#but this is about brotherhood despite uncommon backgrounds

[foegs]

I want Valtteri to bully the shit out of him, in fact, because of course he can't skate. Or, you know, the figure skater vs hockey player switcharoo scenario :eyes:

so lynn and I were literally just discussing a battle of the blades type situation for uhhhh bottberg. nico has the ice dancer vibes and we all know valtteri’s one hair away from being a proper hockey player. 

I just think daniel would suit an anti-hallmark movie, you know? it’s the holidays and he’s stranded in some tiny town but the ice rink isn’t outdoors in the town square, it’s the local hockey arena and there is no romance here, just valtteri, the pro hockey player (also at home for the holidays and bitterly bored) relentlessly criticising daniel’s floppy ankles and inability to skate backwards. (callout for me because I cannot skate backwards.) just guys being dudes. daniel inevitably gets a light concussion and has to get hauled to the next town with a hospital for a checkup. he’s back on the ice too soon after, like an idiot, and there’s a tender moment where valtteri does up daniel’s skates properly for once in his life, but that’s as tender as it gets. when they both leave town, daniel is advised to stick to something like snowshoeing instead. 

[theywereroommatesss]

childhood headcanons for snake and ace?

//sorry this took such a long time to get out, my life has been hectic as fuck!!//

Snake:

Grew up as an only child with his mother in a small NY apartment. He and his mom were very close, quiet people, and a lot of his time was spent alone, entertaining himself and staying out of the way when he could. His mom taught him a lot about housekeeping, which was good because as a single parent, she had to leave him on his own for extended periods of time from a fairly young age. As such, Snake was always a very independent and self-sufficient child, and this would serve him well when he left home abruptly in his early teens.

Snake was never a particularly healthy child. He seemed to succumb to colds and general feelings of malaise more often than his peers. He’s always had a strong aversion to cold temperatures, something that Ace used to tease him about since it made his nickname that much more fitting. Now that it impacts his health more severely the joke has been dropped entirely.

Art has always been one of Snake’s greatest passions. He doodled religiously in school and collected pencils, erasers, markers, and any other art related paraphernalia he could get his small hands on. The margins of his homework were always filled with intricate lineart. Flowers, scales, and mandala patterns were his favourite things, and by the time he reached highschool his teachers had finally given up on reprimanding him for making a mess of his work. His hands (despite his best efforts to keep them clean) almost always had an ink stain or two. It was a wonder he never ruined any of his clothes.

Snake was the first addition to Ace’s eventual gang of friends, and helped with the “recruitment” of the other members over time. Coming off as softer and perhaps more personable than Ace, he was a valuable asset in encouraging others to join with the promise of brotherhood and safety in numbers. While Ace offered the strength and security of a leader, Snake presented himself as a support system and something of a counsellor to the people in his life, so the role of the gang’s matriarch was a natural fit for him. He was always the first to hone in on his friends’ changes in mood and could always be depended on to offer a shoulder to cry on or a listening and sympathetic ear.

In contrast to his friends, Snake is the cleanest and most well kept of the gang. He has always taken a lot of pride in his appearance and would often be found preening himself whenever appropriate; before bed, before school, before any sort of social interaction. He insisted on growing his hair out when he was very small, and as soon as it was long enough his mother taught him to braid it for himself. He would keep it tied back like that more often than not, glad to have a method of keeping his hair clean and out of his face. He got called a girl a lot for this, but for some reason that never seemed to bother him much…

Snake’s favourite foods growing up were onigiri and honey crackers.

Ace:

The second oldest of five kids, Ace grew up in a townhouse with his siblings, parents, and nonna. The Coppola household was a place of raucous noise; always bustling with family squeezed into spaces just tight enough to verge on uncomfortable. There wasn’t much room for privacy or quiet self reflection, and something always seemed to be happening at any given time. As a result, Ace learned to speak his mind and speak to be heard from a very young age to ensure his voice didn’t get drowned out by the cacophony. The concept of an inside voice was something that Snake and others had to introduce him to. To this day, he still hasn’t quite mastered the art of matching the tone of a room, and he struggles to keep himself from speaking over others. On the plus side, this made for fairly effective leadership (if you speak loudly enough, people have little choice other than to listen).

