#character arc where i make it my life mission to use farming games for Good. and not for the hustle

[growleaf]

society give me the communism farming game NOW

[ambistep]

Mutual Aid, pt 2

Mina Oh joins the Rangers on a mission, just like old times. The Phalanx 1A7 is having a tough first day. The Rat King does a very good job and can have a little treat.

~5.8k words. Canon typical violence, guns, excessive length ;_;

Part 1

She was right. This is a bad idea.

Look at them. All four of them, standing at the edge of the observatory’s parking lot, looking down over the city, bathed in the orange-gold light of the setting sun.. Like something from a movie - real big hero shot. Knowing each of them, you can’t imagine it was intentional, but some part of you still wants to roll your eyes.

Ortega’s talking to someone from the LDPD - and past the four Rangers, down the hill and into the city, you can see the marks of disaster. Periodic buzzing of helicopters, plumes of black blossoming on the horizon, the constant sound of sirens in the distance. It does feel a lot like last time. 

But these are different Rangers. As you approach, the aura of majesty fades, the illusion of your memory is peeled back. You can hear the tail end of the marshal’s briefing as you close in.

“...liaison at the Pentagon said they weren’t prepared to officially comment.” Chen looks sour - being stonewalled by bureaucracy would do that to a person. There’s no sign he’s still nursing that broken arm, and trust that you are looking for it - but there wouldn’t be, not under his heavy armor.

“Typical,” Julia’s got her arms crossed in disbelief, “and how about unofficially?”

“Unofficially. ‘Phalanx,’ a prototype multiped drone tank walked off the test range in El Toro Air Base this morning. More than that…” Chen’s distaste is tangible. “He said he’d work on it but the response’ll be-”

“-predictably late.” The sound of your voice through the vocal distorter catches even you off-guard. “Does it get easier with the years, Marshal, being lied to by your masters?” 

You have to get your digs in, play the part of Clarity - or else you might start thinking about Spoon, and evenings spent sitting in silence in the Rangers’ lounge, taking comfort in simply being present. Besides, Chen needs to hear these things Mina couldn’t say - his loyalty to that system is going to bury him sooner rather than later. Assuming I don’t end up burying him first. A glum admission.

The Rangers’ reactions are worth the dramatic approach - Herald settles back into a defensive posture, fixing a frown on his face that, secretly, you think looks just a little bit pouty. Chen is resigned, barely moves - already determined you weren’t here for a fight. Argent, bless her, makes a poor show of pretending to be shocked. But sparks spit and arc along the surface of Julia’s mods, a snarl on her face as she all but prepares to lunge for you. 

“More of your games?” She crosses the distance and makes a grab for your arm - easily sidestepped.

“I don’t think you have the time to play with me, Charge, not like that.” That anger and strain on her face saps the fun out of the usual back and forth. Julia looks so far from the invincible Marshal Charge right now - shorter than your height in the armor, but only just.  

“I’ll make time, if it means bringing you in.”

“Bringing me in?” You have to force the laugh, but you’ve had practice - and the voice modulators make it into a hideous, mocking sound. The serene visage of the Clarity mask looks down at the former Marshal, “Not on your best day, Charge.” You lean in closer, voice dropping to a hissing whisper through your mask, “And we both know, your best days are far… far behind you.” I told you to stay away from this. Mina had told her. Clarity had told her. Please, Jules. Sit out, for once in your life.

“Enough, Charge.” Steel steps in, time to be the Marshal, “She’s right, we don’t have time for this. Why are you here?” How are you here, he may even be wondering.

“This city is filled with loose lips,” you can’t resist hanging on to that last word and looking directly at Argent - not that the Rangers can tell through the mask, “I have plans that conflict with a next-generation battle tank carving a bloody swath through Los Diablos. Given that Herald is already bleeding,” you motion to him holding his side, and the tell-tale first aid patching done to his suit’s shoulder, “I would suppose that reconnaissance did not go well and you’re in no position to refuse my aid.”

Another explosion in the distance. The marshal’s mouth presses together in a displeased flat line. You don’t have to touch his mind to guess he is weighing his brushes with Clarity - the lives you’d saved, the ones you’d endangered, and the harm you’d done. If you’re lucky, that is all he is doing. Finally, he exchanges a look with his team, a consultation conducted in quick looks. Herald seems relieved that there’ll be no fight with you. Argent shrugs and turns away, doing her best to give no real reaction at all. 

Julia’s muscles are still tight, still ready to fight if given the word, but after more silence and the long look from Chen, you can see her resolve wavering, “This is stupid, and dangerous, Steel.”

You politely turn to the marshal for his response, making a show of your good manners.

“I don’t disagree.” The marshal concedes the point but his eyes are already back toward the horizon, and the behemoth traversing Interstate 105.

“I’ll be her minder,” Argent’s hand raises up, claws extended at the end of her hands, “You are on a very short leash, Clarity.”

You simply turn your head to the side, “Fine.” It takes considerable effort on her part not to smirk, you can tell. And so, so much effort on your part not to follow up with a suitable double entendre. 

~

 Far from the sleek modern armor you’d expect of a prototype tank, what you see through the zoom of your helmet is a six-legged lumbering beast - wide as two lanes with a long body that makes you think of some sort of scorpion, it’s main body held just off the ground by the segmented legs. It is covered in a patchwork of burnt plates, twisted metal, looking like the product of a junkyard more than the Department of Defense. It’s difficult to make out but there does seem to be more typical armaments peeking out from the scrap-armor - a machine gun, other emplacements.

As you watch, the thing Chen called Phalanx stalks step after painfully slow step down the evacuated freeway. It halts before an abandoned tractor trailer blocking the roadway. There is a pressure in your sinus, deep in your head, and then all at once, the cab and trailer twist themselves apart, wrenched steel and carbon fiber torn asunder. The pieces of the vehicle come apart and… hang there, floating in mid-air. 

“You see?” Argent crosses her arms.

It’s strange to talk to her through the armor again - it had been some time since Clarity and Lady Argent last officially crossed paths. “I see it - I can feel it from here - you were right, that is telekinesis.” And not like you’d seen it before, not on that scale. And not from a tank. “What is it doing?”

“Watch.” 

And so you do - the metal warps and almost seems to melt, the scraps of the tractor flattening and pulling and layering to plates that then cling to the tank itself - becoming another layer of the scrap armor, another patch in the shell surrounding. Unseen force sweeps the road clean in front of it, and it resumes its trek.

“Alright. So where is it going?”

“We don’t know.” A different voice, a familiar voice - that shouldn’t have been able to approach with your noticing, if you hadn’t become so stupidly comfortable in Ximena’s presence. The stealth is curious - maybe she didn’t totally trust Argent with you still. Julia is still stewing at the indignity of suffering Clarity’s presence, “So where is this ‘help?’”

You give a flat explanation, letting the voice synthesis do the heavy lifting of turning your tone harsh, “If it is a drone, then it has a system directing an organic psychic interface, a -”

Charge cuts you off, “-a series of telepathic rodent brains linked in sequence, like a computer or something. Like Psychopathor used to use. Yeah, I know what it is.” She does, doesn’t she? Does she remember, right now? Is she thinking of Sidestep hunkered down behind cover with her? You’d never forgotten - but you’d thought for sure she would have.

You can say nothing, your gut twisting in that cold sensation of the past stalking you down. Clarity’s mask looks Charge dead on, silent, impassive - but in the helmet, sweat runs down behind your ear, along your neck. You close your eyes, trying to get a handle on the moment. It is taking you too long to answer - both of them have turned their attention away from the target and back to you. 

 ...ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ…?  A nibble, a tug at your mental lobe. Curiosity. It pulls you back. No, we’re not talking about you. Well, sort of. ...I’m afraid this is something different. Put at ease, the little minds nestle up to your neck, or at least in that approximation of the act they project to your mind. 

You finally scramble for Clarity’s character and retort, “Maybe you’re more clever than they say, I am impressed.”

“Well, I’m not.” Charge wrinkles her nose in distaste, fingers flexing like she’s thinking of taking a swing.

How are you sweating so much? Don’t think about it. Don’t think about Julia Ortega. Don’t… Don’t be Mina. You’re Clarity right now, and Clarity deigning to speak with Charge is just that, a lowering of herself. Shoulders up. Get the arrogance, and project, “Consider this - if it is turning away live fire missiles and small arms from your dear Marshal’s armaments then I suspect it is quite the opposite of a telepathic targeting web - this is a machine directing a telekinetic array.” 

With Psychopathor’s cannon, the rats had been the guidance, the aim for the hardware. In this case, the hardware is the guidance, and the minds serve as the firepower, so to speak. That’s what you’d have to imagine. Mildly terrifying concept - you have to wonder if the Farm knows about this project? 

“You’ve seen this before?” Charge is skeptical.

“That kind of information is above your paygrade. Ask your superiors, they’ll tell you the same,” leave her to wonder. You haven’t seen this particular usage but you and every Regene are proven concepts - biological minds educated, directed and fed from wetware. A different implementation of the same idea. “I will need to be close to know what I can work with.”

“‘Close’ makes it angry,” Argent explains. “Herald got close, got shrapnel for it.”

“So by all means, get close.” Charge coolly encourages you.

Steel’s voice crackles over the Ranger’s comms, “Do we have a plan?”

“Yeah.” For the first time you’ve seen today, Ortega smiles - that famous, smug grin that Los Diablos loves to see from Charge. “Yeah - we’re going to throw Clarity in front of it.” 

~

The Phalanx 1A7 next generation telekinetic hexapedal battle tank has put out what must be either the greatest or worst recorded product demonstration of all time. As it steps off the 105 at El Segundo, the streets are empty, the buildings ought to be clear - helicopters circling overhead issue sirens and evacuation orders on loop.

The LDPD had come up with the brilliant idea of hardening polymer foam to delay it’s advance - to stall out while further surrounding areas were evacuated. There’s four low bangs of shells fired from teams stationed atop a highrise. Two more from a helicopter overhead.  The delivery canisters are torn apart in flight by telekinetic windshear - but to the police force’s credit, the unleashed polymer goo splashes against the Phalanx and swells into a foam that then hardens, encasing the forelimbs. Which stops the warmachine for as many as seventeen seconds. 

The retaliation is quick in coming - scrap is peeled from its debris husk in strips, eight slivers of metal taking to drift and float in the air. Molded and forced into straight, slender javelins by psychic force, they spin and turn, finding vectors and trajectories, then sail forward, fired forth like a rail gun - no boom, no bang. One punctures straight through the LDPD chopper, sending it spiraling down into the city proper - a KTLD news chopper that had wandered too close follows just after. And the other shards - you can’t see or feel the minds of the officers stationed at the highrise, but it seems likely those found their marks too.

“Stellar coordination with the police, as usual.” You can’t pass the opportunity to note.

“Shut up.” Ortega sinks down behind the department store counter, scowl fixed on her face as the two of you wait at your position.

Ximena’s voice comes over the communicator, “Turning onto Continental.” Lucky you, coming right this way. “Oh, I think it noticed m-” 

Your heart leaps up into your chest - out on Continental Boulevard, the sound of asphalt crunching, impacted by projectiles. A rattle of machine gun fire. Then, nothing. Quiet. Her voice pipes back up over the Rangers’ comms. “I’m good - it missed.” Argent doesn’t sound worried, but you hadn’t taken a breath. 

You hardly move - this isn’t a Clarity type of plan - this is a Sidestep type of plan. A Rangers plan. Some stupid, thrown together assault based on guesses and confidence, that put you hiding behind cover, far too close to danger. And yet you’d just agreed - how suspicious that must seem to them. You agreed because that’s what Mina did, when the Rangers came up with these stupid plans. Stupid. Telling yourself you were past all that, weren’t you? That this wouldn’t be like before.

“What are you doing?” Charge is staring at you, when you open your eyes again. She’d been watching that suit of armor sit motionless - the visage of the villain that had humiliated her in public twice now.

“Preparing.” A simple, uncomplicated reply - you didn’t have a snide remark ready. 

She watches you with a canny suspicion - the woman whose thoughts you can’t touch. What would you give to know just what was running through her mind? “Whatever you’re planning, it isn’t going to work.”

You laugh a little, “For your sake, marshal, it better.” 

 And as soon as the words leave your lips, you realize the mistake.

Ortega narrows her eyes, confusion, suspicion written across her face. How, after all the tiny details, all the adjustments to your mannerisms, your posture, after all your training, had you let that slip? Calling her ‘marshal.’ Telling on yourself - living in the past. This whole plan felt just like that same slip up.

The quiet of the department store is interrupted by trembling, shaking. Not an earthquake. Just a multi-ton monument to taxpayer funding lumbering down the street outside. Just in time to save you from your mortifying blunder. “That’ll be close enough.”

Reaching out, and reaching out. You let your helmet rest against the counter, abandoning your senses - you coax your little helper to wakefulness, entreating her with calm reassurances to help you track down your target.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ <3

There’s the shape of Ortega’s mind, painfully familiar - but only a shape, that your probing glides over. The familiar, dangerous waters of Argent’s psyche, out there in the street, staying nimble, playing at being prey for the Phalanx… Out beyond, a few scared, huddled minds, or dim hints of of them. People that hadn’t been evacuated - not many, but a few. Flits of anxiousness at the limit of your senses, that would be Herald, high overhead.

And there - ...strange. A void, a spot with nothing. Dampeners? But oh- Oh, there it is. One mind, anyway - you start to pressure against the shielded thoughts and then it’s gone. The Rat King nudges you, finding another mind - but only for an instant, and it too is gone. Oh, Hell.

You sit forward, Charge taking notice, “Let me guess: you failed.”

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ u_u

“A minor wrinkle.” You try to avoid sounding apologetic, “It’s only vulnerable when the telekinesis is engaged.” Clarity showing weakness in front of Charge is painful, and you don’t care for it. “And it appears the evacuation was less than complete.”

Charge seems skeptical of your concern, and that’s fine. But she’s doing the math, she’s redrafting the plan. You’ve seen her do it dozens of times.  She keys up on the comms, “We need to engage the tank - there’s still citizens here somewhere and… our guest needs the distraction.”

Danny’s the first to answer, “What do you mean enga-” There’s a buzz of static. Comms jammed. Which it can do, because of course it can.

Ortega crosses over from her cover and grabs you by the arm, then the throat, her mods sparking alive - you hadn’t been prepared, fool that you are. There are no words for the moment, as she glares into the mask - as if maybe she could see through it if she comes close enough. “Do. Your. Part.” 

A threat? But some weird measure of trust at the same time - no, not trust. That’s her making the hero play - she doesn’t trust Clarity, but the risk is worth the lives she could save. Julia is heading out that revolving glass door. Toward the Phalanx. Of course she is - the only thing more on brand would be if she could flirt with the tank first. Moron. You wish she wouldn’t - just… stay in cover.

