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orlissa · 9 months ago

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Okay, so... oh my.

First of all, let me tell you that two factors got us to pay (a lot of money, actually) for these tickets:

The show promised to be Addams Family-esque (I mean, if you ordered your Addams Family from Wish)

A big name actor who is known for such roles as Tybalt in the musical version of R&J and Death in Elisabeth (big, big things here) was promised to play "Gomez." (He bailed--I mean got sick--five days before the performance.)

There was literally zero information out about what the show is going to be about. Just performer names and stuff they are taking music from, like it was a jukebox musical (oh, sweet summer child...).

Anyway, we still went there with high hopes. We were fools.

There was a "trailer" video for the show on Youtube--there was verey little resemblance between that and the actual performance (basically, we got Lightlark'd), probably because some nifty copyright laywer got to them and they had to quickly change around things. Like, in the original rep material "Wednesday" was called Jenna. By yesterday, she is already mentioned as Lucia. The costumes were clearly dumbed down and changed around to be less Addams-esque. Buttercup even said that she's willing to bet her life savings that this show looked completely different two weeks ago.

There were no dialogues, only pre-recorded narration by "Wednesday" (the character on stage was played by a dancer--she was good--who never spoke) in Hungarian and songs in English. Which is, like, bad, because it was never communicated that the singing would be in English and at least half of the audience didn't look like people who speak English. Not that it matters, because the songs were random, and had little to nothing to do with the story. Also, the sound was so bad that you could barely understand the actors anyway.

As for the story itself: so apparently "Wednesday" died ten years ago (her opening monologue was actually not bad, and it was basically the only bit where they nailed the Addams-vibes), but she is still around as a ghost. Her family gets together every year to remember her: mother, father, brother, brother's club singer girlfriend (who spends the whole show in the worst fitting corset you've ever seen), good witch and godmother Ivory (imagine if Glinda went with turquoise instead of powder blue--this will be important later), and bad witches Bella and Trix (Bella and Trix, got it??? They also looked like they stole their wigs from a Bellatrix cosplayer. And were dressed like they thrifted their costumes), who are... there. Apparently Bella is a school friend of "Gomez" and "Morticia" (who is named "Letisa" here, apparently, spelled like that) and is in love with "Gomez". As for who Trix is... Bella's sister? Daughter? Lover? I DON'T KNOW.

Anyway, the annual wake is different this year, because someone wants to kill "Morticia", but "only Wednesday can hurt her mother," so she is gonna stop them. This could actually turn into a decent murder mystery plot, only... nope.

In the very next scene we see Bella and Trix (and a bunch of random dancer--there are a bunch of random dancers everywhere, because basically they are the only ones who can properly do their job within this garbage) make some poison, then they pay the girlfriend to poison "Morticia." "Wednesday" intercepts the poison, then decides to inform the family about the murder attempt by communicating with Ivory the good witch. She does this by an interpretive dance with a shiny mushroom. Which might have been some garden ornament.

In he next scene Ivory gets the message and start singing... Defying Gravity. Even the bits that no-one can hold her down and that Oz should be afraid. I told you 1, the songs have little to nothing to do with the plot 2, Ivory looking like Glinda will be important. She writes down "Wednesday's" message and gives it to her brother, who then goes to the club to comfront the poisoning girlfriend during a medley of Bad Romance/Toxic/and some third song of the same caliber we forgot. It's as bad as it sounds.

From this point on the story makes about zero sense. "Wednesday" at one point mentions that her brother is messing up (or doing it right? I don't even remember) her plan. What plan? Dude, you don't even have a plah'. The girlfriend is at point imprisoned in the basement, then gets out sometime. We doubt it was shown. The scene was probably cut either because of copyright reasons or because the actors couldn't learn it. At one point "Wednesday" says that Ivory is thier secret weapon because she is such a powerful witch. Then Ivory comes in and starts singing... Into the Unknown. From Frozen II. (Probably because the actress was Elsa's singing voice in the dubbing). At another point the version of the IT clown which you ordered from Wish, complete with a party wig and a tartan cap, comes in. Why? I DON'T KNOW. Nothing makes sense anymore. There is a final showdown between the two sides with a very stylized fight to... I need a Hero. Both sides, while actively fighting, sing about needing a hero.

Also, since the "Gomez" actor was a literal last minute addition, basically none of his costumes fit (what did fit probably came from his own closet), he didn't know the steps (now when to bow at the end), and didn't even sing during the final scene, probably because he had no time to learn that song. Also, all the while during the show they projected some extra shitty AI-generated images on the black wall. I mean... it was bad.

Then, at the very end, when we thought that we were finally free, up came the producer (? I think it was the producer) on the stage and did the live action version of a four pages long acknowledgements at the end of a YA fantasy. He asked everyone who took some part in the porduction on stage. The director/choreographer did a little speech. The producer asked us, the audience to talk about what a great fun we had here and just, like promote the show.

Dude, you really don't want me to go around and tell people what a shotshow it was.

I probably saw the worst theater production of my life tonight with @buttercupadventures . Like... imagine two hours of secondhand embarassement and hiding you laughter, because it's *that* bad. We needed a bottle of wine and three hours of ranting and youtube vids to process it. More on it tomorrow.

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augment-techs · 3 years ago

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"I wish you would write a fic where... Coinless Skull meets up with Billy’s ghost.” Something like @felonious-glitch ‘s art???? I’ve wanted a fic from that for so long

For the record, this involved another prompt, too, but I accidentally deleted it. It includes Soulmate AU~

The red string. The first words. The timers. The sounds. The colors.

Billy felt like those all would have been easier to handle when he was alive; and he didn't change his mind after he was dead.

Grid Ghosts, those who remained more real than other spirits on planets with unfinished business or a grudge or an extreme kind of denial, who stayed to help other Rangers as much as they could in almost unnoticeable ways; Grid Ghosts still experienced their soul-ties and what those meant.

Flowers and weeds, mushrooms and moss, poison spores and algae: when Billy was alive, he was never sure exactly who his soulmate must have been to experience so much and give him so much to think over once these bloomed from Billy's own skin.

And then he died and watched what happened more than anything before he figured out the small ways he could help.

Then he knew.

Many people mourned the loss of Kimberly's fall to Drakkon--especially, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Bulk--and barely held themselves together in the week that followed.

But the same day Drakkon snared her was the same day Billy got his answer about his soulmate.

A daisy and dogwood bloomed from his chest above his heart, brought up and pointed out to him by Jason in passing by with a couple Red ghosts that stepped over from Somewhere Else, going to look in on the Coinless and the doctors trying to keep civilians alive, Zordon waiting for them and giving one look Billy's way that spoke volumes in his silence.

Billy had stared and thought and touched fingers to the blooms that he hadn't had in the months since his death (usually he simply found himself covered from head to toe in black or toxic blue algae, sometimes a vermillion mold as well; it came and went in bursts and he was rather disconcerting to look at for many of the other Colors when it was in full force) but found so strangely familiar in the moment.

On an instinct he couldn't fathom the source of, he went to see how Zack was doing rather than Trini and Bulk.

His first thought when he found Zack speaking to Skull in hushed tones, Zack sitting down and looking almost horrified while Skull remained standing, looking determined, was that they had both gotten so tall and he was never going to know if he might have grown with them.

But the self-pity was shot to hell when he actually understood what was being said and the dogwood encompassed the daisy--both falling towards oblivion and setting into the ether of the Grid when Skull told Zack there was no argument; replaced by dandelions and goat's beard when Zack agreed in terror of the future.

Skull left out the back, taking nothing with him but the clothes on his back; the weapons he left with Zack, the future he left with everyone else.

He didn't stop to tell Bulk what was going on.

He only paused on his walking towards the Palace, halfway between being able to change his mind and sealing himself to chance and fate, to stop off at the crumbling ruins of the Command Center.

Skull stood over the place Billy had died, some of his blood still soaked in the ground turning it to look like rust.

He tucked himself down over the color, palm flat the to earth, and cried without sound and tears enough to fill a teacup. Ridiculous words like, "I should have been there," and "If there was any way," and "If we could have swapped places," and the worst of all that would have made Billy vomit if at all still possible, "I wish I could have told you."

Billy was terrified as Skull wiped his eyes and marched onward. Horrified still more when he looked down at his chest to find all the wrong things.

Water lettuce that sulked once they reached his shoulders. Pumpkins that started small, but filled to a great heaviness so they dropped around him like rotting vessels of filth. Velvet smooth algae in the color of blood that danced across his skin in a wave before unfolding into curdled mushrooms of so many varieties--none of which held onto him for long as he trudged after Skull (no, no, no; Eugene) like nothing less than a poltergeist out of some macabre fairy tale; dropping his soulmate's emotions after him like a motley trail that lacked breadcrumbs.

He hated knowing, as time and tide came upon their world, that the seeds he dropped would grow into the first trees, flowers, fruits, weeds that the Grid had ever experienced. Would not vanish like they would if he was still alive, but continue to flow with the Grid energy, provide some variety that the other Ghosts did not know could exist.

They would all think it beautiful. A gift for their eyes alone, something to hold onto between dimensions other than a vastly Colored emptiness or the waking dream of the living world they could never touch but only experience between moments.

Zordon and Jason from Billy's world, the slowly growing number of Tommy Olivers that Drakkon kept running through to prove his own worth, the other Rangers that got in the way or crossed the dimensions because their Colors allowed it so. They all thought the trees that glowed in Reds, Blues, and Yellow were a gift. They all thought the flowers and weeds that shuttered in Greens and Pinks were a gift. They all thought the moss and mushrooms in their Blacks and Whites were a gift.

But Billy, in his never changing misery and grief for the living, and the Colors in their shifting forms that found him after incidents of watching Skull be traumatized and debased for the Cause; they knew better.

Gifts and Curses often wore each other's clothes.

His death was not a good one.

While Jason and Zordon went to greet Zack after his dancing fight for reanimation with Black, happy and proud and ready as mothers with their newborns to hug the Coinless leader, all the other ghosts were experiencing a terror and worry that they rarely felt as entities of a force beyond their true knowing.

In waves and shaking fractures, in onrush and sliding, Billy could not stop the never-ending growth; the result of Eugene grieving Zacks' loss, and buying time for the Ninjor and Zack and all of their friends and allies from other worlds, and fighting a losing battle for his own life.

Seeds and saplings, spores and wind-sweeping blooms, pollen overgrowing, petals in their multitudes falling, falling, falling and growing en masse around Billy's feet with each unsteady step he took in following around what amounted to Eugene's last show.

It was terrifying, and beautiful; so many of the Mastodon and Saber-Tooth sentries going down with swift kicks and one-two punches, weapons landing at their sides and beneath them in unconsciousness. The few Tyrannosaurus sentries available to Finster-5 doing their best to parry and counter staff movements, with blades so sharp and eyes alight, but Eugene was nothing if not resourceful and focused and...

Billy was so proud of him, even unto the end of the dance, where the little monster of an artist-turned-cyborg waited until he was just out of reach and used a flash bomb.

It wouldn't have even taken that much--Eugene had suffered trigger migraines all of his life from things as simple as a florescent light shining too pale and terrible in a grocery store.

Still, Billy cried at the feeling--without seeing--of a clutch of skeleton flowers forming at the crown of his head, bursting like a shot of water into full bloom, scattering to take their place among the wild ivy and nettles at his ankles as Eugene blinked too long, the light agonizing in his cerebral pain, and went down with fists and knives and metal rods aimed true.

Probably the only reason he wasn't beaten to death underfoot was the one Black Sentry--who remained at the door in the back, who kept his hands at his holstered weapons and shook like a burning husk of a house--mentioned to Finster-5 that perhaps there was information to be had.

"Maybe Lord Drakkon still has use for him yet, sir."

Billy knew that voice. He'd been with Eugene in death too long not to know every face he'd come across, every villain in the tower, every poor soul chained to a special kind of hell they'd found themselves in because they'd succumbed to the foolish belief that Drakkon would ever give anything, even scraps of human comfort, without their name written in their own blood forever and ever.

From the way three pure Black Diamond apples formed and fell from from his ribs, landing soundless and so fragile on the remains of all emotions grown in the last little while, Eugene knew, too.

(Adam tried his best, he did; and Billy didn't doubt both he and Eugene forgave him in all things once Drakkon had Eugene walked his way, had him on his knees, face in hand, smiling to hide the fact that Eugene's belief in his friends really did scare him in a way he probably hadn't felt since he was still young and innocent.

Both forgave Adam, if for nothing else, because he was the only person in hell that made an effort to keep Eugene's broken and cooling body off the floor.)

Eugene's Augury Bloom was very different from Billy's.

In life and in the line of sight to all, still growing against the backdrop of ruined buildings and the sky that still opened wide to sunlight on restless days, Billy's last plant grown from Eugene's broken heart at the moment of Billy's death was the beginning of a ceiba tree. Small and innocent looking once upon a time, in the two decades since, it had grown into an absolute behemoth that made Billy truly appreciate why the Mayans believe it to be sacred among the dead.

Because Billy was a Grid Ghost at the onset of Eugene's death, the end result could not be seen by the living.

But the Colors that supported Billy in all the years of his haunting, save Orange and Red who had told Billy to be patient and wait as they gave Skull their challenge and tests so that he might return to the living once Drakkon ran aground of his own mistakes, could appreciate the bough that launched from Billy to remove itself and take root in the Grid itself.

As the shock wore itself into something numb, mind still spinning and horrified at the sound Eugene's neck had made, Billy sat and waited and watched the Augury Bloom grow much stronger and faster than it ever would have in the living world.

A yakusugi, or Japanese Cedar, that survives in poor environments, survives high altitude and heavy rains, resistant to rot from the resin it produces.

Finding a spot inside the bower the tree provided, back to the bark and eyes unfocused as he still remained in shock, Billy couldn't help thinking how fitting it was for Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch.

He didn't notice his own Color depart from watching, looking up and vanishing out of Billy's awareness as silent footfalls approached, unbelieving and too hopeful.

"...Bones?"

There were no shadows in the Grid, but if there were, he was sure one would have passed over the vines and nettles, dandelions, apples, clover, common fleabane and orange mushrooms, all before settling over Billy's visage.

As it was, Billy instead felt his heart in his throat, the feeling he'd become accustomed to before moss and algae came up from bones to tissue to skin, but without completion.

He found his feet as a booted pair stood before him, eyes traveling along white and Red and long legs accented by a uniform cape and one arm hung limp as it was squeezed by trembling fingers and--

Billy had to tilt his head to look Eugene directly in the eyes. He'd gotten so tall...

Years and years of waiting and hoping to say something, anything, to him again, and Billy couldn't stop shaking.

There were small lines of grey in Eugene's hair; there were shadows under his eyes from so many nights spent in pain or terrified; there were small wrinkles that came from the stress of simply living. There were scars that Billy had seen and traced without touching under the suit that remained because the Grid willed it.

His eyes, though. Those were still...

Billy had raised his hand to...to touch...or confirm the man was standing before him as nothing more or less than himself; but it remained still between them, raised and stretched out and terrified to be wrong--

It would figure that Skull would be brave for the both of them.

A hand much bigger than he remembered, big enough to cover Billy's entirely in a closed palm, wove their fingers together as his other hand found its way to Billy's cheek; thumb grazing across cool skin under his eye (he'd done this when they were little, too; to wake Billy from a nap, to pull him away from papers scattered as he fell asleep doing homework) and palm cradling his jaw perfectly.

Eugene smiled and Billy was suddenly completely unaware of what he was saying as he crashed hard into Eugene's chest, crying without tears and winding thin arms around his soulmate--and, oh, they were, they were, they were--as Eugene wrapped him in a hug, equally fierce, but passionately gentle with his cape blanketing the both of them in their embrace.

Billy only stopped his aimless, seemingly neverending barrage of words and apologies and promises he wished could be kept when Eugene took a breath shuddering and deep and spoke kissing into the part in Billy's hair.

"It was all worth it to see you again, Billy. Everything is worth this."

#boom! comics power rangers #world of the coinless #shattered grid #mmpr #ggpr #billy cranston #eugene skull skullovitch #mighty morphin comics boom! studios #go go power rangers #ask fill

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thewoodshungers-if · 3 years ago

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Nora - Tomato vs Apple

500 Followers Special - Fluff, Teasing & bickering

Challenge: Turn Nora into apple before she turn you into tomatoe.

Nora flashed you another shit-eating grin and it took your all to keep yourself from throttling her by the neck. Probably because she’ll just choke out ‘harder’ if you did so.

And you did not want to deal with that in the middle of the forest right now.

You felt your cheeks heat up as soon as she opened her mouth, “Aww, what’s with your cheeks? I could’ve heat up a potion with how hot they’ve gotten”

You’ve had it. You’ve really had it. She’s been poking fun at you for days the moment she found out how easy it was to fluster you. It’s like she’s trying to break her record every time she opened her mouth.

“Shut up! Don’t- Don’t make fun of me, damnit!”

She dodged your half-hearted attempt to swipe at her, dancing away as she scattered the leaves on the forest floor, “Are you even trying with that? Should’ve took me seriously and use your sword, don’t you think?”

“Just don’t call me- Don’t call me-”

One look on your face, one reaction from you, and this nickname has stuck to you forever.