Ace didn’t make note of many health problems when he was a child, but that wasn’t for lack of them. There were a handful of concerns he had, it was just that being part of such a large family made it difficult for him to speak up about them. Once he started school, it didn’t take long for him to start experiencing near constant headaches during classes, accompanied with plenty of fidgeting and squinting. Far things appeared blurry and vague, distractions loomed ever present around every corner. If anyone had been paying attention, the co-morbid diagnosis of nearsightedness and possible adhd might have been presented to him much more quickly, unfortunately that just wasn’t to be. It wouldn’t be until years later, in his 20s, that Ace would finally get a prescription for eyeglasses and anxiety medication. In the meantime, a pair of well worn aviator shades given to him by his older brother, Tony, helped dim lights enough for him to dull the headaches and find his focus (a little bit, at least).

Music was a huge part of Ace’s childhood. His father had an extensive collection of rock records and cassettes, and it wasn’t uncommon for post-dinner family time to consist of chilling out in the family room with some tunes on in the background and soft conversation. They were some of the only times when his family could be trusted to hush up a bit, if only to let the music speak for itself. When Tony brought home a guitar one year, they tried playing it together all summer; plucking away clumsily along with Tony’s favourite albums. In the end, Ace actually showed more promise than Tony did, and he inherited Tony’s guitar a few years later. When things got rough as Ace grew up, he would often tuck himself away in the solitude of Tony’s room and play until his fingers felt raw from the effort. It was one of the things that kept him going, more than anything else.

Ace was always well suited for a leader role, so it was easy for him to assume the same position in his gang. He did a lot of babysitting at home for his younger brothers and it taught him a lot about taking responsibility and initiative for the happiness, safety, and well-being of those around him (occasionally to his own personal detriment). He would kill for his Boys (or at the very least, maim if need be). It wasn’t uncommon for his fervor to get him into more trouble than it was worth…

Ace’s favourite foods growing up were slurpees (anything but lime), cheese crackers, and his nonna’s homemade bolognese.

[schraubd]

David's Personal Top Ten Video Games

This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It is a personal list, reflecting the games that have stuck with me the most over the years. I'm not enough of a gamer to claim it is anything comprehensive, and it has a strong bias to the sorts of genres that I like. Nonetheless, I'd stack these games against any that have been made in my lifetime. Anyway, without further adieu ....

Honorable Mentions:

Portal 2: How can a game with virtually no “dialogue” (if that means conversations between two characters) have some of the best spoken lines in all video game history? I have both the original and a capella versions of the Turret Opera on my iTunes (yes, I have “Still Alive” as well).

Railroad Tycoon II: A brilliant simulator that makes you actually feel like a turn-of-the-century robber baron (by far, the game is most fun to play when set in the late 19th century). If every man goes through his “trains!” phase, this was mine. As in real life, I am not good at playing the stock market.

Horizon: Zero Dawn: Robot dinosaurs! Incredibly, Horizon: Zero Dawn takes a core concept that sounds like word association from an over-caffeinated twelve-year boy and makes an entirely serious game about it—and it works. It works so well, in fact, that I loved it despite the fact that the plot and entire world-building background centers around my single greatest phobia (no, not that—being alive for the extinction of humanity).

10. Sid Meier’s Gettysburg: I find it odd that very few games have sought to replicate Gettysburg’s spin on an RTS—focusing combat around regiments rather than individual units and prioritizing morale over raw numbers. But the thing I like best about Gettysburg—and sadly it’s mostly unique too—is in how it concentrates on controlling territory (and terrain). Many RTS games, for me, might as well have a blank screen over 80% of the map between my base and my opponent’s base. You build up your force, and then try to swarm your opponent before he or she swarms you. But in Gettysburg, the goal of missions is not “wipe out your opposition”. It’s to capture and hold a ridge, or dig in and hold an exposed farmhouse.

My only critiques are that I want this game to be bigger. I want it to encompass dozens of map spanning the entirety of the Civil War. I want to be able memorize even more obscure Union and Confederate generals and wonder if they really were “mediocre” or if that was just a game balance decision. The random battle generator is okay, but this game screams for user-created expansions which I’ve never been able to find.