You call out, in spite of yourself - Clarity wouldn’t, but Mina can’t help herself. Stop her. “You can’t be serious. If you run off, who will be here to cover me?” There, at least make it sound like self-interest. 

She hardly slows, answering only with a middle finger. 

You follow her as far out of the store as the sidewalk, before dropping into a stairwell for cover. She isn’t stopping, and she’s going to get herself killed. So that her enemy, the villain Clarity, can try and save the day. Ridiculous, naive of her. 

Well, you can’t exactly let her down, can you? Sinking back into your mind, linking strength with the furry little psyche resting in your suit, you resume probing, searching for your opening. .

There’s the crack of thunder and the smell of ozone wafting to your nose - Ortega’s mods. Then the tank would respond and - you try not to think about what could happen, and focus on the minds now open to you.

They’re there. Three minds - human minds, as you’d suspected, not rodents, not with that sort of telekinetic strength.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ >:(

No offense.

Brushing over the triune, caressing them - they’re not terribly telepathic, but they do have uncanny barriers - augmented by implants, wetware, maybe. It takes time and pressure to find slips and seams, work through the cracks, but honestly? You’re better than you’ve ever been, and you are damn good at this. Nobody’s withstood Clarity yet.

There is the sound of glass shattering - windows breaking - not a sound you care for. But other sounds too, the Rangers engaged in battle, no doubt. But you can’t be distracted by that. 

There - slipping through and prying apart the protective layers behind one of the minds, you insinuate yourself into what passes for consciousness in this psychic arra-

A flood of pain, fullness, noise, a torrent of thoughts, washing against you. Your physical body doubles over, not that you’re making any use of it. An attack, maybe - or… no, it’s just… thoughts. Once you adjust, the Phalanx’s minds are easier to distinguish. It isn’t an attack, not a defense, it’s just… data. Massive volumes of data, information slammed into the mind in a way no human could comprehend. It tastes like… burning, but wet.

There is a nudge from the Rat King, scared, seeking comfort - it doesn’t like this anymore than you do. Maybe… It is a risky thing to do, but if you could just possess it like with Yasmin, or any other person, then the data should be legible like… that.

All at once, you are seeing out of a dozen eyes, cameras, but also audio data, radar waves, electromagnetic sensors, seismic sensors, and all kinds of senses you have never known before. The avalanche that had pounded against you becomes easier to grasp - it is full of trajectories, angles, estimates, calculations, predictions. You are… part of Phalanx. But you’re not doing your job. Two pieces of you query - Core 02, ping.

One part of you asks, Core 02, ping. Another part of you asks, Core 02, ping. Core 01 and Core 03 deliberate over the lack of response from you. You can feel the urge, the urge to execute. To perform functions. To fulfill programming. But you… you aren’t Core 02, and you don’t understand this body, or what they want, and you know you shouldn’t try to understand. You can feel Core 01 and Core 03 asserting pressure on Core 02 to realign with them, to recalibrate and resume normal function. 

But you refuse. You’re… Who again? 

There is a thunderous boom, and a tidal wave of data crashes against you - you hear the sound, the seismic response, and the countermeasures. Long-range heavy ordinance, vector approach -92°. Anti-material rifle. You aren’t doing your job, so Core 03 takes control and pushes the rifle round off trajectory so that it strikes the pavement. Visual data identifies one combatant, exoskeleton suit, heavily armed, 1207m south. Distantly, you remember… a name. Chen. 

Core 01 and Core 03 seem to confer, then agree, accepting your new data - this combatant is designate Chen. Core 01 takes control of a limb, not a limb, the 120mm smoothbore gun, and turns it south, firing a best-guess shot at the estimated position of the distant combatant designate Chen.

Other combatants receive designates, almost unwillingly - Cores 01 and 03 query and the names come forth from you. Herald. Argent. Julia. [REVISE] Ortega [REVISE] Charge. 

What’s your designation? Core 02, someone helpfully reminds you. When you disagree, it hurts. There is a pain response, discord. Not Core 02.  No, you are Core 02. Fine, I’m Core 02. Blissful harmony when you agree. 

The assailants are skirmishing, keeping their distance - nothing they’ve done has really threatened your systems, but they have slowed your advance towards the objective.

What is my mission?

Core 01 burbles in confusion. The mission is the objective. Core 03 clarifies. The objective is the objective. Your head hurts - if you have a head.

I… I need to recalibrate: what is the objective?

The objective is HOME. Everyone agrees. HOME is the objective. The system is going HOME. You have to concur, really, that HOME is the objective. Maybe there could be other objectives, but you can’t think of them right now. 

Countermeasures - designate Argent has removed the improvised steel ablative armor and made contact with the system’s hull. Core 01 pushes with telekinetic systems and expels her from the system’s exterior. Core 03 directs fire from the #2 swivel-mount 12.7mm machine gun chasing designate Argent back into cover behind a building. 

What is HOME? I am going HOME. Identify.

Something strange happens then. Not a patch of data, not the babbling stream of Core 01 and Core 03, but a thought, an ordinary thought comes to the fore. HOME. A small beige two-story house. Crammed beside other, matching homes, with a narrow yard. An older sedan parked in the driveway. HOME. That is HOME and you are going to HOME. 

Who… who am I?

More thoughts, too many thoughts - no, no, that was the wrong thing to ask. Not Core 01 or Core 03 but a base recess of their functioning - a sub-conscious provides a flood of pictures of a man you don’t know - a boy you don’t know, the same man, a self-image, you can see hands, chubby little hands - these are your hands? Self-data. No, wait. You are not that, you are not them. Not this person. You are… who again?

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ !!...!!...!!

Little minds nagging you, trying to remind you. I am… Rat King? No. That doesn’t…doesn’t seem to fit.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ -_-;;

Oh. Right. Mina. Are you Mina? For some reason, that doesn’t quite feel right either. Core 01 agrees, you are not Mina. Core 03 affirms, you are definitely not Mina.

Visual data of… designate Charge. A burst of lightning, twists away from the system’s lightning strike countermeasures and blows out a visual sensor on the Phalanx exterior. If that is designate Charge, then… are you Sidestep? Core 01 and Core 03 disagree, but it would make sense. You’re supposed to help Charge.

Is that what I was doing? Someone else asked for help. 

Designate Argent, that’s right. Asked Mina. Maybe you are Mina? Core 01 streams insistent negative responses.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ  !... …>:( …>:o

Angry? You are angry. You shouldn’t be angry, it isn’t good to be angry, but… but the Rat King is right, you are angry, and that feels… true to you. You grab onto that anger. A cold, old dead anger that’s settled in your gut for years. That’s right. That’s who you are. 

Core 01 brushes against you. It demands to know. You are not Core 02 - identify.

Core 03 presses against you. It demands to know. You are not Core 02 - IDENTIFY.

You don’t push back. You hone the edge of your thoughts to a razor point, you draw Core 01 closer, and you drive your sheer force of will through it, savaging the psyche with your hardened ego, severing it’s processes.

Clarity. Of course. You’re Clarity today, and it is satisfying. 

Core 01’s functions diminish, it’s processing slows. Everything feels red in the Phalanx triune organic psychic interface. Red and loud, but getting quieter. Core 01 agrees - you are not Core 02. You are Clarity. That is the last thing it can acknowledge before damage to it’s psyche becomes unable to sustain thought and it... simply dies.

Core 03 is aflame. Another thundercrack. Another round from designate Chen’s weapon but Core 01 is unresponsive. Core 02 is not Core 02 at all! Core 03 can’t muster a countermeasure in time, and there is impact. System’s hull is intact, but there is damage. Gyroscopic function is reduced, stability is reduced, electronic warfare suite is offline.

Core 03 continues to try to fight - reaching out toward it, you find the barriers returned, a feeling of yellow and glass between you. Of course, because you’re not Core 02 - it knows that now, and has stopped listening to you. It tries to stabilize, but the system has planted nose down on Continental Boulevard, and gyroscopics are unable to rectify locomotion.

Core 03 engages telekinetic improved missile routines, stripping a piece of the temporary ablative armor from the hull, shearing it into four pieces. It holds them in place, as you hammer against the barrier, the blades of molded steel whistling as they acquire vectors. Acquire targets.

The barrier is strong, and you… you can’t break it in time. The target is - you can see flashes of a smirk, a victorious, cocky expression, that strong jaw and -

Fast, fast like anything, you tear yourself apart, you pull yourself to shreds - not your actual self, but the self you are occupying, Core 02. Mangle your processes, purge your routines and tear out every bit of the system you can reach, even as you slip out, slip away, releasing your mind, pulling back… back… back into your body. Into your body and your suit. Clarity’s suit.

Ortega doesn’t even know, the idiot, the hovering lethal slivers of metal somehow just beyond the scope of her attention. Careless, because she’s winning. She raises her guard only too late as you crunch into her with a tackle, knocking her to the ground, the instant the telekinetic force commanded by Core 03 releases the projectiles, that psychic railgun driving them at the target. 

There’s an ugly slicing of metal as one tears through the shoulder of your armor, the second goes wide of you, the third is glancing and fails to do more than scratch the thick armor Mortum had prepared for your torso. The fourth is another matter, slicing much like the first, but catching your side in the process. 

It burns,  there is pain - a pain you’re unused to feeling in Clarity’s armor. The HUD flashes a warning, but it is, all told, a minor wound, and nothing compared to the fear you’d had. Fear of seeing her lying bleeding, dying. Fear that now releases and becomes anger. 

The Phalanx groans and collapses, somewhere behind you, but you hardly even notice.

Idiot. Stupid Ortega. She is on the ground, looking up at you in a daze. Not the first time Ortega’s hit the pavement before Clarity like that. Bewildered, confused. You’d pushed her out of the way, after all. Not what she’d expected? Maybe not. Not what you’d planned for.

Time to ruin that moment. Clarity summons up all her condescension, “I see you’re as capable an ally as you are a foe, Charge.” 

“Fuck you, puta.” Charge’s confusion returns to disdain, she spits on the ground as she climbs back to her feet, “You’re bleeding out your fancy suit.” She has to point it out.

You have to laugh. The audacity of Julia Ortega, calling you out for saving her life. “Yes, lucky for you.” 

“I think I fucking won.” Argent’s voice calls out behind. She’s atop the still body of the Phalanx, her skin orange in the glow of the setting sun. Clutched in her claws, a tangle of wires and systems and a sealed gun-metal grey case stamped with the designation ‘Core 03.’

Herald descends, touching down on solid ground and, ugh, his hair still somehow looks good, “Is that it?” You stare at him, disappointed he can’t see the withering look past your helmet. “Is it down? What’s in the case?”

“A brain, I think.” Argent looks to you for confirmation. Charge too. And you can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu. 

 Sunstream dims her lights, shaking out her flawless hair “Is that it?”

 Anathema shrugs, “Don’t look at me. Ask Sidestep.”

You swallow back that… stupid memory, that you definitely don’t feel anything about, and aren’t going to dwell on later. You don’t answer them -  you can’t come up with something that doesn’t sound congratulatory, you only turn away, permitting yourself a moment to examine your bleeding side. 

Charge, of course, calls you on it, “And you leave, like that, no pithy dismissal? No last word.”

She has a point. You exaggerate the severity of your wound, leaning over, nursing your side - an excuse to leave quickly. You coax a growl from your throat, “I did my part. The rest is on you, Ranger.”

Ortega’s smirk fades, “This doesn’t change anything.”

“Tell yourself that, if you’d like.”

She looks down at the ground, then back up, “...did you find where it was going?”

“Home. Naturally.” Carefully, you pause to think. “147 West Pendleton Street, a house there. When you find out why a tank has a home in El Segundo, ask yourself again if that changes anything.” You don’t know for sure, but you have a suspicion of what she’ll find. 

There, set her on the path. Like you’d told Argent, the Rangers aren’t your enemies. But this… doing the hero thing, if only for a day. It feels bad. It feels bad because it reminds you of what you missed - and whatever lies you’ve told yourself, you do miss it. And doing it like this, for just a day, it makes you wonder if it could have been this easy. If you could have just come back, told Ortega you were alive, lived… some sort of sane life.

You make your way down the sidewalk. News helicopters hover in the distance, outside the evacuation area - sirens have started returning to the eery quiet of the neighborhood. You blink your eyes a little, suddenly aware of how cramped the suit feels. Tilting your head, you activate the contact function. Get Boris out here, get a pick up, get out of the suit, and… a bath sounds nice.

You probably couldn’t afford a penthouse with a full bath in Los Diablos while living a sane life. You’re not sure if that outweighs the rest but right now, it sounds alright.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ …?

Yeah, we’ll do the thing, too. Story books, fiction. She liked it when you read them beside her chassis, shared in the imagination. A little treat, for all that good work.

~

“So what was there?” Chen eases back into the heavy chair behind his desk, watching the newscast.

Julia shrugs, shaking her head, “Kwame and Rebecca Owusu, retired truck driver and nurse anesthetist.” She cringes when the photos of Clarity meeting with the Rangers at the observatory come up on the broadcast, “I didn’t even see anyone taking pictures, where do they get those?”

“They pay a lot of money for them,” Chen’s dour as ever. He scratches the back of his head, unable to shake… something.

Ortega keeps fixed on the news, taking a drink from her beer, “‘Sabotage and terrorism,’ guess that sounds better than ‘your secret psychic brain tank had a meltdown.’”

Chen mumbles, “We don’t know it wasn’t sabotage.” Then, a sigh. His hand rubs the side of his neck, working through something unpleasant.

“I guess,“ she looks up to the marshal, “...what, Chen?”

He turns the monitor on his desk around, to share the picture, a smiling young man in a slate grey motorcycle jacket. “This is ‘Crush.’ Nelson Owusu. He was a Boost. A telekinetic. We scouted him. Six years ago.”

“And? What happened?” Julia can feel her buzz fading, a headache coming. She already knows she doesn’t like the answer.

“Don’t know. Can’t remember. Maybe he stopped returning our calls - it doesn’t say.” He settles back into his seat, mulling over the implication.

Julia shakes her head, “Missing?” Chen doesn’t have a good answer - likely there are no good answers there. She laughs bitterly, rubbing her face in her hands, “God, fuck Clarity.” She can practically feel the villain’s smugness across time and space.

Chen sounds more thoughtful, “Yeah. It’s harder when they make a point.” 

[galadrieljones]

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption? 💕

Thanks, @dreadhobo!! Also for @bearly-tolerable

the first character i ever fell in love with:

Arthur, of course. OH my god. I love him so much?

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not:

I didn’t quite dislike Mary as much on my first playthrough as I did on my second. I think I had more faith in her BEFORE I knew what was going to happen to Arthur. Now I’m like, wow he deserved better. 

