#gives the games time to cook while also letting the devs breathe instead of having one team handle both workloads on crunch time

[eonveil]

was gonna be like "damn it's kinda crazy that it's been nearly a year since the announcement of plza and we still haven't gotten any info on it" but then i remembered i'm an elder scrolls fan

[arituzz]

Party Games 7

-SNOWBAZ-

How to fall for your enemy—A Dummies Guide

[1. Set the game] [2. Play like you mean it] [3. Keep playing and don’t ask][4. Poker Face] [5. Play dirty] [6. Show him what you’ve got] [7. (Don’t) Fall in the trap] [8. Cards on the table] [9. Play the game of love]

Summary: Playing games is an innocent and harmless thing to do. Except when you get so caught up in the game that don’t know if you are playing or not anymore, and then… Well. Then you burn

Chapter word count: ~2.4k

Rating: M

Tags: Watford, eighth year AU, alcohol, enemies to lovers, enemies with benefits, NSFW, smut, mutual pining, fluff, alternating POV first person

Also on AO3

Thank you @velvetnoodle for being my amazing beta!

7. (Don’t) Fall in the trap

SIMON

I wake up to Baz sleeping on my chest.

We’re on his bed, I think. Not that it matters.

What matters is Baz’s peaceful face. He’s impossibly graceful, even when sleeping. His hair falls in beautiful waves across his face, his nostrils slightly opening to allow the air in. His chest rises and falls as he breathes, soft sounds escaping his faintly parted lips. He looks so relaxed that he doesn’t seem evil at all. (He doesn’t even feel evil, lately.)

Baz looks fragile right now. But not the something-I-could-easily-finish-off kind of fragile. He looks like something I want to protect.

I resist the urge to tuck his hair behind his ear and ignore the Penny-like voice in my head warning me, “Five times, Simon.”

No, he doesn’t feel evil. Baz feels like home. (And I’m not getting up.) (Like, ever again.)

Baz. What matters is Baz.

Baz grinds his teeth together and clenches his jaw, which tells me that he’s about to wake up. (He always does that.) But I just… want to stay longer just like this.

BAZ

When I wake up, Simon is in the exact same spot he was when he fell asleep: Below me. Even with his eyes closed, I can tell he’s awake. (I know Simon’s sleeping face, trust me.) (It usually involves a greater deal of slobbering.)

I assume he’s pretending to sleep only because he regrets being in my bed in the first place. Either way, I won’t pressure him.

I will just…

I will just stay a little longer like this.

SIMON

Baz isn’t moving but I know he’s not sleeping. I wonder what’s keeping him from getting up.

Then I realise one of my arms is wrapped around his shoulder, immobilising him. I guess I should move it aside and free him. Yeah, I should do that. It’s what anyone would do.

But I don’t want to. (I don’t want him to go.)

BAZ

Snow’s stomach growls but neither of us moves.

Listen, I know that the longer I stay with him like this, the greater his absence will hurt me. I fucking know. But that won’t stop me from indulging myself as much I can. It’s like I’ve been presented a treasure, something I’ve wanted my whole damn life, under the condition that I had to return it the next day. Could anyone blame me for wanting that day to last forever?

Well, I’ll fucking murder time if I need to.

Simon’s stomach growls again, reminding me of how poorly he’s been eating these past few weeks. (Mostly because he’s been stressing out about playing his stupid game with me.)

Even if it’s his own fault, and even when I’m still supposed to hate him—I obviously don’t—my contradictory wish to stay with Simon is only overpowered by the urge to give him whatever he needs.

Carefully, I retrieve Simon’s arm from my shoulders and I sit up. (A bloody Struggle.)

Simon opens his eyes but still doesn’t move from my bed. He runs a hand through his messy curls and says, “Hey.”

“Good morning.” I don’t call him ‘darling’ like I did yesterday, this time he might actually hear me. Snow averts his eyes as I get dressed. When I’m done, I tell him, “I’ll go get some sandwiches.” I don’t ask him to come with me, I don’t want to give other people the chance to see him and snatch him away from me. (I just want him to stay here forever.) (Or, at least, the rest of the Sunday.)

Simon nods. “Okay.”

SIMON

I’m still on his bed when Baz comes back. He’s brought enough sandwiches to feed an entire army. “Cook Pritchard insisted,” he says.

Baz would never let me eat on his bed, so I take one of the sandwiches and settle on my bed instead. He gives me one of his death glares that probably translates into “I know it’s your bloody bed, but it’s still fucking gross.”

