#i ended up reusing that design as the medic

[darkwater-reservoir]

hey mutual , do you mind if i draw your original design of tucker ?

Yeah sure!!

[fmp2mt]

A game I tried to produced during my first FMP, Hells New Management was a roguelike that followed a bunny named David and an heir to hell called Sa10. The objective of the game was to find your way into the catacombs of hell and to kill a final boss that would change with the difficulty of the game, where you would retake the throne from sa10’s siblings who took claim of it first. 

This game is very personal to me during my two years of education as it was one of the first pieces of work I ever imagined for the course for my summer project before starting my first year.

I chose the roguelike genre back then due to my admiration, respect and love for games like Enter the Gungeon and Risk of Rain 2 that uphold a high level of quality and style that is beyond professional. 

I don’t know if I would have chosen this genre if I came up with the game today, as it became apparent that the roguelike had became very saturated and populated by the indie market, no doubt to how the genre could allow for the reuse of assets and enemies while also incorporating a sense of replay-ability into the main gameplay loop through RNG and challenge. Yet, even though the market has its fair share of games, I would still like to pursue Hells New Management in its original form if I did choose to use this game idea for my FMP.

I have come back to this idea due to my mind maps, where one of my words was retry, with this I looked into other times things had been attempted again, such as sequels and reboots where they were allowed to look back at an idea and try to develop it. By the end of it, I saw that retying an idea could allow for a improved game and product, alas, it could also lead to failure in the form of a lazy cash grab that wishes to add nothing or changes too little.

If I were to go back to this old project and retry trying to make it, I would like to see me add to it, story wise or art wise, to make a more comprehensive and interesting FMP.

To improve said game, I could use other research that I have done to add new mechanics or ideas. For example, after looking into Chinese dynasties, I was intrigued by the ideas that blood has value, with different kinds getting you different lives the main example of this being royalty, being borne into power such as the king and queens of places like England or the Emperors of old from the aforementioned China.

I then delved into other historical, medical and religious views of blood and how it has had such a large impact on the world in all aspects. Because of this, I wanted to integrate it into and FMP idea.

Blood and, in retrospect, bloodlines are already present in Hells New Management, with Sa10 having a right to Hells thrown due to his heritage to his now passed father Satan. There is also the mystery of David’s heritage, with his father being held in a mysterious darkness. 

I could try and develop these ideas of blood and relations further if I am to develop this as my FMP, perhaps I could put the story even more into the main objectives of the game, as I had always envisioned that dialogue would be plentiful to add a feature that is more subdued in its relatives, giving the game its own identity. I could also add new mechanics to the game, originally there were going to be upgrades that could be equipped before doing a run enhancing your abilities and skills, these could be changed to blood vials or sacks or other items related to blood, showing that blood has a hold of power in this world.

I also would like to come back to this old project due to its style, this project when for a look that is far more energetic and versatile, allowing more interesting designs and characters that have been slightly squandered in other works where I have gone for a more realistic and human output of artwork. By returning to this game, I could again create something more interesting and out there than if I went again for human characters who can only go so far before becoming an eyesore. However, by doing this I would be throwing away the chance to display my more complex and biological drawings that I have been producing, to remedy this I could merge the two styles together, keeping some characters more humanoid so I could still use it while still being able to add more varied enemies and characters.

If I was to used this game as my FMP, these are the guidelines that I would set myself:

Focus on the artwork and make it of high quality

Add more story and themes, such as adding character bios and sketches

Implement blood in some way, (items, story, etc)

Make sure, while similar and held to the originals philosophy, to add, change and develop previous ideas

These would be my necessary non-negotiables, a plan I would uphold myself to by the end of the project to see if I had come out the other end with what I would deem of high quality and presentation.

Overall, I think that returning to this project and retying to produce it would be fun while also showing how I have improved over the year following in its original conception, where I can see a physical change in my quality and style.

It would also be nice to have this as my final project, in a roundabout way, as it was technically what started me on this course.

I will think about if I want to choose this for my FMP, but it will be better to see other avenues that my FMP could take before going head first into producing and developing the ideas shown here. Nevertheless, This is so far my most compelling idea to manifest with multiple reasons for it.

Another idea I could pursue in my FMP is a new concept currently under the name Blood and Gears. The game would follow a robot of some which will be revealed to be a human who was assimilated into it. The story, inspired by games such as The Final Station (2016), will follow the protagonist who is trying to uncover their previous life and discover what set of events lead to their current state. This will lead to plot points relating to self, dreams and memories, as when I looked into these ideas due to my mind map they had caught my interest and I believe I could use them to further a story.

By the end, or close to it, the protagonist will discover that, while made of another person, their organs still beating inside them, that they are their own person who has no need or responsibility to live up to what they believed they were.

I thought that it would be more interesting to set the game in an actual pretty nice vista, as usually, when such ideas are brought up it inspires one to think of a post apocalyptic hellscape full of monsters and distress, but i think it would be far more compelling and frightening if everything was fine, perhaps not perfect, but alive like our own world. 

It would add a sense of unease and suspicion as the player wonders if their character is an outlier or if something is hidden beneath the surface.

I would like to incorporate memories and dreams into the game, as stated before, and by making our character a robot, (or a cyborg) I could be able to manifest them in game as something physical rather than leaving it as having your character going to sleep. I want to make the dreams and memories physical due to it, A, being far more interesting and unique and, B, it can be turned into a mechanic in game rather than something scripted like a cutscene. I wish to tap into the energy that Bungie uses in their own mechanics, with their own game’s having materialised such foreign and abstract ideas into a physical medium for play.

One way dream could be added to gameplay could be that you have to physical scrounge for them, while organic you are still comprised of metallic and robotic components that could allow reintegration of previous memories, this could also be used in puzzles, such as being able to look into the ‘memories’ of Cameras, seeing previous opponents movements allowing you to plan ahead or being able to look into someone else's past to find clues for puzzles or be able to alter it to forget you or change details.

This could lead to immersive sim elements, where you are set objectives but can get to them through multiple means. One idea that comes to mind is getting into a building, sadly, you find out you can’t get in without a reservation. You could now break in with force, causing guard to attack you, or you could sneak in when they are not looking or break in a back window and disguise yourself as staff, or, better yet, you could lure a guard to the side and knock them out, playing a game in their head to connect your name and appearance to an already booked reservation, letting you walk straight in with no hassle.

