again. "You quit the winery?"

"Yeah." Michael shrugged. "I was gonna wait til after New Year's but honestly I can't even bear the thought of spending the holiday in this tiny town. I doubt there would even be a party, everyone would probably be in bed by nine." He scoffed. "Probably wouldn't even get a New Year's kiss. None of the girls here are even all that cute, and they're so old fashioned. You basically have to propose before they'll even let you hold hands."

Cliff stared at Michael dumbfounded. His mind raced with possibility. Maybe he could go back to the winery and ask for a job, but Duke had already rejected him once this year, what's to say they still won't want him. But he had to try, right? Worst they could say was 'no' and he would just have to catch the ferry tomorrow. Best case - he couldn't even think of the best case scenario in case he jinxed the whole thing. Anything for a chance. that' what he had promised Claire. He would do any job, try anything if it meant coming back to her sooner.

Cliff snapped out of it as the ferry pulled close to the pier, blowing its whistle to call any stragglers to hurry and catch their ride.

Someone was shouting his name. Michael nudged him. “Hey, isn’t that your girlfriend?”

Cliff turned and saw Claire standing on the steps at the top of the beach. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “CLIFF! WAIT!”

“I thought you dumped her,” Michael said with a dint of disdain. “She was certainly mopey about it when I saw her earlier when I was getting my last paycheck.” He scoffed again. “Kinda pathetic, ain’t she? Just a little too desperate, huh?”

Once again, Cliff was seized with the overwhelming urge to deck Michael. But he didn’t. He got to his feet and turned away from Michael and the docking ferry.

“Hey, where’re you going? The boat’s right here. They won’t wait for you.”

“I don’t care. I’ll catch the next one if I have to.” Cliff didn’t spare Michael another thought or a second glance. He took off running towards Claire. She took off running towards him too. The met in the middle of the beach and crashed into each other, throwing their arms around the other and holding on tight.

“Don’t go!” Claire gasped, taking his face in her cold hands. “Don’t go yet. Please. I-I think I found you a job. At the winery.”

“I know. Michael’s leaving.”

A smile broke out over Claire’s lips as she realized, as they both realized, Cliff might not have to leave. There might be a chance for him to stay in town. Maybe he wouldn’t have to go.

She pulled his face towards hers, drawing him into a fierce kiss. Their lips crashed against teeth, but neither pulled away. Cliff kissed her, letting all of the hope bubble up in his chest and drive him desperately forward. Claire let got of his face and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her held her close, as close as possible. He ignored the fear that maybe Duke and Manna still wouldn’t want him, maybe the winery didn’t really need an extra set of hands. Maybe he was just prolonging the inevitable and he would still have to leave Claire.

He held Claire close and kissed her as snow collected in their hair, and their fingers went numb in the cold, until finally, panting slightly for breath they broke the kiss. Cliff rested his forehead against Claire’s, he looked down at their intertwined hands before closing his eyes. In his heart he made a wish, he said a prayer.

I wish… Maybe… Please…

“I should probably go talk to Duke and Manna, huh?”

[ducktastic]

2020 Gameological Awards

Over on the Gameological Discord, we have an annual tradition of writing up our games of the year not as a ranked list but rather as answers to a series of prompts. Here are my personal choices for the year that was 2020.

Favorite Game of the Year

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into Paradise Killer. I knew that I liked the vaporwave resort aesthetic from the game’s trailer and figured I was in for a Danganronpa-style murder mystery visual novel with an open-ended murder mystery at its core. Those assumptions were… half-right? The game definitely plays out like the exploration bits of Danganronpa set on the island from Myst but with far simpler puzzles. What I didn’t expect was to fall so deeply in love with the environment—its nooks and crannies, its millennia of lore, its brutalist overlap of idol worship, consumerism, and mass slaughter. It makes sense that the world of Paradise Killer is its strongest feature, since the cast of NPCs don’t really move around, leaving you alone with the world for the overwhelming majority of your experience as you bounce back and forth between digging around for clues and interrogating potential witnesses. And despite what the promo materials indicated, there IS a definitive solution to the crimes you’re brought in to investigate, the game just lets you make judgment based on whatever evidence you have at the time you’re ready to call it a day, so if you’re missing crucial evidence you might just make a compelling enough case for the wrong person and condemn them to eternal nonexistence. Am I happy with the truth at the end of the day? No, and neither is anybody else I’ve spoken to who completed the game, but we all were also completely enthralled the entire time and our dissatisfaction has less to do with the game and more to do with the ugly reality of humanity. I’ve always been of the mindset that “spoilers” are absolute garbage and that a story should be just as good whether you know the twist or not and any story that relies on surprising the audience with an unexpected reveal is not actually that good a story, but Paradise Killer is a game about piecing together your own version of events so I feel that it’s vital to the gameplay experience that people go in knowing as little as possible and gush all about it afterwards. Just trust me, if the game looks even remotely intriguing to you, go for it. I’ve had just as much fun talking about the game after I finished it with friends just getting started as I did actually solving its mysteries myself.

Best Single Player Game

I honestly missed out on the buzz for In Other Waters at launch, so I’m happy I had friends online talking it up as Black Friday sales were coming along. The minimal aesthetic of his underwater exploration game allows the focus to shift more naturally to the game’s stellar writing as a lone scientist goes off in search of her mentor and the secrets they were hiding on an alien world. It only took a few hours for me to become completely absorbed in this narrative and keep pushing forward into increasingly dangerous waters. In Other Waters might just be the best sci-fi story I experienced all year and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi novels, regardless of their experience with video games.

Best Multiplayer Game

Look, we all know this year sucked. 2020 will absolutely be chronicled in history books as a fascinating and deeply depressing time in modern history where we all stayed inside by ourselves and missed our friends and family. It was lonely and it was bleak. Which is why it made my heart glow so much more warmly every time I got a letter from an honest-to-goodness real-life friend in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Knowing that they were playing the same game I was and hearing about their experiences and sending each other wacky hats or furniture, it lightened the days and made us feel that little bit more connected. Sure, when the game first launched we would actually take the time to visit one another’s islands, hang out, chat in real-time, and exchange gifts, but we all eventually got busy with Zoom calls, sourdough starters, and watching Birds of Prey twenty-two times. Still, sending letters was enough. It was and still is a touching little way to show that we’re here for one another, if not at the exact same time.

Favorite Ongoing Game

Zach Gage is one of my favorite game designers right now, and when I heard he was releasing a game called Good Sudoku I was sold sight unseen. The game as released was… fine. It’s sudoku and it’s pleasant, but it was also buggy and overheated my phone in a way I hadn’t seen since Ridiculous Fishing (also by Zach Gage) seven years ago. Thankfully, the most glaring bugs have been fixed and I can now enjoy popping in every day for some quick logic puzzle goodness. Daily ranked leaderboards keep me coming back again and again, the steady ramp of difficulty in the arcade and eternal modes means I can always chase the next dopamine rush of solving increasingly complex puzzles. It’s not a traditional “ongoing” game the way, say, Fortnite and Destiny are, but I’m happy to come back every day for sudoku goodness.

Didn't Click For Me

With Fortnite progressively losing me over the course of 2020, finalizing with my wholesale “never again” stance after Epic boss Tim Sweeney compared Fortnite demanding more money from Apple to the American Civil Rights movement (no, absolutely not), I dipped my toe into a number of new “battle pass”-style online arena types of games, and while Genshin Impact eventually got its hooks into me, Spellbreak absolutely did not. With graphics straight out of The Dragon Prince and the promise of a wide variety of magic combat skills to make your character your own, the game seemed awfully tempting, but my first few experiences were aimless and joyless, with no moment of clarity to make me understand why I should keep coming back. Maybe they’ll finesse the game some more in 2021, or a bunch of my friends will get hooked and lure me back, but for now I am a-okay deleting this waste of space on my Switch and PC.

"Oh Yeah, I Did Play That Didn't I?"

I remember being really excited for Murder By Numbers. Ace Attorney-style crime scene investigation visual novel with Picross puzzles for the evidence, art by the creators of Hatoful Boyfriend, and music by the composer of Ace Attorney itself?! Sounds like a dream come true. But the pixel-hunt nature of the crime scene investigations was more frustrating than fun, the picross puzzles were not particularly great, and the game came out literally a week before the entire world went into lockdown which makes it feel more like seven years ago than just earlier this year. I remember being marginally charmed by the game once it was in my hands, but as soon as my mind shifted to long-term self care, Murder By Numbers went from hot topic to cold case.

Most Unexpected Joy

I was looking forward to Fuser all year. As a dyed-in-the-wool DropMix stan, the prospect of a spiritual sequel to DropMix on all major digital platforms without any of the analogue components was tremendously exciting, and I knew I’d have a lot of fun making mixes by myself and posting them online for the world to hear. What I didn’t expect, however, was the online co-op mode to be such a blast! Up to four players take turns making 32 bars of mashups, starting with whatever the player before handed them and adding their own fingerprints on top. It sounds like it should just be a mess of cacophony, but every session I’ve played so far has been just the best dance party I’ve had all year, and everyone not currently in control of the decks (including an audience of spectators) can make special requests for what the DJ should spin and tap along with the beat to great super-sized emoji to show how much they’re enjoying the mix. Literally the only times my Apple Watch has ever warned me of my heightened heart rate have been the times I was positively bouncing in place rocking out to co-op freestyle play in Fuser.

Best Music

Only one video game this year had tunes that were so bumpable they were upgraded to my general “2020 jams” playlist alongside Jeff Rosenstock, Run the Jewels, and Phoebe Bridgers, and that game was Paradise Killer. 70% lo-fi chill beats to study/interrogate demons to, 20% gothic atmospheric bangers, 10% high-energy pop jazz, this soundtrack was just an absolute joy to swim around in both in and out of gameplay.

Favorite Game Encounter

It’s wild that in a landscape where games let me live out my wildest fantasies, the single moment that lit me up in a way that stood out to me more than any other was serving Neil the right drink in Coffee Talk. Over the course of the game, you serve a variety of hot drinks to humans, werewolves, vampires, orcs, and more, all while chatting with your customers and learning more about their lives and relationships. The most mysterious customer, though, is an alien life form who adopts the name Neil. They do not know what they want to drink and claim it doesn’t make a difference because they cannot taste it. Everybody else wants *something*. Neil is just ordering for the sake of fitting in and exploring the Earth experience. It’s only in the second playthrough that attentive baristas will figure out what to serve Neil, unlocking the “true” ending in the process. Seeing the typically stoic Neil actually emote when they tasted their special order drink? What an absolute treat that was.

Best Free DLC of the Year

It’s still only a couple of days old at the time I’m writing this, but Marvel’s Avengers just added Kate Bishop, aka Hawkeye, and THANK GOODNESS. Almost every character in the game at launch just smashed the endless waves of robot baddies with their fists and that looks exhausting and uncomfortable. Hawkeye (the game calls her Kate Bishop, but come on, she’s been Hawkeye in the comics for over 14 years, let’s show her some respect) uses A SWORD. FINALLY! Aside from that, I’m just having a blast shooting arrows all over the place. She and Ms Marvel are the most likable characters in the game so far, so I hope they keep adding more of the Young Avengers and Champions to the game, and if the recently announced slate of Marvel movies and tv shows are any indication (with America Chavez, Cassie Lang, and Riri Williams all coming soon to the MCU), that seems to be what Marvel is pushing for across all media

Most Accessible Game

Nintendo is, first and foremost, a toy company. They got their start in toys and cards long before video games was a thing, and they still do more tests to ensure their video game hardware is childproof than anybody else in the industry (remember how they made Switch cartridges “taste bad” so kids wouldn’t eat them?). This year, Nintendo got to rekindle some of their throwback, simplistic, toys-and-cards energy with Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, a Switch collection of timeless family-friendly games like Chess, Mancala, and Backgammon, along with “toy” versions of sports like baseball, boxing, and tennis for a virtual parlor room of pleasant time-wasters. The games were all presented with charming li’l explainers from anthropomorphic board game figurines, and the ability to play quick sessions of Spider Solitaire on the touch screen while I binged The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix made Clubhouse Games one of my most-played titles of the year. Plus, local play during socially-distant friend hangs was an excellent way to make us feel like we were much closer than we were physically allowed to be as friends knocked each other’s block off in the “toy boxing” version of Rock’em Sock’em Robots.