I shrug. Baz rolls his eyes. (Romantic feelings aside, I still like getting under his skin.)

Baz doesn’t like eating in front of people. He never does. But I know he eats when no one can see him. (Like at night, when he thinks I’m asleep.) After going with him to the catacombs yesterday, I thought he’d be past this. But he isn’t, apparently.

“Uhm. Do you need to… You know, get back to the catacombs?” I ask.

Baz avoids my stare. “Not yet,” he says, but still doesn’t eat.

I take one of the sandwiches and give it to Baz. “Just eat.”

“Uh… I’m not hungry.”

“Baz,” I say. “It’s fine. I… I like it.” I like you, I think, but I don’t tell him.

Reluctantly, Baz takes the sandwich and gives it a bite.

I don’t know why but that makes me smile. Like, Smile, capital S. Shit-eating grin, with teeth and all. Baz will never admit it but I can see him fighting back a smile.

When we’re done with breakfast—or lunch, I don’t know—Baz spells my bed clean of breadcrumbs.

I don’t want to leave the room—I don’t want to leave Baz—so I take out my magic words homework and sit on my desk. “Uhm… Baz?”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Yes?”

“Can you help me with this?”

BAZ

Snow actually listens to me while I explain him what’s wrong with his homework exercises. He doesn’t protest, he just nods along and corrects them. I have to admit he’s not that bad at it when he tries.

When we’re finished, I regret not having explained it all wrong to him, so now I could have an excuse to go over the exercises again. (And stay more time with him.)

Snow grabs the papers to put them back into his bag, but Simon can’t help being Simon—not even for a bloody day—and he cuts his finger with the paper sheet.

A drop of blood appears on the tip of his index finger and I have to remind myself to stay put.

Simon notices my distress and starts walking towards the door. “I’ll go--”

“Don’t,” I shout after him. He stops on his tracks, turning around. “You don’t need to go,” I say. “I can help.”

“Okay.”

I take his finger and cast Get well soon.

And then I kiss it.

SIMON

There are only two explanations: Either I’m dreaming, or I have magickally stepped into a parallel dimension. (I think the first one.)

That, or Baz is really kissing my finger.

But that’s impossible, right?

I want him to stop kissing my finger and start kissing my lips instead.

BAZ

Simon is looking at me in that way he does, that tells me something incredible is about to happen.

SIMON

Baz’s lips are so close and I can only think about kissing him. It seems that’s all I can think about, lately.

BAZ

We kiss, like we’ve done so many times before. Except, this time, it’s me who starts the kiss.

I kiss him, because I’m an idiot. Because I’m stupidly in love with him. And because a small part of me—an awfully dumb one—believes he can also, maybe, someday, love me back.

SIMON

It’s a soft kiss. Baz’s hands are on my face and I put my arms around his neck.

Baz lets out a low moan against my mouth and I… want to stay like this forever.

But this isn’t a dream.

This isn’t a parallel dimension, either.

And yeah, there is a third explanation: Baz is still playing the game. And I’m an idiot and have fallen in his fucking trap.

I let go of him.

I make sure to slam the door behind me as I run away from Baz.

BAZ

I don’t dare follow Simon.

I knew it. I’ve always known. Since Simon started his idiotic game, I fucking knew that sooner or later it would end. Still, I can’t believe I was so bloody foolish so as to hope he would get feelings for me along the way.

SIMON

I’m on the ramparts before I know what I’m doing.

I sit on the floor, around the same spot Baz and I were yesterday. Placing my palms on the ground, I rest my weight on my hands, and I look up at the sky.

Even though it’s not completely dark yet, I try to remember where the Perseus constellation is supposed to be. As I do, my hand makes its way to my chest, tracing the moles I have there, the same way Baz did yesterday.

The wind blows against my face, making me shiver. That’s weird. I’m always warm, and I’d swear yesterday night was even cooler. Plus, Baz was here, and he’s freezing. But somehow I feel colder today. Is it possible to physically miss someone? Because I think that’s what’s happening to me.

Baz. I fucking hate him.

(I don’t.)

Merlin.

I sigh. Because what else can you do when you realise you’re stupidly in love?

I just fucking miss Baz.

BAZ

When Simon gets back to the room, it’s way past midnight.

The last thing I want now is dealing with him rejecting me—again—so I pretend to be sleeping. I’ll deal with that tomorrow. Or never.