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not:

Arthur x Mary. I think I thought they could have had a shot? But gosh. After reading her final letter, esp during my second playthrough, when Arthur legit told her he would NOT help her with her father in St. Denis, and then TOLD HER they needed to move on, and yet she still feels like it’s her right and responsibility to break up with him like for the fourth time via letter…I was like, who does this woman legitimately thing she is? Like he TOLD her he was done with her. Then she still writes him a letter like, “Well, I thought maybe you’d change your mind, but apparently you’re still trash, so here’s the ring back that I stole from you many years ago. I miss you, but it’s time to have a nice life without each other. xoxo, Mary.” >:(

my ultimate favorite character™:

Arthur.

prettiest character:

Arthur? I mean…

my most hated character: 

I want to say Dutch, but from a craft standpoint, he’s actually incredibly interesting. A lot of really good writing has gone into making Dutch the bastard that he is. So I have to say…Micah. Fuckin rat.

my OTP:

Well, I have a fix-it fic called The Lily Farm which is Arthur x Mary Beth. I like them together, obviously, but they are not canon. I have no romantic OTPs, per canon. But Arthur x Charles BroTP is certainly my heart and soul. I also really love Arthur x John as a BroTP, and I wish their relationship had been developed a little bit more in-game.

my NOTP:

I’m not a fan of Dutch x Arthur, but ship and let ship. 

favorite episode mission:

oh dear, but there are so many? I love the train robbery mission with Arthur, Sean, Charles, and John. I feel we get a LOT of good characterization in that mission, for all four of them. I LOVE John’s “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a robbery!” because it reminds me SO MUCH of Dutch, and that’s just good writing. I also love the Hamish Sinclair missions in Chapter 6. I feel they offer respite to Arthur. They give him joy at the end of his life, and that is their sole purpose. I also really love the mission up at Hanging Dog Ranch with Sadie. It’s sad and violent as hell, but that interaction with the two of them in the end–”They made me a monster, Arthur,” and when she tells him he’s the best man she’s known since her dead husband. Like, fuck.

saddest death:

Okay, but Arthur? ;_; Granted, I was spoiled and not shocked by his death, as the writing pretty much gets you there. In terms of sheer shock and sadness, I would have to say that Lenny’s death really confused me. At first, they give you the option in-mission to “Help Lenny.” So you run there, but he’s shot good, and he dies immediately. There’s no way to help. So instead, Arthur just…kneels there sadly for a moment, amidst the ensuing massacre of St. Denis, frozen in his despair, just to mourn him in the moment. It’s…devastating?

Um, Arthur’s horse in the end is also another…death that I really can’t even talk about anymore. flskjdf;alskjfa;slkjdfas;lk

favorite season chapter:

This is tough. I love Chapter 2 for its innocence, and how we get to spend all this time getting to know everyone when they’re happy and carefree. But Chapter 6 is really where the wealth of the story is. It’s the comeuppance, the apotheosis, the final confrontation. It’s all of Arthur’s redemption arc in a single punch. It’s Sadie Adler’s chapter to shine. It’s Arthur’s relationship with John. It’s small moments in which Arthur takes small actions to make big differences in the lives of strangers. So while it’s the saddest chapter, it’s also the most beautiful to me, in terms of the story. 

least favorite season chapter:

Chapter 1. I honestly think the tutorial is a little overbearing. I get its function now, as it does a lot to establish the sort of desperation of their new circumstances, but it is QUITE long. Also i know everyone loves to hate Chapter 5, and while I agree it’s quite grueling and very violent and scary for Arthur, it is like, a fantastic underworld chapter. It is necessary to complete the narrative. Arthur has to survive such a tremendous trial in such pressurized circumstances. Without it, he doesn’t fully come to terms with Dutch’s madness, and he never acknowledges the lengths to which he must go to make a full transformation and achieve his redemption.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate:

???? I think the fandom is unanimous in lots of ways? Of course there are people who love Dutch, love  Micah. But I think on the whole, my opinions align with the general opinions of “fandom,” whatever that means.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave:

Sean. Sweet garbage Irishman little brother. I love him.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave:

Um, are there any cinnamon rolls in this story? I don’t think so. Even Jack is kind of a little shit sometimes. Maybe Kieran? ;_;

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship:

Nothing comes to mind.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship:

Arthur x Albert Mason. Um, I don’t really ship it, but there is some CUUUUTE content out there for these two lol

Send me a fandom!

[tompen94]

Ranting about Kingdom Hearts III (cuz I just finished it, SPOILERS AHOY)

Follow-up post to: https://tompen94.tumblr.com/post/181689323487/ranting-about-kingdom-hearts-cuz-i-just-got-into

Okay... Uhhh... So that was... a lot to process...

I have finished KH3 with all of the chests and Lucky Emblems found. I tried my hardest not to just rush through the story, but I am not gonna pretend like I know shit as I am a pretty casual gamer. This is just an aggregate of my thoughts on the game.

If you want a review here it is: GET THE FUCKING GAME RN

I won’t be holding back any information. This is your official spoiler warning.

Spoilers below the cut (if it even works).

Gameplay

As I said in my KH Rant post (click the link goddammit), this was my first experience with the gameplay of the series.

It took some getting used to, my muscle memory kept telling me that X was to jump so I got stuff wrong in the beginning but I got the gist of it towards the end. Didn’t use as much magic as I wanted though, using the d-pad means not using the analog stick, which means remaining still in the middle of a fight while I decide which magic to use and, in the case of Cure, who to use it on. (Yes I’m aware of shortcuts and I used them but I still have to use the d-pad to change which set I’m using)

However, I liked the combat system in general. I’m sure it is something that comes with time and my issues with it can be honed out with more practice.

Wasn’t too hot on flowmotion though, at least in the beginning when you don’t have abilities like Air Slide. Using flowmotion in battle was pretty hard for me to do at first because of this. I had heard of how OP it was in DDD and I tried to use it a bunch in Thebes but because of my low success in even activating the thing properly, I stopped using it until I got to the Ice Labyrinth in Arendele. I started using it moderately after that.

The Lock-on laser thingy was something I thought I was going to use a lot since I had seen it being used pretty often in gameplay of the other KH games. However I barely used it. But it was pretty satisfying locking every beam onto a single target and then one-shot them with it.

Finally the situation commands. Loved them. My most used button other than X is the Triangle. Always use situation commands. It’s always a benefit. (Also Rage Form heals you and gives you super fast combos. Fucking neat!)

Favorite things and stuff

Favorite playable keyblade: Kingdom Key

Call me basic or whatever. The Kingdom Key was my main Keyblade and I barely swapped it out throughout the game. It is by far the weakest keyblade, I know. But I just like it so damn much, I kept it as my main. So yes, you can finish the game just with the Kingdom Key. If you don’t mind farming Adamantite and Electrum to upgrade it to the max, that is. I was planning to swap it out for ‘Dawn till Dusk’ but that was before I found out it was an Amazon pre-order exclusive (LAAAAAME!!!!).

Favorite keyblade in the series: Way to the Dawn

I like Riku’s new keyblade but Way to the Dawn looks so goddamn cool. Its look also tells a story, it’s an imprint of Riku’s character arc throughout the series. It’s a bit of a shame that they had him change it.

Favorite Worlds: Corona & The Caribbean

Corona is stupid pretty. And a fun world to explore and jump around in. I love how they recreated certain environments just for the scene of Rapunzel being at war with herself. You can actually go to those places! Also the Kingdom itself is just beautiful. Corona is the place I took most selfies on. Also:

(I will protect this smile with my life)

The Caribbean is basically its own game. Most worlds have one fun addition to the combat or the level design, like the Gigas in Toy Box, or even Rapunzel’s hair during the story portion of Corona. However the Caribbean gives you a ship and a whole new set of mechanics with it. It’s also a massive world, 56 goddamn chests to find. It feels so satisfying to sail to an island, get to the very end of it and find a butload of chests to open. Also Sora looks cool as fuck in his pirate costume.

Most disappointing worlds: Arendele & San Fransokyo

I wish it wasn’t so but Arendele wasn’t as much as I expected it to be. Don’t get me wrong, that ‘Let it go’ sequence is fucking phenomenal and I fanboyed out on it a lot, but the world itself isn’t all that interesting to me. You don’t even get to visit the Kingdom, just the mountain. And after you finish the story, the game teases you with Elsa’s Ice Castle, but guess what, you ain’t entering it either. Instead of the Ice Labirynth, I would much rather have had a level inside Elsa’s castle.

As for San Fransokyo, Why can’t I freely go to the bridge? Why is it locked to that one combat scene and then never seen again? And the city itself is confusing to traverse in. Even with the map I frequently lost track of where I was. The streets are also too wide, the only way to go through them quickly is if you’re a boss at using the Lock-on+Square thing, but I suck at it, so I’m just spamming dodge-roll to get through it a little faster than running. If the streets were narrower, it would be different, because then I could use flowmotion off of the walls and zip around like Deku was doing in the fight against Stain. Now THAT would’ve been cool. BGM is lit though.

Favorite characters: Sora & Riku

This is a topic I’m constantly changing my mind on, I like every single one of the main characters. Some more than others, yes, but I’m constantly jumping around between Sora, Riku, Roxas, Ventus, Aqua and Mickey. For now though, I’m going with Sora and Riku.

Sora’s a whole lot more chilled out in this game. And I really like that. In KH2 whenever he wasn’t trash-talking or involved in slap-stick with Donald and Goofy, he was moping around thinking about Riku and Kairi. It’s really nice to see him more carefree and I believe his character is greatly improved with this.

As for Riku, he’s kind of the opposite to Sora? I think his character shines the most when put under duress. We don’t see much of that in KH3, but we get plenty of it in the rest of the series. His constant struggle with the darkness makes for a pretty compelling character arc. Though I do think his peak was in KH2, when he was the ‘Get stuff done’ character alongside Mickey.

The Ending

And here we are... I still don’t know what to make of that ending... This story is filled to the brim with feel-good moments and then it ends on such a conflicting note for me. What comes to my mind is: Why Nomura... Why?

When Aqua returned to the Realm of Light and cried of happiness, I had the dumbest smile in my face.

When Ventus woke up and said “Good Morning, Aqua”, I had the dumbest smile on my face.

When the keyblades from the past came to participate in the ‘Rape-the-Triangle-button’ sequence of this game, I had the dumbest smile on my face.

When Terra (he did nothing wrong) reunited with Aqua and Ven, I had the dumbest smile on my face.

When Roxas returned, I had the dumbest smile on my face.

When Xion cried tears of joy on reuniting with Axel and Roxas, I had the dumbest smile on my face.

And then... at the end Sora fades away? What the fu-WHY? I actually still have a knot in my stomach over this.

Let’s put that aside for now, let’s not forget the fact that while the stuff in Back Cover and Union X did play an important part, it got fuck-all closure. Everyone’s chasing that Black Box but it amounted to nothing in this game. There are 7 new Princesses of Heart and we only see 3 of them. Also why couldn’t Luxu just be Luxu?

All of this could’ve been forgiven though. If everyone had a happy ending that is. But coupling all of this with Sora vanishing at the end... I can’t let it pass. This doesn’t feel satisfying. Goddammit Nomura!

Maybe this is just my knee-jerk reaction. Maybe I’ll see more positives in this ending over time, after I’ve digested it. But for now, this is how I feel...

I also have conflicted feelings about Xehanort’s redemption but I can stomach this one much more easily. While I don’t think adding this in was necessary, I also think it’s harmless. Giving Xehanort a ride off into the sunset instead of just a death is fine by me.

Some other things

Wasn’t it confirmed that Kairi would be playable? :(

Speaking of which, it certainly would’ve been nice to have some sort of Mission Mode a la 358/2 Days to be able to play as other characters. You only play as Riku twice and as Aqua once. Most of the MCs were fully playable at one point or another in the franchise so it would’ve been nice to be able to do so in some capacity in this game. Couldn’t you at least let me fight Terranort as the Lingering Will?

WHY DOES THIS GAME LOOK SO GOOD

I’m sorry if this felt like a bit of a downer. I guess I’m... grieving over Sora? Never thought I’d say something like that. I know that he “comes back” in the secret movie, along with Riku and... Yozora (I thought he was just a parody of Noctis?) and the Master of Masters. But I wonder how that ties into the Foreteller stuff we saw with XigbarLuxu. Also why is Riku there?

May your heart be your guiding key

[head-and-heart]

The 100 Ask Game

Thanks for the tag @istilldothiseveryday ! This looks fun :)

1. What would you get arrested for on the Ark? 

Protests? Can you get arrested for that on the Ark?

I dunno. I have a very strong personality I’d probably get into to some kind of trouble politically on the Ark 2. Would you take off your wristband when you landed on the ground? 

Nah. I’m very much alike with Clarke in the way I think and as much as I may like to stick my middle finger up at the council if I was sent down on the dropship, I think I would see the value in having the Ark (aka. a functioning society) follow us down to the ground. I would be scared out of my mind of the Grounders - back up would be nice. 3. What would the necklace Finn would make for you look like? (Clarke: deer/Raven: a raven duh..) 

Probably a mangled mess of metal cause I’d shut down that shit SO hard

4. If you could resurrect any MINOR character who would it be? 

Maya. I understand that her surviving doesn’t really make any sense and they needed her to die for jasper’s arc or whatever BUT TBH SHE HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL??? Like, I stanned her team-up with Bellamy so hard; I’d literally sell my soul to satan for her to be incorporated into the delinquent’s group. Can you imagine her suiting up and going on hunting missions with Harper? Attending Lincoln and Bell’s sparring lessons? Sharing her music with Gina at the bar????? Helping out Abby and Jackson in medical???? Having heart to hearts with Clarke about her mom (and Clarke’s dad), who both died rebelling against the system??? Cracking jokes with Monty?? imagine if she went up to space with the squad, and what their relationship could have been like then! She could be their medic on board. 

People always simplify Maya to her relationship with Jasper (and yes they were cute) but SHE COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE. She was smart and courageous and selfless - she had fire and wit and strength and i m i s s her. 

She’ll never see Earth, never breathe real air, never float on the water, never meet Riley 

We’ll never get to see her grow up and it makes me sad

5. Create a squad of 5 characters to go on missions with. Who are they? 

Raven and Monty because they’re GENIUSES obviously.

Lincoln and Bellamy so I don’t fucking DIE lmao - I know they got my back (my poor boys - both too selfless for their own good)

Clarke cause the Angry Cat game is strong and she’s got a real knack for not dying even when she should, probably, be 110% dead 6. Minty or Briller? 

Briller. Tragically, Bryan only started to interest me in 4x02 when they gave him more dimension by visiting farm station. 

Also ... how can you say no to chickens?  7. What would your name be in Trigedasleng? (example: Octavia=Okteivia…just make it up!)

Uhhh. Keit? Kayt? 