Of course, these Ideas would be hard to implement, especially by me, so I'd rather stick to the art and conceptual nature of them, showing how they could hypothetically work through illustrations and sketches.

And this is one of many ways you could manifest abstract ideas into gameplay in interesting ways, and if it was ever to be picked up and actually used by a company with talent and imagination that they would be able to make a stellar or at least interesting game from this.

Art wise, I would be inspired by the style of perhaps Art Deco, creating a futuristic landscape similar in memory of Prey (2017) where time has dilated and has changed modern aesthetics, or I could be linked to the works of H.R. Giger, or at least loosely, to make the robotic characters still feel organic but not too far to make them feel like actual flesh as with most of his work where they walk that very fine line.

I would also perhaps like to look at game environmental artists such as those at Digital Extremes, who's Corpus tile set also holds a futuristic but more robotic feel.

If I was to choose this idea to express into a FMP, I would like the following to be completed by the end of the project, that being:

Conceptual art of the main character in multiple forms (Damage / Health)

A piece showing the city location where the majority of the game would be set

Sketches or illustrations showing in game mechanics and abilities

A basic plotline, including locations and beats, of where the game would go with character bios

These would be my non-negotiables, and i think with the time I have to invest that this is an acceptable task to set for myself. While they might seem small, I’ll invest a large amount of time in bolstering the amount of work, so it won't be minimal. Other ideas might be added to these later on when the art and ideas of what they game could be converge later in the projects lifetime.

Overall, I think this idea is clever, interesting and diverse enough to create an interesting and verified FMP for me to create, allowing me to perform at my best while also having creative freedom flexible time to make a product. I liked how i implemented the basic ideas that I thought of in interesting ways and I wouldn't mind having this as my FMP.

Still, I would still like to look into other ideas to express more of my views and creativity that is still available to me so I can make sure that the idea I’m picking for myself is the best choice to do, because later i could start regretting my decisions and wish to restart, what could waste valuable time.

Lightning Dreamer is another idea that I want to see if I could retry during this FMP similar to Hells New Management. This was not an FMP, but another project that I tried to invision, sadly it went off track and divulged into a completely different idea, but if I were to consider trying it again for a FMP, I would follow my original vision for the project.

The game, set without any dialogue other than minor grumbles, would follow a recently escaped convict from a camp. You would try escaping from your captors for good by finding refuge in another country, unlucky for you, your escape, including some fellow convicts looking for freedom, has triggered a physical, and cruel, response from your captors who are patrolling the streets in search of you. 

You would merge with another group of escapees where side characters would be established before disaster strikes, only a few reman, and as you troge through more and more will fall, till only you and one other stand, only for your character to die and for you to take over your accompanying member just as they reach their freedom.

At this point, the game would have shown its presentation, being similar to Inside (2017), with a dynamic camera that moves to interesting locations to set the scene, being used also to induce emotions and feelings from the players. In this finale, we would be focused directly on the final survivor on their run out of the city, just for the camera to start slowly panning out, step by step revealing the true scale of what you have just achieved as you see the gargantuan wall of the city you escape come into view as it stands tall above you.

I would want multiple moments like this in game, showing the true gravitas of the situation, and because of other games using similar ideas, I know it's possible to implement, even if it would be hard overall to sequence everything together, it would be worth it by the end.

The main connection this game would have with my mind maps would be blood, as I wanted to look into the discrimination of familial relations while also looking into the Chinese, as viewed with the Chinese dynasties research. 

It might be unknown to some, but, Assumedly, China has been able to get away with atrocities in the modern day without any superpower of the world being able to stop them, one such atrocity that follows the footsteps of the Nazis and other camps of similar vein found in other areas, even America, is their, “Re-education Camps.” 

Rounding up Muslim ethnic groups, including the Uyghur population, China has been sorting them into camps where supposed shoot to kill policies are in place, allowing them to commit cultural and ethnic genocide against the innocent. Of course, China denounces these reports, citing a reduced presence of terrorism in the Xinjiang region and the prosperity it has been brought. And that’s not it, there are even more claims, such as conducting forced labour, with an assumed amount of 500,000 being used.

Other crimes follow:

Several countries, including the US, UK, Canada and the Netherlands, have accused China of committing genocide - defined by international convention as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

The declarations follow reports that, as well as interning Uyghurs in camps, China has been forcibly mass sterilising Uyghur women to suppress the population, separating children from their families, and attempting to break the cultural traditions of the group.

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has said China is committing "genocide and crimes against humanity".

The UK parliament declared in April 2021 that China was committing a genocide in Xinjiang.

A UN human rights committee in 2018 said it had credible reports that China was holding up to a million people in "counter-extremism centres" in Xinjiang.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute found evidence in 2020 of more than 380 of these "re-education camps" in Xinjiang, an increase of 40% on previous estimates.

Analysis of data contained in the latest police documents, called the Xinjiang Police Files, showed that almost 23,000 residents - or more than 12% of the adult population of one county - were in a camp or prison in the years 2017 and 2018. If applied to Xinjiang as a whole, the figures would mean the detention of more than 1.2 million Uyghur and other Turkic minority adults.

I wanted to make this game originally to be a representation of the atrocities and godawful treatment of their own people and those who have called china their home. Of course, this is not to blame the civilians of the country who have done nothing wrong, but to look into the terrible actions the Chinese Communist party has ensured have gone through. Other aspects of the game, such as the finale is based more on North Korea and the Demilitarized Zone in between it and South Korea which was chosen due to China's close ties to them, helping supply them.

Sadly, I don't think I will be able to make this game as I am too uneducated and naïve on the subject I want to tell. I know it’s a story that needs telling, but I fear that I will be unable to do it justice and will instead create a terrible product trying to tell a story to big for itself. This would be a problem that I can’t solve, as my subpar literature and creative writing skills are far too young to curate anything worthwhile.

Yet, if I were to produce this as my FMP, I would desire:

Pieces based on major events that would be found in game, (such as the finale)

Artwork separating the freedom seekers as the cities guard

A comprehensive narrative, perhaps including storyboards depicting scenes

Overall, I don't have high hopes that this product will be mad, as I know, I’m too uneducated on this sensitive and complex narrative that I have such little grasp over that any story I try and produce, even if it is set in a fictional city grasping basic philosophies from China, I would still feel unprepared and too unskilled to produce it to the level needed for the topic at hand. Compared to my other ideas, this is the least likely to be developed any further.

[spacecapart]

Continuing with posting all the art I’ve forgotten to put on here over the last few months, here’s some sketches of one of my original characters! Or rather, two different AU versions of the same character. 