You watched as Nora turned to crouch down in front of a tree, examining the trunks for the mushrooms she’s been looking for. She pointedly ignored your outburst as she hummed, “As you wish, tomato”

Tomato.

“Do not call me that”, you gritted you teeth.

Nora scoffed, looking over her shoulder. She raised her eyebrows in challenge, “Make me, coward”

You watched her for a moment, weighing between fighting fire with fire and risking your face going even hotter, or shutting up to run away with your tail between your legs. Being the reckless dumbass you are, you did the former.

“If you were so eager to be choked by me, you should’ve just said so, Nora”

She turned to you, eyes widening for a split-second. Gotcha, bet you didn’t expect that. But she collected herself as quickly, scoffing as she turned back to her mushroom, “Well I’m shy. But... now that you know, you can follow through can you?”

Fine. Fine.

You crouched down next to, hands reaching out to let your fingers graze her neck-

You stopped.

Nora was crouched down, arms-deep in a colony of poisonous mushrooms, vivid blue and spewing out a sickly sweet odor. The kind that makes your hand fall of when touched. You stumbled backward, the sting of the sweet scent intoxicating and it pounds at your head.

During one of your assignment to track down witches, you’ve found yourself in a forest, one foot inside a colony of vivid blue mushrooms, just like this one. It has almost burned through your boots before you managed to stumble away from them.

Your hand shot out to pull hers away, “What the hell!? Why are you even touching that?”

“Because it won’t hurt me?” Nora turned to you, head cocked.

“Why do you even need that?” you looked at her incredulously, regretting them almost immediately. You’re wrong. These types of mushrooms are the exact kind Nora would make use of.

She turned to you, smirking, “You have no idea how many uses those things have”

You don’t even know if you wanted to know, but before you could even stop to think further, you let out the first think that comes to mind. “.. Poison?”

Nora let out a laugh, the kind of laugh some gremlin would let out, or the kind of laugh an evil witch will spew out whenever they’re scheming something. It’s ugly, and choppy, you’ve heard a crow’s squawk that sounds better.

It’s rare. You’ve seen her smirk and taunt you for.. From the moment you met her, yet you’ve never seen her so easy, so unguarded. The light streaming down from between the leaves hitting her eyes, the dark sclera and green irises eerie yet it sparkles when it drifted to look at you.

She watched your face going paler by the moment, eyes roaming through your features before it landed on your eyes, still watching her.

“Fine”, Nora sighed and stood up, wiping her hands on the rags that hung from her belt. She looked back up to you, thrusting her still intact hands at your face, “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

You stared at her hands for a moment, black nails and skin written over by scripts of black ink. “Don’t worry about what?” you slowly stood up with her, “Don’t worry about the poison?”

“I’m using this for medicine, dumbass”, she rolled her eyes before she motioned at you to follow. You complied, falling in step next to her, “It can be used to heal wounds and as antidote. I throw them at every human wandering in to keep them away. They seems to leave me alone so far”

You stared at her, a teasing smile found its way to your lips, “Aren’t you just sweet. You hate those villagers and yet you’re going through all this trouble?”

“Yeah, yeah. I just want to keep them away. And-”, Nora turned away, intent on ignoring you altogether, as her pace quickened, one hand reaching up to cover the lower part of her face, “.. Whatever”

She stepped away to look at the foliage around you, head cocked to watch as a group of birds-

Wait.

You stepped in front of Nora, her face still turned away from you, “What was that?”

Did she just-

You did so many things to fluster her. It took you days, and the one thing that did got to her was the one time you off-handedly compliment on how nice she actually is? You reached forward, gripping her wrist to wrench her hands off her face.

She’s way stronger than she looks, and yet you pried her hands off her face almost too easily.

“Leave it alone-” she gritted her teeth, cheeks flushed.

“Ha!” you let out a bark of laughter at the sight of her face. Cheeks red and eyes glassy. You reach out to pinch her cheeks, shame and restraint flying out the window. It’s uncharacteristically warm to your touch, “You look stupid, apple”

“Shut it, tomato”, she spat.

You recoiled at your new name, and she smirked at your visible reaction. Nora reached out to push your face away, squishing your cheeks back harder in retaliation, “Go and look in the mirror”

“Well you should look in the mirror”

Nora scoffed, hands sliding down from your face to your jaw, cold fingertips dancing across your jawline until she grasped the back of your neck, letting shivers run down your spine.

And then she pulls you closer, your face inches from her. Her voice is low and rough, almost raw when she spoke again, eyes lidded, “Monster did not show up in mirrors, you should know that, knight”

Nails dug into the back of your neck, and your breath hitched, “Nora-”

Her eyes drifted from your eyes to your lips.

You froze.

One second, two second, she let go as quickly as she pulled you in, practically pushing you away. Nora stepped back, a satisfied, shit-eating grin gracing her glossy lips as she took in the look on your face.

The way it heats up, the way your eye turned glassy as you looked at her, the way your breath was thrown into a mess. It’s all because of her.

“I win again, tomato. Twenty-eight to zero”

#thewoodshungers: extras #ok so i guess theres a little litttlle angst / pining as well.. but it kinda comes with the package tbh #500 followers special

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shyrose57 · 4 years ago

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Brothers anon back with ANGST at the very last question on part 2. Im honestly not positive myself how im gonna fix it. I have ideas but still. Hopefully this isn't to long.

Rans life at Mizu: For Mizu I've changed it a bit, history is still messed up to a point. But other people like Technoblade, Philza, Sam, Foolish, etc are now included with their own rooms. Ran idolized/choose Technoblade to follow. Followers of Technoblade are the only people in the City (expect for guards or police type people, though they also tend to be followers of Techno) that are allowed to freely carry weapons (after the proper training of course). Ran choose Technoblade because he wanted to protect those he loved and he was always interested in the art of fighting. He had two mentors, a women named Alma, she mostly did hand to hand combat and defense training with Ran, while a man named Fermin was a historical teacher, and taught him the history of wars and weapons more indepth than regular classes did. He had quite a few friends, though only a few close friends he often went to play games with or have sleepovers with (if you want angst, Ran was actually the one who discovered two of his friends bodies and had to report them, forcing him to go back a few times to see their bodies). Im pretty sure I mentioned it before but the brothers had a family of 6! Their mom was Ranya and was a 20% enderman hybrid, their dad was Seth and was a normal human, of course you know the brothers, their younger brother (14 years old upon death/a year younger than Ran) was named Lias and was human, and their younger sister was Memi (10 years old upon death) and was human. Ran was close to his parents, often having Ranya read him to bed and riding Seth's shoulders when he was young. He also baby sat Lias and Memi when everyone else was out, also helping them with homework and letting them sleep in his bed when nightmares happened. He loved his family and its when the murders and sabotages started happening did he choose Technoblade as his idol, to protect his family and seem intimating to whoever was doing the sabotages.

1: When the carriage finally stopped Cletus jumped out and faceplanted onto the ground, screaming about how he was finally free and away from all the awkward tension. Grievous, Jackie, and Isaac where all close behind, all having a similar reaction. While Watson, Charles, and Benjamin had a calmer reaction simply walking out and stretching. Ran was the last to get out, and he had to be dragged out by Watson, but he fought being dragged out. He grabbed the edges of the carriage and screamed while being forced out. Ranbob was calmer, and while jumping out he accidentally landed on Grievous, forcing his head back into the dirt, who then let out a muffled shout of alarm before immediately getting up and confronting a nervous and apologetic Ranbob.

3: He isn't the fastest at evaluating a situation, and needs ample time to make decisions. He also isnt the best at understanding emotions at times and sometimes needs a little push in a direction to understand. Also at points he gets into situations he doesnt know how to handle at all, at those times he almost shuts down with overwhelment, and the leadership tends to go to Benjamin for a while during it.

5: Their healing potions, so they work over time, slowly working with the body to heal and regenerate, so they take longer to fully work. Poitions work generally the same (ingredient wise), but theres more steps. For a potion of harming, first you crush up and gently mix in a spiders eye into a Awkward potion, then put it on the brewing stand for 10 minutes, then after the Poison potion is made, you get another spider eye and roll it in sugar cane until the general texture changes into a more wrinkly and powder like texture, then crush that up and mix it into the Poison potion, put it in the brewing stand for at least 30 minutes, then it makes a harming potion. The process its generally the same for all the rest of the potions, though it depends on ingredients and how long they must stand on the brewing stand.

7: I'll try doing that, thank you! Cause Grievous is a lil shit at times and encourages violence as long as its not against him. I know you probably expect a deep answer but thats purely the only reason Grievous encourages it. It depends on what was said to Jackie, if its something that deeply and emotionally hurts Jackie, than he'd likely discourage him, instead comforting him and convincing him if he attacked the person he'll just feel worse. But if its something he knows Jackie can handle, he'll encourage Jackie to beat em up.

8: Watson went almost everywhere, the only places he didn't go was The End, Mushroom Islands, Badlands, Ice Spikes, and Gravel Mountains (he saw them he just didn't wanna go in them), and thats because he never came across them or traveled there. He has a long bamboo that he uses to wack people over the head with when their being idiots, he has a framed nether star fragment that he found in a ruined and abandoned village (he doesnt know what it is he just knows its shiny and cool), he has some fur-lined outfits from the time spent in Tundras, and he has a book where he records locations of interesting formations he found and just a general record of stuff (how much food he has, the season, days until winter, when he should go on a supply run, etc). When Watson still lived as a kid in a village, he often went to watch the blacksmith (also the farmers, clerics, and others) and when he was old enough the blacksmith showed him how to make a multitude of weapons with different materials. And now he pushes the limits of what he's learned from that and over the years to make brand new weapons. And since I'm not sure if you where also asking about Ran, Ran only went to Plains, Covered Forest, Tundra, Savanna, and Tagia biomes. He has a dagger (specifically a Zorlin Shape dagger) that he took off of a hunter when he killed them, has parts of iron armour (shoulder and chest pieces, with the pieces that go on his shins), again some fur-lined clothes from his time in the Tundra, a selfbow, and also has a book similar to Watson's, but his has notes of potion affects,crafting recipes, mobs to avoid, etc. Visiting the nether is not common at all! Infact no vists it expect travelers or people who get hired to go in for potion ingredients and building supplies. Jackie does eventually give up painting, and instead picks up the hobby of annoying people and just training. It actually goes pretty well, there are rules put in place during it to protect them, but other than that its generally the same as the one played in our world. Jackie wants to vist those biomes because he thinks there cool, and thinks their good starting biomes to vist for a beginner adventure. Yep, Ran says its way to dangerous to go to the nether, especially with almost no one knowing how the nether works. Though actually Watson wants to bring the others into the nether, saying its a good learning experience and no one will learn how to survive if they dont go. Ran still agures its too dangerous though, citing the Piglins and Ghasts as evidence, but eventually, after much begging and negotiations, Ran agrees to let them go. They just need to listen to Ran and Watson teach them about the nether and follow everything they say to a T while in the nether.

9: Jackie screamed while being thrown, but after that and a bit of stunned silence, he jumped up and demanded for Ran to throw him again. So he enjoys being thrown, and sometimes he specifically requests to be thrown, so he can curl into a ball and slam into people like a goddamn canon ball. Porkius was also shocked into stunned silence, but after he saw Jackie get back up and demand to be thrown again, he just started bellowing in laughter, you could hear his laughter even echoing a bit outside of the Pit.

10: Then you may be happy to know, but I believe at the end I'll make it so after the brothers have fixed their relationship, their still being haunted by Dream, and eventually the decision gets made to go back to Mizu and face him. Where Dream has actually escaped (Due to a big group coming in, and him being able to convince them to take the Mask with them) so now they have to hunt him down. And when they finally find him you can bet someone (or multiple people) are going to punch him.

12: He does tell the fishermen about these thoughts once, but the fishermen sadly fail at comforting him and changing those thoughts, so he decides to keep it inside and suffer in quite. Though 2 people do see his suffering, Ran and Grievous. Grievous is debating if he should step in and ask what's wrong and if he can help, while Ran just watches (though he does feel some hurt watching his brother suffer, though he denies it).

13: They all had a blast there, Charles showed Jackie how to make flower crowns, then they went and made one for everyone else, Ran just laid in the grass and tried to relax, Ranbob eventually joined in with the flower crowns, Watson was telling Grievous all the meaning of flower colors and what certain flowers stand for, while Isaac and Cletus chased eachother around and eventually got Jackie, Grievous, and Watson involved in a game of chase. They did leave after a General battle, as that was one of the things they had to do for Porkius to approve of them leaving. Porkius still wants them back in less than 5 years, though they can take like a year or 2 longer max. Jackie is technically a general, though the general title he has is specifically only for the Pit matches and instead is more of a like final boss title.

14: Again its very much like a abusive relationship. Ranbob believes Dream has changed because of distant whispers from Dream (only happened while they still lived at the fishermen house which is kinda-close to Mizu) promising he has changed and he truly wants to help Ranbob, and saying how he can help Ranbob be of more use to the fishermen and since Dream did actually help Ranbob at first, he wants to believe him. But once they get futher away from Mizu, the whispers disappear, only rarely appearing in his dreams. Cletus doesn't really help, not because he doesnt care but more because he doesn't know how to help, he knows its a very delicate situation and saying or doing the wrong thing could hurt more than help, so he decided to play it safe. Charles tries to help, though he provides more physical help, like hugs to ground him or showing him how to breath again, while Benjamin and Isaac tackle the more internal issues and do so comfortingly and gently. Making it so Ranbob only notices their actually helping when he starts to do things on his own and no longer has such strong and often urges to return to Dream.

15: One night when Ranbob is off getting firewood and Ran is off checking surroundings to make sure its safe, the Hunters actually get into the camp and holds everyone at sword and bow point. Ran sees them when coming back and actually, though hesitantly, decides to wait for Ranbob to come back. And once Ranbob is back the two make a plan to rescue them, which goes mostly well. Ran gets shot in the stomach and Ranbob gets a sword through his arm, but other than that they do manage to rescue them. Watson jokingly says how they've finally made progress and that they can now work toghere without fighting now, Ran growls at this and storms away, denying it, but Ranbob just nervously shuffles and sits down, letting Charles tend to his wounds, as Jackie chases off after Ran to tend to his wounds. I really want them to stumble across the Wild West ruins and maybe The Masquerade ruins but im not sure how I'll get them to either.

1: Haha, ouch. Poor Ran. Nice backstory though. I can only imagine how he must have felt, coming across those. Does him choosing Techno have anything to do with him choosing to enter the Pit? Also how did Ranbob feel about killing his family? We’ve talked about the guilt about hurting Ran and stuff, but about the ones who weren’t as lucky to escape?

2: That sounds like...a scene. Funny, but probably not until a few days after it happened for the people who actually had to go through it.

3: Is Isaac the type to get overwhelmed easily? But very nice to see Benjamin helping out!

5: So basically just tossing some real life logic in there? Hmm, interesting.

7: Hope it helps! Nope, no deep answer. That’s about what I expected actually. Grievous has that energy, y’know? Also, very sweet of Ran to comfort Jackie. Does he ever get revenge on Jackie’s behalf? He doesn’t strike me as the type to let that go, especially if it actually hurt somebody he cared for. Him otherwise encouraging it..yeah, sounds about right. Gremlin children.

8: Sounds like he’s really been a lot of places! He must know a lot, huh? Also, he just...wack? Cause that’s kind of funny. He watched others beside the Blacksmith? Did he learn anything from them? Ran personally sounds very intimidating. Though if he has potion notes, does he often make them? Is there a particular reason Nether travel is no longer common? Also, would the gang ever happen to stumble across ruins from the time of the Smp? Cause that’d be kind of cool. Jackie’s new hobby sounds very nice, I hope he has fun doing it. How long does it take before Ran deems everyone ready for the Nether? And do the Fishermen also go through, or do they prefer to stick to safer grounds?

9: I bet the first time the fishermen saw that show they were surprised. And honestly, Porkius, I’d laugh too.

10: I am happy to know that! Well, not the escape bit, but the punching, for sure! You go, guys, punch that neon green slimeball!

12: Oh no. Does Grievous ever step in?

13: Sounds like they had a good time, I’m happy for them. And a final boss title? Is Jackie like a final boss? What differs between them fighting as the general, and as a typical gladiator?

14: Hm, that’s not good. What is good is that he’s getting away from Dream’s influence. Did that have anything to do with the group deciding to head to Subbin?

15: Well, progress is progress! Surely it’s a step in the right direction, right?

Also, not really a Brothers AU question, but as you may have noticed, I pinned a post of all the AUs on here, and I was wondering if you’d like me to put yours on there too. Obviously, I’d put it as yours. I wanted to earlier, but I figured it would be better to ask, so tell me your feelings on that.

#Brothers AU #dream smp #dream smp au #tales from mizu #ran #ranbob #watson #jackie #grievous #isaac #cletus #charles #benjamin

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fleechin · 4 years ago

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Separatory Funnel

Here’s my 2020 Portal Secret Santa for @artistyutaki, she offered a few prompts but one that I thought was interesting was Chell and GLaDOS/PotatOS hiding from Wheatley in the later chapters of Portal 2. I thought I might as well tie it into some of Chell’s thoughts about the ordeal, while also showing what Wheatley’s up to. I also noticed she was interested in the idea of computer gore, with plates and cables all over the place, so I tried to incorporate a bit of that in as well. I also threw in a tiny nod to Mel and Blue Sky since she mentioned she’s a Blue Sky fan. So this ended up being longer than I thought, and it’s my first time writing a proper fanfic of sorts, but I really hope you like this! I had a great time making it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was not the best place to be in right now.