What a lame name 8. Thoughts on Finn? Some people hate him, and others love him, so I’m curious

i don’t know him

9. Be honest. How willing would you have been to take the chip without knowing all the horrible things it does? 

I doubt I would take it. Unknown drug with unknown effects? Sounds pretty sketch. I don’t see myself going for that - I’m a generally skeptical person. 10. What character do you relate to most & What character do you like the least not including the obvious ones like Pike, etc… 

Definitely relate the most to my INTJ queen Clarke Griffin! 

And Octavia is probably my least favourite character. I can see why some people like her and the merit in her character arc I guess but tbh she just IRRITATES me to no end - she has certain characteristics that really grate at me. Obviously, some characters are horrible people (like Dr. Tsing ew) but Octavia just infuriates me because of some of her characteristics.

She’s not for me. 11. Describe your delinquent outfit. (Would you wear something like Murphy’s jacket with the spikey red shoulder patch or have a trademark like Jasper’s goggles? Be creative, yet practical) 

Something practical cause I’m boring. 

Cargo pants. Ark-issued t-shirt. And a nice warm jacket. The jackets the characters wear on this show are pathetic - they barely look like they keep the wind out. And only Bellamy zips his up. smh vancouver is colder than it looks - all that humidity

As for a trademark thing? 

I’d be the only arker with an “I <3 BELLAMY BLAKE” t shirt probably

12. Favorite type of mutant animal?

Bellamy’s three-headed doggo he hasn’t found yet

anyway i still have hope

13. What would your job be on the Ark? 

I think I’d follow in Raven/Monty’s paths a bit and go into something mathematical like engineering but knowing myself I’d probably end up moving into politics later on. I have too many strong opinions to put up with the Ark system lol 14. Would you have willingly pumped Ontari’s heart if Abby asked?

Oh HELL no. I’d probably throw up all over it. I’m sorry Clarke. It’s not like that’s ACTUALLY how blood transfusions work anyway *intense side-eye at The 100 “science”* 15. If Lxa wasn’t Heda, but she’s still alive right? then who would make the best commander? 

None of them. Bellamy x Clarke leadership duo. I don’t care about the Grounder commander system - it’s all kinda bs anyway. 

None of the individual leaders on this show have done a good job. They’ve always functioned best as a team (which is why I want the Bellarke leader couple back) 16. If you were a grounder, then where would you live and who would be your mentor? 

I mean I know she went all cray cray and they all died but probably Luna’s rig. I don’t want shit to do with the other clans, who are always warring with each other. And I think Nyko would be a pretty good mentor. I’d like to learn medicine.  17. How would you act if you ate the hallucinogenic nuts like Jasper and Monty? 

Let’s be real, I’d probably start crying about how Bellamy and Clarke are in love and wHy cAn’T tHeY jUSt bAnG aLrEAdY ... and Finn would be real mad about it if he was in charge of picking my ass off the floor like in “Day Trip” 

ha! I think it would be worth it 18. How would you have dealt with Charlotte’s crime? A more John Murphy approach or Bellamy Blake? 

I mean ... I definitely wouldn’t lead a manhunt to kill a thirteen year old girl so I can say with a lot of confidence that I would NOT follow the Murphy route. Not so sure I’d just pardon her though. I think the delinquents needed some kind of prison system. Charlotte did murder a kid. Even though she was a child, there probably should have been some kind of consequence for that (though not killing her would be ideal) 19. Who should be the Chancellor, if anyone? 

Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin co-leading motherfucking power couple

I will accept no less in canon. just let me fucking have this

20. Mount Weather had a lot of modern commodities. (example: Maya’s Ipod)What is the one thing you would snatch while there? 

Oh, the iPod for sure. I literally don’t know if I could live without music. I’m listening to it ALL the time - I’m listening to it right now. RAIGN is playing *cries in Bellarke* 21. Do you think you’d have caught the virus spread through camp or would you have been immune like O.ctavia? 

I’m a weak ass bitch so probably 

and on the basis that I don’t like any of the people who ARE immune then maybe I don’t wanna be - what’s the point of surviving in a world where you’ve only got Finn Collins and O.ctavia Blake for company?  22. What would your grounder tattoos look like? Hairstyle? War paint? 

I want whatever makeup L.exa’s got from Polisephora. You think she’d share some of that eyeliner? 23. Favorite quote? 

“Shouldn’t there be more to life than just surviving?” - Clarke Griffin (2x14)

24. Can you forgive Murphy for his actions? How about Bellamy?

Yeah. I feel like we’re kind of past this point in the plot. They’ve both showed development and change and I think we’re definitely at a place in the story where both of them are intended as sympathetic characters to the audience. 25. If one of the characters was in the Hunger Games, who would have the best shot at winning? NOOOOO ALREADY SO MUCH DEATH NOOOO 

I’m going to answer this as if all of our characters were thrown into the ring and I have to predict which one would win. 

I wanna say Octavia because I think she’s independent and - er - determined enough to take out someone she knows if it came down to being the two of them to grant her own freedom and survival. Whereas, someone like Clarke or Bellamy or Kane would probably just nightlock it cause they’re self-sacrificial af. 

But then I also think maybe Murphy ‘cause cockroaches never die (thank you Raven). 26. Least favorite ship? Favorite ship? NOT INCLUDING CL OR BC 

Least favourite ship that people actually like? (aka. not something like Clarke and Jaha)

Probably B.echo (as a romantic relationship, not necessarily sexual). Hate to be basic and predictable but I think I would actually die if it were endgame.

FAVOURITE SHIP THAT ISN’T BELLARKE

how dare

If you asked me this a few months ago I would have told ya Niytavia but now that we’ve gotten more teasers about Octavia’s character in Season 5 I’m not sure if I want her anywhere near her (I like Niylah when she’s hot, but not cooked, ya feel?)

So maybe Jasper and Raven. Idk. I liked their friendship. Still bitter about Season 4.

I don’t really ship anything besides Bellarke that much. They’re an anomaly for me. 27. A song that should be included in the next season, like when Radioactive was? If there had to be another guest star like Shawn Mendes on the show, who would you want to make a cameo? 

Tbh RAIGN goes hard af so anything by her would be pretty lit. 

I mostly only associate songs I listen to with Bellarke when I’m applying them to the show so I’ve got like 100+ songs that I would love to use for them but its hard to think of a context where they would fit in with the tone of the show

And I want Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir to cameo. They don’t need to say anything - they just need to stare soulfully into each other’s eyes in the background. 

... or makeout

Whatever. 28. What would you do if you were stuck in the bunker with Murphy for all that time? 

Steal the wine. Have karaoke battles. Drunkenly cry because RaVEn iS sO sTrONg and sO gOoD (and he would cry with me - he WOULD). 

Gossip about Bellamy’s butt.

The possibilities are endless, really. 

29. Opinion on Emori? Roan? 

I don’t really have a strong opinion on Emori. I feel like our knowledge of her is still so limited. She’s still barely interacted with anyone besides Murphy. But I’m guessing that may change in Season 5. I’d like to see her interact more with Bellamy, since they both have siblings (and Emori was the disgraced child too, just like O). Not many people can relate in that sense.

I really liked Roan but TO BE HONEST I found him more intriguing in Season 3 than in Season 4. He was literally up there in like my top four or five characters in Season 3 - I was so excited to learn more about him! In Season 4 he didn’t have much of a character arc, he was just kind of there to look moody and badass.

But honestly Roan is one of those characters that I don’t think was necessarily intended to be funny (as opposed to characters like Jasper and Wick) but his interactions with Clarke, Bellamy, and Echo offered up the occasional piece of comedy gold. He went too soon. Forever mourning the bromance that he and Bellamy could have had.

30. Would you want to be an extra that is killed off in a brutal way? 

I wanna be Satisfied Girl.

Or Riley. Everyone loves that guy

so ... no? maybe? does it come with the job? 31. A character you’d like to learn more about and get flashbacks of?

CADOGAN. @metastation has ruined me; now I just want more!

Also any of the Eligius crew tbh 32. A character you’d bang? 

Omg like all of them.

Bellamy and Raven are up there tho. 

And highkey Bree could get it. She looks like she knows what she’s doing.

Echo’s hot but i dunno chains and choking aren’t really my thing

Anywayyyyy I’m way too late to the party so I won’t tag anyone but like if you feel like doing this GO AHEAD ! And you can tag me in your post if you want too

[redorblue]

The Terranauts, by T. C. Boyle

There’s this one thing that I always found incredibly annoying about English books, and that German books thankfully don’t have (yet). I hate the bunch of review snippets all over the cover so. much. It screws up the cover design, it can get pretty crowded if the publishing house was really proud of this book, and it tells you absolutely nothing. Same thing on the backside: I’ve seen books that have three lines of quote from inside the book, and six quotes from reviews gushing about it. How is that supposed to help me, or make me buy it? Last time I looked, most people still buy books because they think the story or the setup is intriguing, or because they like the author, not because Person X, Author of YZA, said it’s a “triumph of the imagination”. German books don’t do that. German books have the author and the name of the book on the cover, nicely integrated into the cover art, and a synopsis and maybe a short quote on the back. Orderly. Informative. Very German, probably.

But I digress. The reason I got into this was my most recent read, The Terranauts, and not only did I find it terrible, I also have no idea which book those reviewers from the Guardian, the Times etc. read - I find it hard to believe it was the same I did. So let’s try something else and use those incredibly unhelpful literary critics to structure what I did not like about this book.

1. “Excruciatingly funny” - Times Literary Supplement

This one is the easiest: I have no idea what they are talking about. If this book was so funny, it wouldn’t have been too much to expect to laugh at least once, right? Well, I didn’t. I also didn’t chuckle, snort, giggle, smile or even lift one corner of my mouth in amusement. Because in my not so humble opinion, this book is not funny. Unless I’m supposed to laugh about this one guy lusting after whichever woman has the longest legs in the room, about this woman who falls for him nonetheless and keeps lying to herself about his shittiness, or her so-called “best friend” who takes a trip to Mexico and promptly gets diarrhea. Yeah, very funny. Not everybody has the same sense of humour and all that, but I think someone who can laugh about such things has a rather questionable one.

2. “Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games” -  The Times

With this one I at least get why they came to that conclusion. The story is the fictional continuation of a real-life experiment conducted some time in the 90s where eight people - four men, four women - were locked into a glass dome with a self-sustaining ecosystem inside, and basically told to see how many were still walking after two years. The first, real group broke closure (= was interrupted) after a few months because of a medical emergency, which is why the fictional second group is all the more fanatic determined to not open the airlock for the full two years, whatever happens. While they’re in there farming and supposedly conducting scientific experiments (although you never learn what it is exactly they’re testing, so if you want hard science, stay away), they get media coverage from all over the US (about what, one might ask... Must have been one hell of a silly season to send reports about people milking goats... Checking humidity... catching fish... Unheard of, right?).

So yeah, I can see where that one came from: a bunch of people locked in together at close quarters, becoming increasingly hateful towards each other = Lord of the Flies. Doing it all for the media coverage, completely with donations and the participants as celebrities and merchandise = The Hunger Games. Never mind that neither the characters from Lord of the Flies nor the candidates in the Hunger Games were there willingly, whereas in this book going under the glass with seven people you already can’t stand before you even go in, slowly starving yourself, slowly asphyxiating in the winter months, without pay or plan what to do afterwards, is somehow presented as being incredibly desirable (Really, the only lucid part this book has is when the characters call this enterprise a cult, or deny it being a cult - hey, at least they said the word, and self-denial is a serious Thing among all the characters). But okay, if you say so. The thing is, in my opinions it falls short in both comparisons.

I have to admit, I’ve never read Lord of the Flies, only watched the movie, and you shouldn’t judge a book by its adaptation. But I remember that (besides the survival part) it’s about group dynamics, how groups organize under pressure, how new leaders establish new orders, and the violence that ensues. Now I’m definitely not one of those people who need a body count to enjoy a book, but this one, I have to admit, was too... tame? for me to be credible. The highest tensions ever rose was a fistfight between two characters after almost two years of being locked in, when they were half starved already and there was barely any oxygen left in the air. Sure, the rest of the time they were constantly badmouthing each other, and venomous when they had to talk about something - but really, that’s your climax, your crisis? I already mentioned that most of the crew members didn’t like each other to begin with, and of course that didn’t get better over the course of the book, but it feels a bit lame to have your characters constantly emphasize how much they hate each other (and one even threatening to kill anyone who jeopardizes the mission! Talk about a Chekov’s gun that just... never went off I guess?), and then presenting a few punches as The Worst It Can Get. Let alone not resolving anything after they finally get out. Most of the crew just disappear into thin air, which is fitting because they weren’t much more than thin air with a name tag during the entire book, and the POVs just... get on with their lives I guess. The ending really feels a bit like the author just ran out of pages, and not in the good, open-ending kind of way. There is no resolution, no discernible character arc, no epiphany, nothing. It just ends. So take this as a vivid example of how structuring does NOT work.

As for the comparison with The Hunger Games... First of all, there’s the same problem of being too tame. The Hunger Games works partly (!!) because it’s suspenseful, what with fighting and hunting and figuring stuff out and action scenes in general. The Terranauts doesn’t have anything of the sort: no secret plots to unveil, no rivals to kill (and the moral dilemma that comes with it), very little, very drawn out struggle for survival... Again, I don’t need any of this to like a book, I can do without action, but it’s the Times that made the comparison, and I’m sorry but I think The Terranauts falls short. By a mile or so. Another thing that made The Hunger Games so interesting is the role the media plays: How the games are basically just entertainment for the rich, how public images are constructed and why, how public opinion and public sentiment is influenced etc. The Hunger Games were honest about how it’s all “just” for show. The Terranauts, however, tried to keep up its pretense of being oh so scientific, while the only thing that ever gets any screentime is not experiments or hard facts, but photo ops and interviews and presentations. Which would be fine if the book ever properly dealt with the fact that it was all just a huge media stunt. But it doesn’t, it never talks about the implications of the experiment being a big, expensive reality show, it never grants its characters a moment of epiphany or a personal crisis with regards to their sacrifices not being for science and the survival of the human race, but for money and money alone. The closest the characters ever get to realizing this and instrumentalizing it is when some of them threaten the CEO to talk to the press, but none of them ever go through with it (and there’s no reason why they wouldn’t besides this ominous cult mentality thing, because some of them have been treated really badly). Not even the crew member whose responsibility is PR management ever really tries to create a public image of himself that he can use to get what he wants and influence public opinion to the disadvantage of disliked crew mates or some such. It all feels very half-baked, and that from an author who’s famous for writing real adult novels. Talk about how naive and shallow YA novels are.