"Waiting for Game-dot"

I get that everyone loves Disco Elysium. I saw it on everyone’s year-end lists last year. I finally bought it with an Epic Games Store coupon this year. This year was a long enough slog of depressing post-apocalyptic drudgery, I didn’t want to explore a whole nother one in my leisure time. I’ll get to it… someday.

Game That Made Me Think

Holovista was an iPhone game I played over the course of two or three days based on the recommendation of some trusted colleagues on Twitter and oh my goodness was I glad that I played it. What starts as a chill vaporwave photography game steadily progresses into an exploration of psychological trauma, relationships with friends and family, and the baggage we carry with us from our pasts. In this exceptionally hard year, I badly needed this story about spending time alone with your personal demons and finding your way back to the people who love and support you. Just like with Journey and Gone Home, I walked away from Holovista feeling a rekindled appreciation for the people in my life.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Wizard of Oz: Facets of Film

After the story is written and the parts are cast, only one thing remains to get to the big screen: the moviemaking itself.

Today, our focus is on something beyond the basic elements of storytelling: the finished product, the movie-specific trimmings that add to the magic of The Wizard of Oz.  We’re going to be looking at everything from camera work to costuming: in short, all the elements that make a film a film, and in some cases, can make the difference between a fun movie and a blockbuster classic.

Now wait a minute, you may say.  Isn’t the important thing in a movie, (and movie analysis) the story and characters?  Why bother with all of this stuff?

Frankly because the production of a movie isn’t exactly removed from the story it’s trying to tell.

When a movie is made, every element is there to help tell the story, to reveal things about the plot and characters to the audience.  For example, the Wicked Witch is dressed in black clothes and a pointy hat, and is accompanied by ominous music, indicating that she’s our villain.  Dorothy wears a farm-girl dress with pigtails indicating innocence and ‘normalcy’, and Glinda is decked out in an otherworldly, pink, poufy gown, demonstrating her otherworldly demeanor.  Kansas is shot in browns and grays and Oz in dazzling color, showing us the stark contrast between the two worlds.  All of these things have one thing in common: they’re telling you things about characters and the story that the film doesn’t have to in words.  

There’s no moment where anyone makes sure that it’s clear that The Wicked Witch is evil, the movie has already told us so.  No one remarks on Dorothy’s naiveté.  The movie doesn’t need to tell us that Glinda is magical, or that Kansas is boring and Oz is exciting, because we as viewers have already inferred that based on the clues that the filmmakers have already dropped.

The production of a movie is, in fact, directly connected to the story it’s trying to tell in the same way that wheels are connected to a car: the story and characters are the vehicle itself, but you’re not going anywhere with it until you’ve added the method of movement.

Does that make sense?

See, all of these elements, camerawork, sets, etc. are tools of visual shorthand.  Their job is to tell the story in ways that the audience immediately understands without having to be told explicitly through dialogue.  The quality of this shorthand not only helps make a movie more understandable, it also makes it more enjoyable.

So that leads us to our question today.

Does The Wizard of Oz use their storytelling devices well?

To be honest, yes.

It’s kind of a given.

For this movie to have held up this long, it has to have been doing something right.  There’s clearly a lot of hard work put in to making sure that the movie looks and sounds good, making narrative sense and remaining coherent and consistent.  Every facet fits together perfectly, and yet none of it takes up more than its place, emphasizing Dorothy and her friends without overshadowing them.  Every shot, costume, set and effect works, and was chosen for a reason: to make this story clear and enjoyable to the audience.

This leads us to our next question:

How exactly does The Wizard of Oz use their storytelling devices?  How do they use the tools they have available, and where?

To answer that question, we’re going to be looking at a handful of the elements that make up a movie: specifically camerawork, sets, costumes, special effects, music and performances.  

For starters, let’s take a closer look at something that oftentimes we as moviegoers overlook: the importance of good cinematography.

A camera serves more of a purpose than to simply film the action. The way a director uses a camera can tell the audience a lot, using some shots to emphasize danger, some adventure, and some comfort.  Filmmakers use edits and progression of shots to help tell the story, to move the audience’s vision so that it is always centered on the main action while also helping to set the mood or leave a visual impression on the audience.  The camerawork in The Wizard of Oz does all of that remarkably well, with striking images of the Emerald City overlooking the poppies, the tight shots in the Haunted Forest, and the terrifying wide shot of the Twister in the opening.  These images immediately evoke an emotional response from the audience in turn, helping us to identify with the emotions that the characters are experiencing.

There’s one other shot that is specific to this film that bears mentioning in this discussion: What I call the Oz shot.

You know the one.

When Dorothy steps from her Kansas house to Oz, there is a wide shot that perfectly encapsulates the transition between the browns and grays of the Kansas world to the vibrant colors and overall oddness of Oz.  That shot is the turning point of the movie, demonstrating immediately the difference in tone and visual style.  It’s meaningful, and more importantly, it’s memorable without taking attention away from our main character.  It’s probably the best known shot in the movie, once again bringing that sense of wonder and adventure to the audience through clever use of the camera.

Other stunning and unforgettable shots are sprinkled throughout the film: the aforementioned first glimpse of the Emerald City, and the first appearance of the Wizard himself are excellent, effectively showing the scale of the City and the impressiveness of the Wizard.  The shot of Dorothy and the Tin Man and Scarecrow in the forest before meeting the Lion is a good claustrophobic shot that makes the audience feel tense, but not too tense.  Even early on, the house in the Twister elicits a response, a genuine feeling of awe and even fear for Dorothy’s sake, just as Dorothy singing on the tractor can inspire feelings of understanding and wistfulness in the audience.  Like I said, the mark of a good filmmaker (and cameraman!) is helping the audience empathize with the characters, and to a smaller degree, feel what they are feeling.

Camerawork can only get you so far though, and it’s meaningless if there’s nothing there to shoot.  The visuals of The Wizard of Oz are so well-ingrained, it’s impossible to imagine Dorothy without her ruby slippers (originally silver in the novel, changed to red to show up better on the Technicolor film). One of the strokes of genius in this film is the iconic imagery: the Yellow Brick Road, the Ruby Slippers, the Emerald City, and especially the costumes.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the costume work in The Wizard of Oz not only looks good, it brings that final element of whimsy and magic to an already magical land. The Wicked Witch is dressed to frighten, Glinda’s glittery gown is beautiful and comforting, and the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion’s makeup and costumes are absolutely essential to the characters, maintaining the level of humanity for us to relate to while also being, very clearly, a scarecrow, a tin man, and a lion.  The level of makeup necessary for looking ‘different’ while also allowing for the wide range of expression is impressive, and really helps them come alive as characters.  The costumes of the denizens of Munchkin Land and the Emerald City stand out from each other as uniquely quirky and connected to their surroundings, and the Wizard himself appropriately looks like a cross between our world and Oz.

By contrast, Dorothy looks out of place in this magical world, and even out of place in Kansas.  Her dress is something of our world, diverging at the feet with those iconic ruby slippers, coming together in an unforgettable character image.  Even before Oz and the slippers, she was different. It was another stroke of brilliance that she look a little ‘shiny and new’ in Kansas, a direct dissimilarity with the careworn and grounded costumes of her aunt, uncle, and the farmhands.  Even Ms. Gulch’s costume, while less distinct than her Oz counterpart’s, is dark and stern, foreshadowing her role in the story.  Assisting with that transition is the musical score used for her arrival: the same music used for the appearance of The Wicked Witch.

And how about that score, right?

The music of The Wizard of Oz really speaks for itself.  Somewhere Over the Rainbow has long been hailed one of the greatest movie songs of all time (for good reason), and the other tunes are extremely catchy, but even taking out the musical numbers themselves, the score of this film is outstanding, with the Witch’s theme being just one of many memorable instrumental pieces throughout the movie. Throughout the film, the music rises and falls exactly where it needs to, always fitting the mood and matching the characters’ emotions and expressions, once again helping the audience’s own responses match up to those of the characters.  The score really heightens the emotion and emphasizes the grandeur of some of the visuals, especially the special effects.

Let’s talk about those for a minute.

The twister alone is one of the best special effects from Hollywood in the 1930s, the house spinning in a cyclone being not only a striking image, but also impressively done at the time, to say nothing else of the aforementioned landing and reveal of Oz itself.  The Wizard’s Head is appropriately frightening and awe-inspiring, and the effects used to introduce the Witch (the fireballs and puff of smoke, and later her flying monkeys) are quite effective as well.  (Yes, the broomstick flying isn’t quite as convincing, but we’ll cut them some slack.)  Even when the effects aren’t quite ‘believable’, such as Glinda’s pink bubble, they all do serve a purpose: fully committing to Dorothy’s dream fairy-tale land, stoking our imaginations, and most importantly, assisting with the performances.

Ah yes, the performances.  We’ll get to those in a minute.  First, we need something to place those performances in.

The sets of The Wizard of Oz range from quaint to frightening, from comforting to expansive, all pretty impressive, especially considering that they were all built on a sound stage.  The landscapes of Kansas, the poppy field in Oz, the Emerald City itself (bonus for having everything be green), the Haunted Forest and the Witch’s castle all manage to come with their own identity, and just like those costumes, manage to be memorable years later.  The Wizard’s throne room is spacious and dark, different from the tight darkness of the Haunted Forest, and the cold unease of the Witch’s Castle.  Like I’ve said previously, the dissonance between the dull browns of Dorothy’s bedroom in Kansas to the bright colors and vivid imagery of Oz is particularly well-realized.

Every setting in this film has its own uniqueness about it, something that sets it apart from the other locations.  This sense of individuality, of constantly changing scenery, really helps us note the differences, and continues to do what all of these facets are meant to do: focus on the story, characters, and performances.  With every scene, we instantly feel the atmosphere and pick up on everything we need to know about these places: The Witch’s Castle is scary, the Emerald City is majestic, the Wizard’s throne room is frightening and grand, and once again, we feel and react in time with the characters.

There’s more to a good, immersive movie experience than sets, costumes and music, though.  We’ve got one last aspect to look at, possibly the most important one of all: performances.

When you come right down to it, the special effects, sets and costumes don’t really mean anything if the characters can’t pull it off.  In the end, it’s on the actors to try to sell not only their surroundings and story, but the characters themselves, everything from the personality to the emotions.  In the realm of film, a character tends to be married to the performance: you can’t have one without the other.  Once again, The Wizard of Oz manages it with style.

Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale is perfect casting, managing to play a young emotional girl with spirit and strength.  She’s as compassionate as she is determined, and the portrayal of the character is heartfelt and sometimes heart wrenching.  (Special mention goes to Judy Garland’s signature song: Somewhere Over the Rainbow.) Dorothy is a very expressive character, and her emotions come across very clearly quite often, from shock to distress, to joy, to fear.  

Of course, Dorothy isn’t the only character done well.

Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch is another standout performance. Everything from her sneer to her cackle is delightfully evil and memorably so, perfectly solidifying the character as one of the greatest baddies of all time.  The switch between the understated Ms. Gulch and the Large Hamlike tendencies of the Witch is absolutely phenomenal.