Dr Sammarion Harnendil, usually known as Sam, is my half-elf life cleric DnD character, and at the left on the bottom there is a slight redesign I did of his usual outfit which leans more into the doctor vibes than the chainmail-wearing cleric look I drew for the version of him I played in a campaign for about a year. But that campaign ended, and I was still fond enough of Sam to want to do something more with him, so I ended up finding a home for him in a science fantasy setting I’m messing around with. And that’s how the designs on the right came about!

Science fantasy Sam is fully human, which means he’s only got regular human big ears rather than really conspicuous pointy ones, and his name this time around is Dr Sam Hargrave. He’s a doctor on a military base in the frozen north, a wall fort that keeps back the monsters that spawn within the bounds of the massive energy field enveloping the north pole of his world. I’ve already got a general character who that world was built around (more on her soon!), and it was fun taking elements of her uniform and combining it with Sam’s DnD design to come up with a medical uniform for him.

I’m a big proponent of reusing the same OCs in different projects if you feel like it, so it’s fun having a couple of versions of Sam to play around with!

[clarenecessities]

As my followers may have picked up from my long, spiraling rants, I’ve undertaken a new research project, courtesy of the death grip She-Ra has on my brain. And guess what? It’s finally at Disseminate Information Stage! So I’m going to lay out all of the gods, demigods, and godbeasts of the Masters of the Universe. With sources!

This table is more of a cheat sheet. We’re gonna tackle this god by god, with a section on Actual Lore & a meta section to help you decide how valid you think they are, because frankly some canons are more canon than others.

Asklepia, Benevolent Snake Goddess

Lore: Asklepia is one of two snake goddesses, the benevolent twin sister of Serpentia. We know very little about her abilities, but the Snake Clan (a clan of human warriors) were said to worship her, and they were famed for their architecture and healing. She had the ability to curse and deform people--to what extent is uncertain, but she’s known to have condemned a fallen priest named Ka, whose disfigured likeness now adorns Snake Mountain.

Behind the Scenes: First appearing in the 1987 comic “Il Nero Cristallo Del Potere“, Asklepia remained nameless for over 30 years, until Masters of the Universe Classics (MOTUC) released a few choice bios. For the unfamiliar, MOTUC seeks to reconcile the often contradictory canons into one overarching narrative, which is great in theory, but in practice is kind of like putting ice cream on a hot dog. And calling it a Chilly Dog ® as if that makes it taste better. But I digress. In 2019 they released a bio for the Staff of Ka which finally put a name to the less-evil Snake Goddess, in an obvious nod to Asclepius and the asklepian (that staff+snake icon people put on medical stuff).

Sharella, the Green Goddess and/or “Avatar” of Asklepia

Lore: Contradictory

Long Version: Okay I’ve put avatar in quotes because it is... contentious. Basically, and you’ll see here why I felt the need to make this post instead of relying blindly on the wikis, Sharella was introduced (in the ‘87 licensing guide) as a tribal leader who had joint custody of Gray, the original name of He-Ro’s alter ego, while he was growing up. This was further developed by Emiliano Santalucia’s concept work, wherein she was the leader of the Green Tiger Tribe (GTT) specifically. While the comic concept was not run through licensing & is thus not “canon”, the idea of her leading the GTT persisted. This teeny tiny image of her from Tytus and Megator’s 1987 Italian box art was all we had until 2008, when one of He-Man’s accessories described her as the “warrior woman ally” of Queen Veena, “who had been changed into the immortal green-skinned avatar of the Goddess Asklepia”. In 2009, MOTUC released a figure for The Goddess, apparently forgetting they’d done that shit the year before because the packaging did say “K’yrulla” was her real name. They had to cover it up with a sticker. 

So who’s The Goddess? Way back in the days before Mattel solidified any of the lore around MOTU, there were mini-comics released with the toys. Initially, the Goddess served a similar function to the Sorceress in the cartoon, and was in fact sometimes called the Sorceress. She facilitated He-Man’s transformations, gave him missions, was generally magical and mysterious, etc. If you know who the Sorceress is, and you can picture Teela, but green? That’s about it.

Back to Sharella, though. The Third Ultimate Battleground rolled around in 2015, and for the first time since some packaging in the 80s, we saw Sharella in action! She was shot through the heart with a poison arrow. Yeah. But don’t worry, she received a blood transfusion from Moss Man (who we’ll get to later), and was transformed into the Green Goddess! She’s immortal now. How Asklepia figures in here is sort of unclear, which is weird since this is still part of the MOTUC line, but whatever. Whatever! Queen Grayskull (the aforementioned Veena) received a bio in 2015 as well, which described Sharella as her apprentice who became “The Goddess”.

Horokoth, Aspect of the Mother Goddess

Lore: DC went a little batshit (pun intended) with the lore for the Eternity War. Here the Goddess is three combined aspects, “Serpos” (Serpentia) for the Snake Men, Zoar for the human “Eternians”, and a third, invented deity called Horokoth, who represents the Horde. Horokoth is “the coming destroyer. The darkness at the end of days.” and is represented by a bat.

Behind the Scenes: That last link has a clearer picture of her, it just didn’t crop well. Also, I confess I couldn’t bring myself to read Eternity War. As thrilling as the prospect of a cohesive narrative is, if I wanted to see Adora slit her brother’s throat there’s the edgier side of deviantArt to peruse. Therefore I know little of Horokoth outside of a few still images of Hordak. The bat was almost certainly selected for the Horde’s vespertilian emblem.

Hordeous, God-Beast of Horokoth

Lore: A “primordial”, bat-like godbeast of Horokoth, created in response to the god Saz’s feline races. Their face was “forever infused“ on the surface of Horde World by Horde Lord (Hordak and Horde Prime’s father in the MOTUC canon) to grant their family power and immortality.

Behind the Scenes: Yes they’ve used some words wrong, but they’ve got the spirit, right? Hordeous was (allegedly, this is secondhand) an invention of the MOTUC crew in answer to Horokoth. Now, the Horde Supreme bio predates Horokoth’s introduction by about 3 years, but obviously the comics were in production already. There’s an undated sketch of Horokoth Hordak from an undated interview (thanks for nothing you useless website) but in that same gallery there’s an orko sketch labeled 2012 so. We’re good right? That makes sense, timeline-wise. Anyway the comics slam dunked Horde Prime out of existence and combined him with Horde Lord so it’s contradictory anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Serpentia, Malevolent Snake Goddess

Lore: The evil counterpart of Asklepia, Serpentia is the goddess of the Snake Men. The priest Ka of the Snake Clan forsook Asklepia in her favor, destroying Asklepia’s sacred orb and stealing the Serpent Ring (an artefact capable of transforming humans into Snake Men) from the Ophidian Spire with King Hsss. In DC’s triune interpretation of the Goddess, Serpentia (here ‘Serpos’) is blood, passion, and desire. A primal and primordial force appearing to the Snake Men in their own image.