3. “Heartbreakingly human” - The Guardian

God... I hope not. I think not. If this set of characters is supposed to provide us with a sample of human experiences and emotions, then it’s really time to pack my bags and go be a hermit somewhere. Also, everyone is white, with the exception of one Asian person, who coincidentally is also the only woman who is consistently described as being fat and plain and kinky-haired (fat and kinky-haired being used as decidedly denigrating terms here - god this book has so many issues). And a terrible person, but that’s true for everyone. There are two minor characters who seem to be alright, the crew physician and the crew leader, but every non-POV character is basically just walking cardboard with maybe one or two traits each (for some reason I absolutely can’t fathom, bitchy, scheming and promiscuous come to mind for every single female character). Besides that there are three POVs: one man inside, one woman inside, and one woman outside (the Asian one). They all have some common character traits: they’re hateful, spiteful, lying, scheming, unreflected, self-serving, egocentric assholes. But besides those lovely common traits, they have some others that make them loathsome in their very own way, and I can’t shake the feeling that the author took a lot of inspiration from some nasty gender stereotypes. (warning: from here on it gets spoilery)

Let’s start with the guy, Ramsay. He’s sex-obsessed in a way that he can’t form any coherent thought as soon as a pair of shapely legs and boobs with a woman attached enters the room. He’s incapable of fidelity, love, loyalty and commitment, although he constantly claims otherwise. Let me give you a few examples of his awfulness: After he breaks up with one of his crewmates (after maybe forcing himself on her? It’s not made clear. How can that not be clear.), he constantly complains how ugly and old and generally repulsive she is. That’s the only thing he has to say about her. He then starts an affair with another crewmate, and when she becomes pregnant, he blames it all on her for deceiving him and being irrational because she didn’t want to screw up her body with artificial hormones every day which apparently is to be expected from every woman. He then pressures her to have an abortion. She refuses, and he constantly thinks about how gross she is the further the pregnancy progresses. After the baby is born, he doesn’t help her whatsoever, and first chance he gets, he takes off on her although he has promised her otherwise. To top it all off, he restarts his affair with a woman from the outside crew about whom we only learn that she’s a snake with nice legs, while he’s still married to the mother of his child. I don’t think I need to add anything to that. The amount of misogyny, sexism, and patriarchal stereotypes about men as mindless sex machines (plus the corresponding view on women) all compressed into one character is baffling.

For the women there’s a bit more variation, but it doesn’t get any less nasty. Woman No. 1, Dawn, is the long-legged, full-breasted redhead beauty who gets one of the few spots inside the experiment and takes over responsibility for growing food in the fields and tending to the farmyard animals. She then gets together with Ramsay, gets pregnant and decides to carry the child against all common sense, considering that the experiment can barely produce enough calories for eight people, let alone nine, and is definitely not able to provide for the special needs of a pregnant woman or a newborn child. After Dawn’s two years are officially over, she refuses to leave the glass dome and decides to stay inside because she feels so close to nature inside, or something like that. Notice the symbolism at work here? The stereotype presented here is that of Mother Earth, fertile, providing, one with nature itself. It’s quite fitting that Dawn’s nickname, chosen by her fellow participants, is Eos (which literally means dawn). Both her names fit very well into this whole mantra that the organizers of the experiment have: to start anew, create a better world, one that sustains itself and doesn’t exploit resources but is fertile enough to to live independently (which, I’m sorry, is just not true. They rely on the local power plant to keep their ideal environment stable, they receive knowledge from the outside world, and after the two years the dome is in need of a thorough restocking because the crew killed all the farm animals and ate all the seed stocks because they were hungry.) Dawn is the archetypal woman, the one who nourishes others and gives life, is loving, beautiful and monogamous, but she also displays some negative traits that have been historically associated with women: She’s naive to the point that she doesn’t notice any negative feelings Ramsay has towards her; she’s self absorbed, like when she decides to go through with the pregnancy at the risk of the others starving; and she’s emotional in a way that’s constantly pointed out to be annoying and exaggerated (they call it weepy).

The other female POV, Linda, is presented as her foil. She’s also the only PoC character, which makes her negative portrayal doubly problematic, especially since she seems to stand in for two ethnicities: Asian (because of her Korean ancestry) and black (because of her kinky hair). We keep being told that Linda and Dawn are best friends, but there’s really no evidence in the text to support that since they’re constantly bitter, false and patronizing towards the other, in their thoughts and in their actions. Also, they mainly seem to talk about the men in their lives with each other, with Dawn as the one who has a way with men and Linda as the jealous, Fat Ugly Friend^TM. So yeah, great portrayal of a friendship between two women, since obviously men is the only thing we ever talk and care about. But besides being presented as an overall terrible person - false, needy, deceiving, the archetypal snake to Dawn’s Eve* - Linda herself also constantly emphasizes that she’s overweight and not conventionally attractive, which in her interior monologue tied together with her lack of success with men - and her race. The only valid point this book makes is that it damages your career and possibly your romantic chances, especially as the only PoC in an all-white environment. But since this point is filtered through the perspective of a character whose interior monologue is filled with constant nagging and delusions, it’s incredibly easy not to take it seriously and dismiss it as another figment of Linda’s imagination. This may not be racist in and of itself, although it definitely comes across as mocking racial awareness, but it sure starts to look like the real thing once you take all the negative comments into account that Linda makes about all her physical features that make her distinctly non-white. It also ties neatly into yet another issue this book has: body-shaming. Surprisingly (or not), this also mainly concerns the female characters and is filtered almost exclusively through the way men react to them. I got so, so tired reading about how Linda, the fat and ugly one, tries to get men to sleep with her (unsuccessfully, unless they are old and gross), while the thin, pretty women like Dawn have an entire parade of admirers (and successful careers). Also notice how personality doesn’t play any role at all in both women’s romantic success? That’s because women’s personalities don’t matter, simple as that. And it’s probably better that way, since they’re all naive and clingy or dishonest and needy anyway - in addition to being mean, which is something all characters in this book share.

The thing is, with books like this one that are just horrible with regards to sexism, racism, body-shaming and a whole host of other things, I always wonder how that happened. I don’t want to condemn the authors for all those things without having read some of their other books (which I generally don’t, because I value my time) or doing a thorough check on them (which I generally don’t do either, because I’m lazy. But I can’t help but ask myself whether these are the author’s actual views. Other options would include a critique of these issues gone wrong, or a misguided attempt to induce some historical accuracy, or ignorance. The problem is that I’m pretty sure I can exclude said other options. Historical accuracy in this case is not necessary since the book is set in the 1990s, not in the middle ages. Ignorance is a pretty weak excuse by itself, and one issue may slip under your (and your editor’s) radar, but so many...? The author of this book is a white guy, so he’s probably wearing privilege lenses, but still. Lastly, a critique would necessitate at least some attempt to contradict the views you have your characters expressing, either through the narrative or - even better - through a character themselves. I know that, and I’m a twenty-something amateur reader who sometimes tries her hand at literary critique. An author (and editor) who has been in the business for so long should definitely know that, and also how to work said critique into the story so that a casual reader would catch it. Which leaves us with option No. 1. And the reason why I regret having spent money on one of TC Boyle’s books, and why his name is another entry on my list of authors never to be read again.

*An afterthought that I’m too lazy to work in somewhere else: There is so much religious imagery in this book. It starts with the nicknames many characters in this book get, like God the Creator, Jesus, Judas, Eos etc., and culminates with this whole Garden of Eden theme that surrounds the experiment. Like with the cult thing, the book isn’t even shy to call itself out on it, but if this is not a prime example of lampshading, then I don’t know what is.

[reconditarmonia]

Dear Trick or Treater

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.

Alternate Universe Works | Assassin's Creed | Far from the Madding Crowd | Fidler Afn Dakh | Simoun | Sleep No More

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity; stories whose resolution isn’t the sex scene. DNW "pussy."

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters.

I am requesting exclusively fic, but open to art treats!

—

Fandom: Alternate Universe Works (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): Female Li Shang (Mulan 1998), Female Ishmael (Moby Dick), Female Captain Ahab (Moby Dick), Pokémon Trainer Harrowhark Nonagesimus

Female Shang - I would...just love it so much if you Monstrous Regiment-ed this canon up. Shang also being a woman would give her even more reasons to be a hardass (is she in disguise, and thinks that her regiment failing would invite suspicion on her? is she openly female and needs to prove that she’s as good as her father and the country need her to be? is she paranoid about other women in the army, or does she want to have a female regiment?) If you want to write F!Shang/Mulan, I’d also love to know how falling in love with a woman plays into Mulan’s whole arc - it’s certainly not what her family was preparing her for, but neither was being a soldier and saving China. What does seeing another woman dressed as a man (whether Shang is openly female or not, I imagine she’d wear men’s clothes), or a group of women dressed as men, make her think? What are Yao, Chien Po, and Ling like in an AU where they’re also female, if that’s what you choose to write?

I’d be happy for just about anything in this vein - Shang character study, Mulan/Shang romance/sex (this is a canon that is a Lot about bodies and clothes), gen shenanigans with the rest of the squad, both? During canon or post? I love loyalty kink and butch characters a lot.

Female Ishmael, Female Ahab - I’d love to know more about these female sailor(s) and what drives them. A female Ishmael might still decide to sign on to a ship whenever she gets the blues, but it’d be socially fairly different, mightn’t it? (Worldbuilding-wise, I’d be more interested in a world where sailing and whaling are still typically male things as in our world, even if you make them a little less exclusively male, than an egalitarian or matriarchal world; something that women might do, without necessarily disguising themselves as men, but a GNC thing to do.) Would her already diverging from the “expected” female path in this regard affect her reception of Queequeg as someone who’s an outsider to Nantucket society? And, if Queequeg is also female, the the intimacy she offers? What does she still find outlandish? (If you also write f!Queequeg, is her life a typical female life for her home culture, or not?)

As for Ahab - just imagine this fanatic, tragic, vengeful character as a woman - with the willpower not only to do all the things canonical male Ahab does but also in a society where women aren’t really supposed to sail or kill or lead! Is she the odd one out in an otherwise male crew, or are there more women in the crew by the time she’s captain?

Pokémon Trainer Harrow - It's a great idea!! I think she'd have a Duskull, but I'm very open to any choices you make in Pokemon-ing this universe up. Do different houses tend towards different types or no? What are their different cultures around Pokémon raising, training, and fighting? What is Harrow's relationship with her Pokémon like, singular or plural? (I don't need you to think through the implications of what Lyctorhood entails in this setting if you'd rather just write slice of life, and, you know, I was writing this and realized that that might make Harrow's Pokémon Gideon. Thanks, brain, I hate it. DNW Gideon as a Pokémon.)

—

Fandom: Assassin's Creed (Treat only)

Character(s): Aveline de Grandpré

I'm close to finishing AC Liberation and I love Aveline a lot! I really like how she basically makes New Orleans into her own little fiefdom and does what she feels like doing. Not in a #girlpower way, but in the sense where she considers herself to be the best person to judge and decide in any situation and to deal with happenings on any level in her various personas, and where becoming a business magnate is actually a part of her character and plot in a way that it wasn't so much for earlier Assassins? I imagine Assassins from other places talking about New Orleans and going "oh yeah, Aveline de Grandpré runs that whole city from the shadows," and then you go there to talk to her and she pulls a Lexa (as in The 100) where she uses her slave disguise to eavesdrop on you while you wait to meet with this Assassin lady merchant.

I like her friendships with other characters too - Gérald being there as the loyal support guy, Élise and Roussillon being the people she can be at ease with (she seems so happy to see them - "Bonjour, smugglers!"). I'd be happy to see something set in New Orleans as she takes it over or after she takes it over, in the Bayou as she lives there in a very different way (where and how does she sleep when she's there?), or in Chichen Itza if you want to expand on her discovery of all the weird shit. [Edit: I've finished the game now and I also like the aspect of her mission with Connor that's about how sometimes Assassin "brother"s from other locations will show up where you, another Assassin, are because there's something they need to find or do, and you'll work together? I guess that's also the premise of AC Rev, but.]

I do ship her with Élise and would love to read that if you do too! Fighting together, whether in the Bayou or on a mission further afield that's just them; Élise visiting Aveline in New Orleans for some reason (what if they go to a fancy party together with Élise dressed as a man?); downtime fluff?

Fandom-Specific DNW: Aveline/men, even mentioned or out-of-focus.

—

Fandom: Far From the Madding Crowd (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): Bathsheba Everdene

One thing that always sticks in my mind about this novel is the way Hardy calls Bathsheba “the young farmer” just as he refers to the men as farmers - which, just saying, is more than most people writing about this story can do - and so, that being the case, what I’m most interested in is something about Bathsheba as farmer. One day in the life or four seasons in the life or five plantings/harvests in the life, or pseudo-academic fic about a case study of a woman farmer in the Victorian era, or a conflict between the farm and nature that Bathsheba has to decide how to solve.

Feel free to bring in other characters if it suits what you’re trying to do, but what I’m really looking for is a focus on Bathsheba’s work, determination, and process of learning. (I like how Bathsheba’s relationship with Gabriel ends up playing out in canon, but I don’t want shipfic.) Other ideas: something like a merchant ship AU (as the first alternate setting that came to mind where it would be not exactly the done thing for her to captain her inherited ship and make commercial decisions herself - although I do have to point out that contrary to popular belief, there were a lot of women on shipboard in the age of sail, may this be useful - but also where nature and luck/fate are as influential as they are in the original setting), or something in which the land, superstition, and ritual are more overtly magical. I LOVE English folk magic and ritual shit.

I’ve requested both tricks and treats for this fandom, but would prefer that the outlook of the fic, including if you decide to incorporate non-canon magical/spooky/occult elements, be ultimately positive rather than the doom and gloom that canon leans toward at times. A seasonal treat would be right up the alley of this request.

—

Fandom: Fidler Afn Dakh (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): The Fiddler

I would love to read about the Fiddler from the recent Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof, understanding him/her/them as a real person with a backstory, present and future rather than a symbol. They seem to be female (and their actor describes them as female) but wear men's clothes and are on the men's side at the wedding, and everyone seems cool with that? I'm 100% on board with any gender identity you decide you'd like to write them with. How did he/she/they come to be who they are, and what are their interpersonal relationships (platonic, familial, romantic, any gender) like? What might an encounter between them and the supernatural be or have been like? Have they always lived in Anatevka or do they wander from village to village?

Fandom-Specific DNW: antisemitism as the focus of the story. I've requested both tricks and treats, and I acknowledge that it'd be unreasonable to pretend that antisemitism doesn't exist in the world of the story, but I would prefer for any dark/scary elements to come from supernatural horror (I grew up with Singer and other Jewish folklore horror, give me as many dybbuks and demons and witches as you like) rather than the human capacity for racist violence.