The talent isn’t just the main characters, though.  The supporting cast is just as unforgettable as the hero and villain.  Despite acting through a layer of makeup (and goofiness), the expressions and emotions displayed by the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion all come through remarkably well. Ray Bolger’s ragdoll movements combined with his flashes of intelligence add a lot to the character, and Jack Haley brings a fantastic mildness to the man made of metal.  Bert Lahr manages to make his lion costume totally non-threatening, and his line delivery has to be heard to be believed.  Despite the somewhat unwieldy costumes, Dorothy’s trio comes across as perfectly realized as she herself does.  Even the Wizard comes across perfectly as flustered and bumbling and Frank Morgan’s turn as miscellaneous characters in Oz are all different enough that it’s a perfect demonstration of his talent over the span of one movie.

Every character in The Wizard of Oz comes across exactly as they should: characters in a fairytale. Each performance is perfectly suited to each character and the type of movie that they are in: a fantasy story aimed at children.  It’s not subtle, but it doesn’t have to be.  Dorothy is clearly good, the Wicked Witch is clearly evil.  The Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion are all friendly and helpful, and the Wizard, Glinda, and Dorothy’s family are all acted exactly as they are intended to be: Supporting cast in a children’s adventure, yet understandable and lovable for all ages.

No, these performances are not going to have the same level of nuance as Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump.  They shouldn’t be.  If they did, it would go totally against the tone of the film.

The acting in The Wizard of Oz is perfectly done, matching the whimsy and magic of the rest of the film.  The characters are expressive, their reactions are clear, and we, the audience, feel an immediate connection with them.  That’s the job of an actor, as well as the jobs of the film-makers in general.

The filmmakers in The Wizard of Oz definitely knew what they were doing.  Everything from the performances to the camerawork gets across every emotion and aspect of the story without having to explain what we should be feeling.  The sets and costumes feel unreal and fairy-taleish because that’s exactly what this is.  It feels like a storybook, simultaneously comforting and exciting, and the ending feels good every time.

The Wizard of Oz has long been hailed as one of, if not the greatest movies ever made, and even just looking at filmmaking alone, it’s not really exaggeration to say that.  It all fits together perfectly, story, characters, genre and filmmaking, to create the legendary movie that we’ve all known and loved for eighty years.

It’s a totally genuine film, sappy, cheesy and earnest, and it really works.

Of course, no movie comes around accidently.  All this work has to have come from somewhere, right?

Join me next time as we discuss the Facets of Filmmaking: the Behind the Scenes of The Wizard of Oz.  Leave a message in the ask box if you have any thoughts of your own, and thanks so much for reading.  I’ll see you in the next article!

[andichrist]

SO

WHO WANTS TO HEAR MY TERRIBLE RE:Mind THEORY?

NO ONE? TOO FUCKING BAD. For starters, have a nice couple of screen caps between me and my gf while I started on this theory. 

So to expand on this: 

The first Re:Mind trailer shows Xigbar who we know now it Luxu being confused as to who Luxord is. Xig/Luxu has shown himself to be very much a greater scope villain so it seems... odd that Luxord has managed to slip his attention for so long considering that he very well have been nominated by Xig/Luxu himself as another Nort candidate. 

Luxord also expressly says that he will “keep playing dumb” which seems also out of place, how could he possibly know that Xigbar isn’t who he says he is unless there’s something leading him to believe he’s someone else.

Luxord is also the ONLY KH character that is shown proficiently using time magic, and no we haven’t seen him go backwards as far as we know but we know he can use Stop magic, which left the series after the first game as a usable spell, which considering the Time shenanigans that start going on after that, it makes sense. 

Back to the battles being shown in both trailers we only see Sora’s sprite one time next to Riku, and arguably that early it could have been a mistake. Are we seeing these battles before Sora could get to them? 

I don’t think so, I think we’re seeing them being fought entirely without him. I think the entire final battle has been reset and whatever happened to Sora’s heart at the end of the game prevented him from being brought back in time with everyone else along with a paradox situation. 

In the second re:mind trailer we’re shown Sora talking with Naminé in the Station of Awakening about the battle going on, heavily implied to be Terranort VS Terra’s Lingering Will, supporting this idea. Whatever brought them back for that battle and evicted Naminé from the replica they put her heart into clearly couldn’t pull a heart that didn’t exist within that worldline anymore, leaving Sora suspended in a sort of limbo on his SoA. 

Another fact that somewhat supports this is  Naminé telling Sora that his heart had already gone back once, had already existed in that time. Which would explain further why they couldn’t bring him back, it wasn’t just that he had ceased to exist in a form that could be brought back but also because he couldn’t be in the same place twice. 

All of this leads into one thing: Luxord being the Master of Masters and manipulating time to reset the battle in Xehanort’s favor and possibly causing an entirely new timeline all together to throw whatever Luxu’s plans were out the window. 

Of course this is all based on my own speculation and the few details I’ve gleaned from these two trailers but that’s it, my half-baked idea on what Re:Mind will boil down too. 

The final battle will have to be won by the light somehow, and for that to happen Sora will likely have to break more rules he didn’t know existed. Otherwise the deck is too stacked in Xehanort’s favor, after all we’ve clearly seen that without him, none of the other Warriors of Light would have been able to win their battles, too weighed down by emotional attachments and their own lack of skill due to the scramble to be ready for that fight. 

So.... just how many times will Sora have to break the rules of reality? Guess we’ll find out this winter. In the meanwhile I guess I’m going to throw myself back at this AU. 

[lavellanlove]

"I got you, it's okay" prompt!

Overboard

Dawn Squad, Hanin, Damiros Cobre (belong to @thereluctantinquisitor) Avira, Maleus Abano, and the crew of the Samiha’s Sorrow.

(re: Soft Angst Starters)

“I got you,” it’s okay,” a rather too-pleasing and deep Antivan voice purred. 

After sputtering on water as her rescuer fetched her from the water and swam her back to the line he’d cast from the ship, it was amazing she even had the strength or air in her lungs to mutter what she’d been thinking.

But making her displeasure known was just that important.

“Oh fuck me,” she groaned, wishing it was literally anyone else in Thedas who deigned to save her life.

Damiros smirked, squeezing a half-drowned Avira a bit closer to his hip in the water. “With pleasure. But why don’t we get you on board first, yeah?”

Her last-ditch attempt to prevent the Samiha’s Sorrow from being boarded had been cut short by well…someone cutting her rope, sending her hurling into the ocean instead of her intended target of the boarding pirate ship.

What she’d have given to have the strength left to lob a big fat fireball at his stupid, sexy face. Granted, she would probably drown, but it was sounding more and more favorable.

Shuddering and cold as she tried to find her footing on deck, Damiros pressed a blade neatly to her throat, whistling sharply enough to get the Inquisition crew’s attention over the din of combat. “Put down your arms or she dies.”

The Dawn Squad and entirety of Maleus’ crew all stopped their fighting and looked to the hostage situation, debating whether to surrender their weapons or risk one of their own being killed. 

“I…am fine with it, actually,” she assured. “I’m feeling fairly ready to die.”

Whether they would comply or not seemed to fall to Hanin, his mind clearly reeling trying to figure out how he could manage to salvage the situation. 

Just when it looked like he was liable to lunge forward, Damiros pressed the blade deeper into Avira’s neck, eliciting a whimper of pain as a hot line of blood trickled down her throat. 

With what could only be described as a growl, Hanin finally set down Atisha, the others following suit, and the invading crew proceeded with tying everyone up.

“You know, you’d be a lot warmer out of all these wet clothes,” Damiros purred, nipping her ear with his obnoxiously white teeth as he sheathed his sword. “Though this time, it’s gonna have to be you tied up in ropes all night.”

“-She’s fine, thanks brother,” Ralon loudly interjected. He was about to say something else, but halfway through the thought he got caught up replaying what Damiros had just said and his mind went blank. “Wait…w…wha…/this/ time?!” 

Darren, ever-helpful, offered up his best explanation. “So…Avira’s ship was raided by him before?”Lyrene snorted.

After an excruciatingly long pause, Cyrus half-rolled his eyes and muttered, “They slept together, kid.”

Ralon laughed far too brightly. “Good one, Cyrus! But no, no they didn’t.”

Damiros chuckled. “Oh, yes. We did. Sometimes twice in one night.”

“Okay, great,” Ralon replied. “Cool! So… feel free to direct me to the plank now.”

As Ralon continued to struggle at processing this development, Avira winced and looked over at Hanin apologetically. He seemed to be less concerned about the idea of her with another man and more with fact that is was someone as unsafe as Damiros. Which given the current circumstances, fair.

Damiros turned his attention back to Avira. “In all seriousness though, I’m gonna need to take all those weapons I know you keep close to the vest. Can’t have any incidents.”

Fenedhis. She had been hoping he wouldn’t think of it. As he drew out the gratuitous process of searching her head-to-toe, any weapons he found dropping to the deck, Maleus and his Quartermaster Dores were working on their binds. “I think you are making a mistake on this one, Damiros,” she warned, trying to find ways to bide for time and distract from their escape attempt. “The captain is not flying his colors on my request, since we’re on Inquisition business, but this ship is part of the Talon’s fleet. Unless you want a quarrel with the Armada, I would let this go and be on your way.”

Damiros’ crews usually steered clear of Llomerryn for that reason: the Armada was well-entrenched there. For a lone ship, more money to be made on the fringes than in dealing with any of that lot. But it made no sense for them to have any accord with the Inquisition, so he wasn’t buying it. “You’re creative, I’ll give ya that,” he replied, not thinking too much of it.

Maleus did not like to invoke the name, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “I will issue this warning only once,” he said, trying to muster as much bravado as he could. “I am the eldest son of Ianto Abano, Terror of Llomerryn. The girl speaks the truth; you are attacking a ship of the Talon fleet. So unless you have about two dozen more ships and crews where this one came from, any harm you bring to my crew or our passengers is only ensuring your own oblivion.”

Damiros regarded the well-manicured man for a moment, then snorted. “Right. And I’m the Empress of Orlais.”

Maleus gestured with his head. “Fine. If you want proof, look at the colors in the chest by the stairs.”

One of the other crew members of the Red Herring did end up looking, holding up the black flag with a red talon and trying to mask their concern.

Damiros paused and considered. Just for a moment. It seemed a distant threat, and he owed just a few too many seedy characters a bit too much gold to pass up this kind of gold for the risk. “Then we best make this quick,” he decided.

“That should be no issue for you,” Avira retorted.

Damiros let out a dangerous sort of laugh, low in the throat. He’d have left it at that, but his crew was watching. He had a reputation to uphold.

He backhanded her hard across the face.

He wouldn’t have thought anything more of it save for the look of utter betrayal in her eyes. 

“Careful that lip doesn’t get you killed, girl. You’d be quite a waste as fish food.”

With that, he pushed back away from her, avoiding eye contact with his little brother and storming below deck. Better to keep his head down and get this raid over with before that inconveniently stubborn scrap of morality he still had complicated things.

[dazzlingfantasiesblogs]

Sharp Side of The Blade P8

Dean x Reader

Warnings/Triggers: 18+ Only! If under 18, Kindly un-follow and do not read! Depression. Violence. Body scaring. If this bothers you please do not read it. Over 18 only!

Notes: Love Clydes character so far.

Tags: @moodygrip @liloldlou @brokenhearted-littlegirl  @greenarrowhead@monkeymcpoopoo @kitkattramp @trippinjenni @tearsforhan

The night was quiet as you fell asleep against Clyde as he watched  “My Name Is Earl.” A show you enjoyed, especially for Joy and Crab-man. Clyde glided his rough fingers up and down your arm, causing your skin to prickle with goosebumps. Your soft snore started to fill the room. He looked down at you asleep and smiled a bit. Turning his attention back to the TV. “Hey.. can you talk?” Clyde looked up to see Dean and Sam staring at the two of you. “Sure boys, what’s up?” Dean and Sam sat on the couch next to each other.