9. Crimson Skies: A pulpy fun flight simulator taking place in an alternate history 1930s where America has fractured and Zeppelin travel rules the day. The game doesn’t hesitate to lean into its concept (phrases like “broad” and “floozy” abound), and it does a great job world-building in a relatively short period of time. Somehow, I could meet an enemy “ace” for the first time in the middle of a mission and yet still feel like we had a history of epic dogfights together of which this was only the latest. Meanwhile, each of the locations the game takes you to (Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Hollywood, the Rocky Mountains, and New York City) are a blast and a half.

A sequel, High Road to Revenge, was released on Xbox and leaned a little too hard into the arcade-y elements (power-ups, automatic evasive maneuvers with the press of a button, and so on). But the original PC game was just right—planes flew exactly like how someone who knows nothing about planes thinks planes fly, which is just perfect. You felt like an ace pilot because of your skill (even though behind the hood the game is really holding your hand). Piloting a gyrocopter through half-built New York City skyscrapers, or a prototype single-engine through the Hollywood "O", is great. Doing it to evade local security, then doing a loop and turning both guns on them -- well, that's the cat's meow.

8. Mass Effect (Trilogy and Andromeda): As far as I’m concerned, the definitive space opera (even muscling out Halo). Fabulous voice acting (listening to Martin Sheen play evil Jed Bartlett is one of the great joys of my life) and memorable plot lines pair with a morality system that at least inches away from “basically decent person or utter asshole.” The universe feels genuinely alive, like there’s an ecosystem and civilization that you’re very much apart, but also moves in your absence.

I can’t really separate out the core trilogy games from one another (each sequel seemed to simultaneously step slightly forward and back), which is not I think an uncommon position. What may be more uncommon is that I think Andromeda stands right in there with the core series. Yes, it was disappointing that it took us to a brand new galaxy and only gave us two new species (while eliminating many of the more backgrounded Milky Way aliens). But I was much more disappointed that there will be no DLC or sequels to continue the story and tie up loose ends.

7. N and N++: There can’t be any serious controversy that N is the greatest Flash game ever made. While Flash demands simplicity, N is not so much simple as it is elegant. It is the perfect balance of speed and control, thoughtfulness and twitch-trigger reflexes, serene relaxation and butt-clenching tension. Once you master the floaty physics and the unique enemy styles, you will truly feel like a ninja—stripped to its core essence and deprived of all the usual but unnecessary bells and whistles. A virtually unlimited supply of levels guarantees you endless gameplay.

And so it is unsurprising that N was one of the rare flash games that made a successful jump to a full true game (in the form of N++), one that has a strong claim on being the greatest platformer ever made. The developers were wise not to disturb the basic formula: run, jump, and slide around a level, dodge obstacles and traps that will kill you instantly, reach the exit. Repeat ad infinitum. But N++ adds just a splash of additional flavors and spices into the mix. A perfect trip-trance soundtrack that sets the mood perfectly (and may single-handedly stave off keyboard-smashing frustration). A few new enemy types that deepen the game without ruining its austere grace. And perhaps most importantly, it adds a bunch of extra, semi-secret challenges (which can be used to unlock still more levels) waiting for the very best-of-best players.

Of all the games on this list, I might be in absolute terms “best” at N++ (there are a non-trivial number of levels in the game where I have a top 100 or even top 10 score on the global leaderboards). And yet there is not the slightest chance that I will ever perfect this game, or even come close to it. Nor is there any chance I will become permanently sick of it. A simple concept, executed brilliantly. The perfect N++ level is also the perfect description of the game.

6. Final Fantasy IX: The question was never whether a Final Fantasy game would make this list, only which one. I’ve long had a soft-spot for FFIX, which I feel is often overlooked inside the series (in part because even on release it seemed players were already looking ahead to the Playstation 2). Yet it’s hard to find fault in Final Fantasy IX as an emblem of a straight-forward JRPG. It has a moving story, fun gameplay, beautiful music, loads of quests to do and places to explore, a fabulous supporting cast (Vivi might be my favorite Final Fantasy character ever written), and a lead character you don’t want to punch (*cough* Final Fantasy X).