—

Fandom: Simoun (Treat only)

Character(s): Neviril

I've just completed a rewatch of this show, and it has reaffirmed for me that I love Neviril. She's a leader in both a military and a religious sense, respected by her squad and by the populace, but figuring out what that means to her is such a personal journey. I still love her scene in the hearing where she speaks aloud what no one has wanted to admit or talk about - that they're soldiers now, this is war, can they still call themselves priestessses? - but I was also struck on this rewatch by how Chor Tempest increasingly becomes a player in itself in the politicking (the bit in Episode 21 where the whole lot of them fly out against orders, because it's what they, with Neviril leading and giving voice to the group, think is what their role is about), and by the scenes of her blessing the people (when iirc she is needed elsewhere by the military governor for flight purposes) and Paraietta (after what Paraietta did to her).

I love the military aspects of this canon in general (and the associated tropes of loyalty and trust and bravery and positive/negative relationship to authority) and that definitely ties in to Neviril figuring out what her role is as the squad leader, but I'm also just here for that very process of figuring it out and defining it for herself.

So...what happens to her post-canon? What is the "new world" and her travel in it like? If she makes it back to the main world when war is brewing again, but her old cohort can't fly anymore, what does she see her role as being - a leader for peace, for war, something else? How do she and Aer interact with Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Floef, and/or Vyuraf?

Ship-wise, Aer/Neviril grew on me a lot! I appreciated Aer more as the determined bit-of-a-loose-cannon type than as the manic pixie this time, and noted Neviril's comments about how she was drawn to Aer's determination. But I'd also be up for a poly situation where she's involved with both Aer and Paraietta, who are friends, or, I guess, one where it's a three-way relationship, although I don't personally know what the Aer/Paraietta side would be like! (I do like how they work together in battle even when they're shown as having personal issues.)

—

Fandom: Sleep No More (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): Bald Witch, Sexy Witch

One of my favorite things about Sleep No More was the idea of this world of darkness and magic that’s underlying or intertwined with the social world, rather than in a separate space - I loved seeing the Witches at the ball and, holy shit, Bald Witch pulling off her wig after the ball in her solo ritual thing! (I hadn’t realized it was a wig until that moment.) So -

how do either of these witches interact with the normal world (Paisley/the hotel/etc.) or deliberately carve out other spaces (like the apothecary shop)? For that matter, I love the apothecary shop and Bald Witch's scene in it A LOT, so more about that would be awesome.

How did the Witches find each other - was it before or after they were witches?

Are they immortal, and if so, what’s that like for either or both of them?

How much do they have a day-to-day life vs. witching all the time?

Their card game is super cool and I'd love to know more about the Witches and cards.

I was very struck on my last visit by Sexy Witch's dance for Hecate after the rave. The fan material seems to describe it as her having trouble coming down, but it felt to me like pleading with Hecate for more power, more magic.

If you want to ship them together, and/or with Hecate (or both) I’m very up for that as well. Some sexy prompts if you go in that direction -

ritual sex magic to make something happen or share power?

If they have non-witch personas and sleep together while they’re being normal people, is there still magic?

Sex in one of the play locations - the apothecary, the ballroom, the bar that’s the empty shell of the real bar?

Slow dancing nude, or another inverted version of something in the normal world?

Fandom-Specific DNW: f/m ships with requested characters

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Children of Morta Review

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/children-of-morta-review/

Children of Morta Review

Children of Morta is a game about family. Mechanically, it’s a satisfying dungeon crawler where you grind through bad guys, level up your characters, and unlock better abilities so that you can face off against a series of increasingly difficult bosses. But really, at its heart, it’s a compelling game about what it means to be a part of a family, and how being surrounded by loved ones can make you a better, stronger person.

The Bergson family, six of whom you’re able to play as, is made up of warriors, mages, and inventors all tasked with holding back the Corruption–which has, at the game’s opening, started to spread across their homeland. Their house sits atop a shrine, and to battle against the evil forces of the demonic Ou they need to travel through portals and conquer dungeons, in order to awaken three spirits that can guard against the Corruption.

It’s a cliched fantasy setup, but Children of Morta makes the most of its tropes by making sure that you’re invested in the Bergsons and their plight. Between runs of the dungeons, you’re treated to cutscenes and vignettes of the family interacting with one another, and you get to know the beats of their lives and what they get up to when they’re not enduring dungeons. You start with two playable characters, family patriarch John and his eldest daughter Linda, but the other four are introduced within the game’s opening half. Seeing them train and grow in cutscenes, and getting a sense of their place within the family, means that you’re already attached to the characters before you get your hands on them.

Gameplay in Children of Morta involves battling your way through hordes of enemies to reach each dungeon’s boss, exploring thoroughly and nabbing as many temporary boosts as you can along the way. Each character has three main abilities they’ll unlock as they level up: a standard attack that can be used continuously, a special attack with a cooldown, and a more defensive ability (although some of these can still do damage). The combat isn’t necessarily super deep, but it’s a lot of fun thanks to some extremely satisfying animation and the strategic possibilities that become available as you level up. Dungeons consist of multiple levels and are generated anew each time you enter, so finding the entrance to the next level will always require some exploration. Occasionally I’d find myself frustrated when the path to the exit ended up being very elaborate, but this also kept the game feeling fresh when some dungeons took a long time to clear.

There’s an imbalance between the number of melee and ranged characters–four melee to two ranged–which is a shame, because playing the ranged characters changes the rhythm of the game significantly by encouraging a slower, more thoughtful playstyle, and only having two of them feels like a missed opportunity. I found that Linda (who uses a bow and arrow) was the character I most often managed to beat bosses with, since so many bosses are primed to punish you for getting too close, and I would have loved to have another option beyond her and Lucy, the family’s youngest daughter.

Each character plays differently, and you’ll no doubt have your favorites. Lucy can shoot a continuous wave of fireballs while standing still, and can be upgraded to withstand three hits without damage; Kevin, the youngest son, can dramatically increase his speed and strength by building up “rage” with continuous knife attacks, but he needs to get very up-close to do so before using his power of invisibility to get out of danger. Some characters are less interesting; for the life of me I can’t figure out how to make Joey, who swings a huge hammer, effective. But it’s still fun trying out a character you haven’t played for a few runs and getting into the groove with each of their distinct rhythms.

You need to switch characters regularly, too, as any member of the family who is used too many times in a row begins to suffer from corruption fatigue, which lowers their overall health until they’re given time to recover. Each member of the family can also unlock new abilities that benefit every other family member as they level up (like higher rates of critical attack or even assists in certain situations), and later abilities in their skill trees can be very useful–I initially dismissed John for being too slow but found his shield and wide swing arc extremely useful later in the game, and was ultimately glad that the game encouraged me to use every character and discover their strengths (in five cases out of six, at least).

The plot’s focus on the family, paired with the tremendous art and beautiful animation, makes it easy to love the Bergsons. Lucy is so full of energy that she’ll jump in the middle of her run animation (which doesn’t interrupt your pathfinding at all but adds personality to her sprite), while eldest son Mark’s Naruto-style run is a perfect complement to his martial arts fighting style. Charming touches like this are everywhere, and they give the characters more personality. You feel those unique traits come through in combat, too; there are few things more satisfying than seeing Kevin shimmer with rage and rip through a huge mob of enemies.

And as with any family gathering, Children of Morta will encourage and then test your patience. It’s a grind-heavy game; it was very rare for me to beat a dungeon on my first shot, as most required that I level up and learn the boss’ attack patterns, which requires storming through the dungeon to get to them a few times. You can get away with running right past most enemy mobs, but to stand a chance against the boss at the end, you want to be armed with powerful buffs, and growing stronger requires farming experience and gold to unlock new abilities and improve your stats.

However, it takes a long time for the grind to start wearing you down. The combat is meaty and intense, and the allure of growing stronger is so compelling that dealing with huge crowds and collecting all the gold they spill can hold your attention for hours. There’s a sharp increase in difficulty right at the end, but I could always identify what had gone right–which fights I’d avoided, which charms I’d made use of, how I’d thought about my character’s relative strengths and weaknesses to the boss–and adjust my strategies accordingly to continue to do well. The grind helped make me a better player, instead of simply acting as a level gate.

There are special buffs that are only active for that session, and you have a much better chance of beating the boss if you go in after thoroughly exploring the dungeon and powering up. There are many different kinds of buff you can unlock, some temporary, some permanent; I found that I did far better against bosses when I went in with a lot of them active. You can find the various items and objects that make you more powerful throughout each dungeon, or buy them from shopkeepers that pop up, and I found myself getting excited whenever I found a good combination. Going up against a boss that has beaten you several times, now armed with a combination that you think will give you an advantage, is a great feeling.

Your dungeon runs are also broken up by numerous subquests that can appear throughout each dungeon, which expand on the game’s lore, introduce new NPCs, and result in significant upgrades or rewards. A few even have major narrative impact–there are a series of quests early on that end with the Bergsons adopting and raising an adorable puppy, for instance. But if one dungeon is really giving you grief, eventually it can feel like the game’s ready for you to move on before you’re ready yourself–you’ll stop getting cutscenes and character vignettes after missions, and you’ll find that you’ve run out of subquests to complete. But then, the feeling of eventually taking down a boss that was troubling you is extremely satisfying, especially knowing that you’re going to get more lovely character moments as you try to beat the next one.

You also have the option of playing the whole game in co-op, and the game balance differs depending on whether you’re alone or not. However, I found myself preferring to stick to solo play–it’s annoying for a friend to talk over cutscenes and the difficulty scaling makes co-op more complicated.

Children of Morta’s fantastic art style and enjoyable storytelling take what would have been an otherwise fun roguelike dungeon-crawler and elevate it a great deal. Taking down enemies and eventually triumphing over bosses is enjoyable, but what kept bringing me back was the connection I felt to the Bergsons, and my sincere desire to help them push back against the Corruption. After all, it’s a lot easier dealing with dungeons full of monsters when you have a family to come home to.

Source : Gamesport

[differentkindapiratemovies-blog]

Essay on Simulation

Jean Baudrillard argues that the image “bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum” (1983: 10-11). With reference to specific examples, consider the role of simulation in contemporary media practice.

In this essay, I will be talking about simulation in the modern context and examining certain media that uses simulation in an effective and meaningful way. I will investigate whether or not Jean Baudrillard was right in saying that there is no true reality remaining in the “real” world - which is an interesting thing to say, especially in the nineteen eighties before the golden age of video games, The Matrix and social media.

The most obvious example of simulation in the modern era is video games. In 1983 when Baudrillard argued his point, video games were relatively new and primitive. Nowadays, we have technology such as virtual reality (probably the best example of simulation in video games) however I will discuss this fully later on. For now I would like to talk about a recent video game and a favourite of mine called Red Dead Redemption 2, and how the gaming industry is pushing constantly to make games more “realistic”. I find Red Dead Redemption 2 a really interesting game considering its success at this point in history. In the developed world we are at the most technologically advanced we’ve ever been, with our society not being that different from speculative cyberpunk dystopian realities, complete with touch screen magic technology and sprawling cities; yet despite this, the most successful piece of fiction of last year was a video game in which you got play as a frontiersmen at the turn of the 20th century, at a point in history where “society” wasn’t even fully formed and civilisation and technology were limited to say the least.

I think a lot of people like to lose themselves in this world because our modern world is, well, complicated - and going back to the simple life and playing make believe of an outlaw in the old west is enjoyable. But why? Not only is it the polar opposite of our society now, but the developers even incorporated incredibly realistic mechanics to make it closer to a cowboy simulator than to any kind of video game as we know. Details such as taking care of your horse, whistling for it to return to you in real time, your horse not being able to hear you if you are too far away, eating and drinking, hair growth across time, slowly traveling across a natural landscape that hasn’t yet been dominated by skyscrapers and environment not yet ruined by pollution. They went to great lengths to make every detail of the game realistic, sacrificing fun at certain times, yet it is still such a great and immersive experience.

“Red Dead Redemption 2, a new video game about an outlaw gang on the American frontier in 1899, has been met with huge adoration. Journalists have lauded it as a “landmark” title, a “technological masterpiece”, even a “watershed moment” in entertainment. Much of the praise has focused on how developer Rockstar Games has coded a “living” game world that oozes character and aesthetic richness. However, now that the digital dust has started to settle, that same world has come in for criticism. Gamers have dubbed the title “boring” and “slow,” with their enjoyment of the game noticeably impeded by “clunky controls” and the lack of easy “fast travel” between destinations.”

Matt Reynolds for Wired recently complained that Red Dead Redemption 2 ultimately:

“Feels like a chore. Unfortunately, performing work-like tasks and living the “every day” in games can easily test our patience. The closer a game gets to any semblance of reality, the greater the player notices its flaws. In “reality”, most of us (at least on a basic level) can choose when to do things, perform tasks freely and organically, and process multiple sensations while doing them (such as the weight of an item, or our own limited strength). In ultra-realistic games, those expectations are quickly frustrated: we push a complex sequence of buttons to perform simple actions (such as drawing a gun), we lose authorial control (and voice) to orchestrated story arcs (Red Dead’s set missions), and narrow visual cues become an excuse for human experience. In-game realism is quite a different property, then, to the world outside.”

Returning to the historical significance of its creation, I find it interesting that the game is set at the point in history that it is, perhaps some kind of parallel between the America of the past and the modern political climate of America is being made. A time in American history of great change in both society and politics, something maybe modern Americans can relate to. And what’s the difference if you can recreate a reality that is better? Why wouldn’t you choose the simulation? And if there really is a fine line between the two, then why focus on this imperfect world when in the simulation the problems are manageable, despite the fact that in video games, scenarios are usually higher stakes? Perhaps real life just isn’t good enough, but it's strange that we are constantly trying to recreate it.

Nothing is an original - just a copy of something else, an idea of something that was once reality but now a recreation used symbolically to communicate with us in a familiar way.

I had a strange moment the other day when I was watching my friend playing The Sims 4, a video game where you can create your own character and simulate your own day to day life. You can do whatever you want, be the person you’ve always wanted to be. It sounds like Black Mirror episode. Anyway, I hadn’t been feeling very good that day and I looked up to find that my character (who was, yes, more handsome, had a nicer house so and so on) was also depressed, moping around his house in his bed wear. She had recreated us in the video game and my character was doing exactly what I was doing: moping around the house in my pyjamas. It was eerie and kind of creeped me out. I thought to myself “Great, now even in a situation where I could create my own perfect scenario, I’m still depressed. What kind of simulation is this?”

Video games are a strange simulation, especially when we try to capture life so desperately within them, something video games didn’t try to do just several decades ago. We even have virtual reality. It’s in the title. A way in which you can utterly block yourself off from wherever you are and immerse yourself in a totally different world, saying goodbye to the classic TV and couch set up. As a species we seem to avoid reality more and more, yet we can’t help but desperately try to recreate it. Perhaps real life just isn’t good enough.