“What can you tell us about her past year..?” Dean spoke up, his voice oozed with nervousness. “Well.. that she will kill me if I mention it.” Clyde chuckled. “Please?” Sam showed his puppy dog eyes to Clyde. “Alright.. Well.. for starters I have known Y/N for about eight years now. Only really got to know her last year because I needed a hunter and she needed someone to lean on.” He sighed a bit. “I called her and she said she was in Aspen, Colorado which happened to only be twenty minutes away where I was having a case.” Clyde shifted a bit, pulling you closer as you shivered. He slowly pulled a comfy blanket he bought and tucked it around your sleeping frame. “We fought some demi-god. Still unsure to what it was. She stayed up three days researching. I had never seen a hunter so dedicated to saving people. She was easy going, really easy to talk too and she liked cheap beer. However.. when we fought the demi-god she used those katanas of hers. She paid respects to the god after we took care of it. I had never seen someone pay respects to a monster like that.” Clyde brushed a stray hair from your face. “Next time I seen her was only a week after that. She had dealt with Crowley who actually transported her to my hotel room. I had met him before and hurd of his stories from a demon I took care of back in Jersey.” Dean nodded a bit.

“She woke up a day later. She had cuts, bruises and scars that just littered her frame. She moved an inch and she was crying in pain. Which seemed odd for such a firecracker.” Sam shifted slightly seeing an imaged of you so damaged. “That wasn’t the first time she went to hell.. She would walk in and just kill demons who she had dealt with in the past. Ones Crowley couldn’t keep under wraps. She said it was an outlet..” Clyde sighed a bit remembering you telling him the truth after he begged to know. “I begged her to tell me the truth. She did. Then we took two weeks off. I brought her up here actually. She said she loved fishing so.. I took her fishing. We went hiking around and even killed the vampires we just happened to stumble on.” “So that’s when you two hooked up?” Sam punched his brother for his bluntness. Clyde laughed a bit.

“Yeah. I even asked her if it was to get back at you right before. Hell even if it was I couldn’t deny a beauty like her. I grew accustomed to having her around. She said ‘Not at all. She doesn’t use men. She hates being used herself.’ So after that.. We seen each other pretty often. Every other week or so when there was a case close by. We took care of it together and spent time together.” Clyde smiled wide at your sleeping frame. “You hurt her really bad Dean. I don’t know everything that happened between the two of you and it is none of my fucking business. I just know if… if she gives you another fucking shot.. I’ll kill you if you hurt her again.” Clyde’s voice got serious and deep at the threat. “I may seem nice.. but I have no fucking problem hurting the person who hurt someone I love. Monster or human.” Clyde shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll help.” Sam spoke up against his brother. “What the hell Sam?” Dean looked to his younger, long haired brother.

“Dean.. when you two where good.. I’ll admit she was happy. You were ecstatic! When you started acting weird and cheating on her.. even though she tried to help you with your self-wallowing.. granted a lot of shit hurt us.. I will give you that Dean.. you took it out on the only woman who stood her ground and helped pick both of us off the floor. Literally.” Sam sighed a bit. Dean became tightlipped at the talk of past scenarios. “Does she still deal with hell?” Sam looked to Clyde. “Not that I know of..” Clyde shrugged. You felt his body moved, you shifted to hang your arm around him, squeezing him tightly. “I know this has to piss you off.” Clyde smirked at Dean. “You have no clue how bad I’d like to give you a hunters funeral.” Dean grumbled. “Dude… pay respect the ones we lost..” Sam looked to him. “Sounds like you’re the monster man.” Clyde spoke softly. “Do good things, good things happen. Karma man.” Clyde quoted the television show My Name is Earl. Sam chuckled at it.

The boys woke up way before you. The pain pills you took before bed still in your system. Clyde was up and threading the fishing line through the pole. He tied the knot on the hook and got your pole ready too. Sam walked in from his run, dripping in sweat. “Damn this area is beautiful..” Sam mumbled as he wiped the beaded sweat from his forehead. “Yeah it is. I love it up here.” Clyde spoke as he set down his coffee mug. “I am going to go get breakfast for everyone. What do you want?” “Oh.. ahh.. Egg whites and wheat toast.” Clyde nodded. “Dean?” “Anything that said Heart attack on it..” The brother grumbled at his brothers terrible eating habits. Happy Clyde didn’t comment on his healthy food or how opposite him and Dean where. Sure Dean ran a lot on missions. Yet.. the amount of booze, terrible food and occasional floosy was not good for his system. “Haha, aright. I am going to get this sweetheart her favorite French toast. A lot of it!” Clyde stood up with the list. Grabbing the keys, he opened the door and Sam walked to the shower.

Dean waited till the room was empty as he came to your bed side. He gently shook your sleeping frame. Your eyes opened slowly, obviously you where still tired. “Hey..” Dean said in a whisper. “Where is Clyde…? Sam…?” you looked around, slowly sitting up on your elbows. “Clyde went and got breakfast and Sam is in the shower.” “Dean.. it is 6:30 AM. You never wake up this early…” you looked to the red numbers on the alarm clock. “I know.. I just..” Dean couldn’t take it anymore. All night he laid on the bed, awake most of the night, thinking on the conversation with Clyde. “I just wanted to kiss you..” Dean said seriously. “What… now.. why?” you rubbed the sleep from your eyes. “I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet… What did you sleep with a hooker last night and need to get the taste out your mouth?” You hurd a chuckle and seen Sam in just a towel as he obviously watched the conversation. You took a deep breath in seeing the tall ripped and tan Winchester. “Sam.. geez…. Put on some clothes..” Dean spoke up. “Quit trying to make her kiss you because you feel shitty. Remember do good things and good things happen.” Sam mocked to Dean. “Sam.. your ripped as hell.. let me know your secret..” you couldn’t stop staring at him. Sam blushed a bit like a teenager, he turned trying to hide it. “Sorry I didn’t bring clothes with me to the shower, thought you would still be asleep.” He gave you a half heart smile. “I would be.. if your brother didn’t rudely wake me up like a drill sergeant in boot camp, demanding a kiss at 6:30 AM when he never gets up that early!.” “He should have a took a hour shower like he usually does!” Dean grumbled. Glaring at Sam. “What.. we would kiss then what? I didn’t even brush my teeth or anything.. Plus you and I are in a odd spot… Now let me lay back down…” you fell back on the pillows, gasping at the pain. “Fuck.. forgot..” you groaned. “Should have kissed me. Karmas a bitch..” Dean smirked, being a smart ass. “Sam.. please deck him for me..” Sam nodded hitting the older Winchester. “Thanks Sam.” “Anytime Y/N. I don’t even need a reason..” Sam spoke as he walked away to get dressed.

[gayfraphne]

Why Read Scooby Apocalypse?

Hello! As I’m sure many of my followers know, I read and VERY much enjoy Scooby Apocalypse, an extremely unpopular piece of Scooby-Doo media released by DC Comics in May of 2016. Most Scooby-Doo fans either despise Scooby Apocalypse, or simply ignore it’s existence all together. But, if you gave it a chance, you might realize that Scooby-Apocalypse is exactly what Scooby fans need.

Many fans are against the modern (or near future, technically) take on the plot and characters. With Shaggy portrayed as a buddhist hipster, Velma as an emotionally deprived, socially inept super-genius, Daphne as a badass and Fred as a blundering idiot, it’s easy to understand why most people would initially turn up their nose at Scooby-Apocalypse. However, once you start reading, you fall in love with these adapted characters all over again, and start to see their classic trademark personalities shine through.

Scooby Apocalypse focuses primarily on Dr. Velma Dinkley and Shaggy Rogers, a scientist and dog trainer who were employed at a secret facility known as The Complex. The Complex worked under the cover of a government instillation that genetically and robotically altered canines to become government war machines. It was here that Shaggy meets bionic SmartDog Scooby-Doo, and the two become best friends. The true purpose of the Complex, however, is even crazier. Dr. Velma Dinkley, along with a group known simply as The Four, were building and releasing nanites that could alter human behavior, alleviating the instinctinc to express anger or violence. However, Velma soon learns that The Four have altered these nanites to do something much more sinister when activated. After learning this, she contacts the host of Daphne Blake’s Mysterious Mysteries and her one man crew Fred Jones to report on the inner workings of the Complex and shut down the sinister operation forever. However, while touring the Complex, the nanites are accidentally activating, and nearly everyone in the world (save for Velma, Shaggy, Fred, and Daphne) are transformed into hideous and violent monsters. Now, the gang travels across America in a decked out vehicle designed by the Complex called The Mystery Machine (named after its enigmatic nature) searching for any hope of survival.

So, that’s the basis of Scooby Apocalypse. But why will you love it?

For starters, the writers are constantly dropping easter eggs from earlier installments of the Scooby-Doo franchise, such as Daphne and Fred having a TV show, Shaggy being a Vegetarian, and many other small hints and references. Paired with the gang’s new looks and obsession with references to classic film and literature, you get the perfect combination of old and new.

Speaking of which, the dialogue between the gang is hillarious. They’re constantly taking digs at each other and saying one liners that have brought me to tears. Despite this, the powerful relationships between the gang are easily the highlight of Scooby Apocalypse. Secretive Velma and the distrusting Daphne quickly fall into a love-hate relationship. On the outside, they despise each other, because Daphne blames Velma for ending the world, and the two will often go as far as to fight or cause each other physical harm to alleviate stress and anxiety. Underneath it all, Velma and Daphne really love and care for each other, and take comfort in knowing that they can take out anger on the other and still be friends afterwords. Another interesting relationship is Fred and Daphne, who have been best friends since college, despite Fred being in love with Daphne. They hooked up once a long time ago, but Daphne quickly broke things off. Despite this, nobody knows Daphne better than Fred, and he’s devoted his life to sticking by Daphne’s side, and proposing to her at least once a week. My personal favorite relationship in the series is Shaggy and Velma. The two knew each other briefly a work acquaintances, but we quickly begging to realize that Velma harbors feelings for Shaggy. They become each others closest confidants, and do just about everything together- even as Shaggy falls for someone else!

The side characters in Scooby Apocalypse are another one of the highlights. You either love to hate them, or hate to love them. Most prominent is Daisy Dinkley (ex-wife of Velma’s brother), who plays the role of damsel in distress now that Daphne has been transformed into a badass. She joins the gang in their travels, and serves as added tension for the group as some of them grow to love her, and others begin to despise her. Cliffy is a bratty young kid who lost an arm in a monster attack, and gets pseudo-adopted by Daisy. But the best side character is Scrappy, another one of the Complex’s SmartDogs, who has grown into a gigantic, buff, humanoid dog who serves as an anti-hero, who sometimes tries to kill the gang and other times saves their lives.

CAUTION: MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD.

Many Scooby-Doo fans have heard about the death of Fred Jones, and this is why most of them don’t want to read Scooby Apocalypse. However, Fred’s death was arguably one of the best writing choices in Scooby Apocalypse. Not only does it rid the story of a flat character who was pretty poorly written, it gives him so much more meaning, as grief over his death adds SO MUCH to the story and everyone’s separate character journey. Also, it adds so much more terror to the story as we realize that writers aren’t afraid of killing off main characters and truly no one is safe.

In conclusion, Scooby Apocalypse is a really fun and creative take on the Scooby-Doo characters, and puts them in a setting of drama, angst, humor, and peril. It’s like a really well written fan fiction.

[sweetlittlehawke]

Keep Moving Forward

It’s December. Yknow what that means! Let’s reflect on the year. When I made  a post like this last year, it was a hopeful thing. I was excited about the coming year, because I was excited that I’d finally met some people I could hang out with. I love Alea and Brooke to the moon and back, but only having two friends for most of my life is not the best. As much as I denied it for years, my mum’s right. I’m very social. I have social anxiety. But I am a very social person. So, if you wanna read about all that, it’s under a read more. Cause fucking hell did this get long.