Not that it ever was down here, but where Chell was at this exact moment was especially not great. She didn’t complain though, it could always get worse. Actually, it usually did get worse, especially right about when she would wonder if it ever could. Perhaps it was best not to ask that question right about now. Sure, she had just fallen from a deactivated funnel and landed in a dark office whose only door was blocked by overturned desks, monitors, and furniture, which happened to be heavy enough that it’d be a pain in the back to move but for whatever reason the Portal Gun didn’t want to pick up. On the bright side, at least she didn’t fall all the way back down to the 1950s again.

Realistically though, knowing Aperture, it was bound to get worse no matter what she did. If even superstition was anywhere near reliable at this point, it would have been an improvement compared to everything else in this insane complex that somehow had only gotten stranger and more… alien-like, almost, after its founder had died of moon rock poisoning. At least the idea of a set of metal underground spheres laced with asbestos and full of half finished test chambers, the brainchild of a man proudly named Cave, was somewhat navegable. There was an understanding that if one were to see some place and travel far enough in that direction, they would eventually get to that place. If that place moved downwards in freefall, it would be because of the design of the facility, not some sarcastic supercomputer trying to keep her testing while calling her fat.

This bundle of desks, chairs and monitors was somehow all tangled up, with the wires going all over the place. It looked like she would have to either pull the whole thing at once or remove each one separately.

The recordings she heard from Cave Johnson painted a general picture, though they didn’t get awfully specific. But seeing as ground up moon rocks were all the rage down here back in those days, and hearing Cave coughing while ranting about lemons for some reason, it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out exactly how they managed to finally bring down the founder of Aperture. The real surprise? That somehow every other employee at Aperture hadn’t inhaled the stuff and keeled over. It had to have been a possibility, as there was no way that anyone smart enough to work a portal gun would have taken it upon themselves to design any part of this place without being crazy enough to consider the idea.

This table was a lot heavier than it looked. Hopefully she could fold it over. It wasn’t exactly easy to see the parts that let the table fold on itself when it was this dark.

Could she have been one of those scientists? Chell couldn’t remember anything about herself before waking up under Her testing course, however long ago that was, or whether she was actually adopted, like every personality construct in this place seemed to think was a big deal. Any attempt at figuring out how she got down here would have to be based on guesswork. She was a test subject, which made her a likely employee at some point, though if Her insults were anything to go by, she was only a part time employee. Not committed to this job, just doing it on the side to make ends meet.

She finally managed to fold the damn table, and began to drag it out of the way.

At least that meant she wasn’t some Olympian from the 60s who got tricked into going here. Or a homeless person that got plucked off the streets of some town in Upper Michigan all for the promises of $60 at the end. She wasn’t sure how much that would be in today’s money, but wasn’t about to get optimistic. The real downside to it all was that she never would be able to figure it out. She didn’t even know how long it had been other than that it was long enough to concern Wheatley about brain damage, and even if there were information available about her and why she was here to begin with, she didn’t want to go out of her way to find it. Her main goal was getting out of here as quickly as possible, so there was no time for expositional detours.

At most, she could stumble upon her backstory without looking for it. Figuring out what happened to Caroline was enough for one day, or however long it had been since she had last gotten some sleep. Besides, it would probably be a huge letdown anyway. Maybe she really was adopted after her birth parents considered her completely unlikeable even as a baby. Maybe her last name was something boring, like Smith. Or Jones. Maybe her name wasn’t even Chell at all. But hey, at least it wasn’t Cave. Hopefully.

Of course, she could just ask the supercomputer turned potato battery where she came from. Yes, that would be a great idea, confiding in who up until recently was her own worst enemy about a detail that She had constantly made fun of. She definitely wouldn’t take advantage of that fact and tell her all about how little Miss Chell SmithJonesWhatever couldn’t hold a single job until she came here because everyone hated her. They seemed to be on good terms now, but she wasn’t going to risk jinxing herself. Besides, she had a rule. No talking in Aperture. Nothing that any AI said was ever worth a response.

So the lights didn’t work in this room anymore. Phenomenal.

Regardless, even though it still didn’t explain whether she was one of the employees, part time, or otherwise, who might have almost inhaled ground up rocks that cost anywhere from a TV to a house - she wasn’t about to do the math to figure anything more precise than that - it was at least clear that she had made it into Aperture under vaguely legitimate pretenses, and that they considered her smart enough to get her hands on a machine that, in the right hands, could’ve solved the world’s climate crisis by generating free energy. It was damning with faint praise.

Which just so happened to summarize the remarks from her semi edible companion. Not directed at her, for once, rather the situation at hand. Neither one of them were the most frequent of talkers, but She was more willing to comment on the situation. Funny enough, once they happened to agree with each other, Chell could reasonably rely on her as somewhat of a spokesperson.

“After seeing what he's done to my facility, after we take over again, is it alright if I kill him?”

Chell looked over at the glowing yellow circle, the only part of Her she could actually make out in the darkness of the room, and could only shrug her shoulders. Do whatever you want, she would have said. Frankly, as much as the two had been getting along, Chell wasn’t about to act like this was some new found friendship between the two. As far as she was concerned, the facility deserved to explode in a mushroom cloud with a giant blast radius. The bigger the better. If she was lucky, it would kill Her, Wheatley, and every other personality construct. Just as long as she wasn’t there for it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since he was connected to the mainframe, Wheatley had been trying to figure out how to work this new body. Now that his only test subject was missing, admittedly due to a mistake on his part, he could explore further. There had to at least be some way to hack the solution euphoria program. But until then, the next order of business was to redesign his lair to his own liking. Not too bad a job She did, but it didn’t quite have the Wheatley style to it. Needed a bit more work. Namely, getting rid of that stalemate button. No way that could remain.

“Right, so, asking the announcer... voice... guy... didn’t seem to do anything.” He said out loud, “Guess he didn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Hmm, wait a minute, maybe if I go and change this setting, then- Это программное обеспечение повреждено. Удалите его и обратитесь к администратору. Aaaand, nope, still there. Hasn’t even budged a little bit. Guess that didn’t work.”

He then remembered the complexities of hacking the neurotoxin emitters and thought he might start there. “Oh, um hello, Mister button, there.” He said in an accent beyond the rage of any human’s hearing, “I’m a representative of the mechanical parts… association, and we are inviting you to a… convention! Yes, a convention, with all sorts of members, cubes, turrets, even other buttons! And we’d like to invite you! Full expenses paid, shuttle bus straight there to the convention. And there’s going to be a whole panel on buttons! Who knows, they might even have you as a guest speaker! All you have to do is head straight down to the lowest part of the facility! That’s where the bus is! Just head on down there and you’re good to go!”

The button didn’t budge.

“Not one for conventions I guess? Perhaps you’re more of an introverted sort of button. Doesn’t mind being pressed but also fine with staying where he is.”

Wheatley, being the genius he knew he was, figured he ought to look in the old tapes to see what Her old room looked like. Ever since She had been killed, the facility had been in some disarray, of that much Wheatley was well aware. The relaxation center had taken a hit, for sure, and it seemed the rest of the facility was none the better. Wheatley wondered how long it had been, and though he probably could have figured it out, this new interface wasn’t exactly what he would have considered user friendly.

Come to think of it, he could figure out a few things at once by going through the recordings. For one, he could figure out what Her old room looked like and what She had done about this pesky little button. Or more interestingly, how her whole room got destroyed just from being shut down, that was always a mystery there.

All he could find were tapes, and they didn’t seem too promising. Just video feeds of the room, none of which showed if the button was there at all or what she had done with it. Maybe skipping around a bit would work, perhaps it would show something. Nothing so far…

Wait a minute now, here were the tapes of when She was killed. Yes, this was definitely the same test subject all right. Silent as always, she was. Maybe her brain damage was pre-existing.

Well this was concerning. Neither neurotoxin nor the built in rocket turret defense station was enough to even faze her. All that nameless lunatic needed were a couple of seemingly easy portals and in less than the required six minutes She was dead.

If that silent test subject was still alive, she could find any flaw in his lair design and it’d be bye bye Wheatley.

First immediate order of business, no portal surfaces anywhere in the lair. That shouldn’t be too hard, just meant he would have to move some panels around. There, piece of cake, only a few panels detached and falling off. That was probably normal.

“Right, no portal surfaces anywhere. Check that off the list. Ding! Next we can- OW! Great, another panel just went and fell right out of the ceiling. Hit me right in the… to be honest I’m not sure what this part of me even is. Doesn’t really look like it does anything useful. Tell you what, how about I take this part off, don’t really need it do we? Won’t be hurting anymore, I imagine. Here we go, unscrewing… and done!”

The offending plate came off of his right side, pulling down several attached cables right out of their sockets, leaving them to dangle around and coil around the floor like snakes. Snakes that occasionally gave out electrical sparks. That probably existed somewhere in nature. Electric snakes. Maybe unicrons ate them. Wheatley made a mental note to look that up, right after learning how to play cards.

“OK, wow that was actually pretty painful. Guess they don’t simulate any anaesthetic in this thing. Aaand now the lights are flickering on and off. Those are the lights, right? The flashlight doesn’t seem to be helping, so maybe I killed that too. That’s probably normal. Happens sometimes. That’ll probably fix itself.”

In the meantime, he at least had time to see what else was in Her old archives. Maybe there was a guide to fixing whatever was going on. Nope, nothing there. He did find an old security protocol system. Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion System, it was called. Interesting, that could help make sure she never got anywhere near his lair. Wait, no, that system was shut down locally. Before She went back online even. Odd, not clear who did that. What else was there… Oh, hang on a minute. The Cooperative Testing Initiative. That sounded useful. Wheatley kept reading.

Yes, these two little bots seemed to be the fix for everything. As soon as he could he had one of each type assembled and sent straight up to his lair.

“Hello! Right, so I understand you guys are built for testing, and what have you. So, I have selected you two to be my next testers. I need a few favors from you two though. See those cables down there? The ones that are kind of sparking there a bit? Those? Yeah, ever since I unhooked those, the lights have been flickering on and off.”

Blue looked at Orange, somewhat confused.

“You guys don’t see it? Wait, it just happened again real quick right there.”

Orange shook its head.

“So that might just be my optic sputtering out then. Yeah, that’s not great. Either way, I need you guys to try and get those back into me so I can see again. Now you might be wondering why I can’t just use those grabbers of mine and do it myself? Turns out, if I ever try to fix myself without someone else to help out, I’ll die. So you guys will have to do it for me.”

They both suddenly appeared nervous, and Blue slowly approached the bundle of wires. They sent out a spark and they both flinched. Upon reaching the wire, Blue picked up the first one, which went back in without a hitch. The second one was still going through the exterior plate that Wheatley had just unscrewed off. Pulling it as hard as possible didn’t work. Orange, annoyed, went up and pushed Blue out of the way, then slowly pulled out the cable and stuck it back in. By now the flickering was still happening, but only in randomly appearing colors.

“Great! OK now just one more to go! Home stretch!”

Orange was ready to pick up the last cable, but Blue, unrelenting, snatched it out of Orange’s grasp, and emphatically plugged it in. And then the flickering stopped.

“You did it! Bingo! Oh, man alive, that’s much better. Aaand now it seems you guys are knocking each other’s heads out of their… socket, things, whatever they’re called. Not really getting anything productive out of that, besides I kinda need you guys for something else.”

Neither Blue nor Orange were hearing it though. Once they had decided to play the classic game of Knock the Other Bot’s Head Off, there was little that could stop the competition. For personality constructs designed to get along, they did this a lot.

“Ahem, knock knock, anybody there?!”

It was getting heated. Now Blue was running around with Orange’s head, Orange’s body trying to chase after it but only managing to flail around miserably due to lack of eyes.

“ENOUGH!”

Wheatley hadn’t had an outburst like that in a while. It was a little easier when his only test subject and her potato weren’t driving him up the wall smashing his monitors and not giving him the relief when he wanted it. But the lack of test solution euphoria was starting to make its presence known once more, and it made him impatient as ever. Both bots stopped to look over, then Orange snatched its head and put it back on, glancing angrily at Blue.

“You know, there are bots in orphanages that don't even have heads to steal. Maybe think about how lucky you two are and stop fiddling around like that, yeah?”

They both looked at each other, shrugged the mechanical equivalent of their shoulders and gave each other a quick hug. Wheatley didn’t understand how they could forgive each other so quickly, but he wasn't about to object.

“Right, so, what I need you guys to do is see if we can find any neurotoxin reserves. Ever since I hacked the main factory, genius, I know; we haven’t had any neurotoxin to dispense. So I’m building you a testing course that should lead to where the neurotoxin facility was to see if you can find any clues. Alright, Go team!”

Several panels cleared out of the way to reveal two elevators facing each other, one blue and one orange. The bots looked at each other before taking off and heading to the disassembly machines. In less than a minute they had reached the first test, a simple introductory course with a laser and a redirection cube. And no test of Wheatley’s would be complete without his signature, the word TEST written in lights on the wall.

These two were smart enough to have figured out how to solve it rather quickly, and Wheatley immediately felt the rush of solution euphoria. Whether it was the amount of time since he had last felt it or because he was testing new subjects, this felt much better than the last few tests he had gotten his other subject to try. Now he could focus on the text task, seeing if there was a trap he could build, just in case those two weren’t dead. Getting rid of the button would have to wait. Maybe if they found some turrets or explosives to keep anyone from reaching it, that could work as a solution. For a little while at least.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having cleared out all the tables, chairs, and any other debris lying around in what was once an office, Chell could finally get through to the other side and out the door. And the potato on her gun had done a great job at keeping her company.

“Oh good, now we can get going again. Maybe we can find a way out of here.”

Chell picked up the portal gun and made her way out of the office. To her disappointment, the walkway just led down to the entryway to another test.

“Great, it looks like we’ll need to keep testing a little while longer. And I’m not sure we have that much more time left. Look on the bright side though. Maybe we’ll get to see more of that moron’s inventions. Maybe he’s gotten so desperate he’ll have tried to fuse a turret with a redirection cube and give it laser eyes.”

Chell couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. She resented that Wheatley had become like this, and somewhat missed him in a way, but it was nice to occasionally poke fun at his less than amazing intelligence.

“If a defective turret and a pile of trash had a baby, he would make an excellent pet for that baby.”

Chell’s smile grew slightly bigger and she chuckled silently. It was kind of nice to hear Her jokes while not also being the recipient. The classic insults thrown her way, that she was fat, adopted, unlikeable; those didn’t work on her at all. But they were at least well crafted, almost stand-up quality, though she never would have admitted that. Despite being a murderous former supercomputer with zero conscience up until this point, she did have a bit of a knack for humor. Chell would at least miss that when she left this place.

This was the end of the walkway, and Chell jumped down; her testing break was over. It was going to get tough before she finally did make it out of here.

#portal #portal 2 #portal secret santa #@yutaki #38's fics #portal stories mel #blue sky portal #fanfic #portal 2 fanfic

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big-meows · 4 years ago

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heya! do you have any games you love a ton but they're old/niche/"bad" enough that people generally don't know it?

Okage: Shadow King! People who already love it absolutely still adore it, but if you never got in on the ground level in like, 2002, I dont know that you would find anything worthwhile in it. Its very dated! For a while it was a sort of grail to have a copy that would actually run on your PS2 after a certain date, because it was one of the old blue back discs and after a certain point they just sort of...gave up, but you can get it on the PlayStation network now. Probably for pretty cheap! Its DEEPLY "quirky japanese" from a time when that wasnt really a thing we were getting a lot of over here (I didnt know what an Idol was in 2002, I just fucking went with it) and the UI is an...experience lol. Its fun though.

The .hack// stuff was....honestly wild! A single player mock-MMO on your PS2, complete with an in-game browser to check the news, read forum posts, and exchange emails with other (fake)players/characters. It was a real media monolith in the early aughts, with four games in the main series, an anime, OVAs, some novels and more, and there was so much lore crossing over between all of it, and clues for in game secrets you could find in the OVAs and magazine ads and stuff. It was sooooo cool. Visually, it has also aged like room temperature milk, and as cool as all that stuff sounds, and definitely was to college aged me, it sounds like a slog in my old age. FOUR GAMES? No thanks. Time moves too fast in ones 30s. The dungeons also were repetitive and ugly, so like....I will probably never revisit these games. (The G.U. games were better looking, but also didnt really stick with me much. Check them out if you loooooove to hear Yuri Lowenthal scream a lot.)

Baten Kaitos/Baten Kaitos Origins for the Gamecube. Obscure, card based RPGs. They have their issues (the first one feels so similar to Final Fantasy X in some ways it seems like it cant be a coincidence) but they both pulled absolutely BIZARRE plot twists that I still think about to this day. Also the card system IS pretty cool and some of the music is soooo good, I used to leave the game on to sleep to lol

oh shit I almost forgot FRAGILE DREAMS: FAREWELL RUINS OF THE MOON, a melancholy RPG for the WII that sort of plays like a survival horror about death at the end of the world. Its tragic and beautiful and a little spooky and the environments are gorgeous. I think this game is still excellent, but I know like only two people who have ever played it, and one of them was because I bought it for them.