Behind the Scenes: Okay yes I’ve reused the Asklepia pic but in my defense they are twins and this is the easiest one to crop. So here’s the thing about Serpentia: we only got a name for her in 2019. We knew there was a snake goddess, and she was pretty evil, or at least hostile towards mammalian life (see: the source of the pic I chose for her). Where Asklepia references the asklepian, ‘Serpentia’ is a much more heavy-handed snake reference, even though Anguis was right there. Those Masters Mondays came through for us, though, with the shield and staff of Ka, Ssssylph, and of course MOTUC’s Dark Despot Skeletor, which is. something. Though only recently named, Serpentia has been a shadow over Eternia since the Snake Men’s introduction in 1985 (or, depending on how much of the presented backstory you accept, even sooner in the form of Skeletor’s lair, Snake Mountain).

Serpos/Sarcedon, God-Beast of Snake Mountain

Lore: Contradictory, but the gist of it is he’s a very large snake with elemental magic and a grudge, that was turned to stone and became Snake Mountain.

Long Version: Snake Mountain was conceived of towards the end of 1982, but wasn’t revealed to the public until September of 1983, with the debut of the Filmation cartoon. For another year, the snake coiled around its summit was simply a carving, its mouth hollowed out for Skeletor to stand in and loom. But in 1984 the Snake Mountain toy was released, completely discarding the Filmation design in favor of the hewn face of the figure we now call Ka. Instead of a snake carving winding its way up the peak, the Mattel toy featured a ‘striking serpent’, alive and attached to the mountain itself. From there, it was an easy leap to make to ‘this carving comes alive’. So easy, in fact, that they did it twice!

First attempted in 1985 in the newspaper storyline “Vengeance of the Viper King”, the snake was here called Sarcedon, the World Destroyer. At the dawn of time, he was said to crush Eternia within his deadly coils. He burrowed deep into the ground, causing fearsome storms that nearly destroyed the planet. Only a fearless hero (implied to be He-Ro) could defeat and imprison Sarcedon. Using a macguffin called a Mirror of History, He-Man forced Sarcedon to behold his own reflection in a reference to the Medusa myth that kind of missed the point of it being reflective. Sarcedon was sent back in time, Snake Mountain was restored, the good guys win, blah blah blah.

That was the last of it until the MYP cartoon in 2004. Serpos as a name was actually first invoked by Mer-Man in a 1982 minicomic, but like it probably wasn’t about the snake. Anyway in the MYP cartoon the Snake Men get this thing called the Medallion of Serpos that lets them un-petrify the snake around Snake Mountain, grow two more heads, and unleash his godly wrath. He breathes fire, trashes Eternos, beats up He-Man, then turns his attention on Castle Grayskull to consume the Orb of Power (containing the strength and wisdom of the Elders, who had first trapped him in stone). He-Man cuts off Serpos’s extra heads with a sword upgrade, the Elders are somehow magically restored to life, and they re-petrify him. Snake Mountain is restored, the good guys win, blah blah blah.

Zoar, the Fighting Falcon

Lore: Contradictory, but it sure is a bird!

Long Version: While Sharella’s backstory is fraught because of the comics couldn’t decide what they wanted her to be, Zoar was similarly tangled up by the toyline. Initially male, he went through several color schemes, some prettier than others. Though there was a vague association with the Sorceress before the cartoon (recall that pre-Filmation, the Sorceress was just the Goddess), Filmation made them literally inseperable by designating Zoar as the Sorceress’s falcon form, to which she was confined when leaving Castle Grayskull.

Some of the comics and Golden books showed Zoar as being flipping enormous & ridden into battle as a steed by Teela and Man-at-Arms. Pre-Filmation, Zoar was always referred to as male, but post-Filmation, always female, as an incarnation of the Sorceress.

The Eternity Wars comics describe Zoar as the third aspect of the Goddess, the ‘Great Preserver’ whose light would shine through the universe for eternity. They pull off a sort of tripartite priestess thing where it’s Serpos/Zoar/Horokoth represented by Teela-Na (the Sorceress)/Teela/Evil-Lyn.

MOTUC, of course, had to reconcile all of these contradictory canons. How’d they do it? “In the folklore of Eternia, the golden falcon symbolized the godhead Zoar, a powerful deity of Preternia. As a god, Zoar could appear in both male and female guises and while the blue-tipped female falcon was associated with the Sorceress of Grayskull, the golden falcon represented Zoar's masculine nature.” So Zoar is genderfluid now, and the Sorceress is merely borrowing their form when transforming into a falcon. This bio also established that Zoar had anointed the first Sorceress, Veena (Queen Grayskull), which explains why she has wings for no apparent reason.

Also it’s not offically MOTUC but the scultors of the line, Four Horsemen, made a single anthro Zoar for Power-Con 2013. In case you need that for some reason.

Glorybird, Emissary of Zoar

Lore: Many millennia ago, there were three siblings, who were very poor and mistreated by their stepmother, but had hearts filled with kindness and love. Zoar, recognizing their resilience and desire to help people, sent an emissary named Glorybird. Glorybird bestowed upon each sibling a divine gift, but as they used their new powers to fight for good, their stepmother revealed herself to be a Celestial Witch & attempted to sacrifice them to Zoar’s “greatest enemy”, Horokoth.  

Backstory: Okay, so the Star Sisters (and Glorybird) were in exactly one episode of She-Ra, primarily to set them up as new toy designs. While prototypes were made for these, the figures weren’t actually produced until MOTUC released figures for them in 2012. Though they were referenced in Princess Prom, and we saw a brief cameo in a background, Glorybird was absent until the introduction of the Star Siblings in Season Five.

That’s right! This bird is a god, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Saz, God of All Felines

Lore: One of the “Gods of the Multiverse” (he is the only member named explicitly), Saz was a blue-furred, feline deity responsible for the creation of all cats, humanoid or otherwise. He transformed himself into an enormous cat-beast to defeat Serpos and Hordeous, whose progenitors created them in envy of his children. Though Serpos was defeated, Hordeous escaped into the cosmos, and Saz himself vanished mysteriously.