SIMON

After everything that happened this weekend, going back to the weekday routine seems as easy as learning Arabic in one afternoon.

During magic words, I almost lose my shit. We go through the exercices I did with Baz yesterday and my traitorous thoughts can’t stop providing me very vivid images of Baz kissing me. Also, the tosser keeps sending glances over at me, so he makes sure that not even a second passes without me acknowledging his existence. (As if I weren’t already hyper aware of it.)

By lunchtime I’m about to go off.

BAZ

I take another swig of my tea as I regret every last decision I’ve made in my life.

Dev is telling Niall how “sparkling” and “deep” his eyes are. I roll mine for the umpteenth time. Niall actually fucking blushes and draws Dev closer to him, kissing his lips, no consideration towards me whatsoever. I am fucking family, for Crowley’s sake.

And after Snow rejecting me yesterday, the last thing I need is a live display of teenage hormones.

Speaking of which, Snow is about to go nova at the other end of the dining hall. I wish I could go there and calm him down, like I did the other day.

But I fucking can’t. I have no right. Snow made sure of it.

SIMON

“Staring at the plate isn’t going to make the food disappear,” Penelope says, bringing me back to reality. “I thought you loved Watford’s roast beef.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m just not hungry.”

Penny furrows her brow. “What are you sorry for?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Everything?”

“Simon,” she says, shifting her position on the chair so that she’s facing me. “Stop thinking everything depends on you.”

Penny’s gaze lacks its default accusatory, judgmental, undertone. Her expression is soft, and I think she’s worried about me. But that makes me feel worse. I don’t want her to worry, it’s not her fault. It’s Baz’s fault. Everything is Baz’s fault.

I stare at him. He catches my eye momentarily and then looks down at his tea, his hand playing with the spoon. And I can’t help but wonder if he’s okay.

I look back at Penny. “Simon?”

I don’t say anything—I can’t, really—I just take her hand and look her in the eye for a moment. I glance at Baz, then stare back at Penny again. And she just knows. She knows what I’m trying to say: I’m in love with him.

I love when I don’t need to use words to make Penny understand me. I don’t think I’d be able to tell her everything out loud.

She doesn’t say “I told you, Simon,” which would be fair. She squeezes my hand, meaning: “I know.”

I bite my lip and squeeze Penny’s hand back.

She twitches the corner of her lips into a tiny smile, which means, “I’m here.”

I wonder if Penny has cast a silent spell or something to make me feel better, because it’s like magic: Even though everything is exactly the same, my mood is instantly lifted. And I know I’ll survive. I mean, I’ve killed a dragon; surely handling unrequited love can’t be that hard.

I smile back at her.

Slowly, an idea starts to take shape in my head, and by the end of the day I’m sure of it: I want to try it with Baz. The friendship thing. This could obviously also be a part of his evil plan but, whatever. I’ve decided I’d rather be Baz’s friend than his nothing-at-all.

I don’t know, I just fucking miss him.

BAZ

When I get back to the room, Simon is already there. He’s pacing nervously across the small space in the room. “Snow. Stop.”

Simon stops to look at me. “I—” he starts. Then, he avoids my stare and starts pacing again.

“Just sit the fuck down.”

Simon obeys me, sitting on the chair before his desk, only to start tapping his foot against the leg of the chair.

Asking Simon to calm down is like asking a stone to start speaking. (Stupid. Pointless.) I sigh. “What is it, Snow?”

Simon looks back up at me. He swallows and says, “I like this.” My heart does a little flip, because I imagine him saying, “I like you, Baz.” But instead, he continues, “Being friends. I like it better than fighting.”

Still, it’s more than I’d ever hoped for. “Fine,” I say, my voice breaking.

Simon stands up and comes closer. And then he hugs me.

My knees almost give out. Crowley, he can’t just go and do shit like that without a warning.

When I’m recovered, I melt into his arms like the weak person that I am. Because I love him. And he likes this better than fighting.

SIMON

Baz hugs me back.

Okay, yeah, I’m like so deep into his trap that it’d take me years to find the way out.

But I don’t care. I don’t want any way out. I’d gladly fall in it again—fucking jump right in—if that meant one single more moment like this with Baz.