I'm a currently poking at a MUSHROOM HUNTING SIM, yes you read that correctly, called Morels: The Hunt. This is not a joke. Want to stumble around in lovingly rendered forests from several different American ecosystems, getting poison ivy and ticks, snapping photos of birds, squirrels, deer, and maybe even bigfoot? While also trying to find morels, I guess? Have I got the game for you. I unironically love it. (I'm also playing this game while experimenting with recording gameplay vids for YouTube, because if not me, then who??)

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scullysexual · 5 years ago

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Gone

If you’ve ever watched Dark (the German show on Netflix) it’s very similar to that. I started watching it and this popped into my head. I can also throw it onto the never ending list of college aus I keep writing. I’ll be some time before the next chapter is posted but I just wanted to see what you made of this.

Chapter One: Goodbye.

The dreams are always the same; a bright light, my sister shouting for me. And there’s somebody standing at the door. I can’t move. I reach for the gun but I can’t shoot. I’m just frozen…like I’m paralysed or something.

The cassette player clicks, the tape pausing. Mulder stares at it. Dr Montague sighs.

“That was recorded a year ago,” the therapist says, looking down at his notes. “After your hypnosis treatment.”

Mulder silently nods, not looking away from the player.

“Are you still having those dreams?”

Mulder turns away from the player, his eyes to the carpeted floor.

Montague looks up at his lack of response.

“I need you to talk to me, Fox,” he coaxes, a slight harshness to his voice. “You need to tell me if you’re still having these dreams.”

Mulder sighs and nods quickly.

“Right.” Montague looks down at his notes again. “And it also says that you were suffering from Insomnia, is that right?”

Mulder nods again. “Guess I didn’t want to have the dreams,” he shrugs.

“And Dr Werber prescribed you with sleeping pills. Have they helped?”

Mulder shakes his head. “With the sleeping yeah, not much with the dreams.”

“Okay.” The doctor scribbles something down in his book. “Well, we’ll review what we’ve spoken about today and I’ll get back to you on how to go forward.”

Mulder nods, wanting nothing more than for this session to be over with.

“I think that about wraps up today’s session then.” Mulder reaches for this bag, quicker than what is probably polite. Dr Montague doesn’t miss it. “I will see you next week, Fox?” he asks.

Mulder nods, already heading towards the door and out.

He runs down the steps of the office buildings, the fresh air a welcome reprieve from two hours in a stuffy office. He unlocks his bike, yanking it from the bike stand, and climbs on. He rides towards the forest, away from the city and the people, and the normalcy they had been able to continue on with during his absence.

A year gone and it was like everything was the same as it was before.

But no, it wasn’t, because just like his sister, another kid was missing.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

There’s whispers all around him.

Some people gawk at him as they walk past, others mutter to their friends. He picks up words like Spooky, Freak. Catches sentences as they fly past him; I heard he said his sister was abducted by aliens, Someone told me she was kidnapped by that guy who was selling vacuums, I was told she ran away. Mulder keeps his head down, remaining quiet.

That’s what everyone told him to do; his therapist, his teachers, his parents. Keep your head down, ignore them, don’t retaliate. It’s difficult, he wants to shake them off, knock a few of them around the head. He clenches his fist instead.

They said school was going to be the hardest part of adjusting back.

The latecomers hurry through the gate. Mulder is just about to turn and follow them inside when a body jumps him from behind.

His body smacks into the grass, the window being knocked out of him. The other body quickly moves off him as Mulder raises up onto his hands and knees, coughing over and over towards the ground, feeling like he’s about to cough his guts up.

“Whoa, dude…” a familiar voice says. “You’re guard must be way down today if you let that happen.”

Mulder finishes his coughing fit, standing as Ethan, his best friend (his one and only friend, actually) looks on concerned.

“I’m fine,” he says, getting a few last coughs out.

“Sure,” says Ethan, though he’s still not looking convinced. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

They find their seats easily: back row in the corner. Mulder hooks his bag onto the back of his chair and sits himself down.

“Have I missed much, then?”

Ethan pulls a face as if to say no. “Not really. Oh, another kid went missing, but other than that, everything’s been pretty much quiet in Dullsville.”

Mulder smiles at the town nickname. “I saw the missing posts all over town.”

Ethan shrugs, “Who cares? Kid has a weirdo anyway, sprouting all that whacky shit about aliens in the corner. Who’d believe all that?”

Mulder turns away, suddenly uninterested in the conversation anymore. Whacky shit, yeah.

Ethan notices and realises. “Dude, I’m sorry. You know I don’t think that way about you.”

Mulder shakes his head, shaking him off. “It’s fine,” he says.

It wasn’t fine, though. All those things Duane Barry would continuously say may have seemed insane at the beginning but maybe there was some truth in it after all.

Mulder looks over to the door, to where the rest of the class filters in. His stomach tingles when he catches sight of curly red hair sat beneath a black beanie. They make eye contact and she smiles- almost as if she’s as happy to see him as he is of her- he smiles back, giving her a little wave, one she returns.

He turns back to Ethan, who now has a big smile plastered across his face.

“I didn’t think Scully would still be here,” he says.

“Dana?” The smile turns into a grin as Ethan leans back against the wall. “Guess she’s got a thing or two to stick around for now.” Scully looks back over to them and Ethan blows a kiss towards her. She turns around, rolling her eyes.

It suddenly dawns on Mulder just what Ethan meant. His stomach drops as he looks towards his friend.

“You and Scul…Dana?” he asks, almost unsure.

The grin still across his face, Ethan nods. “Guess a lot of things have changed after all.”

He turns back to Scully trying not to feel so disappointed at it all.

“You know, we’ve been thinking…” Ethan says and Mulder turns his attention back to him. “We’re gonna go to the Wishing Well, see if we can find Barry’s stuff.”

Mulder stares at him like he’s supposed to know what that means.

Ethan sighs and rolls his eyes. “You know, his stuff. His drugs and that. Pretty certain his stash is at the Wishing Well.”

Mulder thinks it over and nods. “What time?”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

He sits on a log, waiting, his bike lying on the ground beside him. Above the trees, he sees the sun about to set, half the sky cast in a light purple-orange paint. Is his sister really up there? He’s starting to doubt himself.

“Ethan not here yet?”

Mulder turns around and smiles as Scully walks towards him. He shakes his head, standing.

“Typical,” Scully says, looking up to the sky and back down again. “He’d be late to his own funeral.” Mulder laughs as Scully spins around. “Charlie, keep up!”

Mulder looks behind her to see Charlie Scully walking towards them. He gives a confused look towards Scully.

“He begged to come,” she says as a way of explanation. “Not that I had much of a choice,” turning to Charlie and giving him daggers. She looks back at Mulder. “He said he’d snitch if I didn’t take him.”

“And I want a quarter of whatever you find,” Charlie adds.

“If we even find anything. For all we know this stuff could’ve been cleared out already.”

Mulder stares at her. All day he’s been wanting the chance to speak to her, since that first class when he found out she and Ethan were…something. It had been eating him up all day. He’d hoped, he’d really hoped.

Guess like most of his hopes, they’d all end in disappointment.

“Scully, I-“

“How are you-“

Mulder laughs nervously, Scully pursues her lips together.

“You start,” he says.

“How are you?”

“I’m good,” he nods. “It’s weird being back but yeah, it’s not been too bad.”

Scully nods, a slight smile across her face.

“You?” he asks.

“Okay. I’m been good.”

He nods back. A silence passes over them.

“You know, it was really strange you being gone,” she says, almost shyly.

Mulder looks to the ground, his hands in his pockets. “Couldn’t have been that strange,” he mutters but it’s quiet in the forest and so she hears it regardless.

He glances a look at her, sees her walls going up around her. Can almost imagine her tongue pressing hard against the back of her teeth, her chin lifting and her blue eyes turning to ice.

“You were gone, Mulder,” she answers, all warmth and friendliness gone from her voice. “I wasn’t gonna sit on your doorstep waiting for you.”

He lifts his head up fully, his own eyes turning to steel. “You didn’t have to get with my best friend, though.”

Yeah, that’s good. Make her hurt, too.

There’s a crack in her resolve. A break in her wall. It’s her turn to look away.

Good.

“What are you two just standing there for? Let’s go!” They hear Ethan shout just away from them. He strides up, clocking Charlie on the back of the head as he does so. “Why you bring the Shrimp?” He turns back to Charlie. “Is it not past your bedtime?”

“Fuck off,” Charlie says, swatting Ethan’s hand away when he goes to hit him again.

“I said he could come,” says Scully, turning away from the group and beginning to walk ahead.

“What’s up with her?” Ethan asks Mulder.

Mulder shrugs, not about to get into his and Dana’s conversation. The two start following her, Charlie walking behind them and rubbing his sore head.

“And I want more than a quarter of what you find!”

“Piss off,” says Ethan.

The Wishing Well had been the centrepiece of the forest. When they were younger, it had been a happy place, well looked after by the people of the town. It was a working well, once. Water in it every day, changed regularly, too. They’d throw their pennies in, making wishes, hoping they would come true.

As time went on, the well became overgrown. People stopped caring, kids stopped coming, they even stopped changing the water. Spider webs, wasps nest, ant hills became its inhabitants. The area was overgrown with grass, wildflowers, poisonous mushrooms. It became a place where teenagers would hang about. Nobody ever came here so nobody ever bothered them.

“Where is it then?” Mulder hears Charlie say.

“Bet it’s not even here anymore,” Scully says, annoyance clear in her voice.

“It’s just under the grass,” Ethan says. He walks over to a heavily grassy bit, removes a handful of moss but stops short when he realises that it isn’t there.

“Told you,” Scully says, looking away.

“Looking for this?”

They all turn as Phoebe Green appears out of nowhere, holding Ethan’s prize.

“That’s not yours,” Ethan says, stalking towards her.

Phoebe is quick and tall- taller than Ethan- and holds it above her head, out of his reach.

“It’s not yours, either,” she says. “Finders keepers.”

“Yeah,” says Ethan. What he lacks in height, he makes up for in body mass. He pushes Phoebe, she trips and falls, her head smacking against the wall of the well, dropping the bag of weed. Ethan scoops it up, proudly. “Finders keepers.”

Mulder stands there, unsure of to do.

“You fucking dick, Ethan,” Scully scolds. She walks towards Phoebe and kneels down. “Are you okay?”

Phoebe whacks Scully’s hand out of the way. “I’m fine, I don’t need your help.” She pushes herself off the ground, wipes her hands on her jeans. “Dickhead,” she calls to Ethan.

“Bitch,” Ethan casually calls back. He’s just about to open the bag when a growl emits from around them.

Fear runs through Mulder’s body, a chill up his spine. Phoebe and Scully back away from the well.

“What the fuck was that?” Ethan asks.

“Probably a bear,” says Scully, shaking her own fear away.

The growl happens again, vibrating through the ground. Leaves shake and stones tumble about before it stops.

Charlie looks over, his face white. “I don’t think that was a bear.”

Mulder stares at the well. “I…I think it came from the well.”

Scully lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’m telling you, it was a bear!”

A loud thud sounds from behind him. Mulder jumps back, shaking and genuinely scared as he shines his flashlight upon the sound of the thud.

“I don’t think we’re alone,” Phoebe says.

“Guys, there’s something in the well…” Charlie mumbles.

There’s a sudden downpour of rain, the sky darkening. Thuds and rustles and the growling sound happens again.

Mulder’s body propels him forward, he doesn’t even remember choosing to run, his feet just move.

He can hear the others behind him but he’s solely focused upon himself; running and running and running.

Until he freezes, his body falling onto the hard ground, chin smacking against a rock in the process.

A blinding white light forces his eyes closed. In the distance, he hears shouting. A name. Over and over.

Dana! Dana! Dana!

The light goes. He can move again. He hears a shout of Charlie! as the rain continues to pour down him.

#txf #high school au #gone #chapter 1 #fic:gone #i write

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mamthew · 4 years ago

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Been playing the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles remaster some since it dropped, and I have some thoughts on it. It’s been a…really long time since I last played the original, and I never was able to get too far in, since I was so new to video games that I was unable to intuit most of its mechanics. Despite this, I fell in love with the game. For quite some time, it was the only game with “Final Fantasy” in the title that I had played. I played, enjoyed, and beat its three sequels: Echoes of Time, Ring of Fates, and The Crystal Bearers (neither of the My Life As spinoffs, but eh).

This remaster is not a good remaster, but mostly not for the reasons I’ve seen put forth online. The developers didn’t do much to improve the visuals, sure, but honestly the art direction of the game was pretty enough anyway that it skates by on that alone. The load screens are not nearly as long as I’d been led to believe. The gameplay is unchanged from the original, and like…I like the gameplay of the original? That’s why I played the remaster? I want to play the game?

My biggest issue with the remaster is how the online is handled, but reviewers have straight up lied about problems with the online? Like…you have a permanent friend code you can give people. The temporary online codes you can generate are different from the permanent one. Why are reviewers saying your online code changes every 30 minutes and you can’t save permanent friends when that’s demonstrably false? Seems like a thing you maybe shouldn’t be writing in your official review.

I’m going to put my own issues with the online aside for a moment, though. I promise we’ll come back to it, but my issues with the remaster are only understood in the larger context of what the game did as a piece of art and what it no longer does now as a result of the changes. First, then, we’ve got to lay down what Crystal Chronicles did as a piece of art. Crystal Chronicles, I’ve come to realize during this playthrough, is a game about storytelling as collective memory, and much of the game’s mechanics work in service to this theme.

In the world of the game, something happened long ago that released poisonous miasma into the air and made much of the world uninhabitable to the four major races. The game follows the players’ customized characters as they take annual pilgrimages to collect enough “myrrh” from magical trees, which is used to maintain the barrier that keeps their town safe from the miasma. The game is broken up into years; it takes four drops of myrrh to maintain the barrier for a year, each dungeon’s tree only provides one drop of myrrh, and it takes several years for a tree to replenish that drop, pushing the characters’ caravan further and further out each year in search of trees that are not yet spent.

I’ve compared this setting to Death Stranding a few times in the past, and I think the comparison holds up. The game’s story has only gained something from the current moment, too. I go out and risk myself to get groceries, which I then bring back home so I can continue to hole up safe in quarantine until I run low again, and I think the game fairly accurately simulates the rise and fall of that pattern, the balance of risk and safety, and the way the dangerous unknown eventually becomes the mundane with time. Most of the locations in the game are old products of civilization that have been lost to nature, and walking through former farmland, abandoned roads, and empty towns in the game do remind me of walking down empty city streets back when coronavirus was still keeping people off city streets.

The game has several stories running in tandem, but the most central one is the ongoing story of the characters’ caravan, chronicled in a journal. After every new encounter, new area, or completed dungeon, a new entry is added to the journal, and at the end of the year, all the entries are incorporated into a cutscene, so the player can read them and relive the year’s events. The entries are very short and written in a simple style, but they still give the player an idea of how their character viewed the events. These end-of-year cutscenes are actually really enjoyable little rituals, and I’ve been avoiding reading the journal entries specifically so I can experience them for the first time in these retrospectives.

As the years progress, the character’s entries show that their memories of earlier years are fading. “Whenever I close my eyes, I vividly remember all my adventures,” says the entry at the end of the first year. By the end of the fourth year, however, “so many memories from my earlier adventures have dimmed, from the joys of chance encounters to the suspense of my first battles.” The entries also show the ways the annual pilgrimages have changed the player character. “It was an easy fight, so I spent a peaceful interlude over a light meal,” says an entry after revisiting an older dungeon. “I was a little surprised. I never considered myself a fighter.”

The written and oral records of the past permeate this game in so many ways. Before each dungeon, a narrator who is presumably another caravanner who went to the same places in the past introduces the location with either a history of the place or an anecdote about the place. The Mushroom Forest, to her, evokes a childhood memory of her mother. She introduces the Veo Lu Sluice by explaining the history of who built the sluice, what conditions allowed for its construction, and what its irrigation has done for the people since. After each dungeon, the player character receives a letter from a family member, telling them what has been happening in the town while they were away. At the beginning of each new year, the town’s patriarch tells your character a story about the previous caravanner, who mysteriously disappeared after announcing he had found a way to remove the miasma entirely.

It feels like history, generally, has been put on hold. The Lilty military once dominated most of the world, but had to shrink back into their capital city due to the miasma, and the city eventually diminished to a small trading post. The Yukes once were at war with the Lilties, but they’ve allowed trade between their towns again, so caravans can have safe havens to stay in while collecting the precious myrrh. The once-nomadic Selkies were unable to find a new homeland before the miasma spread, and now most are stuck on an island that was supposed to be a temporary stop. We hear much of this history throughout the game, but we don’t see any of it. It’s recorded and known but has little bearing on the culture or lived experiences of the inhabitants of a world where no one can leave their homes.