Behind the Scenes: “By the whiskers of Saz!” is a fun pseudo-swear made by various cat races throughout MOTU, first in He-Man’s “The Cat and the Spider” and later in She-Ra’s “Magicats”. That was the only real mention of him until... okay, so MOTUC bios aren’t always attached to the product. Starting in 2018, they did this thing called Masters Mondays where they put unposted bios on the org forums. So while we’ve had the sword since 2010, we didn’t get the background on it until March of 2020. And then a couple weeks later, the Cat Mask of Catra bio referred to him as a “mystical being” instead of a god, but the mask was from 2011 so. He may not have been a god yet. It really depends on when the bios were actually written.

Saz wielded a blade probably best described as a falchion, whose quillon & langet formed a vaguely triangular shape around a deep red gem. I want to be clear that while it looks totally rad, this sword would be very impractical and have poor structural integrity were it not made by a literal god. Do not make swords like this. Also it’s almost certainly riffing on the Sword of Omens from Thundercats (affectionate).

Sabe-Or, Son of Saz

Lore: A green-furred, orange-striped paladin, Sabe-Or is one of the only named Ancients. He inherited his father’s blade upon Saz’s mysterious disappearance, and lived for centuries more. Upon his death, he transferred his “heroic essence” into a group of Eternian tigers, forever transforming them into the Green Tiger Tribe, whence both Granger (steed of King Grayskull), and Cringer, steed of Prince Adam.

Behind the Scenes: So “Battle Cat Man” is a concept that’s existed since they decided to make their hero ride a wicked tiger into battle. If you show a kid a superhero, and a supertiger, apparently the natural inclination of most children in the 80s was to combine the two. There are so many custom action figures. So, so many. Sabe-Or is visually a clear reference to this concept, and canonically seems to be the closest we’re going to get outside of the Thundercats crossover, unless you count Cowarros from 4H’s Mythic Legions line (I do, because it means Purrrplor is also canon and I fucking love calling him that).

Moss Man, Ancient Eternian Nature God

Lore: An ally of King Grayskull, Moss Man was something of an Eternian cryptid in the centuries leading up to He-Man Times. He has control over all plant life, the ability to meld with plants, and apparently can imbue sentience to said plants.

Behind the Scenes: Moss Man wasn’t featured in many episodes, because he’s a little... incredibly over-powered. He’s literally Bigfoot from 5000 years ago with magic powers. And like, since I don’t think the writers appreciate how long 5000 years is, you know what happened 5000 years ago? Stonehenge. This bitch is Stonehenge-old. But sure, you can trace a direct line of descent from his contemporary. smh. Anyway according to MOTUC his real name is Kreann’Ot N’Norosh so make of that what you will. Also his toys were pine-scented. I just love that.

Evil Seed, Rebellious Creation of Moss Man

Lore: Created by Moss Man to help fight in the Great Wars, Evil Seed betrayed his master and turned to evil (who could have foreseen this...), finding joy in corrupting all forms of plant life for his own amusement. Moss Man imprisoned him in enchanted chains, keeping him restrained for many millennia.

Behind the Scenes: According to MOTUC, his real name is Sero Malustro, clumsy New Latin for “(to) plant evil-burnt“. Why his name is New Latin and Moss Man’s is... whatever that is, I have no idea. As you can see from the image I included, he originally had an artichoke head, which was upgraded for the Mike Young Productions (MYP) cartoon. Personally I think the artichoke rules.

Volcana, the Fire Goddess

Lore: Canonically, she’s a fire goddess, and the mother of the Volcano Magus. Together, they are a rising force that seeks to conquer Etheria in the wake of Hordak’s defeat.

Backstory: Volcana has taken a long a twisted journey, but was first revealed to fans at Power-Con 2016 in a panel revealing previously unseen concepts and characters. After the first wave of She-Ra toys, a second wave was planned with a snow focus, to bring more attention the Filmation-neglected Frosta. This began with the introduction of a fire villain, an “evil lady that glows with heat” who would attempt to melt Castle Chill. That concept actually refers to a character named Amber (not Ember, as one might assume) who was reworked into a benevolent counterpart, Volcana’s twin sister.

Volcana was later fleshed out to be a Fire Goddess with flame-red hair, x-ray vision, and arms sculpted with flames. Her cape flew up with flame detail that rose up to control the volcano (of Volcanica, a proposed toyset that seems to have been reworked into the Crystal Falls). She was emphasized by Mattel to not start fires, which, honestly, is probably why they scrapped the character. He-Man couldn’t use his sword as a sword; a woman made of fire was basically doomed.

Now, though, we’re several decades in and lines made for collecters that are largely in their 30s and 40s can say whatever they want! So she’s canon, even if Amber isn’t. Yes there’s only one mention of her. Amber technically was mentioned in an unproduced episode titled “Amber Waves of Flame”, but as it was unproduced, it’s noncanonical.

Volcano Magus, Sinister Son of Volcana

Lore: Living within a dormant volcano, the Volcano Magus of the German audio plays was the source of most of Catra’s power and all of her evil intent. He supplied her with magic for spells and schemes with which to assail the Crystal Castle, but neither she nor Clawdeen were aware of the dark influence he held over them.

In the MOTUC canon, he’s specified as the son of Volcana, a demigod from the “Region of Volcanoes” who craved the nature magic of the Whispering Woods. When he learned the Twiggets were inextricably linked to that magic, he used his powers to petrify the former Rebels (this was after the Horde's defeat) and kidnap three Twiggets to drain the magic from their souls. Twiggets, for the uninitiated, are like purple tree-elf things. According to MOTUC, Razz is a Twigget, though the ‘real’ name they assigned her doesn’t fit their naming convention. She is purple, I guess.

Kowl, who avoided petrification, read Razz's spellbooks to find a way to save his friends, and learned of an Entrapment Gem that she hid in a shoe, for some reason. He confronted the Volcano Magus, spoke in the ancient tongue of the First Ones, and sucked him into the Gem.

Backstory: Admittedly this stuff is second hand, as I don’t speak German & they only have transcriptions/translations for the He-Man tapes anyway, but if anybody can find me an audio file I will do my best to verify. The MOTUC stuff at least I can confirm 100% because it’s from 2019 & I do speak English, for better or worse.