Final Fantasy IX is often described as “nostalgic”, and despite the fact that it was only the second game in the series I had ever played, I got that feeling instantly. Try listening to the soundtrack for “Frontier Village Dali” without feeling a little melancholic. You don’t even have to have played. But I recommend that you do.

For the record, my ranking of Final Fantasy games that I’ve played goes: IX, VII, XII, XV, X, XIII.

5. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood: One difficulty in judging games within a series is how to compare an earlier game which still had some rough edges but represented a quantum leap forward versus a later game which didn’t do anything super-novel but tweaked the formula to perfection. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Now, for me, this is an easy call for idiosyncratic reasons—I played AC:B before AC II, and so I experienced the former as both the perfected model and the quantum leap forward as compared to the original game. But I respect that for those who played the series in order, this is a harder call.

What should be easy for anyone is to agree that together, Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood represented the AC series reaching its full potential. Ezio continues to be the best protagonist the series has seen to date. Renaissance Italy likewise is the ideal setting for both AC’s vertical and horizontal platforming elements and its shadowy-conspiracy/secret-history plotline. As a franchise, Assassin’s Creed really launched the parkour/open-world exploration genre, and Brotherhood was the first game where every single element of what that genre could be came together. Other more recent games have been tons of fun (Black Flag and Syndicate are I think highlights), but these two games are the reason this series is so iconic.

4. Might and Magic VI: The same problem posed by AC2 versus Brotherhood emerges with Might and Magic VI and VII—except here, I did play them in order. Like the previous entry, I do think that VII ultimately improves upon the formula set out in Might and Magic VI. It’s more versatile, has more replay value, a touch more balanced (and that’s not getting into ArcoMage) … all in all, probably a better technical game.

But Might and Magic VI is for me iconic—it may well be the first RPG I’ve ever truly loved (and given the way this list is stacked in that direction, that’s saying a lot). Virtually all the things that characterize what I love in games today, it had in at least skeletal form. Open world exploration? Check: It was the first game where I felt like I was a true pathfinder—meticulously crawling over every corner of the map to find each obscure bandit’s cave and goblin fortress. To this day I still have the lay of the land in Enroth basically memorized. Overly detailed worldbuilding text to read? Absolutely: my obsessive-streak came out in reading every single artifact description, conversational option, and quest backgrounder (it is canon that Enroth, and the entire planet it resides upon, was blown up in a magical explosion—a fact I’m still resentful towards 3DO for long after it disappeared into bankruptcy). Slight genre-bending? The splash of Sci-Fi onto the fantasy setting was delightful to discover for someone who had never played any of the prior entries in the series. And some of the music—well, the White Cap theme is a thing of beauty, and on my computer “Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ” is still listed as “Church Dungeon Music.”

3. Heroes of Might and Magic III: If comparing earlier, more revolutionary games against newer more polished ones presents a problem in the Assassin’s Creed and Might and Magic series, it presents no trouble at all in Heroes of Might & Magic. That’s because the third installation in the series both represented a huge jump forward from what came before and is unquestionably the best entry in the overall sequence.

Sure, some of the expansions are a bit goofy, but they still work—sharpshooters and enchanters are massively overpowered, but they’re generally used in missions that would otherwise be impossible. But the main campaign is fabulous—a surprisingly intricate and interwoven plot that bridges Might and Magic VI and VII compliments outstanding strategy gameplay. And that doesn’t even get into the acre of standalone maps provided, plus countless more available on the web thanks to a map editor so intuitive, even I can use it (I’m terrible with map editors).

As a result of all of this, Heroes III is maybe the only game on this list that can compete with N++ regarding infinite replayability. This is fortunate, because—given the fact that Heroes III was a full-budget release and was not supposed to be “simple”—it ages incredibly well. Even the graphics hold up (no need for that remastered remake—which doesn’t even include the expansions!).

2. Witcher III: As you may have noticed, this list has a strong bias towards RPGs. My preference is toward “Western” RPGs (which have a go-anywhere/do-anything exploration mentality) compared to “Japanese” RPGs (which are more linear and story-driven), but Witcher III does an incredible job of synthesizing the best of both. It has a huge open world to explore, one that feels alive and dynamic—but there is also an incredibly rich story filled with deep, well-written characters (of which Geralt—the player character—is but one).