The moogle adventurer Stiltzkin asks the player character where memories go once they’ve been forgotten, and it’s a fair question in a world where everyone is as alienated from the past as they are from each other

The problem is, this isn’t supposed to be a game about alienation, exactly. It’s supposed to be a game about shared experiences and the ways we experience and remember the same events differently, as different individuals. It’s supposed to be a game about combatting alienation through shared experience. This is supposed to be a game in which I share a screen with three other players even as we each also have our own personal screens providing us with different objectives and showing us different letters from our different families. In the original game, the multiplayer was devilishly difficult to actually set up, as each player had to have their own Gameboy Advance, attached to the Gamecube and used as a controller, to control their own character. The players’ characters lived in the same town and were on the same caravan together but competed over who unlocked which powerups and picked up which recipes, meaning everyone’s stat spread and armor was different. Players had slightly different experiences within the larger shared story, and the use of the Gameboy Advances were meant to highlight those differences.

Which leads to my issue with this remaster. In the original, characters were saved to the same file, and every player’s character lived together in the same town. Their families each had different houses in the towns and would eventually provide the party with different supplies, depending on their jobs and the responses they received to their letters. At the end of each dungeon, the player characters would sit together in a circle and each receive a letter from their families. At the end of each year, the retrospective cutscene showed the characters and their families celebrating their return together. Your characters explored towns together, and your fellow players watched the random encounter cutscenes with you.

In this game, you can’t play local multiplayer at all. You can only play online multiplayer in dungeons, and clearing a dungeon with other players only counts towards the host’s file. At the end of each dungeon, the characters sit in a circle as the mail moogle tells all but the host that there is no mail for them. At the end of each year, the retrospective cutscene shows an almost entirely empty town; the character and his immediate family dance alone. Certain secrets have now been relegated to the single-player experience only, and the minigames you could unlock and play with friends were removed entirely. Towns are also exclusively single-player. The game is no longer a shared multiplayer experience so much as a dungeon-crawler where friends and strangers can jump into dungeons to offer brief help.

This creates a strange two-minded state of play, where I see and remember the vestiges of the game that once was while playing a game that’s in thematic opposition to it. As my character explores Tida Village and sees signs of the population that once lived there, I play this remaster and see leftovers from now-removed game mechanics. It’s a deeply unsettling and alienating experience.

The online isn’t inherently bad, then. It reminds me of FFXIV, where dungeons and bosses are their own separate experiences, removed from the rest of the game. But this online is inherently unsuited to the game it is in. Crystal Chronicles is not FFXIV; the developers put together a system of online play for a different game than the one they were remastering.

It would have been possible to change the game to suit this online system, too! The journal entries for dungeons could have also included the names of players who joined them for those dungeons. The online players could have still received letters, but from the host character’s family, thanking them for keeping their loved one safe. New random encounters could have been added between different online caravans, allowing them to trade items or play minigames with one another. The party at the end of the year could have included the families of randomly selected online companions These changes could have could have given us a synthesis of the old and new, and helped to center the chronicles over the crystals.

Instead, though, we have this incredibly flawed remaster, after almost a year of delays, that serves more as an empty reminder of what the game once was instead of actually allowing us to experience that game, or instead of, god forbid, actually building on that game’s premises and promises. I’m still enjoying the game a lot, but the experience is hella soured by my knowledge of how the game used to play. I’m not sure how enjoyable this remaster would even be to someone unfamiliar with the original.

This remaster feels like a purposeful nail in the coffin of Crystal Chronicles; an excuse to show that the franchise is no longer a potential seller. Whether that’s its actual intent doesn’t really matter, though, since I fear that will be its ultimate effect either way.

#Final Fantasy #final fantasy crystal chronicles #ffcc

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superchartisland · 5 years ago

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Super Mario All Stars (Nintendo, SNES, 1993)

Any overall roadmap for this project (and my brother’s related predecessor) is very lightly sketched, but this is a useful point to reflect on it. We grew up playing Dizzy games; part of what we’re doing is trying to reclaim video game history as we and many other Brits lived it, to demonstrate how the American-led received wisdom is a rewriting of the record. All of my research suggests that we were in the majority there -- in the UK the NES didn’t get a look in, and we’re not going to properly encounter the Game Boy until it’s a decade old.

Even this first Nintendo direct encounter is somewhat of a guess. Super Mario All Stars was a documented best-seller for the SNES, but in an absence of evidence I don’t know for sure that it was big enough to be an overall UK #1. I remember hearing about it a lot at the time, and by then the SNES had had a chance to build an audience, but remember that this blog covers games which were a #1 but not necessarily always the #1. Yet at the same time as I refute the story that Nintendo swept in to replace a dying industry -- neither happened like that in the UK -- we’re pretty keen on many things Nintendo. I have a NES Classic Mini, SNES Classic Mini and a Famicom Classic Mini sitting under my TV: loving recreations of consoles which I never owned.

In the internet era, this kind of adoption of history is probably more common. When I wrote the first version of this post I had recently watched the period piece music video for Satellite Young’s “Don’t Graduate, Senpai!” and was overwhelmed with contented nostalgic feelings, left with the power of a glimpse into a familiar and loved past. All that despite the fact I’ve hardly ever listened to the Japanese genre that it takes after, City Pop, or watched shoujo anime, and never when I was growing up. The person who it is precision targeting isn’t me. But it needn't be. There can be a feeling that is just as real, but second hand, a gravity exerted on adjacent culture that was invisible until something made me look over and notice its force.

youtube

There are lots of ways that the influences on the song and video reached me. My partner did grow up with a lot of Japanese pop culture in Hong Kong, and talking with her about that and having watched a couple of episodes of Creamy Mami means having a feel for her fond memories. I have years of happily browsing tumblr gifsets of Sailor Moon, absorbing love for it and its place in culture. I can still get good use from a “but you didn’t do anything!” meme even if I’ve never actually watched the show. I’ve listened to 80s referencing music elsewhere, and modern Japanese music taking cues from City Pop, and that has added up to giving the sounds of the song a similar personal gravity.

And all of that has been made easier by the world getting smaller, by the internet giving providing an easy route to interests you share with people elsewhere in the world and from there to interests they share that you don’t. Look at it negatively, and it means a winning narrative can travel faster and become more comprehensive than ever, reaching into places where it doesn’t belong. But at the same time, it gives us a Japanese band and some Swedish animators uniting in their shared nostalgia, and it reaching out to me through next door culture which I’ve taken in via friends from all round the world, and me having feelings shared with those friends. That’s an amazing thing.

In common with most people I knew, we didn’t have the internet when Super Mario All Stars came out, and the world was still huge. Nintendo had other tools to work with, though. Their games were successful enough to reach out and have an outsized cultural impact beyond the limits of people actually playing them.

When I started primary school, before football stickers, there was a craze for Nintendo sticker books, and friends and I collected images of all of their games. People tried to negotiate enhanced swaps for stickers of Game Boy screenshots by maintaining that they were gold stickers, even more valuable than the special silver ones. I knew more about the characters and background for Mario through Saturday morning cartoons, and I remember watching American TV programmes where people competed through playing Super Mario Bros. levels. I assume it made it to the UK’s own Gamesmaster at some point too. And of course, many of the European games we were playing took their own influence from Nintendo. I may have been unaware of Metroid until years later, but hours spent playing Turrican still gave my first impressions of it that nostalgic gravity.

Mario was Nintendo’s most successful reach out to the wider culture, and that wider culture drove people back to Mario’s original form. That could work better for Nintendo if Mario games were easier to access, and so we get Super Mario All Stars. What to do when moving on from the NES to the SNES? Reissue, repackage, re-evaluate the games! Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3, now brought together in one place. With an extra track, no less, in the form of Japan’s very different Super Mario Bros. 2, new to the rest of the world and hence called The Lost Levels. From 2019 the very idea of levels being lost feels faintly absurd – someone will dig it out in a mod, or you can just log onto your alternate Japanese online console account, surely? I guess a handful of British people probably did own imported Famicoms even in 1993, but everyone else got their cross-fertilisation of culture mediated by Nintendo’s eccentric international release schedule.

Super Mario All Stars presents each game in its entirety, complete with newly upgraded graphics. Yet, in some way, the games seem to shrink in the transition. The act of selecting a game to play from a menu, turning them into pinned specimens labelled by year, emphasises the overall history and starts you off with a reminder that each world is only a part of a newly defined whole. Maybe that's why there is no Super Mario All Stars on the SNES Classic Mini, an assessment that the bird-inside-a-bird effect of featuring a retro collection on a retro collection would be that bit too spookily recursive.

And that idea of recursion is where the realisation struck me as I played Super Mario All Stars. It wasn't the first version of Mario I played, (it was the first Super Mario Bros. 3 that I ever played, though, the briefest of enchanting glimpses). But it feels absolutely right as my version of these games, even for Super Mario Bros. 2 where I'm pretty sure I'd never played this version before. The very sense of diminished scale, the way that All Stars exists as a Mario game aware that not only each individual game, but the games as a whole, are but a small part of the Mario out there in the world, feels totally fitting. The feeling runs through everything. The upscaled renditions of the music which expand on it but nonetheless can't escape how iconic the basic originals were. The decision to put Super Mario Bros.’ underwater waltz on the title screen with the new confidence that duh, it rules. The little portraits of what to expect that have been added to the start of each level, not spoilers but cute reminders. This is a Mario for the late to the party, an artefact of the games' immense second hand cultural gravity, reflected back into the games themselves. It's a sign of so much to come.

In reflection of it being the first time these games have come up on my route through history, here are miniature entries for each of the four games on Super Mario All Stars, pinned to one place:

Super Mario Bros.

It’s all about the movement. Specifically, the jump, the balletic means of progression which sits at the tempting boundary of predictability and control. It is not the only game jump, it was not the first game jump, but it is somehow still the Jump. When you press the jump button the moment stretches in time, a repeated joy that resounds slightly differently from Jump to Jump. Sometimes the Jump is relaxed, sometimes the Jump is tense, sometimes the Jump is a celebration of achievement. Gravity and momentum make their claim on you, and you must not reject them or bow to them, but turn towards them, take their hands, and dance. Only when you are the lead in the dance can it proceed in its full majesty. All of the subtle design, killer music and cleverly revealed secrets play their part too, of course. The richness of the world, day and night, water and dungeon, clouds and green groundclouds, isn’t to be underestimated. The dance wouldn’t be as kaleidoscopically beautiful without all of that. Fireworks might not always be necessary, but they are still fireworks. And yet it is the dance of the Jump that gives meaning to it all.

The Lost Levels

It’s common in games for many a character or object to be accompanied by its inverse, its mirror, its shadow. Maybe it’s a product of how games are made, were made, of the commonality of repetition and the short distance from repetition to repetition with a twist. Super Mario Bros. 2 (“The Lost Levels”) introduces one such shadow as almost its first move with the poison mushroom, power-up turned to power-down. It takes that to a whole new level with the negative warp zones: welcome to warp zone, now a trick on you. The whole game, in fact, is a cruel mirror held up to Super Mario Bros., a reflection that looks right but doesn’t wave back. Much of its cruelty comes from luring players into familiar actions and then turning them back against them. This game is a dance too, but it’s one where the floor is trying to throw you off, where the steps and flow that you have learned are not only impossible to use but will quicken your downfall. But for some people who already know the dance back to front, perhaps trying to freestyle your way through some spiky math-rock is an enjoyable next step.

Super Mario Bros. 2

It’s common in games for many a character or object to be accompanied by its inverse, its mirror, its shadow. Maybe it’s a product of how games are made, were made, of the commonality of repetition and the short distance from repetition to repetition with a twist. Super Mario Bros. 2 (“Super Mario Bros. USA”) is the Waluigi of early Mario games, a mirror of a mirror. It doesn’t focus on the shadows of objects and characters, though, but whole shadow worlds. Pick up a magical potion and you can open a door anywhere, take a subtle knife to the fabric of the universe, walk through the doorway and find yourself literally in shadow. Even outside of that mechanic, there are doors everywhere, and each one could go anywhere. This is the world of the subconsciousness, where possibilities extend to such things as a playable princess and gliding across the world on a gravity-resistant egg. Super Mario Bros. 2 is barely even a Mario game, and handles more awkwardly than one. Yet among all of its doors, it opens one to one of the series’s futures, platforming which is first and foremost a series of puzzles and doors to unlock.

Super Mario Bros. 3

This is the game where Mario learns to fly, tail flapping, on unseen wires in front of platforms casting shadows on a sky painted on sheets. The game is a show, and it’s some production. It has a cast of thousands and is the introduction point for almost as many iconic series images as the original. Its brilliance as sequel and as theatre is in taking the solid and dependable gameplay and mechanics of the original and using those as building blocks, the platforms of its stageset, then rearranging them. Each world rejigs and relights them and makes them interact with new props and characters for a set of dramatically different scenes. Water levels go from brief distractions to an entire world; the desert and an idyllic grassland emerge; World 7 turns off all of the lights to interact with the bare mechanics of pipes. The transitions between levels feel like curtains down and a chance to move things round. And then occasionally it breaks all the underlying rules and throws you into giant world or climbs up through the clouds, and there is nothing to do but laugh in delight. This is the game where Mario learns to fly.

SNES chart, Edge 004, January 1994

#every number one #retrogaming #SNES #Super Mario Bros.#Super Mario All Stars

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crystalelemental · 7 years ago

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I've gone on record stating that Gen 3 is not my favorite, and I stand by that. I think Team Aqua/Magma had a lot to do with that, being far less interesting than they should have been. As much as we mock IGN for it, the fact that the latter third of the game is a bunch of surf routes with the same Pokemon over and over is also frustrating. Also, since I'm in the middle of playing the remakes of ORAS, I find it really frustrating the things that they changed, with my biggest gripe being that I wish my rival would go away forever. That said, the Pokedex itself has always been something I appreciated. A lot of my favorites came from Gen 3, so I tended to remember the Pokemon in the region fondly, even if the region wasn't my favorite.

TOP 15: 15) Mightyena line - There was so much competition for this slot, it's ridiculous. Ultimately though, I have to give it to Mightyena and its pre-evolution, Poochyena. Both have great designs, but the thing that stood out to me most was that, in the early game, we were given a Dark type. That's really atypical! Usually you go through the normal types, the Flying types, and the bugs, until after the first gym. But Gen 3? You got things like Mightyena right away; it wasn't even rare! Combined with things like Seedot/Lotad and Ralts, you had some interesting types going into the first gym. Mightyena is a great starting point for introducing how unique Gen 3 and its Pokedex are, and I think it stands out a lot because of it.

14) Nosepass - Imagine being a kid who had faced Brock back in gen 1. Imagine again that you started with Red and Blue, and didn't pick Charmander. Odds are, you blasted through him without a second thought. Literally no issue. Now, imagine going to Roxanne, blasting through her Geodude like they're nothing, and then encountering Nosepass, who can tank those Grass and Water hits just fine, and hits pretty hard for early game. Nosepass is awesome. It's a fantastic tank, who can take all sorts of hits in that early game. While it doesn't hit particularly hard later on, its main draw is as a wall among walls, with great support options. The concept of basically being a walking easter island head statue is also comical. It looks funny, but it's adorable too, making for a fantastic overall Pokemon.

13) Absol - This is a Pokemon that gets a lot of favoritism based on aesthetics. It's a sleek and pretty Pokemon, but also has a great role. It tells of impending disasters, and is a fun but short-lived character in Red Rescue Team as well. I really like Absol, and just wish it could be a bit faster so it could have a solid competitive niche.

12) Aggron line - We've had big bipedal rock monsters before, like Rhydon and Tyranitar. But Aggron is just a different kind of cool. Its sleek metal plating and terrifying design are fantastic. The fact that it starts out as the cute little Aron only helps add to its charms. Best of all, you get it super early game. Rhydon was surprisingly late-game, and Tyranitar was literally only attainable when you had nothing left to do. But Aggron? You can run one the whole game. I love the ability to do that.

11) Metagross - YEAH! Metagross is a beast, and a strong contender for my favorite pseudo-legend. It's literally a walking tank, with the glorious Steel/Psychic typing. It had one of the few Steel moves in the game that was actually useful, and back before the nerf, Steel covered all of Psychic type's weaknesses, making it a defensive and offensive nightmare. I love the entire concept behind this behemoth, too. It's a walking robot monster, whose evolution is basically just it gaining more legs until it becomes Omega Weapon.

10) Breloom - I'll get to a similar case later, but Breloom is a favorite based on typing. Grass/Fighting was unreal at the time, and it did super well for itself. Plus it's just cute. A tiny little punching mushroom child, with stubby little arms that apparently shoot out to hit really hard. It's a quirky concept with a fun design, and I adore it. Plus, Spore with the abilities it would later get made it a surprisingly brutal enemy to face.

9) Roselia - IT'S SO PRETTY! Such a gorgeous Pokemon. Grass/Poison was pretty overdone, even at this point, but I just loved the appearance of it.

8) Swampert line - Dual-type starters, at this point, were still relatively rare. Venusaur had Grass/Poison, but so did every Grass type in gen 1 barring Tangela. Charizard had Fire/Flying, but the fact it wasn't Dragon is stupid. Gen 3 introduced new dual-types for starters, and one great one is Water/Ground with Swampert. While the combination had been done before with Quagsire, Swampert offered far better overall bulk and damage output, on top of its excellent typing. It's also goofy-looking, but in a really charming way. It's just so loveable, and every evolution retains that cute look.