Oak, the Jackal God

Lore: Oak was the terrible Jackal God worshiped by the denizens of Zhar, an ancient civilization that once existed in a remote, forested region of Eternia. Long ago, Oak was imprisoned within a statue which could be found within the Temple of the Jackal. When Skeletor removed the statue from the temple, Oak broke free of the enchantment which imprisoned him and wreaked havoc on Eternia. Although the Jackal God was immensely powerful, he could be weakened by the elements of nature and was ultimately foiled by a rainstorm conjured by the combined powers of He-Man's sword and the magic of the temple's guardian priest.

Backstory: I have lifted this from a He-Man guide word for word as I cannot for the life of me find a copy of the Brazilian Editora Abril comic he came from, O Templo Do Chacal (1986). The description is like, suspiciously similar to the plot of the He-Man episode The Cat and the Spider, except the Grimalkin was never described as a god. The rest of it--statue, Skeletor, storm defeat--plays out almost the same. True pity I can’t find the original source, but I do trust this guidebook. You may be interested in Ceres from the UK comics--another dog-slash-statue who frankly might as well be a god himself, but as he’s not called one in canon he’s not going on the list.

The Bitter Rose Goddess

Lore: As Man-at-Arms told the legend, “Every day, a woman climbed Rose Mountain to look for her husband to return from the war. Alas, he never came back. Her tears poured from her cheek and entered the ground. One day she disappeared, but where she stood was a single, solitary rose. It’s the only thing that grows on Rose Mountain.”

The Insect People, who lived at the base of Rose Mountain, believed that the Bitter Rose is all that held the mountain together (and when it was picked, they were proved right). After the flower was restored, it transformed into the Bitter Rose Goddess herself, who explained that she had been a prisoner of her love's sorrow, so bitter that she refused to allow anything else to grow on Rose Mountain. She blessed the surrounding area, blanketing the jagged peaks with roses, and disappeared.

Backstory: She’s kind of... barely a god. She showed up in one episode and no other media & has objectively less power than like, every single demon they ever brought in. I almost didn’t put her on this list.

Mask-Ra, Goddess of Masks

Lore: A goddess who created the magical Masks of Power.

Backstory: Mask-Ra was first mentioned in 2019 and like, look, I’m gonna be real. I don’t respect her. She’s an invention of MOTUC (unless they were drawing on this concept art of Maska-Ra, which I doubt bc he was a Man-E-Faces precursor) and they retconned her into having created Catra’s mask, which is kind of redundant given the entire episode Magicats. This mask did not need two bios. There are no other mentions of her in any canon.

Potential other Masks of Power: The Deemos and Tyrella masks from the He-Man episode “Masks of Power”, lizard and canine masks from the mini-comic “Masks of Power”, Lord Masque’s Demon Mask from the He-Man episode “House of Shokoti, Part 1″, and whatever the hell Red Shadow has going on.

Procrustus, Giant Guardian of Magic

Lore: During the creation of the various dimensions (5 in MOTUC canon but demonstratably higher everywhere else), the gods installed the four-armed, immortal giant Procrustus to guard their secrets at the heart of Eternia. There lay the Starseed, from which the entire dimension was created. It still held immeasurable power, and could be used to conquer entire universes. Hordak, in an attempt to access the Starseed, cracked Eternia in two with the Spell of Separation. Though he was (mostly) thwarted, from then on Procrustus was forced to hold the two halves of Eternia together from within, lest the planet break apart and the Starseed be exposed.

Backstory: First appearing in the mini-comic “The Magic Stealer!”, Procrustus is a lot more tangible than most gods. We know where he is, at all times, and he seems confined to one size. His powers appear to be largely physical, as he had to burrow out of the ground to investigate in the mini-comic instead of teleporting or like, magicking the dirt away. This was his only appearance until MOTUC released a figure for him in 2012. He also showed up in the Subternia map the next year, holding Eternia together.

Standor, Cosmic Creator of Power

Lore: “Before time began, the great Gods of the multiverse convened in the Hall of Power to create all that was and all that will ever be. Head architect of this great task was Standor. A cosmic being of unlimited imagination, Standor helped lead his fellow deities by fueling their energies with raw creative force.”

Backstory: Released for Comikaze 2013 to celebrate the partnership of Mattel and Pow! Entertainment, Standor is literally just Stan Lee But a God. The prototype was called Standar--idk why they changed it, but I think it’s because it’s too easy to confuse with “Standard”. They made a bio for his sunglasses. I don’t want to talk about it.

Bash-Or, Slain Mystic God-Beast

Lore: Very little is known of Bash-Or, the Ram. His last remnant was sealed within the Ram Stone by the ancient sorceror kings of Zalesia, imbuing it with his divine power to overcome any barrier, magical or otherwise.

Backstory: Bash-Or was revealed in the bio for the Ram Stone, September of 2020, but his spirit (previously referred to as ‘the Spirit of the Ram Stone’) was twice utilized by Skeletor in the MYP cartoon, to great effect, before the stone was destroyed.

[whitleyschn33]

I like Klein I don't want to hate Klein but my god will his do-it-all character really mess with my enjoyment of the show and the Schnee screentime

I’m assuming this coming off of the sneak peek clip suggesting that he’s going to be able to do some techy stuff to help Penny, or even just him having enough of a medical background to be considered a doctor.

While I would agree that it’s a bit convenient for him to have that much medical expertise, that is not something that I have too much issue with. I think it makes some sense for Jacques to hire a butler with some medical knowledge so members of the family (such as his alcoholic wife or his daughters training to become huntresses) can be treated for injuries or other medical issues so they don’t have to head to a doctor or hospital every time Willow nearly chokes on her own vomit, increasing the chances of scandal erupting. Hell, Klein could have been hired because of his medical expertise. I’d also much rather have them reuse Klein than call in a completely new “family doctor” character and adding in a “can we trust this person?” question to the already very crowded narrative of the plot. Seeing Klein smile and praise Whitley as well, giving him an almost fatherly pat on the shoulder, was a really nice moment for me since we know so little about the two’s relationship. At the tail end of V4, he seemed annoyed and dismissive of Whitley, so him being so kind and warm when we do see them interact, and the fact Whitley was able to contact him at all, warms my heart more than the Weiss/Whitley hug. 