So, this year started and I was single, I was in Unity, I was in school, and I was living with my parents. By May I was not single and I was not in Unity. Shortly after that- because end of the semester and stuff and things happening- I was no longer in school or living with my parents. At this point in the year, I’m still not single, nor in Unity (as I doubt I’ll ever go back. To the troupe at least, I absolutely wanna go back to taking classes), or in school. But I have plans to go back to school. I’m halfway to being able to afford a car, and then saving for an apartment, so Sammy and I can go to Cleveland. Because I wanna be close to my friends. I don’t like most of the people I live with presently, and neither does Sam. So we’re gonna move out in July when the lease is up on our place. 

When I made this post last year, I talked about the only table top rpgs I’d played was a D&D 5e oneshot, a game of Roll for Shoes, and was just then stepping into a campaign. Needless to say, that changed. A lot. I’ve played West Marches to it’s end. I’ve been in Alex’s Pathfinder campaign for a year. I spent a semester in Andrew’s Pathfinder campaign (and met my girlfriend through that). I’ve spent two semesters in Jacob’s 5e campaign. I’ve started a campaign of my own at Breakout to get those people into D&D. I’ve gone so far with this, and I love it. I love every second of it. I also mentioned that I’d kinda started in Magic, but hadn’t put any money towards it. That didn’t last either. I’ve built my own custom deck, and that def required spending money. Once Andrew got me a starter deck it was downhill from there. I don’t play a ton, but Magic def did get my interest.

Last year I kinda just made lil shoutouts to Scott, Trevi, and Andrew. But this year I have so many more people to talk about, and to be thankful for. Because they’re not just new people that I’m kinda sorta friends with. They’re my family. So lemme go through this. Lemme take a bit, to talk about this gaggle of people I’ve found, that I love. 

It’s primarily the Pathfinder group. The original Pathfinder group. Alex, Jacob, Andrew, Thomas, Susannah, Molly, and Will. Most of these people are also the people in West Marches, but there are some West Marches people that aren’t in Pathfinder. People like Joey and Adriana, Freddie, Michael, and of course, Trevi and Scott. Now, to go into detail about the specific people, and why I love them.

Alex is just, great. I don’t always feel like I’m super close with him, but he does pay attention to everyone in the group. We recently had a session that really hit that fact home. It was a Christmas session, because it’s December what else are we gonna do? Each of our characters had gifts, and these gifts meant something to each of us. Outside of games though, he’s just as attentive. He’s always supportive, and very understanding of when people need distance or aid. He’s encouraging, and frankly I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him say something bad against anyone. Ambiguous maybe, but never bad.

Jacob- fucking hell this guy. He’s literally the sweetest man I’ve ever met. He’s always trying to help, and encourage people. If he knows he’s done something wrong he apologizes and does whatever it takes to fix it. He knows I’m short on money, so whenever I’m around he’s always offering to buy me food- or just straight up give me his food. He even bought Sammy’s Christmas present for me, because I’m just too broke to do it. I don’t understand how someone can be that selfless?? Jacob wtf?? You’re too good??

Andrew. What an asshole. I love him though. He- quite frankly- is half the reason I’m so close with the Pathfinder group. I befriended him easier than I befriended the others. He’s the one that got me into Pathfinder. At first he seems quiet, and kinda apathetic, he’s incredibly forgetful. But he cares. I got scared one time that I’d fucked up a friendship, and in his awkward Andrew way, he gave me 3 Magic cards and a hug as comfort. It may not sound like much, but giving away Magic cards is a big deal for Andrew. This nerd is also the reason I met my girlfriend, so yknow.

Admittedly, I’m not as close with Thomas as I am some of the others. His personality clashes with mine, so I don’t typically talk to him one on one. But he’s part of the group. We all poke fun at him, but we all poke fun at everyone. This family of ours wouldn’t be the same without him. It’d be too quiet.

Susannah is a darling. I haven’t seen her as much recently, because she dropped out of the Pathfinder campaign, and I haven’t been at school. But we still talk from time to time here on tumblr, or the very rare occasion we see each other on campus we always stop to give each other a hug and say hello. Because our friend group had a hellish spaghetti mess of relationships, and we had a good relationship through that. The guy I liked liked her, and it was kinda rough, but we just helped each other. Then when that spaghetti mess was over, and I was getting with Sammy, she was one of the people I’d text like “Holy shit Sam is so cute HELP”

Molly is the best. She- like Susannah- isn’t in Pathfinder this semester, so I haven’t seen her as much. But she had a similar position in the spaghetti mess but without being so tied to me. She just was right next to Susannah and was super supportive as well. She was the other person I texted about Sam. Cause group chats. I’d text her and Susannah together. But even though we don’t see each other a ton, we’re still close. Hell we’re looking at getting an apartment together next summer.

I really never think I’m that close to Will. He’s very quiet, and he’s not very affectionate, so it’s sometimes hard to tell if he actually likes being around people or he’s just dealing with us. But, after a year of being around him, I’m pretty sure he does actually like us. I think he’s just introverted. He doesn’t want to get in people’s way, so he sits to the side and is quiet. But also, his character in Pathfinder was 110% tryna get another PC laid and Will and Susannah both were willing to let me in on that. So, yeah, pretty sure Will is cool with me. We just have different ways of showing that.

Joey and Adriana I’ll talk about together, because I swear these two are inseparable. When I first met them I thought they were dating, but no they’re just very affectionate- and I can’t blame them for that. I’m the same way with Scott and Trevi. I’ve still not gotten to talk to them a ton, but the conversations I’ve had with them have been good. They seem very light hearted on the surface, just comparing ourselves to our characters, but really that says a lot about us. 

Freddie and Michael, I’ll also put together. Not because they’re together all the time, but because I have less to say about them. I don’t know either as well, but they’re both very warm people. It’s easy to become friends with these two. Freddie loves to rub my hair, cause of course half of it is shaved. Michael’s just akin to a ray of sunshine tbh. 

Trevi. Where do I even start? To just say you’re my friend isn’t enough. You’re more than that. You’re fun to be around and talk to, and dance with. You’re relatable and silly and serious and helpful and supportive. You’ve given me a place to sleep when I was too tired to go home. When you graduated I was terrified of you leaving, either going back home or going out to Cali to get a doctorate, cause I knew you’d talked about it. I didn’t wanna lose you. I’d just gotten to know you. Then you stayed here, and I’m glad. Cause you’re my friend and I love you. A couple weeks ago as you were leaving you signed “I love you”. You had your back turned but there was a window in front of you, so idk if you saw, but I signed it back. Cause I really do.

Now Scott. You sir, have literally changed my life. I would not have met most of the people I’ve talked about. I’d have met Trevi, but without D&D as a common ground, idk that we’d have ended up so close. So thank you, for introducing me to D&D. Thank you for being my DM. Because honestly, no matter how many DMs I have, no matter how great they are. You will always be my DM, because you were the first. And now, you’re graduating. You’re leaving school, and you’re going to Columbia. I’m gonna miss you. As selfish as it is, I don’t want you to leave. I’m glad you’re going to keep moving forward, as we all should. But fucking hell will I miss you. You’ve led me on adventures, fighting monsters and demons, I’ve made pacts with Eldritch gods and become War itself. So you go. You go, live your adventures. Write your stories and play your parts. Keep Moving Forward. But you better get your ass back here and visit from time to time okay? Cause I’m gonna miss you. I’m gonna miss your free hugs, and the meowing, and the hair ruffles, and hugs so tight I feel like you’re bout to crack a rib, and the games, and the stories, and just everything. I’m gonna miss you, and I love you.

This past year, and every one of the people I’ve mentioned have changed me. There’s more people I could talk about. Alea, and Brooke, and Tommy, and Sammy, and Tahli, and Sebastian, and Kenna. My actual family. My cousin and my best friend, who I don’t feel the need to write about, because duh I appreciate them. Duh I love them. Tommy and Sammy who’ve both had their own impacts. Who have both changed my life in their own ways. Then Tahli, Kenna, and Sebastian. My nieces and nephew. Tahli, who wormed her way into my heart in an instant, and got me to a place where I actually cared for the other two. Because for so long I shrugged at Kenna. She lives across the country she’s not gonna know me. But then when Sebastian came along, I was so used to Tahli and her reaction any time I walk in the door. Then Sebastian got hurt, and it wrecked me. Because no, he’s tiny, he’s fragile, this shouldn’t happen to a six month old baby. I was so scared to hold him at Thanksgiving because I didn’t want to hurt him. 

I just. I love my friends. I love that I can say that. Because two years ago I hardly had friends to love, and I certainly didn’t feel like they should love me back. Last year I had a few more friends, and I was feeling a bit better about myself. But this year I’ve realized. It’s not just that I have friends that I love. But that they love me just as much. During intermediate acting Abby called me a yankee candle, cause I apparently had a warm, homey, aura. I felt like that was weird, cause I’m so used to being Shadow. I’m used to being ignore, glanced over. But then suddenly, I have friends that won’t do that. Friends that pay attention and love me. I’m still not sure how to handle that, but I’m doing the best I can. 

[turnaboutwriter]

Safe Travels - Part 1: In Abundant Relations, Chapter 1

Surprise! Happy Ikarishipping Day! 

Pairings: Paul/Dawn, May/Drew, Candice/Zoey, Steven Stone/Cynthia, Wallace/Winona, and a lil Togekiss/Honchkrow

Rating: General

Summary: Paul loses to Brandon at their rematch in Snowpoint City and intends on challenging him once more in Hoenn. Dawn, who intends to participate in Hoenn contests, runs into him on the ship ride to Slateport City. Paul seeks Dawn’s coordinating expertise for a contest that Cynthia tells him he should participate in, and so, while Dawn is puzzled as to why Paul has to partake in the contest, so begins their journey together — ikarishipping.

This can also be found on AO3. (Please note: This will not be posted on Ffn until I finish it posting the first part completely on AO3 or until I decide how to approach posting the multiple parts on Ffn, since it doesn't have a series grouping system like AO3.)

Notes: I'm not done with this series yet, but I wanted to post at least the first two chapters of the Part 1 in celebration of the ikari revival! I will also post the remaining previews left on Tumblr soon, so be sure to check them out! From what I have planned, the setting of this fic is not just restricted to Hoenn, but will feature other regions as well. There will be A LOT of characters, needless to say, and I’ll probably squeeze in a few implied or minor ships in there, too. There are quite a few twists that I’m excited but also nervous to write and put out there, but buckle your seatbelts, guys, because from here on out, it's going to be a very, long ride.

“Pip, piplup!”

Dawn’s Piplup races to the other end of the outer deck, nearly tripping on his way there.

“Hey!” Dawn pants out. She is crouched down, with her hands on her knees, trying to recover her breath. “Slow down, Piplup!” With a final huff, she straightens up and continues running after her Pokémon.

The ship that Dawn is on has only left Sandgem Town a few hours ago. Things have moving in such a whirlwind that she still can’t believe that she is on her way to Hoenn – the land of the birth of contests. She is overwhelmed and is nervous to be traveling far from home, but also excited to see what new adventures she will embark on.

When she finally catches up to the Penguin-like creature, she is surprised to see the familiar, purple-haired boy Piplup is pointing to.

“Pip, lup!”

“Huh? That’s Paul,” Dawn states in surprise. “Hey, Paul!” she calls out, waving her hands. Piplup waves and cries cheerfully as well.

He turns around at the sound of her voice and meets her face. His eyes light up in recognition and he raises his hand slightly. “Hey.” He’s quiet for a moment while Dawn walks up to him.

She grins. “Remember who I am this time?” she teases.