Gameplay-wise, Witcher III really hits the perfect balance. I simultaneously felt like the biggest bad-ass in the room, but also like a single slip in concentration or bit of overconfidence and my corpse would unceremoniously end up at the bottom of whatever cave I was in. But Witcher III particularly stands out in how it subverts certain common RPG tropes. You are a hero, but you’re not particularly well-liked. You’re a powerful warrior, but you’re still ultimately treated as a pawn in larger political machinations. Your interventions do not always save the day, and sometimes don’t even make things better. If a mission starts with a villager worrying that their beloved has gone missing, nine times out of ten that person has been devoured by a monster well before you ever get there. While many games claim to place the hero in difficult moral dilemmas, Witcher III is a rare case of following through (some games might give you the choice to let a trio of witches eat a group of kids whom you recently played hide-and-seek with, but few make it so that might actually be the more moral of the options in front of you). There’s even a quest where you help a knight rescue a lady in distress from a curse, then lecture him that he’s not entitled to her romantic attention as a reward (talk about a timely intervention in the video game genre!). Over and over again, the game reinforces the message that being really powerful and doing “the right thing” isn’t enough to fix a fundamentally broken system.

Most impressive is the emotional impact that Witcher III dishes out. Sometimes this is a result of rich character development that pays off over the course of the entire game (as in “The Last Wish” quest). But sometimes it shows up in even relatively minor sidequests—the epilogue of the “Black Pearl” quest was one of the more brutal emotional gut-punches I’ve experienced in a video game. Ultimately, this was a game where one always felt like each character was a person—they were imperfect, they had their own interests, hopes, dreams, strengths and foibles, and while you were a little better with a sword and gifted with some preternatural abilities, you were still only one player in a much bigger narrative. As a result, Witcher III might well be, in my estimation, the perfect RPG.

Oh, and Gwent is ludicrously addictive. Let’s not forget that.

1. TIE Fighter: I don’t think this list has a particularly “modern” bias. Still, there’s something impressive about the number one game on this list also being the oldest by some measure. TIE Fighter originally came out in 1994, and the definitive Collector’s Edition was released in 1995. It is, to this day, one of the best games ever made. And that’s not a retrospective assessment. Star Wars: Tie Fighter holds up even played right now.

For starters, it is one of the few elements of the Star Wars universe to get the Empire right. I’m not saying that the Empire is the real protagonist of the series. I am saying that they wouldn’t view themselves as evil—as much as naming spacecraft “Executor” and “Death Star” might suggest otherwise. TIE Fighter is quite self-assured in presenting you as being a force for law and order in the galaxy, battling not just seditious rebels but pirates, smugglers, and other anarchic forces that threaten to tear civilized life apart.

Let’s start with something often overlooked in TIE Fighter: the music. It’s probably the only context that the phrase “kick-ass MIDI soundtrack” makes sense. But that’s not even the half of it. The iMuse system dynamically and seamlessly arranges the musical cues to reflect what’s going on around you in the mission—you can literally follow important mission updates (e.g., a wingman being shot down, or reinforcements arriving) simply by the way the melody shifts. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered anything quite like it since. To this day, the number that accompanies an incoming enemy capital ship fills me with exhilarated dread.

Gameplay-wise, TIE Fighter is almost shockingly rich. The core mission requirements are challenging, but by no means out of reach. But embedded in each level are a series of secondary and secret bonus objectives. These unlock a parallel plot of the Emperor’s Secret Order—but always present a brutal risk/reward calculus. That’s not unrelated to the fact that you’re often flying, well, TIE fighters (not noted for their durability)—but the challenge extends well beyond physical peril. TIE Fighter actually gives you an “invincibility” option if you want it, and yet even with it on some of the later missions and bonus objectives will strain every piloting skill you’ve ever developed.