7) Flygon - Flygon is just cute to me. It looks like such a friend. Being a Pokemon that exists in the sandstorm-focused desert area was also cool. I really liked that there was an entire region dedicated just to the new weather effect. Shame that Sandstorm was such a pain in the ass, but it's a really cool area!

6) Altaria - Altaria is so pretty. Just a fluffy cotton ball bird...dragon. It's apparently more of a songbird, too, which is just heavenly. It also got a great mega evolution, receiving Dragon/Fairy typing, which is hilarious and excellent.

5) Latias - I'm guessing this run of Dragons is proving I really like the soft, friendly dragons over the big intimidating ones that actually do well, huh? Dragon/Psychic was, at this point, the coolest typing I had ever heard of. But what's cooler than that? How about a super adorable Dragon/Psychic type. Oh, what's this? It gets a hold item that boosts special attack and special defense 50%? That's ridiculous, I love it. Latias is the more defensive option of the two, which I always felt was better if you factor in hold item. The added defensive bulk is going to matter more than slightly more physical offense from their perspective. Of course, Latios having much better special attack is ultimately better in competitive, but Latias still has her use, and is super cute.

4) Blaziken line - Remember when Fire/Fighting was a novel type? Remember when its introduction was a kick-boxing chicken creature? Those were the days. Torchic is one of the cutest starters, and its final evolution is surprisingly still an elegant design. It was such a cool idea, and I love that Hidden Abilities brought it back to the top.

3) Mawile - It's such a cute little creature. Cute and terrifying, and excellent combination for sure. It's a shame that Mawile ultimately was a forgettable Steel type in terms of competitive use, but the acquisition of Fairy type and the best mega really helped it out on that front, too. So I guess it's basically perfect? Sounds about right.

2) Milotic - I never caught one in gen 3. Not fairly, anyway. I could never figure out how to get Feebas to show up. In fact, I don't think I've ever captured a Feebas. I've always traded for it. It's just so hard to find. But man, is the final form ever beautiful. It's such a gorgeous Pokemon, and an excellent tank to boot. Everything about Milotic is wonderful.

1) Gardevoir line - Don't you judge me. We all knew this would happen. If you read anything in this post or the ones before it, you know elegant and cute are the biggest draws for me. Gardevoir is both. It's also a Psychic type, so bonus points there. Also, as mentioned in the Mightyena entry, it's super early-game. Rare, sure, but you can have a Psychic type from nearly the very start of the game. I love Gardevoir so much, it's definitely an all-time favorite, and it should come as no surprise that it winds up being the favorite from this generation.

BOTTOM 10: 10) Pelipper - I like Pelipper. Its reason for being here is that so many Gen 3 Pokemon are great, it just doesn't stand out as much as the others. I have literally no complaints, I just locked myself into "it has to be 10" and here we are.

9) Huntail - Same as above, it just doesn't hold as much aesthetic appeal.

8) Seviper - If there's anything I actually dislike here, it's just that it's pure-Poison type. We had a Poison snake already. I would've liked to see a different typing added in. Poison/Dark at this phase of the game would've been amazing.

7) Zangoose - Still good, but it loses points based on my frustrations with Pokemon Coliseum.

6) Glalie - Getting closer to legitimate frustrations, Glalie is here because its design doesn't captivate. Snorunt is cute, but it evolves into an angry face in a block of ice. Not exactly all that interesting.

5) Volbeat - Did nothing legitimately wrong, but I am upset that Volbeat gets a lot of nice and unique tools that Illumise does not. I like Illumise. I think its color scheme is a lot better. But Volbeat gets the nice tools, so whatever I guess.

4) Ninjask - Please stop speed boosting, I am begging you. You do nothing else but Swords Dance, Speed Boost and Baton Pass, please do something else.

3) Slaking - Okay, actual legitimate complaints. Slaking's problem is it goes backwards. Vigoroth was a nightmare to face, and I have a friend who stated that facing Norman's was the reason he started to respect Normal types as something other than early-game fodder. But Slaking? It re-acquires Truant, which is an awful ability by any standard, and requires very specific team support, on Doubles only, to mitigate. Anyone who sees Slaking knows exactly what will happen, and is probably more than prepared to shut it down. It's a nice design, and a nice concept, but it's been so ruined by the ability it is burdened with that it's virtually unusable.

2) Plusle/Minun - Possibly less legitimate complaint, but I feel more strongly about it. Plusle and Minun are cute and have solid designs, but their great sin is being Pikachu clones for the new area, kicking off the trend of needing an electric rodent in every area. Worse, they do not evolve, offer little in the way of any competitive value, and existed to show off the introduction to Double Battles with their unique abilities and access to Helping Hand. Beyond this, they offer very little, and are the reason we have to always have a new electric rodent that ultimately winds up having no competitive niche.

1) Grumpig - Literally the only one on this list I dislike. Spoink is cute, and Grumpig is...not. It just looks irritable and not all that friendly by comparison. It's also nothing too impressive competitively, and offers little in the way of uniqueness, losing the quirk of constantly bouncing around like Spoink did to...just be grumpy. It's a Pokemon I might like more on its own, but as an evolution of Spoink it doesn't seem as interesting.

#regional pokedex opinions #hoenn pokedex

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dwestfieldblog · 4 years ago

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THERE IS NO SAFE WORD

ATEH MALKUTH, VE-GEBURAH, VE-GEDULLAH, LE-OLAHM...

Anybody who understands my music will never be unhappy again. Beethoven. That sounds like a cue for a song...and here it is...

Well, now we know the actual defined amount of stubborn dumb stupidity for sure in America. Over 70 million morons. Loved seeing Trump jr call on his dad to wage ‘Total war’ (A phrase Goebbels used in Berlin 1943 when the allies were approaching... and we know how that ended, go on Big Don, do the honourable thing for the first time in your foul life.) Junior also said ‘It’s time to clean up this mess and stop looking like a banana republic’. Why yes son, it is, so off you all pop. Daddy is busy implanting his loyalists in the Pentagon and already thinking of running in 2024 but by then he should either be in prison or in exile on a tiny freezing Scottish island with a one hole golf course where he can still cheat. Seems likely he, family and their backers are planning to make good use of their through the looking glass rabies crazed sheep and continue to destabilize America for the Kremlin. Loved that the orange psychopath tweeted early ‘I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!’ and watched as he demanded all votes be counted...and the more they were, the more he lost by. HILARIOUS.

And his call to arms to ‘Stand back and stand by’ to The Proud Boys, who are not far right Nazi thugs at all no sir. To misuse Hunter S Thompson’s genius for the hundredth time, I hope that this is where the wave (of populist filth Trump has been riding) finally breaks and rolls back. But over 70 million morons say different. The 80 million who voted for the other guy must be happy there are so many who can clean the streets and fill the shelves at food shops. Education needs to be improved in America and Britain next year, a ‘LOT’.

January 20th 2021...Celebrate with joy the end of a despotic douche bag...allow the world to feel lighter. Republicans, you should feel ashamed. America, this bastard has been undoing your Constitution like a prom queen’s girdle for a button mushroom quickie rape for four years and couldn’t have cared less about Covid and how many of you died...as he said ‘It is what it is’. So SAD!!!! Arf. Donald, you are and were nothing more than a spoiled five year old brat with as much empathy for humanity as a lizard. A banishing ritual will need to be performed in around the White House...call up the Native Indians, the witches and South Park and cleanse the area of astral poison. The swamp will be drained when the deranged incubus’s entire family of scheming wannabe aristocrats vacates for good.And don’t let him sit at a little table to pardon them and himself.Lowlifes...speaking of whom...

It has taken a lot to make me smile this year (what, you too huh?) but seeing Rudy Giuliani giving a press conference between a porn book store and a funeral parlour in a parking lot did it. The T family, Jared, Rudy, Pompeo, Paula White (the Unchristian millionaire), the slurring ‘star witness’ Melissa Carone, spokeswoman Kayleigh with her cute little cross and all the rest of those despicable liars must all be flushed down the drains, no second chances, repentance or absolution.And as for Dr Scott Atlas telling the American public to ‘rise up’ against the safety measures called for by the state against Covid...A doctor telling you to ignore the rule against large indoor gatherings etc. A doctor.RISE UP? 12 million cases in the US as of mid November...254 thousand dead. That number is rising fast. Good luck from keeping the world falling on you Atlas, Wonder what the orange one offered him to blab such stinking dung. Another doctor with a hypocritical oath.

The smug toad Steve Bannon on yet another shitestirring podcast,spoke about beheading virologist Dr Fauci and the Director of the FBI Christopher Wray...‘I’d put the heads on pikes, right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats, you either get with the programme or you are gone.’Twitter banned him outright (and how long did that take?) but the ever wonderful facebook didn’t think that advocating murder online like any other good fundamentalist was reason enough. They believe in the first amendment, hurrah for the robot Zuckerberg.Like? Dislike? Delete, good luck.

And meanwhile the EU budget, involving 673 billion pounds for Covid connected concerns has been blocked by the continuing charming behaviour of Hungary and Poland. And why would they do that at this time of dire need? Why, because the release of the funds is dependent upon the rule of actual law in each of the countries to which the money is allocated. They have some very naughty politicians there who are upset about this and the darlings have taken it personally. These men could well be directly responsible for hundreds of unnecessary deaths. Hungary’s PM Orban said the clause would ‘jeopardise trust’ between member states. Well pal, they already don’t trust you due to your actions in the last ten years over freedom of speech, assembly, judges etc etc.

The Polish ‘Justice’ minister said the clause was ‘...really an institutional political enslavement, a radical limitation of sovereignty’. Sounds like Nigel Farage.(btw, Love that he lost 10 thousand pounds betting on his golden mate to win the US Presidential election. Oh well, you can pick that up fast enough from taking the Euros you rail against eh? Got to relish the classic two faced double English standards he stoops so low to wave so high) Anyway, I digress, if it seems unfair to Poland and Hungary that they act more like actual democracies rather than extremist populist swine, perhaps they should also leave the EU and team up with Mother Russia and Uncle China.Again, Vladimir must be well pleased with how Europe and America are collapsing.

Belarus...the ‘police’ are beating up women, using stun grenades on unarmed pensioners and teens. These are not police and have nothing to do with any law other than that of the jungle. Lukashenko is their Trump, a man who always swore his country would be independent of Russia and then accepts 1.5 billion dollars in loans. Good luck with paying back the interest with your soul Alex, needs must when the Devil drives eh? Loved how those loyal to the dictator described the protestors as truants and transsexuals’. 150,000 of them? Seems a lot. But never mind, hired thugs and sadists are always easy to come by, whatever the country and whatever the year. Easy work and fun if you enjoy it, conscience free. Sure they are just trying to feed their families.

China wants a global QR Covid code, making tracking humans even easier via their brilliant technology. Let’s see who falls for that one, would you want yet more personal data known by those who created the virus and shot their own children? (For the record, I do not think Covid was taken over there and released by enemy agents and I certainly don’t think it was created by accident any more than the updated version will be.) Making a fortune out of others’ misfortune seems quite like disaster capitalism for communists. Drug companies will be hoping the 19 virus will ‘mutate’ to 21 and 22 in order that we will all need annual vaccines.

Prague, on the anniversary of the Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution on November 17th, 250,000 march against their PM, (an ex informer to the communists) who has been Premier for too many years...another rich businessman deep in corruption scandals, I loved his comment after witnessing the thousands that he didn’t ‘understand’ why they were doing it. That said, there were many protesting against the use of...face masks. Ok, by all means choose not to wear them. Then stay the hell away from everyone else until you are vaccinated and don’t you dare go to hospital when you fall ill. Deal?

Englerland...The manic baldhead liar Cummings has at last been kicked out of Downing Street and a fine and noble advisor he was to the PM eh? Herd immunity my arse. Seems possible he might work for Farrage and continue destroying the system from within. Fnord. God help us all, the ‘UK’ is hosting the United Nations Climate Change conference in November 2021 and taking the presidency of the G7 in January...with Boris at the helm? Nobody takes this blustering useless lying cretin seriously unless their jobs depend on him. Tory supporters, what does it take for you to see reason, how much evidence of unending failure? At very least replace the Chumocracy rampant in the government or Doom, damnation, despair, death and more doom will repeat.Nice to see we get the vaccine tested on us first...guinea pigs are safer for the rest of the world on an island...

Fascinated to see that 20m pounds were not available for poor children’s free school meals but 21 million in taxpayers’ money for a go between businessman to get PPE (piss poor excuse/personal protection equipment) for NHS staff, was. How much did the go between pocket? 55 thousand dead in UK, fifth in the world,so proud of the levels of national intelligence and Govermental planning. Brexit and Covid in a double whammy with the most incompetent and corrupt government in my lifetime. As John Lydon used to rant on a perfect loop;’ This is what you want, this is what you get’. Possibly I am abusing his actual meaning, sorry Johnny. No future for the UK...None for me anyway...

Was the UK and America’s snowflake nonsense, seeded with the birth of instagram, tik tok et al/ forums with young folk seeking approval from their peers and feeling important when they were ‘Liked’? A few years later in the (ha ha) real world, they are easily insulted by others who do not find them having much depth or value. Kids’, being ‘liked’ is not the same as being respected, or loved. Pretend alpha males, being feared is not respect either.

‘Since words contain both denotations (referents in the sensory-existential world) and connotations (emotional tones or rhetorical hooks) humans can be moved to action, even by words which have no real meaning or reference in actuality. This is the mechanism of demagoguery, advertising and much of organised religion’ RAW. It also explains why, in tandem with tones, symbols and an altered brain speed,directed Will can cause change in ‘realities’. The litany of ritual, the mantras of magick and images focused to fire with the Tantric arrow. Oops, missed again. Anyway...back to the negativity☺‘

...as population increases, wages fall but later prices increase....and the relation between them –is to be considered the index of revolutionary potential...and can be predicted as precisely as eclipses in astronomy’. Robert Anton Wilson, The Widow’s Son (Hilaritas Press) 1985.

Thanks to Covid, hundreds of thousands of businesses have collapsed; the jobless or part timers are unable to pay rent or feed their families...and receive little or no support from governments who have either pocketed their taxes or just given rewards and contracts to their friends. The overload stress levels and knock on effect on those who had the virus and still suffer -or those who could not get into hospital for treatment will be massive. Every populist knows there has never been a better time to manipulate the fear and anger of the masses. Demonstrations, riots and harsher laws will spread each creating their own chain reaction.Watch out for Nationalists pointing fingers, don’t buy their snake oil. Avoid giving groups like QAnon any of your energy, paranoia is a creepy way to live and a sleazy way to die.

Ten months of reading emails which come across like distress signals or suicide notes from friends or that scene in Interstellar when the son knows his father could be dead by the time the message gets through. BUT...‘Help may arrive invisibly and unexpectedly from unknown sources’. Be open to this. Be sensitive and attuned to quantum parallels, there is a reaction going on to all the uff and crud, sidestep, step to the side... Allwhere and all now. You don’t need to ‘believe’ this, just be aware, sense it.

TANA, ORPHEUS, ARADIA, LUCIFER (or Robin, Marian, Orfee, Bride, all ye gentry come from Side)...Protection and guides, projected archetypes created by our minds and evolved by themselves...

We, as a species, exist in a world in which exists a myriad of data points. Upon these matrices of points we superimpose a structure and the world makes sense to us. The pattern of the structure originates within our biological and sociological properties.Persinge and Lafreniere.1977.

The intelligence should direct the will. Aquinas. The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body will be full of light. Matt6:22.

Have tied the last five years together and I have a feeling my time in this country is coming to an end, give it seven months perhaps. Thank you for reading, hope some was entertaining...Withe much Love from Donkey Oti, and Onan the Barbarian, stay healthy, wishing you the best Christmas and 2021 possible, Ba-ra-ka, Et in Arcadia Ego . Love, always.

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xylaquint · 7 years ago

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Plot & Story Meme

Alyx Quintessence

(SPOILERS FOR FUTURE STORY PLOT POTENTIALLY!)

One Place

♦The Black Shroud & Somewhere in Corethas Alyx was originally born in the Shroud to her mother, Xyla Quintessence. Upon her initial birth, Alyx was far too frail and weak to stay alive and with her quick death, her mother spent the next many turns planning to revive her through any means. Eventually Alyx would be reborn under the guise of Doll # 401 and from Corethas her journey would begin to understand, learn and grow from those around her. Meeting friends, allying with others and bringing herself to cope with her immortal lifespan and cherish the time she has with everyone around her.

Two Villains

♦Xyla Prime The insane version of Xyla, Alyx has seen what prolong exposure to Void energies masked with whispers and temptations of the other side can do. Xyla’s insane self took over her and prompted the destruction of the world from her loss of her daughter. The entire campaign to stop her insane mother led through many involvements and fights until eventually with their combine effort, they brought Xyla down and ended her life...in doing so her soul would be consumed by the Incubo which that too would fall... since then, Alyx prays to never meet another one like Xyla Prime...

♦Wataru Komeji Once a proud Xaela inventor and scientist, Wataru eventually joined up with the Garleans during their intial siege onto Othard and the lands. Wataru was working with the idea of mammets until a benefactor gave him Xyla’s blueprints to create a living person. In doing so he creates Marlin in his image and as a way to escape any potential deaths...but had he known that Marlin would have a will of his own he would of destroyed him early on. For now, Alyx has one mission...To end Wataru and stop all possible productions of another like her.