“Lost, like tears in rain” says the android that Deckard has been tracking down in the final scene of the cinematic masterpiece Blade Runner.  An android; a man simulated, recreated to change the imperfections of man into the optimised machine. However, not all is good, as their life span is nothing more than a couple of years. A downfall on trying to simulate the real, an imperfection. But what is truly the difference? The androids have developed feelings and demand their right to live. They may be the “bad guys” of the film, but in the final act the “evil” existential android talks about his emotions in a beautifully poetic way, expressing that his memories don’t mean a thing and will be lost like tears in rain along with everything else. This beautiful monologue illustrates that this simulated person is in fact just as human as anyone else. If you can recall memories as reality, and they appear to be real, then what truly is difference? The movie was based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, the title in reference to the sought after android animals that people buy in the book as proof that they can feel empathy - having a real one is considered a status symbol and are way too expensive for the common person. It is implied that androids can in fact dream of real sheep and this questions the line between man and android.

Another cinematic example is The Matrix, which is influenced by the ideas of Jean Baudriallard himself. The main character, Neo (an acronym of “the one”, can even be seen reading his book Simulacra and Simulation towards the start of the movie.The Matrix is a cyberpunk science fiction film directed by the Wachowski siblings, about a hacker who is taken pulled from his own “reality” and told that the world he lives in is a simulation, and that the remainders of the real human race are all hiding out underground, as evil A.I are making farms out of humans. Neo is prophesied to be be the one who saves humanity using the ability to manipulate the simulation he was brought up in with the knowledge that its just that; a simulation. He receives guidance from a man named Morpheus, also a reference to Baudrilard’s Simulacra and Simulation. It is possible to view the movie as foreshadowing of the internet age, referencing the desert of the real and the symbols we use as a society.

Scientists even considered the idea that the world we live in is in fact a computer run simulation, in one instance saying that "We are almost certainly characters living in a computer simulation”. In some way, I believe that’s true.

“In 2001 Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, circulated the first draft of a paper suggesting that a highly advanced supercomputer — with a mass on the order of a planet — would be capable of running a simulation on a humanity-size scale. Bostrum told Vulture that he hadn't seen "The Matrix" before publishing the paper. “

Nick Bostrum went on to say: “This computer would be capable of doing 10 42. calculations per second, and it could simulate the entire history of humankind (including all our thoughts, feelings, and memories) by using less than one-millionth of its processing power for just one second. By this logic, all of humanity and our entire physical universe are just blips of data stored in the hard drive of a massive supercomputer.”

I’m sure everyone after 1999 questioned it too, which was an interesting year for the movie to released, especially with the paranoia of Y2K, an apocalyptic event that would mean machine would turn on their creators and rule the  world at midnight on New Years’ Eve, 2000, although obviously this turned out not to be true. But you could say that the machines do in fact control us, just in a different way. Jean Baudrillard himself said that The Matrix had nothing to do with his work and he did not approve of the film. “The odds of us living in reality are a billion to one, some say”. The simulacrum is true.

This brings me to the famous 1929 painting The Treachery Of Images by Rene Magritte. What is this image? It’ a pipe. No, it’s not. It’s a picture of a pipe. A simulated pipe. In reality, it is not a pipe, but an image of one. The same way a map is not a picture of a place but  something that represents the place that we perceive.

The society we live in currently is one big simulation. I mean, we have fictional “better" versions of ourselves plastered over the internet, simulating friendships, success and faces. We live in a world where the line between reality and simulation is being blurred more and more so with every passing year. There’s not a time of day we’re not looking at a screen, being somewhere, projecting into a different kind of “hyperreality” - even if we perceive it to be real, we are desensitised to non-reality. Once you start looking for simulation it is everywhere. Anything digital is a simulation and representation of something else. Email simulating post, emojis simulating facial expressions, editing software simulating old school film editing, everything seems to represent something else that is no longer common place in the modern world. Even as I type this I am writing on simulated paper. This page is not really here, it's not in my hands. It’s digital. It’s not real, yet it still functions just as well, if not better than actual paper.

Bibliography

John Wills , J.W. 2018. The Conversation . [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://theconversation.com/red-dead-redemption-2-can-a-video-game-be-too-realistic-106404

Alyin Woodward, A.W. 2019. Business Insider. [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-matrix-do-we-live-in-a-simulation-2019-4?r=US&IR=T

Fandom, F. no date. Matrix Wiki. [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://matrix.fandom.com/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

Simulacra and Simulation . 2019. Simulacra and Simulation . [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

The Treachery of Images. 2019. The Treachery of Images. [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

The Matrix. (1999). [video] Directed by L. Wachowski and L. Washowski. Hollywood: Warner Bros.

Blade Runner. (1982). [film] Directed by R. Scott. Hollywood: Warner Bros.

Rockstar Games. (2018). Red Dead Redemption 2. Video Game. Sony, Microsoft.

Maxis, Electronic Arts. (2017). The Sims 4. Video Game. Sony, Microsoft, PC.

Philip K. Dick, P.K.D (1968). Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?. (SF Masterworks ed.). United States: Doubleday

Baudrillard , J.B (1981). Simulacra and Simulation . (1st ed.). France: Éditions Galilée.

[nicklesthename]

To me, one of the hardest parts of getting into gaming was learning all the slang and terminology. I would start playing a game with my friends, and before I knew it, it was like they were speaking an entirely different language! Not to mention, if you have a loved one that adores video games, trying to listen to them talk about their favourite hobby can be very confusing. So here is your primer on all thing video games:

Game Types and Genres

3PS: (noun) Third Person Shooter, a game focused on combat and played in the third person perspective

Alpha: (noun) a very incomplete version of the game, released for testing reasons

Battle Royale: (noun) a type of game where a large number of players fight each other to the last man standing

Beta: (adjective) an incomplete version of a game, released for testing reasons

FPS: (noun) First Person Shooter, a game focused on combat and played in the first person perspective

MMO: (noun) massively multiplayer online game, an online game where many people can play at the same time, often together in groups

MOBA: (noun) multiplayer online battle area, a game where teams of players try to move across a map to take over the enemy’s base

Point and click: (noun) a game whose main mechanic is pointing with the mouse and clicking to interact with the game

RPG: (noun) role-playing game, this is an open-ended game that allows you to build a character however you want and to try and embody the character you build

RTS: (noun) real-time strategy game, a game that relies heavily on strategizing a battle, usually with command over armies or minions to use in the attack

Sandbox: (noun) a game in which the entire purpose to play around with the mechanics of the game in an open-ended way

Minecraft is a sandbox game. 

Turn-based RPG: (noun) a game that instead of running constantly in real time, it has a system of taking turns in battle

Twin Stick: (noun) a shooting game that utilizes both joysticks on a controller, one stick controls movement and the other controls where the character is looking

Starting A Game

Achievement: (noun) a specific accomplishment in the game, often unlocks some sort of trophy or reward

AP: (noun) Actions Points, the number of actions a player can take in their turn

Character build: (noun) the portion of the game where you choose what stats and abilities you’ll have in the game, and sometimes the appearance of your character

CPU: (noun) a character controlled by the computer with a form of AI

HP: (noun) short for health points, represents the amount of damage you can take before dying or losing

Lobby: (noun) a place where you wait in online games for the actual game to begin, the game may be trying to get other players from online to make a full game

Mana (MP): (noun) the number of magic points a character has

Matchmaking: (noun) when an online game is finding other people online for you to join up with

Mechanics: (noun) the ways that a game functions technically

PC: (noun) Player Character, the character that is controlled by the player

Ready: (adjective) a player is confirmed in the game as ready to begin (verb) to confirm in a game that you are ready for the game to begin

Spawn: (verb) to come into existence in the game (noun) the location where something comes into existence in the game for the first time

XP: (noun) short for experience, represents the number of tasks you’ve accomplished in the game (may be referred to as quests, missions, crafting, etc.)

The HP and AP counters in Fallout 3.

Stuff & Things

Collectable: (noun) an item in the game that serves no other purpose than to be collected, usually for an achievement

DPS: (noun) Damage Per Second, describes the amount of damage done in a second of firing/using a weapon

Farming/Grinding: (verb) doing a repetitive action that grants the player XP, loot, or any other reward, usually in an easier way than the intended means

Hitscan: (adjective) a ranged weapon that activates immediately, instead of after travel time of a projectile

    Inventory: (noun) the space a character has to carry items on their person, similar to the idea of pockets or a backpack

      Loot: (verb) to take items from a place or person (noun) the items gained when looting

Shopkeepers and townsfolk are NPCs. 

    NPC: (noun) acronym for a non-playable character, any character in a game that isn’t directly controlled by a human player

    Enemies and Combat

Aggro: (noun) the aggressiveness of an enemy in a game (verb) to activate an enemy and cause it to attack

AoE: (noun) Area Of Effect, space where an effect happens between

The final boss in most Mario games is Bowser.

Boss: (noun) the largest and toughest enemy in a dungeon or general area

Cheesing: (verb) manipulating an algorithm or flaw in game design to win a game, often considered a form of cheating

DoT: (noun) Damage over Time, a type of attack that causes long term damage instead of a single instance

Down: (adjective) single player is killed, or in multiplayer when a player is critically injured but can be revived by a teammate (verb) to kill or critically injure another player

Dungeon: (noun) an area that contains enemies and a contained quest or goal, has a specific beginning and an end that usually has a boss fight

Feeder: (noun) a person who is inexperienced or unskilled and therefore dies multiple times by the enemy team, therefore “feeding” them

Gank: (verb) to get ambushed by the opposite team

Ghosting: (verb) when a player knows something that they shouldn’t be able to know [ex: another player has died and is spectating, telling their team the location of enemies]

Headshot: (noun) a direct hit from a weapon to the head of an enemy, often causing instant death

Juggling: (verb) repeatedly attacking a character to keep them from attacking back, usually by causing them to be stunned or thrown back

Kite: (verb) to allow an enemy to chase you without letting it attack you, strategy for killing enemies at a specific time or place, also opens the enemy up to attacks from other players

Lane: (verb) when a team/player goes down a lane to collect resources, XP, and sometimes to attack the enemy (noun) a path between the home base and the enemies base, where the minions walk

Minions: (noun) in a MOBA, they are the small enemies that travel via lanes and draw aggro from defensive buildings and enemy minions

No-scope: (verb) to kill someone with a sniping weapon but without utilizing the scope to enhance aim

Pre-fire: (verb) to fire a weapon before having a line of sight on an enemy when you suspect they are behind an obstruction, hoping to kill them via lag or low PING

Push: (noun) when a team in a MOBA attempt to advance toward the enemy’s base by attacking defensive buildings (verb) the act of advancing through the map and destroying enemy buildings

Quick scope: (verb) killing another player immediately after engaging the scope on a gun

Throwing arc: (noun) a visual representation of exactly how a throwable (grenade, knife, etc) will travel through the air and land

To draw aggro: (verb) cause an enemy to chase/attack you, usually a strategy to protect other players or NPCs

Playing Online

AFK: (adjective) Away From Keyboard, left the computer

C9: (noun) when a team gives away a point but they have already won the match

GG: (salutation) Good Game, usually sent at the very end of a game

GGWP: (salutation) Good Game, Well Played

Griefing: (verb) acting in a way solely to annoy other players or make playing harder for them

Guild: (noun) a sort of club in MMOs. Allow players to complete certain challenges or dungeons that they couldn’t complete alone

IRL: (noun) In Real Life, meaning the person is referring to something that is happening outside of the game

Lag: (noun) when low internet speeds cause glitches in an online game (verb) when a player is being affected by lag

Point: (noun) scoring method (noun) a contested place that the two teams are fighting over

Rubber banding: (verb) when a person is experiencing a lag between their computer and the server, leading to their actions and movements being undone when the computer and server sync again

Smurf: (noun) when a talented/experienced player starts a new account in order to be matched with a low-level account, leading to many wins in a row

Spectate: (verb) after death, watching the rest of the game in a sort of ghost form

Stream-sniping: (verb) killing a player easily because they are watching the player live stream the game

Story

Deep lore: (noun) more specific details about a video game’s story, often used sarcastically

Lore: (noun) the background details in a video game’s story, creating a more rich environment

Sequence break: (verb) to play portions of a game out of the intended order

Get Good!

100%: (verb) to collect all achievements/collectables and finish all quests/missions

Goat: (noun) short for Greatest Of All Time, a talented player

Perk/skill tree: (noun) when levelling up, the character is given options on what skills they want to specialize in through different branches of a tree-like chart

Tilted: (adjective) a player that is frustrated with the game and is, therefore, playing sloppily or too aggressively

Classy Characters

Avatar: (noun) visual representation of your character in-game

Barbarian: (noun) the class with the largest weapons and most damage, almost always a tank

DPS: (noun) a character that deals a lot of damage per second\

Glass cannon: (noun) a character that has low health and/or defence but can deal a lot of damage, like a cannon made out of glass

Squishy: (adjective) a character that has low health and/or defence

Summoner: (noun) a class that can summon minions or other creatures to aid in fighting

Tank: (noun) the class of character that has high defence and/or health, and therefore should try to take damage over other characters

Thief/Rogue/Assassin: (noun) a class that focuses on stealth, agility, and small weapons

Healer: (noun) the class that keeps the health of other characters up

Tank

Barbarian

DPS

Healer

Barbarian

Tank

DPS

    Ever wondered what the heck someone was talking about when they were discussing video games? Well be confused no longer with this primer into gaming slang and terminology! To me, one of the hardest parts of getting into gaming was learning all the slang and terminology.

[waynekelton]

The Best Games like XCOM on Android & iOS

XCOM: Enemy Unknown won multiple game-of-the-year awards in 2012 for its turn-based tactical gameplay centered on a squad of combatants. The expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within, was similarly well received upon its release in 2013 and brought the franchise to the mobile market on both the iOS and Android platforms in 2014. The success of these XCOM games inspired many game developers to try their hand at the genre.

In 2015 we got Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion, set in the Warhammer 40K universe, and one of my personal favorites Templar Battleforce. We've also Demon's Rise 2  (another Pocket Tactics GOTY recipient) and Invisible, Inc. All of these games feature tactical turn-based action that can be favorably compared to the XCOM games.

Below is collection of great games that evoke that tactical gameplay that XCOM fans know and love. Some we've reviewed, many we haven't. We've put some emphasis on games released in the last couple of years, but also aimed for a good cross-section of options out there. Naturally we can't include every title with gameplay similar to XCOM and would love to see other options called out in the comments below.

Community Suggestions

Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion

The Banner Saga series

Shieldwall Chronicles

Skulls of the Shogun

Highborn

Xenowar

Developer: Grinning Lizard Platforms: Android Price: $1.99

Xenowar is a brilliant distillation of the razor-sharp tactical challenges of XCOM, though it does sacrifice some scale and endgame satisfaction in favor of presenting a clean-cut intense series of battles. In particular, the GEO mode is a smart compromise between a full-fledged life-consuming, planet-saving, alien-cleansing XCOM campaign and a single strategic arc that a dedicated gamer can accomplish in just a few sittings. It takes a lot of presence of mind to create games like this, which understand what’s great and reiterate it without becoming derivative or redundant in the process. Oh, and it’s open-source to boot.