He ignores her words. “Is Ash with you? I’d like a battle with him.”

Her elated smile falls into a frown, though not by much, because he does remember her as Ash’s friend. “Oh, I’m sorry, Paul, but he went back to Kanto last month . . . though, I think he’s in Unova now.”

“I see . . .” he trails off, as his eyes inspect her face, struggling to remember.

You’ve got to be kidding me! Dawn scowls, feeling the annoyance bubble in her chest. He really doesn’t remember her name. She opens her mouth, ready to shout. ‘Excuse me, Sir Rudeness, it’s Dawn! D-A-W-N!’

“Dawn. The coordinator friend.”

Her eyes widen in surprise, before her lips curl into a smile. “You do remember!”

He says nothing, but stares at her smiling face blankly for a few moments. “See you,” he finally says, before walking away.

Dawn’s smile slowly fades away, and then she sighs to herself and shakes her head knowingly, as Piplup cries in confusion.

“Pip, pip?” That’s it?

“No need to worry, Piplup. That’s just Paul for you.”

“ . . . and I have to show you all of the best places to eat in Petalburg!”

“Only in Petalburg?” Dawn teases the girl on the screen in front of her. “What about the rest of Hoenn, May?”

On the screen, she sees May smirk. “I’m going to give you a list of the best restaurants in Hoenn before I go back to Johto, silly!”

She smiles back at her friend cheerfully. “I’ll hold you to it!”

Dawn is about to ask May about Professor Birch, but she swears she sees a flash of purple from the corner of her eye. She turns her head from side to side, as her Piplup, who is in his usual spot in her arms, questions her.

“Pip, pip?”

“What’s wrong, Dawn?”

She shakes her head. “I thought I saw something, but I think I might have just imagined it. No need to worry. What were you going to say?”

“I was going to tell you that Drew and I talked to Professor Birch and he’s more than happy to give you one.”

“Awesome!” She looks down at Piplup. “Did you hear, Piplup? We’re getting our first, new Hoenn Pokémon added to the team!”

Piplup chirps back at her happily, “Pip piplup!”

May goes on to explain the three Hoenn starters Pokémon to Dawn, and they chat a little more until Piplup’s stomach growls loudly, much to his embarrassment. With a laugh, Dawn decides to bid an also chuckling May goodbye and head down for dinner.

The trainer’s dining area is not so shabby, though it is not too formal, either. It’s a huge, bustling auditorium where trainers partake in a buffet, sit together and dine; because of the ample space, they are able to let their Pokémon out of their Pokéballs and feed them as well.

Dawn’s eyes scan through the hall to find a place to sit. Though she doesn’t mind sitting with strangers, there aren’t a lot of empty seats in the first place. She did not realize that she was on the phone with May for so long.

“Piplup!”

“Huh?” Dawn glances to where her Pokémon points. She smiles at him graciously. “Thanks, Piplup! I can always count on you!” She pushes the cart of her and her Pokémon’s food hurriedly to the table before someone else can take the unoccupied seat.

“Hey, Paul,” she says, as she approaches his small table, where he and his Pokémon, on the ground near him, eat, “ do you mind if we sit here?”

His hand, holding a dinner roll, pauses in the air. He seems mildly annoyed but shrugs anyway. “I don’t care.” He takes a bite into the bread.

Dawn turns to Piplup. “Alright.” She takes out her Pokéballs and throws them into the air. “Time to eat, everyone!”

A chorus of her Pokémon’s cries is heard as they’re released from their Pokéballs and cheer in happiness.

She then pulls the Pokémon food from the cart and sets each bowl down in front of her Pokémon, the biggest going to her Mamoswine, of course. She then rummages through her backpack and pulls out her big container of poffins (and though it doesn’t look that big, it holds a lot more than one might think, which is why Dawn loves it so much). She puts a few poffins into each of their bowls as well.

When she gets to Togekiss’s bowl, Paul’s Honchkrow comes forward to them.

“Hey, Honchkrow!” Dawn smiles warmly, petting the top of his head lightly. “Would you like a poffin?” She holds a pink one out for him. He sniffs it hesitantly, but Togekiss reassures him that it is good. To Dawn’s surprise, Honchkrow has a sudden infatuated look in his eyes, and opens his mouth wide for the poffin. She giggles knowingly and feeds him, and then stands up from her crouched position, stretching as she does. She then walks over to the table so she can sit down and finally eat.

“What did you do to my Honchkrow?”

Dawn looks up to meet Paul’s narrowed eyes. “I fed him a poffin,” she informs him innocently, deciding to withhold that his Honchkrow has a crush on her Togekiss for now. “You don’t mind, right? They’re supposed to be good for Pokémon.”

He looks displeased, and opens his mouth to say something, but she beats him to it.

“Reggie would approve of them. They’re not store-bought or anything – I make my poffins myself using different types of berries. No need to worry, Paul!” she assures him.

He turns his face away and grunts before answering, “Fine.”

Dawn is satisfied with his answer, and quickly digs into her food. Arceus, she’s starving.  

“Fros, froslass?”

Dawn looks up from her meal to see Paul’s Froslass in front of her. It looks like Honchkrow has spread the word. She holds back a giggle at the thought. “You want a poffin, too, Froslass?”

“Froslass,” Paul warns, giving her a steady glare. “Go eat your food.”

“Fros.” Her little shoulders slump, as the Pokémon turns around.

“Hey,” Dawn exclaims, grabbing Froslass’s shoulder, feeling the Pokémon’s cold skin beneath her fingers, and then turning to frown at Paul. “Don’t do that. I have more than enough to go around. I made a fresh batch last night before we left Sinnoh.” She passes the open container on the table to Froslass, who takes it hesitantly from her. “Here,” she says softly. “For you and for the rest of Paul’s Pokémon, too.”

“Lass?” Froslass gives her trainer a questioning stare; Paul nods curtly.

After Froslass drifts away, he glares at Dawn, who resumes eating. “Please, don’t spoil my Pokémon. I’ve worked hard to get to where I want them to be, and I don’t need you to ruin it for me now.”

“Now, hold on, Paul.” She puts her fork down and her eyes meet his. “There’s a difference between taking care of your Pokémon and spoiling them. I understand them you feed them regularly and all, but, sometimes, it’s good to treat them for all of the hard work they’ve done, you know?”

Paul sighs. “I already told you once that I’m not like Ash. I’ll admit that I’ve learned some things from him . . . but this pampering . . . it’s just not my thing.” He looks up at her, and, for the first time ever, Dawn sees uncertainty in his eyes.

Dawn smiles softly, almost in reassurance. “You don’t have to do what Ash does. And no one said you have to pamper your Pokémon, either.” She turns around to see his Pokémon eating the poffins happily, while they also talk and play with Dawn’s Pokémon.

“They work and train hard to fulfill your desire of getting stronger and stronger, and they don’t mind that you may get a little too hard on them – you can tell that they love you a lot. All they need in return is just a little love from you, too. Maybe playing with your Pokémon isn’t your thing, but a little treat now and then, a little break every once in a while, or even some words of encouragement from you . . . it would mean the world to them.”

She looks back at Paul’s pensive face. “And with that, your bond with them will grow stronger. You and your team will grow stronger, as well.”

It’s quiet for a moment before Paul shrugs, and then resumes eating. Dawn sighs in defeat, as it seems that her words probably haven’t gone through his thick skull, and goes back to digging into her food.

“Which starter are you picking from Professor Birch?”

Dawn’s eyes widen and she then sets her dinner roll down onto her plate – she’s never going to be able to finish this meal. “Aha!” she cries out triumphantly, pointing at him. “I knew I saw you! You were eavesdropping on my conversation with May!”

He narrows his eyes at her. “And? You once eavesdropped on my conversation with Reggie.”

A warm blush rises to her cheeks. “A-Ah! Right. I forgot about that.” She scratches the back of her head and smiles sheepishly at him. “Let’s consider it even, then.”

“Whatever.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Answer the question.”

Geez, he’s so bossy. “I . . . I don’t know. They all sound great, really.”

“Pathetic.” He sighs and rolls his eyes. “I should have suspected as much from someone like you.”

Dawn narrows his eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean!?”

“Exactly what I said.” His smirk is taunting, causing feelings of impatience to arise within Dawn.

“Oh, yeah? What Hoenn starter would you choose?”

“I didn’t get a chance to receive one, so I haven’t given much thought to it.”

“Huh.” That causes Dawn’s annoyance to cease. “You know, I can ask Professor Birch to give you a Pokémon as well,” she offers, but the words surprise her. She doesn’t know where that came from – hell, she doesn’t even know if the Professor would be willing to give him a Pokémon as well, since May was the one who asked him to give Dawn one. She begins to anxiously pick at and rip apart her dinner roll as she waits for his answer.

“No, thanks. I’m not interested.” His voice is curt. Dawn looks at his plate and realizes that he has finished eating.

“Why?” she questions, twisting the bread further in her hands. “You can train it up to participate in the Hoenn League!”

He exhales sharply in frustration, the fork in his hand dropping onto his plate with a loud clank. Dawn takes the moment to munch on the deconstructed roll. “I’ve already beaten eight gym leaders, and have fought and lost in the Ever Grande Conference.”

She swallows down her food before speaking. “Oh. I forgot you travelled through Hoenn already.” She rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. “I figured you caught some of your Pokémon from other regions, but I wasn’t able to tell if any were from Hoenn.”

He nods. “Hoenn was the second region I travelled through. I caught my Hariyama, Froslass, and Aron there.” He reaches into his pocket to grab his Pokéballs and recall his Pokémon.

“I see. Is there a reason that you’re going back again, then?”

“Hmph.” He stands up from the table, empty plate in hand. He reaches down to pick up the bowls his Pokémon ate from, stacking them one on top of the other and carrying them effortlessly, and it makes Dawn slightly envious of how easy he makes it look. “That’s none of your concern.”

She feels irritation rush through her once more – Paul has a talent for stirring such feelings within her. “Well, excuse me for trying to make small talk,” she grumbles scornfully, as she crosses her arms over her chest.

“There’s no need for that.” He exhales sharply. “What a troublesome girl,” he mutters to himself as he walks away from Dawn’s fuming figure.

Her eyebrows shoot up to her forehead, gone from irritated to furious. “What did you call me!?”

He smirks, tilting his head slightly to the left so it is angled towards her. “Hm, like I said – troublesome girl.”

And then he walks away, leaving behind a fuming Dawn.

Dawn and Piplup are enraptured by the lights.

Being from the small Twinleaf Town, Dawn never got to see the city lights often, until she travelled through cities with Ash and Brock. But none of those city lights compare to what she sees now – not even the gorgeous Valor Lakefront, where Dawn had participated in the Wallace Cup and Sinnoh Grand Festival.

“Look at all of the lights, Piplup!” she tells her penguin companion, as they marvel from the upper deck of the cruise liner. “That’s Pokétopia! It’s where really powerful trainers go to participate in coliseum battles.”

“Piplup, piplup!” Her Pokémon points to one of the skyscrapers and puffs his chest out proudly.

Dawn follows where Piplup is pointing to and gasps. “There’s a Piplup on the top of that building!” She points to the other buildings with widened eyes. “Ahh, there’s a Toxicroak, Turtwig, and Chimchar, too! Oh, and look at the Bronzor Ferris wheel!”

“Pokétopia has a lot of Sinnohan influence, since the head architect who designed the buildings is from Sinnoh.”

A “Huh?” slips out from Dawn’s lips, before she turns to her left to see Paul standing next to her, staring at the Pokétopia Skyline intently. When did he get here? She’s not mad at him anymore, of course, but she is surprised that he is voluntarily approaching and talking to her, without her prompting him to.

He moves to look at her, his onyx eyes boring into hers. It takes her a moment to realize that he has his finger outstretched towards a pink building and is talking.