The tech stuff, though - that is annoying. Penny is ultra-advanced robotics combined with never-before-seen soul manipulation - to even begin to understand what to do with her would require a very robust knowledge of robotics and engineering, and if Klein’s already got a medical background, it’s more and more unlikely he’d have the time to also become well-versed in advanced robotics. I think the reason CRWBY would choose to do this is that we do need a competent adult figure here, and with those options being so few and far between because RWBY’s alienated nearly all of them, cramming the role into Klein seems the most convenient - until you realize him being a master of all trades seems way too deus ex machina. (And I just had the thought, but I could see CRWBY doing it - so I’m praying to God they don’t have each of Klein’s “personalities” be an expert in different things. Doc personality being a doctor, I could see them -)

At this point, I’d rather have Ruby and Whitley work together to try and repair Penny. Ruby is supposed to be a weapons geek, going completely overboard with designing Crescent Rose and still forging it herself, and was hanging around Polendina’s lab when Penny was framed - I could buy her having some knowledge of some of the mechanics that would go into making Penny. Not any of the coding or circuitry, but some basic repairs to her body. Circuitry and coding could be where Whitley comes in - he’s such a black box that revealing he spends his free time tinkering with computers/scrolls and exploring the SDC-Military R/D servers is totally plausible. I’m not saying make him a mini-Watts, but you could give him enough skills that he can poke at a few pieces here and there to bring Penny back online to help repair herself or re-establish a link to Pierto. 

Personally, I’m going to do my best to enjoy Klein as a small bright spark in the Schneeblings life, and try to roll with the plot conveniences that CRWBY may put into him to get themselves out of the corners they write themselves into, but it’s always okay to not like something. Hopefully with WIllow showing up in that clip, we’re in for some great Schnee drama in the second half of this volume.

[weirdponytail]

How modern is everything in MIC? Like what technology do they have? Plus, what does dragon armor look like in this universe, I’m really curious, lol?

Haha, once again that’s a sort of difficult question that needs to be answered!! Buckle in, folks. Sorry the post got so damn long!

Modern Inheritance Cycle is a bit of a misnomer, really. Technology varies pretty widely, so I can’t point to a chunk of our history and say ‘iz like that!’ for MIC. I’ll do my best to give a general overview.

Big things are that fossil fuel engines do not exist. Planes, automobiles, etc, do not and will not exist in MIC. Horses and walking are still the main travel methods. Both swords and guns are used. In the Broddring Empire, the most technologically advanced computers are those box computers from the late 90s early 2000s. Somehow, MP3 players exist, but not the sleek ones we know now (Eragon has one that he keeps on his person at all times). There is some difference between the level of computer tech humans have when looking at the Empire and Surda. Elves and dwarves have their own levels of tech that are more advanced. Radios are a thing, but for communication and entertainment/news, and again differ somewhat between races. 

Also, big note that my friend Cor brought to my attention: My dumbass completely forgot about the Urgals and figuring out their levels of tech. It’s low, mostly due to combat focused and rather secluded (iirc) lifestyles. 

Alright, let’s get down to specifics.

Handheld Weapons: While guns are a thing (modern, right here, right now guns), they haven’t taken over swords and other bladed weapons completely. Heck, swords are still a major part of the series! Close combat is done with swords, while guns are usually pistols, rifles, etc, used mid to long range. Things like AKs and very large magazine automatics aren’t very common, but burst fire and semi auto are okay. Examples: Arya and Brom both carry pistols and occasionally a long gun or combat rifle of some sort, while Murtagh has a specialized rifle he uses. Fäolin was a trained sniper. It’s sort of up in the air really. I add them when I feel like it. 

Large Weapons: As mentioned in my MIC Dwarves post (LINKED), dwarves developed some artillery type weapons and small tanks (WW2 levels at the highest), run on magic energy. This energy is usually stored in mid to low quality minerals and crystals and can be replenished either via putting your life energy into it, or (and this is something new, I’m not sure if it’s going to stay or not) channeling the resulting energy release from basic exothermic chemical reactions into the crystals, though this is only a thing that dwarves know how to do and they are NOT sharing that information.

Armor: Oddly enough, Kevlar isn’t really prevalent. There’s still enough of a focus on hand to hand sword fighting that there’s mixes of other materials that could deflect sword blows with materials that can dissipate the impact of projectiles. Dwarves are the best to look to for their lightweight metal alloys for this purpose, and Saphira’s armor is the pinnacle of that technological achievement. I’m rusty (HA!) on my metallurgy and aramid fiber applications info, so you’ve sparked my urge to do some research. I’ve not figured out a good dragon armor design yet, but when I do I’ll definitely draw some up!

Oh, more armor! Elves have perfected spidersilk armor, and when properly mixed with metals or aramid weaves it creates fantastically resistant cloth and plating. Arya’s jacket, mentioned plenty of times in MIC stories, is made of this spidersilk cloth mixture. It’s stopped bullets before, and is pretty resistant to cutting from nearly everything but a Rider’s sword or other crazy rule breaking/bending magic. Arya’s armor in my original ‘The Soldier’ drawing is also spidersilk, though it’s more spidersilk alloy plate. If you see anything that’s a mottled texture, mottled blue or blue grey in my MIC art, that’s had spidersilk added to it. Elvish armor (and even some weapons) relies on it heavily. 

Elves tend to have the ‘highest’ level of tech, but it’s mostly due to an abundance of magic, time, and knowledge in other fields that lead to strange new inventions. They don’t develop it often, as it’s mostly a fleeting hobby, but when they do implement it with their magic it can be pretty dang cool. Glenwing studied, among his mental health and medical training, electrical engineering type things and thus knows how to rewire both nerves and devices. Rhunön is quite adept at working magic into her forging, as well as mechanical and electrical (sort of) work. When Glen loses his arm in the ambush, Rhunön is the one that makes a prosthetic for him that sort of ends up being like Fullmetal Alchemist Automail, but without the painful surgical requirements. It requires only the same amount of energy that movement and actions with muscle and tissue would require with his real arm, so it is linked to his own energy. Arya, meanwhile, picks up a lot of mechanical engineering from bothering Rhunön as a kid and gets even more experience with it via dwarvish tech, weapons sabotage, and ‘use everything till it falls apart’ forced rationing with the Varden, leading to a combination of her and Glen’s skills to create their squad’s special radios that are mentioned in a few of the MIC stories.

Dwarves are the most mechanically inclined and, again, use energy storing crystals very frequently in their creations. I think it’s mentioned in my dwarf post that many many households have items and tools that house these crystals. I go more in depth with the post I mentioned so that’s probably where you’ll get the most info.