Three Relationships

♦Arala Makeo Alyx’s first meeting with Arala was not a bright one after admitting her actions of poisoning wine for her friends but through trust and hard work, eventually Alyx was accepted and even considered by Arala to be the best mage to rely on for need. It is with her relationship that would set in motion Xyla’s downfall. Since then, Alyx and Arala have been more than friends and Alyx considers Arala her equal

♦Sin Fey An Interesting person Alyx met on occasion through Arala, she would find that there were some similarities between her and Sin. Alyx so far has kept much time to aid the company but is willing to share the darkest secrets with her due to their near similar existences, but unlike Alyx, Sin was even more artificial without a soul yet to Alyx she believed Sin had a soul...if only she could believe it.

♦Keiichi Jeichi Once she met this man. One time she saw this Au Ra with a Lalafell name approach her on a date from other friends making fun of him. In truth the first meeting was awkward and weird but...soon they grew to enjoy one another. Alyx loves Keiichi and plans to marry him out of her own love and adoration. He was not like other men. Awkward, a bit shaken easily and sexually perverted, it gave Alyx some interesting fun. He does his best and learns much but the one time Alyx showed true emotion to the public was when he won the grindstone. To her, Keiichi is her only lover and every second she spends with him will be the most cherished of all.

Four Items

♦Augmentation Crystals One for each element, six in total. Alyx’s main weapon in combat and use for anything else in her life. It is her very weapon style. The Augmentation Crystals are wrapped in mystery as to their creation but one thing is certain is that they have limited aether before needing to recharge or be replenished.

♦A Dictionary A book Alyx carries at all times due to sometimes needing to learn of new things. After all she was alive for a few minutes before.

♦Satchel of medicine This pouch carries many medicinal herbs, mushrooms and powders. A selection is on hand to remedy illnesses or enhance others. Ask and see if she has something for you.

♦Soul Fragments Currently, Alyx has been looking for her mother’s soul fragments and will seek them all out to bring her mother in full.

Five Characters

♦Stein Vespyn The man who helped Alyx find her real self and create the four other siblings. At times she worries about him and wishes nothing but joy in his life despite the pain he suffers from.

♦Wati Quintessence (Alt) Alyx considers Wati to be the head chef of the home and second eldest sister. Her loving and caring front on top of her many ‘features’ prompted Alyx to also be envious of her figure.

♦Igni Quintessence (Alt) Alyx thinks of Igni as a young sister but one with a lot of energy to her. Passionate and determined. It is with her that Alyx fears the most would come. After she was made, Igni showed signs of an unstable emotion through the odd energy during their initial battle. So far she’s been stable since meeting Chiyo.

♦Forta Quintessence (Alt) Unlike the rest, Forta has a condition that makes her weak and frail at times. She does not depend on others but she requests aid at most. Often she is seen hovering along the ground instead of walking. Despite her training, she cannot seem to keep her pace going. Alyx continues to find ways to aid her problem.

♦Gaia Quintessence [NPC] Gaia is like a prodigy and Conjurer. Alyx treats Gaia as the second in command in terms of her background of aether use and knowledge of medicine. If anyone was closest to the family tree it is Gaia.

Six Moments

♦ Meeting Rollo A day on the streets of Ul’dah led Alyx to a box containing a black kitten inside. With no owner and no one looking to take him in, Alyx brought it upon herself to bring the cat with her to find a home...but he was comfortable with Alyx and she decided to keep him instead. Naming the cat Rollo.

♦ Stein giving Alyx family After fighting the four crazed elemental dolls, Stein Vespyn did much work in creating four sisters from each of the lingering spirits inside. Unlike Alyx they were truly living beings and had an actual lifespan but to know they existed and she finally had family to call her own, this made her happy to never be alone.

♦ Her real name... After the conflict with Xyla Prime, Alyx who was still called Quint at the time went on a journey and search for her mother’s journal and other books. To find any clues and hints to anything....but what she ended up finding was a book that held the dark secret. Within it, Xyla laid out the last note she ever wrote. Telling Alyx her real name, the backstory, her apologies and mistakes. Through this, Alyx wanted nothing more but to meet the real Xyla. Her real mother.

♦ The Music Box Among the other wares and goods Alyx owns, she never noticed till now the music box she scavenged from Xyla’s old home. Opening the box would giev Alyx a melody that was made for her. A melody that brings her to utter tears of pain and sorrow...for it would give her but a moment an idea of what life would of been like had she never died...She refused to open it ever since discovering the box.

♦ Admitting her feelings Alyx was scared at first but when she finally bought a ring for Keiichi, she wanted to tell him she wanted to marry him but in her flustered and conflicting state she ran before she could give the ring but this time, Keiichi stopped her and got her to finally admit her true feelings. The feeling of other women around him that were better fits for him made her feel like she never had a chance...but Keiichi was honest in explaining his own feelings to Alyx. Prompting Alyx to smile for the first time.

♦ A near death experience During the fight with the Incubo and upon the revival of Varthamith the lich, her horn was snapped off. Alyx in her intense moment of pain shrieked louder than anyone could imagine and when tossed aside she remained lifeless. It was thanks to some quick thinking that her crystal was preserved but she would never forget the pain...The true pain of being on death’s door.

Seven Quotes

♦ "The future before us is never set in stone. What choices we make can and will alter the path we head on. There are an infinite amount of possible outcomes, and yet even the simplest actions can completely alter your world. For the future CAN be changed, WILL be changed and MUST be changed."

Alyx’s reason on life.

“All I want in the world is my mother...” saidl while breaking down after talking with Sin about herself

♦ “What do you think was the first weapon? The Stick or the Rock? Most would say either of them...but the true first weapon in life is the hand. It is with your hands that weapons were born.” Alyx’s logic on weaponry

♦ “If you so much as hurt me sisters...you will wish your death was quick and painless...” A verbal threat to anyone getting close to her sisters.

♦ "I am Alyx Quintessence, daughter of Xyla Quintessence, Eldest of five siblings, Owner of the Ever-Expanding Library and self proclaimed Record Keeper” An introduction she cannot stop repeating

♦ “ No mother. You are not the worst. For so long I'd wanted to understand why I was made, why i live. I wanted to understand you more and more...” Alyx after reading the secret journal in tears

♦ “Sometimes I want to be called pretty or beautiful like a rose...O-or sexy. Compliments mean much.” The rare moment Alyx was honest with her feelings.

Tagging: @chiyohoshi @shinosenkatsu @shadeflare-sisters and anyone else wanting to go at it.

#plot and story meme #Alyx Quintessence #mmo #rpg #ff14 #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv #video game #rp #balmung

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sunken-standard · 7 years ago

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Hi there! Could you possibly turn your considerable talents to prompts 27 and 57, please? (if nobody has got in ahead of me!) Tom-verse if possible, but I'm happy to leave the artistic decisions to the artist :-) Ellis

I tried for Tom-verse, but I justcouldn’t make anything fit (though, I mean, if you squint, it couldmaybe fit in there before the first ficlet in the series). Sorry! For some reason the unicorn prompt just tripped me up (I’m evenreusing a bit I had written and scrapped for the other one becauseI’m just coming up empty). I’m so off my comedy game and all aboardthe train to angstville, apparently. Also, just pretend thechronology fits with the actual timeline of the show and Surrey hasthe year-round summer of LA.

“Sometimes I just don’t wantto exist”/ “You asked me if unicorns were real”

“Didyou ever wonder if unicorns were real? Like one horse somewhere inprehistory with some kind of keratinous carcinoma or something thatstarted it all?” Molly said, staring at the 14thcentury ‘unicorn’ horn (that of a narwhal, most likely) mounted onthe wall of the study.

“Probablysomething along those lines, could have been an oryx or a rhino thatsomeone saw while in an altered state. Between ergot, mushrooms,natural fermentation, and all manner of disease andnaturally-occurring poisons, added to the fact that there was noreliable way to record an experience, it’s amazing we as a speciesever came to any consensus about the nature of reality,”Sherlock said as he searched the club treasurer’s desk.

“Saythat at a physics conference sometime,” she said.

Officesupplies, sweets, nail clippers, cap for a memory stick but no memorystick (bugger), sticky note with password to company server(P@55vv0rd, how clever), deck of naughty playing cards (didn’t evenknow they still made those); nothing useful. Bollocks.

“Whenhave you ever been to a physics conference?” He paused in hissearch.

“Never. But I’ve heard stories.”

“Whenhave you 'heard stories?’”

“Anex-boyfriend is a theoretical physicist. That one was more schizoidthan sociopath, though.”

Ugh. Another one. He wished she wouldn’t talk about them. He’d muchrather pretend she wasn’t an actual woman and never had anyboyfriends at all, for reasons he didn’t care to examine at themoment. Or ever. He went back to rifling the drawer.

“Haveyou ever considered your time would be better spent by taking up ahobby instead of wasting it on relationships? Knitting, taxidermy,paragliding?”

“Sexis a hobby.”

“Nymphomaniaisn’t a hobby, it’s an addiction.”

“Well,what do you know, we have something in common,” she said lightlyand, in Sherlock’s opinion, rather cruelly.

“Notan addict, I’m a user, there’s a difference.”

“AndI’m not a sex addict. Though, I mean, I’m not a user,either, because that sounds like I’m just looking for a sugar daddyor something. I just like sex. A lot. I mean, we only get so muchtime, might as well enjoy it.”

“Yetwhen I say that about any number of arbitrarily illegal substances, Iget crucified.”

“Wellit’s not like I’m going to suffer a collapsed vagina from repeatedpenetration, unlike a vein and a needle. Or, you know, literally diefrom too many orgasms.”

Hegrunted as he popped the secret panel behind the drawer. He reallyhoped it wasn’t booby trapped. Good thing she was being so annoying;if he started thinking about her vagina and repeated penetration hemight get sidetracked.

“Isthat his girlfriend or his daughter?” Molly muttered as shelooked across the lawn to the pool.

Sherlocklooked for himself; the client’s midlife crisis girlfriend and eitherher sister or her friend (hard to tell, they both had the same dyedblonde hair and Instagram brows and noses picked from a book in aCzech bargain-basement plastic surgeon’s office) were lounging indeck chairs. Nothing particularly striking about them; he wonderedwhy she sounded a bit bitter. Wasn’t like her. Best not to ask, hethought, lest he actually get an answer. Solving the case shouldcheer her up.

“Girlfriend. And she’s got nothing to look forward to but a life ofdisappointment and melanoma. Come on, I want to check thegroundskeeper’s cottage before he gets back from shaving thetopiaries or painting the grass green or whatever other crimesagainst nature these people feel the need to commit for the sake ofappearances.”

“Wow,is that…?”

“Youasked me if unicorns were real. Apparently they are,” he saidas they approached the groom, busy saddling a white pony with a pinkmane and a rather realistic horn somehow affixed to its head.

“Huh,”Molly said. Then, as the pony lifted its tail and did what allanimals do, “The internet lied. That was supposed to be arainbow.”

Sherlocksmirked, then schooled his face before addressing the groom. Wouldn’t do to look happy while questioning the main suspect.

“Sothe groom was actually the birth mother and she was helpingthe ex-wife steal from the client? I will never understand richpeople. Kinda sad for the little girl, though,” Molly said,looking out the window of the train.

“Alwaysis,” he dismissed, but not rudely. He hoped.

“Imean, I kind of sympathize with the ex-wife, especially after seeingthe girlfriend. A woman gets to a certain age and she’s just…disposable.”

Helooked at her askance; that uncharacteristic note of bitterness wasback in her voice again.

“Isthis about Tom? You broke it off with him, why are you still upsetover it?”

Surelya few months was more than enough time to get over him. She barelyblinked before moving on from other boyfriends.

“It’snot about Tom. Well, maybe some of it. I’m just tired ofstupid men always coming out on top in these things.”

“Hardly'on top’ in this case. His nine year old daughter already resentshim, which is unlikely to change, he can’t perform for hisbarely-legal fiancée—yes, I found a ring while looking for thememory stick—without the help of a little blue pill, and she’lltake him to the cleaners in the divorce settlement within five years,provided his hypertension doesn’t kill him first, at which point thedaughter gets it all anyway. That is, if there’s anything left bythen. He has a mountain of debt and he’s made nothing but poorinvestment choices since his ex-wife left.”

“Youknow about investing? I thought you hated City boys and the entireconcept of money.”

“Iknow a bit. Mrs. Hudson knows more. She did successfullylaunder the earnings of a not-insignificant drug cartel for thebetter part of twenty years.”

Theway Molly’s lips pressed together and her eyebrows rose as she tippedher head indicated she really wasn’t very surprised.

“Evenso, ’s still not fair, is it?”

“Verylittle ever is,” he said.

Hedidn’t like Molly being so pessimistic. It was out of place with theorder of things. He’d much rather she talk at length and in greatdetail about her vagina and its numerous exploits if it meant shewasn’t so… down.

“SometimesI just don’t want to exist. It’s still a man’s world and being asingle woman over thirty sucks.”

Nothinghe could really say to that without sounding like a completearsehole. Just because he didn’t voice any opinions on it didn’tmean he was blind to the struggles competent women faced. Hell, heknew what it had done to his own mother, and she’d been relativelylucky in the stable, supportive partner area.

“Well,you’ve always got me?” he said, more in the form of a questionthan a statement. He squinted to make it look like he really wasn’tsure if that was the correct protocol for offering support; hecouldn’t let her know he meant it so sincerely that he refused tothink about the feelings it stirred and what that might mean.

Sheglanced at him with an expression on her face he couldn’t read, thenlooked back out the window. "I suppose I could find a worsesidekick,“ she said after a few moments.

"Sidekick.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well,yeah, obviously. I did solve the case, after all.”

“Youdidn’t solve the case. You found the memory stick, and that was justdumb luck. I solved the case. He made the check out to me.”

“Itwasn’t dumb luck. I knew they had cats, and I know where toy-sizedthings end up when there’s a cat around.”

“Yes,and if you want a sidekick you should get another cat. I’ll just beyour… consultant.”

“Consultantpain in my arse,” she said, her lips twitching up a bit at thecorner. It was a start.

“Theysay 'follow your bliss…’” he said lightly, which earned himone of those impish smirks that gave him a mild, almost pleasant formof indigestion.

Sidekick. Honestly. Though he supposed there were worse fates than playingsecond fiddle to Molly Hooper.

#anonymous #drabble ask meme round 3 #sherlolly #sunken's secret stash

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youspoketome · 6 years ago

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SQUAD FIVE-O - BOMBS OVER BROADWAY (2000)

I don't remember when I first heard Squad Five-O, or I would definitely have written about them sooner. It was probably around when my older brother got a job at Northwestern bookstore that he started buying a bunch of CDs, which I would then dub into cassettes. Some were by Tooth and Nail bands like the OC Supertones and Value Pac that I had heard on comps anyway, but also some bands from other labels like Kosmos Express, Five Iron Frenzy, and most importantly to me, Squad Five-O.

Somewhere in between MxPx changing my life and discovering The Ataris, I discovered Squad's WHAT I BELIEVE and when it was released, FIGHT THE SYSTEM and I was obsessed in a whole new way to me. I started modeling my entire life after that band. I started bleaching my hair because Jeff Squad bleached his hair, I started only wearing my hoodies zipped up about 2/3 of the way because Johnny Five wore his hoodie like that on a tour poster I had, I set my default font on AOL Instant Messenger to neon green with black background to match their logo on FIGHT THE SYSTEM (which they stole from Poison), I got in trouble in algebra class for writing the lyrics to "Fight The System" on my shared graphing calculator at the end of class and leaving it there for the next person. If you read the installment about Me First and The Gimme Gimmes you might remember my camo shorts with knee high argyle socks. I was wearing that because of Squad Five-O. To this day I have one single tattoo, and it's a tattoo I first saw on Jeff Squad and decided I wanted when I was about 15.

I'm pretty sure my first real rock and roll show (meaning not DC Talk at the Target Center or a Billy Graham crusade) was Squad Five-O. They were the perfect band for a Christian music venue like the New Union. Christan venues were notorious for not letting you have fun in the crowd. You can jump up and down, you can move around, but you can't jump into another person or touch someone else while you are moving around. So moshing and crowd surfing were right out. The beauty of Squad though, was since all their songs constantly switched back and forth between ska parts and punk parts, no one got in trouble. The heavier punk parts would play and the crowd would freak out, but before anyone could get pulled from the crowd, the ska part would kick in and everyone would stop moshing and start skanking. Those shows were some of the most fun I ever had in a pit (and I use that term very, very loosely).

So anyway, fast forward to 2000. I've discovered The Ataris and secular music, but I'm still a Tooth and Nail kid at heart. I've started taking classes at community college through PSEO, and so I'm using their computer lab. (I still distinctly remember this.) I go to toothandnail dot com and before the normal home screen loads, there's a page with a giant picture of Squad Five-O announcing their new addition to the Tooth and Nail family. I didn't even hit the continue to home page link, I opened a new window to get to my email and I literally emailed everyone in my address book (95% of whom had never heard of Squad Five-O or couldn't have cared less about them if they had) to let them know that SFO had signed to Tooth and Nail Records. I think I got two responses to that email, one telling me I was a huge nerd and one telling me this was old news and he already knew about it.