“See that skyscraper?”

She snaps out of her trace and glances at the structure in question. “Y-Yeah, it’s a Lickilicky.”

He nods as his eyes leave hers to look at the building once more. “Look at its tongue.” His finger trails the length of the slanted line. “The yellow line in its tongue is actually the transparent roof of the escalator inside the building.”

Her eyes widen as she sees “Oh, wow, I didn’t even notice that!” Dawn pauses for a moment before she gathers the courage to ask him a question. “Hey, Paul, how do you know so much about this place anyway? Have you been here before?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Dawn huffs at him, and puts her hands on her hips. “Well, your rudeness, I’m sorry for trying to be friendly.” Oh, well. She knows she wouldn’t be able to get Paul to open up so easily, but it was worth a shot.

And so they stand next to each other in silence to stare at the bright, flashing lights of the buildings of the lively city and the spotlight beams waving around in the night sky. Dawn enjoys the night breeze and, surprisingly, Paul’s company, while Paul appreciates the silence between them contently.

After that, they – Paul with his hands in his pockets, and Dawn not having Piplup in her arms for once, since he was sleepy and was put back into his Pokéball – walk back to their rooms together.

Dawn is surprised how pleasant Paul has been. His final battle with Ash must have changed his demeanor significantly.

“Oh!” Dawn suddenly exclaims, as she stops walking. “Ash told me you were going to battle Brandon again. How did your rematch with Brandon go?”

He stops walking as well, and turns to face her. “I lost.”

She frowns, suddenly embarrassed to have asked him at all. “Oh . . . I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I don’t need your pity. My team just wasn’t strong enough.”

She is pensive for a moment, before realization hits her like a brick. “Is that why you’re going to Hoenn? To train more?”

“Among other reasons,” he answers, his face impassive once more, and Dawn feels happy that he’s finally revealing some information about his plans. “Brandon is in Hoenn to work on the Battle Frontier Project. After training my team more, I’ll challenge him there.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “Isn’t the Battle Frontier in the Kanto region, though?” she questions, recalling that Ash fought Brandon in Kanto.

“They’re planning on moving it to the Battle Resort island area in Hoenn.”

“Oh.”

They don’t continue walking to their rooms. Instead, Paul just stands there in silence, lost in thought, while Dawn watches him, pondering as to what he’s thinking about.

“Let’s battle,” he suggests suddenly, causing Dawn to let out a gasp. Did she just hear him correctly?

“Uh, a battle!?” she sputters out. Paul is surely going to win – he is a more powerful trainer than her for sure.

Paul shakes his head. “A contest battle.”

She blinks. “Huh? A contest battle?” It’s nearly 1AM in the morning, and he wants to have a contest battle with her? Is she so tired that she is starting to imagine things? What business would he have in a contest battle with her, anyway?

He groans and slaps a palm to his forehead – he seems to be frustrated by her response. “Forget it.”

“W-Wait, no – ”

Her arm stretches out, trying to reach for him, but he’s already walking away.

[confessions-of-a-readaholic]

Continuathon Day One| Let’s get started

Best and worst series starters I have read:

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas is the best first book in a series I have read in a long time. I was instantly drawn in by the story; the world was fascinating, the plot was strong, I could just tell it was going to be an epic series for me. So far I have not been disappointed.

I don’t actually think I have a worst series starter. I know the type of books that I like so I don’t tend to read anything I know I won’t be interested in, especially when it comes to investing in a series. As for what I have read, I have never been let down by the first book in a series... so far.

A love letter for my favourite series:

I could take this time to talk about Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling which is my all time favourite series, but I’m not going to do that. Instead I’m going to take this time to talk about what has become my second favourite series which I feel like not enough people are talking about. This is the Spellslinger series by Sebastien De Castell.

So far there are three books out: Spellslinger, Shadowblack, and Charmcaster. I believe there are going to be six books in total, the fourth if which is due out in October this year, which I am so excited for.

This is a YA fantasy series that takes place in a world with a unique magic style. Our main character Kellen is a Jan’Tep mage but he’s not very strong so he is worried he won’t be able to prove himself on his 16th birthday. But then he meets Ferius Parfax who is an Argosi wanderer and is not magical, she lives by three decks of cards that she carries with her. 

Ferius helps Kellen out of a sticky situation and from there they basically go on an adventure together when Kellen is shunned by his people. There are awesome friendships, family drama, political intrigue and a talking squirrel cat (who happens to be my favourite character). 

These books are fun and amazing and they need more credit in my opinion. Each one had been better than the last, and if they continue this way I can only imagine that the end of this series is going to be explosive. Please give them a chance!

[deck16]

Guild Wars 2 Retrospective

I've played a number of MMOs over the years. Guild Wars 2 is my favourite, and it occupies a place in my memories like a favourite book or movie. And so, I want to write down my thoughts about it.

I don't think I'm finished with the game yet. As I write, the Icebrood Saga is soon to be launched. Even ignoring future content there's so much current content I want to do.

That said, now's a good time to write down my thoughts. I finished Living World Season 4 not too long ago and it had a certain finality that made me want to pause and reflect.

This is going to be long. And it's going to be a lot of opinion. There's going to be a lot of praise, but if I praise Guild Wars 2 for something don't take that to imply that only GW2 does that thing, or that GW2 does it best.

Soundtrack

Have a listen while you read this.

The earlier stuff by Jeremy Soule is different to what came later, in expansions and such, but not incongruous. It's all good.

Music is one of those strange and strong memory triggers, like smell. There are some refrains from the soundtrack that bring back memories. I remember listening to the soundtrack when the game was released to help get through a particularly un-fun and short-lived job. Some tracks bring back memories of playing with friends. Or just exploring Tyria on my own.

Money

Ars Gratia Artis

How does one make money off a product, like a game?

Make it worth buying.

(Other.)

Option 2 includes things like psychological tricks, and planned obsolescence with yearly releases.

I can't say GW2 never indulges in Option 2. But I feel it mostly goes for Option 1.

Pictured: ArenaNet offices after releasing the black wings cosmetic.

Subscription Model

Guild Wars 2, like its predecessor, never demanded a subscription.

This earns a massive amount of respect from me. Many MMOs charge subscriptions while they're new, raking in some easy money while they've got hype. I think GW2 could've done that. That ArenaNet chose not to is laudable.

Money Store

GW2 does, I'm sure, rake in extra money from expansion packs and cosmetics. The former is very understandable. The latter can be dangerous in greedy hands.

You can buy a lot of tat with real money in GW2, it's true. It's even had a version of loot boxes from day one.

Thankfully the real-money stuff is largely cosmetic or convenience. I have bought a few items, but I do not feel a second-class citizen for not buying more. Indeed, I roll my eyes at the bizarre characters decked out in effulgent tat. If they want to support the game I enjoy to look like rejects from a bad anime, more power to them. I rather more a normal appearance, and there's plenty of options to get that by playing, not paying.

Exhibits A through D: Effulgent Tat

Maybe I'm a sentimental idiot, but GW2's soft-sell approach has made me sympathetic. When GW2 developers were laid off due to a "financial squeeze" I went and bought some gems. I feel they deserve it. Not like other companies who lay off staff when money abounds, just so they can cut costs.

You will see adverts for money-store items here and there, such as the login screen. But, crucially, it never interrupts your game with teasing messages along the lines of "if you buy XYZ, you can skip this".

There's also the daily log-in rewards and the character birthday rewards. These give a nice mix of the cheaper money-store conveniences and also grant access to things you can't even buy.

Explorable

Something that struck me very early about GW2 was the extent you can just wander around to level.

Progress by Wanderlust

See an interesting land-mark? Go wander over, you'll probably run into some quests. Cross paths with an event? Join right on in and help out. Harvest resources as you go. Kill monsters off the beaten track for extra experience.

There are other things to find to reward exploration. Mini-dungeons, mini-bosses, chests of loot, and even just really pretty locations. It feels really good when you say "what's over there?" and you actually discover something that's totally supplemental but also totally interesting.

One of the earlier off-the-beaten-track finds I made. A bandit's cabbage farm. Handy if you're into cooking.

Early on, I loved wandering to level. It made the grind of levelling feel more like exploration, like I was playing Morrowind or Skyrim, rather than an MMO.

Even now, years on, there are zones I haven't explored. I took the direct path through Living World Season 4's zones, and now I'm contently going back and exploring them top to tail. Nowadays I don't wander quite so randomly. I use the map markers to guide me, but I still have plenty of "what's that?" or "what's over there?" moments. I'm still finding stuff.

NPC Chatter

NPCs across Tyria talk to each other. A lot. It's all fully voice-acted and often interesting or funny as well.

I am still surprised when I stop somewhere quite isolated to clean out my inventory or fiddle with my traits and some NPCs strike up a conversation. It must be very tempting to cut costs by not having the random Inquest NPC in corridor A chat about his research with the other Inquest NPC.

A small thing, but it does make exploring that little bit more rewarding.

Not a great example for funny-factor, but a good example for isolation. To see these two hostile Inquest NPCs you'd first have to opt to do the Living World chapter their zone is in, then decide to explore beyond the story there, then happen down this particular corridor, and finally not kill them before they had a chance to talk.

Events and Meta Events

Events and meta events impressed me greatly as I discovered GW2.

Little Adventures

Early on, I was exploring Harathi Hinterlands, and I come across an event where Seraph NPCs (good guys) are defending against Centaur NPCs (bad guys). I help, the Seraph win. And then one of them announces they're moving on to their next objective.

I follow. Things escalate. About an hour later, we (NPCs, other players, and myself) have pushed into the Centaur base and are taking down their leader.

It made the world feel alive. Here was this war that was happening whether I was there or not. If I chose to pitch in rather than walk by, I would be treated to a little adventure: combat, loot, and a little story.

A limited-time event had players pursuing and then killing ley-energy people. I felt bad for the poor bastards, being chased by dozens of loot-crazed players. Not bad enough to not join in, though...

Putting the First M in MMO

Events are a reason for players to work together, in scales big and small.

On the small scale, it's always a relief to see some new players jump in and help you with a Champion when you're tackling it alone or in a small party. The shoe feels good on the other foot: it's fun to play the hero and jump in to help some scrappy players beat a champion they were struggling with.

On the big scale, maps like The Silverwastes and Dragon's Stand are dedicated to meta events. Groups of players must spontaneously split down multiple paths to achieve objectives in limited time. I've seen these fail often enough to know success isn't guaranteed.

Play with Friends

Despite the acronym, it's not easy to play with friends in every MMO. Here's a hypothetical exchange:

"Hey, you want to play that MMO?"

"Sure! It's more fun to play with friends."

"Okay! I'm on the Black Mountains server."

"Oh. I'm on the Dusty Gorge server."

"That's alright. I'll make a character on Dusty Gorge."

"Great! Where shall we meet?"

"Well I'm only level 1 on this server, so it will have to be a starter zone."

"Oh. The lowest character I have is level 20. So... I'll just one-shot everything, and I'll get no XP and useless loot."

"Ah. Well... I guess I'll get to level 20 and let you know? So, we can probably play in a week or so?"

"...Okay."

These problems do not happen in GW2 with the megaserver system and dynamic level adjustment.

When the game came out a group of friends and I quested through several zones together. This is us in the charr starting area.

(I don't want to pretend dynamic level adjustment is perfect. Because if you take your Ascended-item max-level elite-specialised hero to a starter PvE zone you are going to be more powerful than a new level 1 character. Not quite to the point of absurdness, but not far from it either.)

Any barrier that makes it hard to play with friends in an MMO is idiotic. I am very glad GW2 started with low barriers, and only made them lower over time.

A Better Grind

There's grinding in GW2. How could there not be, in a modern MMO?