-TBC-

(snowbaz fic masterlist)

[darkarm66]

Breath of the Wild review

On the Wii U, I had The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in their HD remastered forms....and barely touched. This is reoccurring issue with me and remasters, even with games I love. No matter how much I loved them the first time, there are some games I won't touch again and it was mainly due to the beginning stages. I dreaded going though Ordon Village again and knowing I'd have to put up with those tutorials again to get to the parts of Twilight Princess i did enjoy. So once Link wakes up Breath of the Wild, gets his clothes and Sheikah Slate and I got to run around with my meager abilities and items, I knew that this game was gonna be a classic. Yes, that's all it took. Now, there have been many many reviews that extolled the excellence of Breath of the Wild, much better written reviews when it came out, possibly on the verge of hyperbolic. So allow me to add to it. And yes, not only is this the best game of 2017, It very well could be one of the greatest of all time. While those reviews have mentioned Witcher 3, Skyrim, Arkham Asylum and other open world games as direct influences (Nintendo said as much as well), this game inspired feelings in me I haven't felt since Xenoblade Chronicles. And like Xenoblade Chronicles, Breath of the Wild succeeded due to not just the high amount of gameplay but also by eliminating a lot of wonky, reductive elements. 

There's no invisible barriers that prevents the player from going where they want to go, once you get off the Great Plateau after getting the runes in the Shrines, the player has everything the need to explore this amazing version of Hyrule. And the exploration was felt lacking in previous Zeldas. You knew that special icon or crack in the ground required the player to retrieve the item from a dungeon. Now, you just have to go there and a lot of it just jumps out at the player. This time around, Hyrule itself is a dungeon with so many puzzles that tempt to player to stop moving and just fiddle around for a bit. The world is littered with seemingly out of place shapes and it draws the player in a way that doesn't feel contrived or blatant. And even if a trail isn't apparent or there's no natural way to enter a place, the climbing mechanic breaks all of it. Climbing itself becomes its own minigame because its governed by a stamina wheel and the weather system, which does allow the player to be challenged by where they can climb but it doesn't allow the player to break the game by going everywhere. And speaking of challenge, get ready to eat humble pie with the simplest combat system but toughest enemies ever. 

This Hyrule wasn't afraid to hand the player its ass over and over. And the lack of tutorials and locked rooms that teach you to fight means you're not stuck in this one place until you get it right. If you die, you come back and try again or move onto somewhere else to do something that won't kill you. When I tried to put off the story as much as I possibly can, I ended up discovering Shrines (in a minute, not yet), Koroks, rupees, side quests, food. Until I became bored and started the Zora quest line, which delighted because I got to climb up a waterfall with ice blocks and led to the real menace of Hyrule: Lynels. This is when previous Zelda game would put you in this room and turn this into a boss battle to see if the player has gotten any good. Not this time, it didn't care that I didn't have enough hearts, or my shields were too weak, or my weapons were brittle. So I just turn around from the high point and glided to somewhere else instead. While players will have to fight to actually survive, Breath of the Wild let the experience teach the players.

And mainly, those Shrines is how you get experience points. The Shrines are dotted the map, some not even trying to hide, some taking maddening puzzle solving, others rewarding the player for figuring out all the clues. Not only is this how the game facilitates fast travel, it also scratches that dungeon crawling itch for a bit, but only by being a puzzle shrine or a combat shrine. It lacks the incredible intertwining of previous Zelda dungeons but the light content and brain stretching use of items makes up for it. Especially since the player is always rewarded with a great item. Unless its a weapon...

Okay, in the early goings, weapon durability can be a bummer. Weapons break too common and by the time you get used to one, its gone. That's not the worst part of it. The problem comes when good weapons do start becoming more readily available but not you're out of slots because you don't wanna waste your Royal Broadswords on some basic ass Bokoblins because you know a Lynel needs that work more. However, you deal with it because all the puzzle solving and wander lusting led to Korok seeds to expand the inventory, so now by the time you wanna start wrecking things, you're actually equipped to do so this time around.

I also believe that the durability allows the player to actually replay certain areas. While other games use powerful enemies as gates to keep the player away for a few hours, that doesn't feel like it this time around. The map allows players to actually keep tabs on where they may want to go but don't feel like dying to do so. Place that stamp down, go somewhere else and come back to it when the player truly feels ready. I remember Miyamoto talking about how they wanted Zelda games to be able to replay certain areas for a reason. And now they didn't have to force the player to do a bunch of fetch quests or pixel hunts to come back to an area they already beaten. This makes Hyrule feel more livelier this time around because no matter how much time you spent in one area, you can come back to it and discover something hiding under your nose this whole time but you couldn't see it just yet. Or it has a dope sword you really needed but didn't have room for.