Strike Team Hydra (Review)

Developer: Wave Light Games Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $7.99, $6.49

Hydra’s best point is how creative and wide its customization options are, both in terms of squad composition and difficulty level. The plotting and theme are boilerplate, but in terms of mechanics, stats and abilities, the game is brimming with possibilities. Psionics and physics add some flair and unusual effects to the classes, and the enemies are weird bio-machine hybrids. All this wouldn’t matter a whit if the game’s buffet of options was paired with anything but an equally rich campaign. Here, Strike Team Hydra delivers again, ratcheting up the scenarios, objectives and enemy types just as generously as it doled out strategic tools. It strikes a great balance between question and answer; risk and reward; problem and solution.

Frozen Synapse

Developer: Mode 7 Platforms: Android Price: $9.99, $4.31

Along with the top-down isometric perspective, Frozen Synapse made one other amazing change to the standard tactical shooter formula. Each side takes turns planning their actions in secrecy, mapping out the steps their units will take, the shots they will fire. Then the game will resolve everyone’s programmed actions creating a ‘simultaneous’ turn that was nonetheless meticulously choreographed by those tacticians. One good idea, perfectly rendered, is enough to make a good game. Frozen Synapse fulfills this crystal-clear ideal.

Templar Battleforce (Review)

Developer: Trese Brothers Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $9.99

Space marines versus xenomorphs, loosely derived from the Ur-horrors of Alien. Templar Battleforce owes some thematic debts to Warhammer and others, but its rapid-fire pacing and generous respect system are wonderful tools for experimentation and strategy. There’s some light characterization and world-building, sure, but in lieu of story one has to respect Templar Battleforce’s varied scenarios and equally creative squads allow divergent thinking. To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail, but to a commander with endlessly variable squads, the mutating threat can be met with an equally sundry...battleforce.

Aliens versus Humans

Developer: Leisurerules Inc. Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $2.99

We'll start with an option that predates Enemy Within on mobile. Aliens versus Humans is an old game. So old that if you buy it for iOS you'll get the warning about it slowing down your device since the developer hasn't updated the game to Apple's standards. That warning is often meaningless and misleading and you should go ahead and ignore it in this case. 

Aliens versus Humans is effectively a clone of the very first XCOM game from back in 1994.It features base management, research, manufacturing, and of course tactical combat against alien enemies. The graphics are retro and nothing to get excited about, but the gameplay is solid, combat is challenging, and there's a whole lot of content for a couple bucks. You can bring a huge squad to battle which allows for more options to face threats than games that top out with a team of four or so. It also lets you play the attrition game to grind out victories. So while Aliens versus Humans is over three-years-old at this point, it is well worth considering if you're looking for XCOM-like action.

Alien Star Menace

Developer: The Animal Farm Creations Platforms: Android Price: Free

The first of a couple free options in this article is a little game called Alien Star Menace. Aliens have attacked the starship Paladin and it's up to you to save the day. Alien Star Menace is light-hearted and looks pretty basic at first glance but it actually packs a good tactical punch. You pick a five-person squad from a variety of special units with different pros and cons and take them into missions on different levels of the Paladin.

The mission objectives are things like "Kill Everything" and "Reach the Stairs" and the game rewards smart decisions like making good use of choke points and ranged attackers. Missions are very quick and perfect for bite-sized play sessions on your phone, which is often a big plus for gamers these days. Alien Star Menace is also free-to-play with no IAP. There are ads, which can be annoying, but the frequency is very low and I didn't find them to be overly obtrusive. I'm happy to recommend this one as a free gaming option for XCOM fans.

World of Warriors: Quest

Developer: Mind Candy Ltd. Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: Free

World of Warriors: Quest is a light turn-based tactical game where you play as a team of warriors from across the ages—Roman centurions, Viking berserkers, and stealthy ninjas for example. The characters fill your standard RPG roles. The Roman, Brutus, is a tank and taunts enemies with his attacks to keep their attention. Gunnar, the Viking warrior, is a decent balance of damage and survivability. The ninja is named Kuro and he's the glass cannon—big area-of-effect damage but very low health. Those are the starting characters but you encounter more as the game goes on.

You choose three warriors to take on a number of quests that lead you across the Wildlands on a mission to discover what the local bad guys are up to. Each quest has several waves of fights and it can be a challenge to keep your team upright and alive so you don't succumb to attrition. Each warrior has special attacks to make use of and there are also consumables֫ that recover health, enable big attacks, or provide extra movement speed. World of Warriors: Quest is not a particularly deep game, but good for those interested in light squad-based tactics. You also can't beat the price—this one is free with no IAPs or ads.

The Last Warlock

Developer: Sonic Sloth Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $3.99

The Last Warlock is a turn-based tactical game with a somewhat unique almost-anything-goes approach. You play as a warlock capable of summoning deadly creatures, casting magical spells, and crafting weapons, armour, and other equipment. You embark on a series of quests to find and defeat enemy warlocks, all vying to discover the secrets of the famed last warlock. To defeat these rivals you must first best their monsters, traps, and puzzles before taking them down.

The Last Warlock provides an extraordinary amount of freedom for a tactical game to decide exactly how to do so. You can go straight for your foe or explore a little and take the road less travelled. This provides a great deal of replay value because you can play the same quest multiple times and use a different strategy. Your squad in this game are the creatures you've summoned and you can end up with quite a crew as you grow in power and a quest wears on. The single-player campaign is quite extensive and will provide many hours of play for one premium price. There's also an asynchronous online option for those looking for multiplayer action.

Star Chindy (2016)

Developer: MAST Games Platforms: Android Price: $1.99

Star Chindy mixes in elements of both FTL and XCOM. You warp around the galaxy in your ship, the Star Chindy, in a hunt to take on and take out a big bad alien race that very nearly wiped out earth. You'll maintain and upgrade your ship, and others you pick up along the way, and decide where to go and what risks are worth taking in your travels.

You'll take a squad on various away missions and engage the enemy in turn-based tactical warfare. The missions are a good challenge and get better and better as you train up your squad. The space-based combat is less interesting, however. It plays out in real time, rather than being turn based, and your weapons auto-fire on enemy ships in range. Your job is to frantically maneuver your ships to avoid enemy fire. Luckily the fun of the squad combat more than makes up for this and despite this odd dichotomy, Star Chindy is definitely worth a go for fans of XCOM.

Do you know of any more games that would fit the topic of today's guide? Let us know about them in the comments below!

The Best Games like XCOM on Android & iOS published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[waynekelton]

The Best Games like XCOM on Android & iOS

XCOM: Enemy Unknown won multiple game-of-the-year awards in 2012 for its turn-based tactical gameplay centered on a squad of combatants. The expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within, was similarly well received upon its release in 2013 and brought the franchise to the mobile market on both the iOS and Android platforms in 2014. The success of these XCOM games inspired many game developers to try their hand at the genre.

In 2015 we got Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion, set in the Warhammer 40K universe, and one of my personal favorites Templar Battleforce. We've also Demon's Rise 2  (another Pocket Tactics GOTY recipient) and Invisible, Inc. All of these games feature tactical turn-based action that can be favorably compared to the XCOM games.

Below is collection of great games that evoke that tactical gameplay that XCOM fans know and love. Some we've reviewed, many we haven't. We've put some emphasis on games released in the last couple of years, but also aimed for a good cross-section of options out there. Naturally we can't include every title with gameplay similar to XCOM and would love to see other options called out in the comments below.

Community Suggestions

Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion

The Banner Saga series

Shieldwall Chronicles

Skulls of the Shogun

Highborn

Xenowar

Developer: Grinning Lizard Platforms: Android Price: $1.99

Xenowar is a brilliant distillation of the razor-sharp tactical challenges of XCOM, though it does sacrifice some scale and endgame satisfaction in favor of presenting a clean-cut intense series of battles. In particular, the GEO mode is a smart compromise between a full-fledged life-consuming, planet-saving, alien-cleansing XCOM campaign and a single strategic arc that a dedicated gamer can accomplish in just a few sittings. It takes a lot of presence of mind to create games like this, which understand what’s great and reiterate it without becoming derivative or redundant in the process. Oh, and it’s open-source to boot.

Strike Team Hydra (Review)

Developer: Wave Light Games Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $7.99, $6.49

Hydra’s best point is how creative and wide its customization options are, both in terms of squad composition and difficulty level. The plotting and theme are boilerplate, but in terms of mechanics, stats and abilities, the game is brimming with possibilities. Psionics and physics add some flair and unusual effects to the classes, and the enemies are weird bio-machine hybrids. All this wouldn’t matter a whit if the game’s buffet of options was paired with anything but an equally rich campaign. Here, Strike Team Hydra delivers again, ratcheting up the scenarios, objectives and enemy types just as generously as it doled out strategic tools. It strikes a great balance between question and answer; risk and reward; problem and solution.

Frozen Synapse

Developer: Mode 7 Platforms: Android Price: $9.99, $4.31

Along with the top-down isometric perspective, Frozen Synapse made one other amazing change to the standard tactical shooter formula. Each side takes turns planning their actions in secrecy, mapping out the steps their units will take, the shots they will fire. Then the game will resolve everyone’s programmed actions creating a ‘simultaneous’ turn that was nonetheless meticulously choreographed by those tacticians. One good idea, perfectly rendered, is enough to make a good game. Frozen Synapse fulfills this crystal-clear ideal.

Templar Battleforce (Review)

Developer: Trese Brothers Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $9.99

Space marines versus xenomorphs, loosely derived from the Ur-horrors of Alien. Templar Battleforce owes some thematic debts to Warhammer and others, but its rapid-fire pacing and generous respect system are wonderful tools for experimentation and strategy. There’s some light characterization and world-building, sure, but in lieu of story one has to respect Templar Battleforce’s varied scenarios and equally creative squads allow divergent thinking. To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail, but to a commander with endlessly variable squads, the mutating threat can be met with an equally sundry...battleforce.

Aliens versus Humans

Developer: Leisurerules Inc. Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $2.99

We'll start with an option that predates Enemy Within on mobile. Aliens versus Humans is an old game. So old that if you buy it for iOS you'll get the warning about it slowing down your device since the developer hasn't updated the game to Apple's standards. That warning is often meaningless and misleading and you should go ahead and ignore it in this case. 

Aliens versus Humans is effectively a clone of the very first XCOM game from back in 1994.It features base management, research, manufacturing, and of course tactical combat against alien enemies. The graphics are retro and nothing to get excited about, but the gameplay is solid, combat is challenging, and there's a whole lot of content for a couple bucks. You can bring a huge squad to battle which allows for more options to face threats than games that top out with a team of four or so. It also lets you play the attrition game to grind out victories. So while Aliens versus Humans is over three-years-old at this point, it is well worth considering if you're looking for XCOM-like action.

Alien Star Menace

Developer: The Animal Farm Creations Platforms: Android Price: Free

The first of a couple free options in this article is a little game called Alien Star Menace. Aliens have attacked the starship Paladin and it's up to you to save the day. Alien Star Menace is light-hearted and looks pretty basic at first glance but it actually packs a good tactical punch. You pick a five-person squad from a variety of special units with different pros and cons and take them into missions on different levels of the Paladin.

The mission objectives are things like "Kill Everything" and "Reach the Stairs" and the game rewards smart decisions like making good use of choke points and ranged attackers. Missions are very quick and perfect for bite-sized play sessions on your phone, which is often a big plus for gamers these days. Alien Star Menace is also free-to-play with no IAP. There are ads, which can be annoying, but the frequency is very low and I didn't find them to be overly obtrusive. I'm happy to recommend this one as a free gaming option for XCOM fans.

World of Warriors: Quest

Developer: Mind Candy Ltd. Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: Free

World of Warriors: Quest is a light turn-based tactical game where you play as a team of warriors from across the ages—Roman centurions, Viking berserkers, and stealthy ninjas for example. The characters fill your standard RPG roles. The Roman, Brutus, is a tank and taunts enemies with his attacks to keep their attention. Gunnar, the Viking warrior, is a decent balance of damage and survivability. The ninja is named Kuro and he's the glass cannon—big area-of-effect damage but very low health. Those are the starting characters but you encounter more as the game goes on.

You choose three warriors to take on a number of quests that lead you across the Wildlands on a mission to discover what the local bad guys are up to. Each quest has several waves of fights and it can be a challenge to keep your team upright and alive so you don't succumb to attrition. Each warrior has special attacks to make use of and there are also consumables֫ that recover health, enable big attacks, or provide extra movement speed. World of Warriors: Quest is not a particularly deep game, but good for those interested in light squad-based tactics. You also can't beat the price—this one is free with no IAPs or ads.

The Last Warlock

Developer: Sonic Sloth Platforms:  iOS | Android Price: $3.99

The Last Warlock is a turn-based tactical game with a somewhat unique almost-anything-goes approach. You play as a warlock capable of summoning deadly creatures, casting magical spells, and crafting weapons, armour, and other equipment. You embark on a series of quests to find and defeat enemy warlocks, all vying to discover the secrets of the famed last warlock. To defeat these rivals you must first best their monsters, traps, and puzzles before taking them down.

The Last Warlock provides an extraordinary amount of freedom for a tactical game to decide exactly how to do so. You can go straight for your foe or explore a little and take the road less travelled. This provides a great deal of replay value because you can play the same quest multiple times and use a different strategy. Your squad in this game are the creatures you've summoned and you can end up with quite a crew as you grow in power and a quest wears on. The single-player campaign is quite extensive and will provide many hours of play for one premium price. There's also an asynchronous online option for those looking for multiplayer action.

Star Chindy (2016)

Developer: MAST Games Platforms: Android Price: $1.99

Star Chindy mixes in elements of both FTL and XCOM. You warp around the galaxy in your ship, the Star Chindy, in a hunt to take on and take out a big bad alien race that very nearly wiped out earth. You'll maintain and upgrade your ship, and others you pick up along the way, and decide where to go and what risks are worth taking in your travels.

You'll take a squad on various away missions and engage the enemy in turn-based tactical warfare. The missions are a good challenge and get better and better as you train up your squad. The space-based combat is less interesting, however. It plays out in real time, rather than being turn based, and your weapons auto-fire on enemy ships in range. Your job is to frantically maneuver your ships to avoid enemy fire. Luckily the fun of the squad combat more than makes up for this and despite this odd dichotomy, Star Chindy is definitely worth a go for fans of XCOM.

Do you know of any more games that would fit the topic of today's guide? Let us know about them in the comments below!

The Best Games like XCOM on Android & iOS published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/