I have seen people in GW2 doing what I consider painful, repetitive grinding. Armies running laps in the Edge of the Mists. Heroes repeatedly doing Fractals. Massive groups teleporting from one world boss to another on a clockwork schedule.

If people want to do that, more power to them. None of that is necessary, though. It's for bragging rights or as a faster alternative to levelling.

Look at the relative stats for item rarity. For a fresh level 80 character Rare equipment is trivial to get, and Exotic is very doable. This equipment is not that far behind the very best. Certainly the gap is much, much less than most other MMOs. And it doesn't go obsolete over time as new content is added... mostly.

Mounts are more than just a "go faster" convenience in GW2. They complement the exploration side of the game, with each able to run, jump, or glide differently. They have weight and inertia and are fun to drive. The optional, later-game mounts require some grinding to get; thankfully they are account-wide unlocks.

Is there any grinding required to just experience the game? The answer is "yes", but I think GW2 has taken the harsh edges off it.

If you enjoy grinding, is it really grinding? GW2 lets you enjoy grinding in two ways:

No Repetition

Get something once, and you don't have to do it again. That's good, because something only becomes repetitive if you have to do it more than once!

Very many things are account-bound. Progress can be made on any character. And once you unlock it, you have it on all characters.

Even something like levelling, which is not account-bound, doesn't have to be repeated. Level-boosting items are handed out as you play or as birthday gifts. All free; not paid-for. And handed out generously: I have enough to get about a half-dozen characters to maximum level. Even if you don't have quite as many as I do they will still speed up the levelling process.

Grinding by Playing

Many things you grind for can be earned doing a variety of things in a variety of places. This has the happy side-effect of making grinding goals come with just playing.

Suppose a friend newly joins GW2, and I'm tempted to join them in the low-level non-expansion zone. I won't be "wasting time" as I'll be earning masteries, gold and other currencies and crafting materials.

Photo-bombed by a hunter pet. Look at that smug expression on its face...

Combat Mechanics

GW2 combat feels pretty satisfying and fluid to me. I don't want to hold GW2's combat up as exemplary, because it isn't. Other MMOs do similar things; in many cases better.

But I like GW2 combat well enough. Here's why:

Movement. Many attacks can be avoided by moving away. In any half-way hectic combat you're constantly on the move, either to avoid enemy attacks or to better position your own. Having a dedicated dodge move adds to the experience.

Action Camera. Not everyone likes the action camera, but I love it. I can control the game like a shooter, not like some modded real-time strategy game.

Elegant Rules. Over time, MMO rules systems often turn into incomprehensible messses that no-one understands. Or they start out that way. GW2's rules are pretty complicated but it keeps things mostly comprehensible with a kind-of status-effect middleware that relies on common effects like boons and conditions. The programmer in me finds it quite genius and, frankly, elegant.

Weak Holy Trinity

In GW2 the healer, DPS, tank divide is de-emphasised. Every class does a little of each.

Yes, you can emphasise one over another, and if you're doing difficult content you probably should. But no class is defined by their trinity-role. You want to be a tanky thief? Do it!

Healing is especially unique. In old-school MMOs, healing is just "reverse damage". You hit me for 20 damage? I'll heal me for 20 damage. In GW2 it's a bit more nuanced, usually revolving around regeneration or other slower effects. Someone chucking out healing skills is a life-saver (literally) not because they're un-doing chunks of damage but because they're increasing survivability.

Amateur Theorycrafting

When I was levelling up my thief I found she struggled with survivability. I paused to re-consider my tactics. I decided on a condition damage approach, and picked weapons and skills that would make my enemies bleed. Caltrops, shrapnel bombs, and double daggers!

It worked! The thief was still fragile, but she could stack enough bleeds to kill most things, even many things at once. The caltrops helped: tougher bad-guys would limp in pursuit, bleeding to death.

My post-hoc re-enactment of that bleed build.

Apparently it wasn't an optimal choice: theorycrafters would pick other configurations. That's unavoidable. There is always a meta in any game made by mortals.

Yet I was pleased I had "figured it out" on my own, just by playing and experimenting. I didn't need an internet guide to survive. And even if it wasn't the best choice, it still worked well enough.

Having done the same on a few classes since then I feel GW2 is a game where you can tinker and customise and come up with things that work.

My current warrior setup tries to be tanky in a few ways; one of which is by combining For Great Justice with Might Makes Right. I doubt it's a "top meta" build but it seems to work well enough.

Rotationless

I hate rotations in MMOs. I get they're inevitable to some extent, but I loathe MMOs that embrace and build upon it as if it's a positive thing.

Well, let me back away from that a mote. I hate it when they do that and it's not opt-in. If people want to do it for some unique style or to get a few extra percentage points of damage, I don't mind.

I don't want to think about internal timers and priorities when I play. Those things are artificial. I want to think about the actual goings-on in combat. I want use Hundred Blades because I've moved into a position where I can strike mulitiple foes; not because a I've randomly proced a buff that enables or enhances it.

This is why Berserker Warrior is my favourite class in GW2. I can play it in a brain-dead way. The "auto attack" skill, plus one or two others, is all I need in a stand-up slugfest. Everything else is to respond to a situation: to move, to heal, to break, to push.

There are classes and specialisations in GW2 that do require something of a rotation. That's fine. I won't play 'em but I've no problem if others want to!

PvP and End-Game

I've not done much PvP stuff or fractals or raids. So I can't talk much about that. I wish I had tried these things, but such are the laments of a casual player with limited time.

I really love GW2's approach to remove gear and level restrictions in all PvP. It's great you can buy the game, log in, and play PvP or WvW on a mostly level playing field.

I also love the concept of World vs World. Both as a mode of competition and the way it allows for a variety of activities like soldiering, skirmishing, scouting, siege-engining and supply-hauling. You can even just potter around the WvW zone doing vistas or harvesting resources if you want to.

Some people will complain GW2 doesn't have enough end-game. They're probably right, in a sense: there are better MMOs out there for their needs. As a casual player, I'm largely happy with the balance GW2 had decided to strike.

A World to Escape To

Tyria is a welcoming fantasy world. Like a digital Narnia or Neverland it is a place to escape to. It's comforting to be there.

Of course escapism is part of many works of fiction. On the other hand, it's not something every work of fiction ought do.

If you're going to do escapism, do it well. GW2, I think, does it well.

Scenic

Tyria is a beautiful place. It was in Guild Wars 1. It still is.

The designers have a real knack for displaying awesome, yet realistic, environments. There are stunning settings in all manner of environments. Just look at the screenshots I’ve peppered about.

They especially do nature well. Some of the forests, with dappled lighting and weather effects, are gorgeous.

This isn't just a matter of graphics, or even art. It's a sense of moderation: it's knowing that if everything is epic, nothing is.

They know they rock the scenery. Why else would they make pretty views a big part of the game?

Race Realism

MMOs often have a problem where non-human races are... well... quite human. Sometimes in very silly ways.

Not so GW2. I love the charr. A "cat people" race that aren't humans with cat-ears and a tail. The charr are inhuman yet have animal traits that are familiar, from the loping all-fours run to the always-sniffing nose. They're well designed.

Charr posture though... All that weight bearing down on feet that don't have the benefit of heels? An awkwardly forward centre of gravity? They've got to be sore by the end of the day.

Pretty much all the races are done well, including monster bad-guy ones. There's a lot of detail put into GW2 creatures and it's a shame in a way that the nature of the game means we rarely get to see them up close and detailed.

Arguably GW2's weakest race, aesthetically, may be the humans, who all look like stock photography models.

After doing so well with the charr, I don't know what possessed them to give Rox ridiculously huge kitty-cat eyes.

Empowering

Thinking logically, Tyria really isn't a nice place. There are all sorts of problems, from local bandits to world-ending dragons.

Throw that logic out the window. What matters more than how many problems there are is how empowered you, I, or anyone is to solve these problems.

There's no problem in GW2 that can't be fixed. Bandits can be beaten up. Dragons can be defeated. Even racism can be fixed. (Yes, often violence is the only option, but that's action RPGs for you.)

There's a spirit of co-operation and capability that runs through GW2. You are not so much the mighty hero coming to save the helpless peasants. Rather you're mucking in with people already hard at work trying to fix things, be they grub-squashing farmers or dragon-killing soldiers. You just happen to be the tipping point they needed. Even in the story, when you're promoted to grand poobah, you're a pretty collaborative boss, tending to work with your comrades.

In GW2 hope trumps hopelessness. It's escapism. It's nice.

Story

GW2 has a number of stories you can embark on.

I have mixed feelings about GW2's story. Like most MMO stories, it isn't that great. I wouldn't suggest you get a bag of popcorn and watch all the cutscenes on YouTube.

But as far as MMO stories go, it's probably better than most. It certainly has its ups and downs. Yet in those better moments it can be quite enthralling. Living World Season 4 -- the most recent story section at the time of writing -- kept me interested and even tugged a little at my heart-strings.

Like a soap opera, the GW2 story makes up in quantity what it lacks in quality. Over time -- years and years, remember -- you get to know and love the world and the characters. And it's doubly engaging because you are one of the characters.

Characters

The best thing about GW2's story are the characters, especially in later content. Characters who are essentially RPG tropes are given personality by competent writing and voice acting. Canach's dry sense of humour always amused me, as did Taimi's energetic voice acting.

This is a well-calculated expenditure of effort. Good characters can make talking heads engaging. Bad characters can't be saved even by multi-million dollar effects budgets.

A cool little scene at the end of the Personal Story has your character striding alongside the members of Destiny's Edge.

War and Isolation

Many people don't like Orr, the final zone in the base game. I do.

As per the story, it's a warzone. And you can see it. It's like the D-Day landings over there. Scouts, transports, war machines; everywhere you go the Pact are battling the undead. There are no heart quests there, just dynamic events; and I think that reflects the epic goings-on quite well.

Likewise, a zone like Mount Maelstrom is meant to be a wild place far from civilisation. And it feels like it. There are people (someone's got to give quests) but they're either explorers, exiles, or strange native creatures.

These may seem like rather pedestrian observations. I bring them up because many MMOs get this stuff wrong. Epic war zones have maybe a few dozen NPCs battling but otherwise seem unaffected. Far-flung regions have just as many towns as the heart of civilisation.

Getting this stuff right provides a sense of place, and of progress (level-wise and story-wise).

Living World

I enjoy GW2's Living World episodic content. From a story and setting perspective it gives the world a sense of history and progression.

From a gameplay perspective it adds new content... and often a lot of content. Whole new zones are added. I have especially enjoyed Season 4's zones, which feel as richly developed as the normal zones.

Style and Polish

People often talk about Blizzard games in terms of polish (even Blizzard do). I feel GW2 has a certain level of similar polish. (Whether that's still true for Blizzard games is another matter.)

The art style is gorgeous and consistently applied from the grand stuff like character creation screens and loading art, right down to little touches on the UI. This consistency isn't exactly a key selling point but it does speak to a certain craftsmanship.

When you jump in the water, the lower part of your HUD gets "splashed" with drops in GW2's signature "inkbrush style". It's part of the transition animation from land to water skills. A tiny touch that is illustrative of GW2's attention to detail and consistency in style.

Wiki

Similar quality can be seen in the official GW2 Wiki which is informative, tidy and (as far as I've seen) complete. It's good to be able to look with confidence at a definitive source rather than look over a handful of fan MMOs trying to sort fact from speculation.

Conclusion

So... I like Guild Wars 2.

It's been the perfect MMO for a casual player like me. It respects my wallet. It respects my time. It offers variety, solid gameplay, and a comforting world to visit. It seems to have been made with real love.

Thank you to the people who made it. You should take pride in the countless hours of entertainment and joy you've given to me and so many other players across the world.

If you've stumbled across this and are thinking of playing, know that GW2 can be played for free. Why not give it a go?