Most importantly, the secret objectives usually are more involved than “blow up everything in sight.” They reward initiative and exploration. Maybe your primary mission objective is to destroy a rebel space station. But just before it goes down, you spot an escape shuttle fleeing the station. Take it out? Maybe—but maybe the occupants are VIPs best taken alive. So you switch to ion cannons and disable it for capture. Yet that extra time you just spent has given the rebels enough breathing room to summon reinforcements—now an enemy cruiser is bearing down on you. Take out its missile launchers and clear path for bombers while praying that your own Star Destroyer will arrive soon to back you up. All on the fly. All while dogfighting starfighters, dodging mines, giving your wingmen orders … it’s insanely, beautifully chaotic.

Did I mention this is all happening in 1995? 90% of games released today don’t have that kind of depth or spontaneity. In terms of playability, replayability, and just plain fun, TIE Fighter stands alone, and unchallenged.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2HbDTEl

[stephicness]

Why do you think Prompto doesn't look like the other Lucian kids? Are there no blonde Lucians or? (about your Prom hcs which I loved btw!!)

(Ah~ Thank you, dear anon! C: )

I suppose though that blonde-hair wouldn’t be uncommon, considering that biologically – despite it being a recessive gene – you’d still have a chance of meeting the right traits to be born blonde with blue eyes – particularly with both your parents having the recessive traits of blonde-hair and blue eyes! Hereditary sciences and genetics are quite fascinating, but also quite natural.

Like, Prompto probably wouldn’t be that different, I feel, since Lucis (and the world of Final Fantasy as a whole) has a thing for blue eyes. c: It’s remarkably a lot more common, despite the blue-eyed gene being alot harder to get than the brown-eyed one. Ditto with blond-hair.(Of course, there’s this entire gene spectrum that gives people different eye-colors like green, grey-green, amber, etc, but I DIGRESS.)

Design wise though: Prompto is quite different from alot of the Lucian kids because, again, I’mma bring up the eyes. Brown-eyes are often considered a rather plain and generic trait in characters mostly because brown-eyes are the primary dominant genes in genetics (Punnett squares, yo!). Almost every background character you see in Brotherhood possesses brown-eyes. A good handful of minor characters also have brown eyes as well, but compensate with a really good silhouette (Crowe and Libertus, for example). But the designs of the other Lucian kids all seem to fall typically within the shades of brown eye-colors and brown-shaded hairstyles.

Prompto and others outside of Insomnia, seem to have more diverse traits. Cindy, for example, as the blond-hair and blue eyes combo too, but all we know is that she is Cid’s niece. (And again, bolder designs signify a major character). But the blond-hair in particular – in most cases – represents some sort of importance in rival contexts of FFXV designs.

I feel like I’m rambling, but I’m gonna solidify myself in a sec, maybe!

But for the designs of Insomnians (AKA Noctis and the royals), darker colors are very-much the dominant trait. Darker hair, dark attire, blue eyes usually (if they’re a heroic character), but black is the major representing color of Lucians. Darker shades and tones, even in the designs of NPC characters, etc.

Versus Niflheim, however, we notice that white is the predominant color of the society, along with shades of red too. The emperor wears it, Ravus wears it, Verstael has white in his design VIA his beards and gloves, Aranea has it within the waist mark she wears, etc. We as viewers can tell that Black is ‘good’ and ‘white’ is bad in most cases because of these design aesthetics that the developers made. To also contrast with Insomnians’ darker physical traits too (hair and eye), almost every single Niflheim affiliated character has some sort of lighter hair-color or trait too (sans Glauca, of course, since he was meant to blend-in). It’s to, again, show us as viewers that Niflheim is associated with lighter tones and Insomnia/Lucis the darker ones.

As a result, we can instantly tell that something was inherently different about Prompto from the moment we saw him. Of course, VIA the stereotypical tells of the ‘important character,’ but because of his lighter color schemes versus the darker ones.

That, and if you REALLY want to get technical, we can get some insight that Prompto is associated with Niflheim because he’s the only boy in the party with white in his main design (where his boots meet his pants). This could be hinting that Prompto isn’t exactly what he says he is – despite it being a super minor detail.

But yeah~ :D There’s my ranting about it. Perhaps in real life, he was able to fit in quite well (though might have been bullied for his distant behavior), but design-wise, he’s got alot more going on than just freckles and sunshine, I feel~