But one thing to make room for: food! There was something so hypnotic about resource gathering and cooking, in a way that surpasses Final Fantasy XV's photo-realistic dishes. The abundance of materials, which not only kills the tedium that might have killed lesser games, allows players to actual feel free to consume and experiment with everything they've gathered. In the beginning, basic meals are cooked to give your health a chance withstand raiding an enemy camp. By the time you're in the 100 hour mark, players are hunting to create complex dishes that give them dope buffs to make a play session a more pleasant.

One pleasant thing this go around is the story. For all the flack Nintendo gets for its approach to stories, it only gets it because they're not telling it through the usual cinema envy of other games. This is a deconstruction of Link and being the chosen one. Link isn't just gonna be handed all the tools needed to succeed just because he was chosen. Same goes for Zelda, who seems heartbroken that she has to be the reincarnation of a goddess. And thanks to the Memories questline, you get to see those cutscenes but they aren't automatically triggered because you did a thing. You earn those previous moments beforehand that showed Link and Zelda not truly feeling going along with what destiny wants to do because it worked 100 years ago...which was probably Nintendo's feelings developing this game.

For years, Eiji Aonuma talked about breaking the conventions and in the gameplay and story, that feeling comes across well with Divine Beast Champions, especially who they just fall doing what they were told to do. This is truly about how Zelda's dev team felt about coming together to give the same results, only for it to fail before it even began and the task fell to new people to do what's necessary to defeat Ganon through new means. It's deeply personal and the emotion maturely understated. Link and Zelda develop as legit characters through their struggles and heartbreak and it gives the story an emotional richness not seen since Ocarina/Majora. Link (and the player) truly earns the right to be called a hero, not because he was chosen but because he endured and grew.

I haven't even mentioned how beautiful this game is. Forget your need for 6 billion polygons per sec to animate a face. The details astounding from up close and far away. Climb to the top of the mountain and you see a sprawling, diverse horizon to take your breath away or look down to see a forest or lake or camp to possibly sail down. None of it ever stops looking gorgeous. My favorite place in the game revolved around a Shrine that needed an Orb to unlock but the area you were in was completely dark. Seeing Link as a shadow, lighting torches to move around this area was utterly beautiful and proves that developers don't need to high end CGI cutscenes to make a visual impression that last forever. Speaking of lasting impressions, this is one of the best UI I've seen in a game. It conveys information and stats without completely cluttering the screen and taking away from the game world. Even when playing in handheld mode, you can stil take in a lot of visual treats of Hyrule.

And despite the impression that I'm ready to marry this game, this game isn't flawless. Weapon switch is a legit pain. Holding down one button to switch to a particular weapon isn't as intuitive as the other controls in the game. You're better off just pausing and switching items, which sorta breaks the immersion for the player. Also, as great as the Koroks and Korok puzzles are, did their have to be 900 of them. I'm all for trolling the player and subverting expectations for attempting 100% completion, but 900?!? That quickly veers between padding and repetitive. And the dragons can suck it. Only one item drop per appearance and god help you if you don’t want a scale. Again. Which leads to the upgrade system being underwhelming, due to its limited focus on armor and not weapons.

What makes me ignore these flaws: the game never forces you to do any thing mentioned before this (except the first four shrines and runes). You never have to find a Korok seed (but why the fuck wouldn't you?!?), you never have to expand your health and stamina, you don't need to cook a meal, get the Master Sword, ride a horse, shield surf, regulate your temperature, complete a shrine. The game is indifferent to your progress. But you will do any and all those things because Breath of the Wild is excellent at triggering your curiosity and intellect  and rewarding it, not rewarding your patience. Best of all, nearly everything you do fits into a mechanic the benefits the player, the quest aren't just a collection of repetitive checklists of escalating numbers nor is its badly tuned mechanics just thrown for the sake of variety. (Take that, open world games!)

This is not to say the previous Zeldas were awful. They didn't get tens and awards for nothing. You may even miss the linearity. They were great for what they are. Breath of the Wild is just better. Instead of telescoping design and handing you the fun stuff when you did the one thing it told you to do, it trusted the players this time around to make their own fun and build their own legend. Players will end up completing the same things but everyone will make their own path to completion. Breath of the Wild is worthy of the praise it has received and then some. It break ground by avoiding all the pot holes and wasted soil of previous Zeldas and open world games and brought  freshnesss that hasn't been felt in years. Truly a game that lives up to the word 'Legend'