Over the ensuing months demos from the new album would show up in a couple different T&N compilation CDs. They were definitely different, but not bad, and I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I continued to excitedly wait for the new album.

Squad Five-O had always had a thing for 80's metal. As I mentioned earlier, they completely stole the Poison logo for their own logo on FIGHT THE SYSTEM. The first time I saw them, every single shirt they had at their merch table was a spoof of Guns N' Roses, Judas Priest, Stryper or some other metal band. But on BOMBS OVER BROADWAY they just went for it. The producer they worked with on this album had previously worked on albums by Cinderella, LA Guns and Ozzy. Gone was the punk/ska hybrid I loved. Gone was the raw energy I soaked up. Gone were the bratty kids shouting anthems. They were replaced by big hair, aviator sunglasses, sleeveless t-shirts and rambling guitar solos.

I still bought it. I still bought a poster and multiple t-shirts (I want to say I had three shirts from this era). I still went to see them (with The Juliana Theory, who I hadn't even discovered yet). But that was the end for me. I didn't buy their next, self-titled album, and to this day I've not listened to their major label album after that. The magic was gone.

I recently listened to a podcast about this album and period for the band, and it sounds like Brandon from T&N heard the demos, knew it wasn't right, and begged them to stick with their previous sound. Even Jeff expressed regret that the producer had made them slow all the songs down and sapped the energy that was there in their live shows and even on the demos.

The thing with BOMBS OVER BROADWAY was until that album I don't think I had figured out yet that bands could change for the worse. Everything I had listened to to that point had just been on an upward trajectory. I had stopped listening to DC Talk and Audio Adrenaline by this time, not because they changed, but because I had. Ghoti Hook's TWO YEARS TO NEVER came out around the same time, and I actually heard the first demo from that album on the same comp as one of the Squad demos, but that one doesn't stand out to me as much. Conrad had quit Ghoti Hook and I think I just assumed they wouldn't be as good anymore without him. Squad Five-O had added members and signed to my favorite record label, who could have imagined they'd get worse? It was kind of an eye opening album for me.

Coda (or: I'm not sure when else I'll get to tell this story, so I'm going to tack it on the end here):

BOMBS OVER BROADWAY obviously had a lot of imagery of planes and destruction and New York City (the lyrics to the titular song literally go "Midnight, New York City/Broadway, going up in flames/Ground zero, big city/Big Apple swallowed by the flames."). At the time it was about vanity and American consumerism, but after 9-11 it became much more real and tasteless. On September 12 or 13, 2001, I got up and got dressed went about my day. While waiting in line for lunch my friend Kara (one of the two respondees of my excited email) kind of looked at my t-shirt and gave me a weird look. I glanced down and said "Squad Five-O. They're a band," and didn't think any more of it. After school I went to work (I was working at Hot Topic by this point, we'll get there pretty soon) where I wore a hoodie most of the night, but after the mall closed and we were cleaning up, they'd turn off the air and it would get really hot and stuffy. So after I got too warm I took off my hoodie and for the first time in the day really took notice of the shirt I'd been wearing all day: a Squad Five-O t-shirt that above the logo featured the Twin Towers falling over with a mushroom cloud coming up between them. I suddenly realized why Kara had been looking at my shirt so strangely, and never wore it again.

#you spoke to me #Squad Five-O #bombs over broadway

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chocolateheal · 6 years ago

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27 Thoughts You Have As Artist Or Music Approaches | artist or music

NASHVILLE — The amphitheater was bushing up with admirers for a late-season pro football bold aback Margo Price took up her atom at midfield for a pregame complete check.

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Two weeks beforehand she had denticulate a best new artisan Grammy nomination. Now she was about to sing the civic canticle — a aperture about aloof at Titans’ amateur for some of country music’s ascent stars and its bigger names.

Price’s invitation, though, came with a warning.

“I’m abiding you’ll be admiring of our canticle and not cull any shenanigans,” the Titans’ adumbrative told her as she stepped assimilate the field. Price, 35, waited a moment for the aggregation rep to ankle away. A button emblazoned with the chat “feminist” was affianced to her atramentous covering anorak and glinted in the midday sun. “My acceptability precedes me,” she said.

Price’s career — her success and about a decade of struggles — is a attestation to the way America’s poisonous backroom are scrambling country music. Abstraction afterwards abstraction has accurate the addition amusing abysm that separates the aloft parties. Republicans and Democrats address accretion levels of acrimony for those on the added ancillary of the political divide, according to surveys. They accept few abutting accompany from the opposing political party. They watch altered television shows.

Those aforementioned pressures are fracturing one of America’s best characteristic art forms, giving acceleration to abstracted agreeable genres aimed at advanced and bourgeois fans. “I’m aloof singing the truth,” Price said. “That’s what country music is declared to be — three chords and the truth.” Increasingly, though, that accuracy is shaped by America’s political war.

Price has appeared as the agreeable bedfellow on advanced bastions such as “Saturday Night Live,” “The Daily Show” on Ball Central and the three aloft late-night arrangement allocution shows. On Sunday she will apprentice whether she can add a best new artisan Grammy to her accolades.

But she’s absolutely absent from country music radio — still the aloft brilliant maker for Nashville-based musicians who aspire to ample stadiums. And that has fabricated Price all but airy in assertive abode of the country, including some genitalia of her adopted hometown.

“No bags,” the aegis bouncer at the access to the Titans’ amphitheater barked at her beforehand in the day aback she approved to accompany in a haversack with her crimper adamant and makeup.

“I’m the canticle singer,” she protested.

No luck.

“Did you let Carrie Underwood accompany in a crimper iron?” she pleaded. The aegis bouncer attempt her an affronted look.

The Titans’ administering eventually intervened on Price’s annual and she fabricated her way into the amphitheater — haversack in hand. The canticle went off afterwards a hitch. A few canicule afterwards Price was ablution a bout that included stops in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Brooklyn and absorption on the aberancy of the acquaintance aback home, in the basic of country music.

“It was absolutely out of our element,” she said.

As a jailbait growing up in rural Illinois, Price sometimes sang the canticle at aerial academy football games. “That was what our boondocks revolved around,” she said.

Her mother was a abecedary and her ancestor farmed soybeans and corn, until the acreage crisis affected him to acquisition assignment as a bastille guard.

The way Price tells it, her aisle to Nashville began at Northern Illinois University, area she fabricated the varsity cheerleading aggregation as a freshman, tripped on mushrooms and absitively to get as far from cheerleading as she could. She active up for amphitheater and ball classes. At the end of her green year, she alone out of academy absolutely and confused to Nashville.

Abstract Art – Zlatko Music Art – artist or music | artist or music

She played about with political music, basic a Kinks-inspired duo with Jeremy Ivey, her approaching husband, alleged Secret Handshake. “An accessible way to bright a room” Ivey said of the band’s brief and bootless stint. Again came Buffalo Clover, her rock-and-roll and body band, which critics declared as Dolly Parton backed by the Rolling Stones.

Eventually, Price switched to country. She apparitional open-mic nights in Nashville belief the army to amount out what worked. Her best songs tackled heartbreaks, embarrassments and failures that she had hid alike from her family. At 27, Price gave bearing to accompanying boys, one of whom died weeks afterwards he was built-in of a abiogenetic affection ailment.

In the years that followed she struggled with bubbler and depression, including a 2013 arrest for bashed driving. She comatose her car into a pole, she said, and again approved to outrun police. Her bedmate best her up afterwards a weekend in the canton jail. On her way home, Price affective a carton of Newports for her cellmate. “You’ve alone been in there for two canicule and you’re already authoritative alliances,” her bedmate joked.

She mined the tragedy and ball of the acquaintance for a bastille ballad.

Price’s affluent country articulation bent the absorption of Nashville music critics. “Her articulation is aloof unreal. That’s what affective me,” said Joseph Hudak, a Nashville-based biographer for Rolling Stone. Her autograph alleged to apperception country music’s hell-raising, bank roots. “I dead the angel on my accept with a canteen of the Bulleit / So I wouldn’t accept to apprehend him allegation and moan, moan, moan,” she sang to the cry of a steel-pedal guitar.

Price, though, had several strikes adjoin her aback it came to landing a recording arrangement with a aloft label.

Country music these canicule is bedeviled by men, who about annual for about 80 to 90 percent of Billboard’s top 40 country radio hits. Online the bearings can be alike worse. Spotify’s “Country Gold” playlist of 50 songs generally doesn’t accommodate alike a distinct changeable artist.

Price’s music additionally didn’t complete like the added hits played on country radio, which alloyed hip-hop beats with twangy verse.

Her bigger botheration ability accept been her lyrics. Hit country songs tended to bless alone life. Often, they responded to the growing accessory acerbity by emphasizing America’s capital goodness, as Luke Bryan did in his hit “Most Bodies are Good.”

Bryan focused on motherhood and football: “I accept best Friday nights attending bigger beneath neon or amphitheater lights,” he sang.

Price was alms a altered appearance of America. She sang about sin and attempt and the sorts of misfits who never acquainted adequate in football stadiums. “I’m an outcast, and I’m a devious / And I plan to breach that way,” she sang. Her songs were about small, depressed towns that bodies longed to escape. These were the actual places country music accepted her to celebrate.

“You’re so country, but you’re not a redneck,” she recalled one almanac industry controlling cogent her. She took it as a abuse compliment. He passed. Others apprenticed her to accord her song arrange added of a pop feel. She refused.

Price had been at it for 12 years aback her bedmate prevailed on her in 2014 to advertise their car, assurance her bells arena and absorb the money recording a country album. The aftermost song she wrote afore she headed into the flat told the adventure of her life: her father’s accommodation to advertise the ancestors farm, her struggles in Nashville, the afterlife of her son.

“I acquainted like I was at the end of a braiding and if article didn’t appear soon, I was activity to break,” she said of “Hands of Time.” “I wrote it as a anatomy of therapy. Not for anyone else, but for myself.”

Months anesthetized with little absorption from almanac companies. Her accelerate guitar amateur abiding an controlling from Third Man Records, founded by Jack White, a acclaimed bedrock and dejection musician, to watch her comedy at a Nashville bar. Third Man didn’t accept abundant acquaintance with country music, but active her anyway.

Before the anthology was alike appear in 2016, “The Late Appearance With Stephen Colbert” appointed her to sing. Aloof weeks afterwards it dropped, “Saturday Night Live” offered her a aperture on the show.

Music – artist or music | artist or music

“Are you sitting down?” she asked her drummer, anon afterwards she got the news. He was stacking boxes at the barn job he had taken to pay the bills.

“We’re activity on SNL!” she screamed.

The New York Times alleged her the “next big affair out of Nashville.” A New Yorker agents biographer declared alert to her as “an apprehensible joy, with awe abstemious through it.”

Country music radio programmers were beneath impressed.

“I accept never heard a Margo Price song that I anticipation was a accumulation address delinquent hit,” said Nate Deaton, the accepted administrator of a base in San Jose. Country hits generally offered up a dosage of nostalgia. “There’s a lot of bodies in big cities that came from baby towns,” he said, “and there’s an abominable lot of us that never lived in baby towns, but nonetheless there’s an ambrosial attributes to it.”

R.J. Curtis, the controlling administrator of the Country Radio Broadcasters barter group, echoed that assessment. He was a fan of her music and had alike abounding one of her Nashville shows. “But programmers aloof don’t apperceive what to do with her,” he said. “Man, we’re missing out.”

Country music has for decades accommodated altered sounds and styles — the Bakersfield Sound, Outlaw Country, Urban Cowboy country and alt-country amid others. What affiliated them was a banal affection that rose aloft politics.

In the aboriginal 1970s Johnny Cash recorded “What is Truth” in abutment of Vietnam War protesters alike as his abutting acquaintance Merle Haggard was singing “The Fightin’ Ancillary of Me” slamming them. The two stars could still allotment a stage.

By 2003, though, the rules had changed. With U.S. troops absorption on the Iraq border, Natalie Maines, the advance accompanist of the Dixie Chicks, told a London admirers that she was abashed that George W. Bush was from Texas. At that moment, the changeable leash was one of the bigger acts in country music.

Sixteen years afterwards the Chicks are both a bandage and a verb. To be “Dixie-Chicked” is to be excommunicated from boilerplate country music radio. The Chicks were the victims of a rally-around-the-flag backfire — they criticized the admiral on the eve of a aloft war.

These canicule the bisect in country music has become added acutely partisan, absorption the political analysis amid its capital supporters: white Americans. Boilerplate country music has little backbone for letters that abort to bless alone America or angle alike accidentally anti-Trump.

Liberal country music fans, meanwhile, appetite assurances that their admired singers are abundantly to the left. “White bodies are the alone chase that’s politically disconnected appropriate now,” said Lilliana Mason, a assistant of at the University of Maryland and columnist of “Uncivil Agreement,” a book about political character and America’s growing divide. “Because the accessory bisect is so abysmal you accept to ascertain what affectionate of white being you are.”

For left-leaning country singers, like Price and Sturgill Simpson, there’s burden to arresting to their fan bases that they are on their side. In 2017, Simpson let apart an ballsy anti-Trump bluster that fabricated Maines’s criticism of Bush assume apathetic by comparison.

“He’s a absolutist . . . pig,” Simpson said of Trump alfresco the Country Music Awards in Nashville. All Trump supporters, he added, were “bigots.”

Simpson had won a Grammy beforehand that aforementioned year for best country album, but, like Price, was alone by boilerplate country music radio. A few years ago there was an apprehension that stars such as Simpson and Price ability accompany a new complete and affection to country music.

Instead, they became their own subgenre and today are generally classified as “Americana” artists, a subset of roots music aimed abundantly at liberals. Americana music isn’t consistently calmly defined, but the Milk Carton Kids, who opened this year’s Americana awards appearance in Nashville, took a ache at it in a song:

Musical Art on Pinterest | Music Painting, Guitar Painting … – artist or music | artist or music

“A country song that’s a little too political / A feminist canticle that’s a bit too accurate / Your lyrics are biblical / Your Twitter augment is liberal”

The aforementioned pressures that were agreeable the country were now fracturing country music.

“Country music is demography accessory accident because so abounding bodies these canicule appetite blood,” said Kyle Coroneos, who runs the website Saving Country Music. “In antecedent eras no one anticipation about this stuff, aloof like we didn’t anticipate about our neighbors’ politics.”

Midway through her contempo set in Washington, Price launched into “All American Made,” a song about the capacity in the country and the appellation clue to her additional album.

Price and her bedmate wrote it calm several years ago, and aftermost summer Price adapted the song for the Trump presidency.

“I admiration how the admiral gets any beddy-bye at night / And if the association bottomward by the bound are authoritative it all right,” she sang afore a army of about 2,000 bodies in Washington who let out a cheer. To anyone who ability accept been offended, Price explained that she wrote the song during the Obama administration. But no one seemed to care.

A few weeks afterwards Price was aback in Nashville for a pre-Grammy party. She circuitous abominably with the guests and again cut out early. On her way to dinner, she and her bedmate fabricated a quick detour to get a attending at a advance that Spotify had put up congratulating her on her nomination.

“Who dat?” she alleged out bedlam aback she spotted her face staring aback at her. The Nashville skyline glittered in the distance.

The abutting morning she aggregate with her bandage to rehearse afore she jetted out to Los Angeles for the Grammys and a atom on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

From there her agenda was a sprint. She was bristles months pregnant, alive on a new anthology and had alive shows planned through April.

Price appropriate the bandage add a new Tom Petty song to its set. Her bedmate pulled up “You Don’t Apperceive How it Feels” on his phone, best up his harmonica and began to comedy along, activity his way through the song. The bandage abutting in. Price affected the lyrics on a allotment of paper.

Petty’s music had been one of her aboriginal loves. As a jailbait in rural Illinois she taped “Mary Jane’s Aftermost Dance” off the radio and sang it into her hairbrush. “He was singing to a babe in Middle America who was maybe a little poor or a little different,” she told Rolling Stone aback Petty died in 2017. His music, she said, “defied brand . . . defied politics.”

But it was accepting harder and harder for stars, such as Price, to cull off that trick. Recently, her administering aggregation had encouraged her to do a bifold account with a big boilerplate country artist. “It will be acceptable exposure,” she recalled them cogent her, an befalling to acquaint her music to a new accumulation of admirers who ability not contrarily apprehend it.

Price attempt bottomward the idea.

“I don’t account his art,” she explained later. “It’s not annihilation personal.”

These days, Price said, she was acquisitive for her own “mental sanity” to bend abroad from country music. “Sonically I appetite to do article different, and I appetite to ability added people. Country music was a acceptable way to get my bottom in the door, but . . . aback you adventure out of country music you accept added abandon to say what you want, and country music radio isn’t accomplishing me any favors.”

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Sometimes, Price mused, that she should accept been “born in an beforehand era.”

As it was, she was arena about 200 dates a year. She wasn’t a country music megastar, affairs out stadiums beyond the South and Midwest. But she could ample a amphitheater with 2,000-3,000 die-hard admirers in Brooklyn. Added and more, aback she looked out at the crowd, there were bodies singing forth to her lyrics as if she was singing about their lives too.

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