Humans are kinda stuck. Galbatorix tends to draw from things reported on/seen while fighting against other forces and has his people develop from those. Military weapons have been the main focus, so there’s not much in the way of computers or that kind of stuff. Those old box computers are usually only used in businesses that can afford them for finances and the like. As for artillery, the Broddring Empire has developed ‘cannonbombs,’ artillery shells that are clusterbombs inside an outer shell that can be on a timed fuse for detonation before impact or explode on impact and releases several more explosives (If you want a better explanation, check out MIRV grenades from from the Borderlands games). They’re the bane of trench fighters.

Meanwhile, in Surda, computers are a little smaller! Due to the hot climate, Surdans learned to make more efficient cooling systems and were able to make them smaller and more compact, leading to an explosion of research into making the rest of the equipment smaller as well. They’ve moved on to tower+flat monitor type computers. Surda is more interested in chemical engineering and tech towards the center of the kingdom, while defensive tech and development takes precedence along the border for obvious reasons. 

Even though humans seem to have gotten the short end of the stick, I always want to mention that in MIC, humans are the most ingenious, able to use, reuse and repurpose due to their ‘limitations’ when side by side with other races. They think outside and all over the box, occasionally cutting the material of the box to see if they can make something out of that. It’s something that most dwarves and elves just don’t understand, and thus often overlook or underestimate. 

That’s...all I’ve got at the moment. I hope that helped a bit! Please, if you have any more questions, ask! :D I love world building!!

[og-danny-dorito]

Don't Fear The Reaper : FRANK CASTLE X READER

{ A/N :

This was done as my take on the prompt provided by @sparkingstoryinspiration (https://sparkingstoryinspiration.tumblr.com/post/189917527227/write-a-story-including-a-set-of-three-things#_=_). This is sort of short considering I'm mainly just trying to test out my writing again, although I may do a part two if someone seems interested enough. I asked people to choose and they chose #1) an old classic, a headache, blushing cheeks. Basically I'm reusing my favorite scenario, “Buff Sad Bad Mercenary Man Gets Medical Care From Sweet Person Who Likes Them For Some Reason”. Anyway, please enjoy this little Frank Castle x Reader thing I put together that is in no way shape or form a piece of quality.

   - Danny ✌🏼👽 }

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  A pain throbs on the side of his head, sending shock waves down his neck at every slight bump in the music that the speaker produces. He can feel his spine relaxing into the padding of the couch, head falling back as he feels his muscles tense at the feeling of much warmer skin against his own.

   You've known each other since you were kids, and ever since you found out you lived fairly close by, you visited one another considerably more often than the years where he was in the military and you were off doing your own thing after he left. To find that his new occupation was a justice-handie-outie-guy (a name which he hated, but you could see the dumb grin when you said it to him in a mocking or joking way) was more than a surprise, and yet you hadn't expected much less after he told you how it came to be.

  You decided to act as a shoulder for him to lean on from that day forth, a crutch, if you will, for when he needed it. For old times’ sake partially, but for other reasons as well. Often times, he didn't take the crutch when he had to, which earned him very long lectures about how he should take care of himself because other people cared about him. Apparently your most recent lecture, which was two weeks ago, didn't get through his thick skull well enough.

  The stitches on his arm are more neatly done than when you had done them the first time, considering he only needs five and he seems to be much less nervous with you near an open wound. You'd give yourself the victory of having gotten them to be laid down neatly enough to seem almost like they were done by a real doctor. Well, you just hope they'll function like a doctors' stitches, anyway. You wouldn't want him bleeding all over the place like he had before; even though this old apartment was beyond saving, you at least wanted to keep it clean.

  "So let me get this straight-” Frank rolls his eyes, seeming to raise a brow at you. You're glancing up at him now, vaguely interested in what he has to say. “-you walked in without a plan, and walked out with 10 dead bodies to add to the count and more potential scars too?", you ask, almost disapprovingly. The beginning of 'Don't Fear The Reaper' by Blue Ouster Cult seemed to soon fade into the air, causing you to bop your head and mouth the lyrics as you reached for a patch to place on his arm. A bit ironic, but you don't have much to fear around Frank. Under all the muscle he's really thoughtful. At least thoughtful enough to take his shoes off at the door.

   While you appreciated the gesture, you sure it's excusable when he's bleeding out. 

   He grunts in response, his arm draped over his eyes as he extends his right arm to you and uses the left one to prop himself up on the couch as soon as you're done with the patch. Rolling your eyes at the stubborn grunt he gives, you place a few light fingers on the wound below his ribs, causing him to flinch a little. Your eye flickers up in a wave of concern, although he seems to avoid eye contact, embarrassed a bit.

  I mean, this isn't the first time he ended up on your couch in need of medical attention, nor is it the first time you had seen him half naked and/or basically fully naked. But you understand why he feels embarrassed when he flinches or seemes uncomfortable with something. "...I didn't have much time to make a plan."

  You raise your head at the statement, seeming to look at him with a small smile. He looks you in the eyes for a split second, both of his arms moving to rest on the seat of your couch to pull himself up a bit more. You have to admit that he's toned as fuck, and considering the happy trail that you notice he hadn't gotten rid of had grown a bit more made you feel a little like you shouldn't be watching so intently. Is that weird? I mean, if you see someone naked enough times you start to notice shit, and you can't help but feel grateful that his tshirt was technically ripped to bits by now from knife wounds. Not...that you wanted him to have knife wounds. What are you even thinking about?

  With a grin, you raise a brow and turn the music down a little. Your hands are sort of small compared to his chest, he notices, and your skin feels soft against his, although they may be scarred in some places. It's soothing- more soothing that patching himself up. But he wouldn't say that out loud. "They spotted you, or did they know you were coming?", you ask, placing a bandage on the laceration (you looked up what that meant the other day, and just thinking about the word made you feel pretty fucking smart). Frank sighs, his head rolling back. His neck extends to show where he hasn't shaved in a while. Something must be catching up to him lately, usually he'd at least groom himself.

  "I was sloppy and didn't cover my tracks." The response is half-sigh, and his voice rumbles in his throat. He feels the soreness building up from the intense conditions he had undergone earlier. Turns out it doesn't matter how fit you are; if you fight 10 guys on your own you still end up getting sore after it's over. Humans are designed pretty stupidly, at least that's what's he's thinking now. "How so? I'm assuming you mean you didn't get all dressed in spy gear or they saw you on their fancy cameras-" "You remember that one time when you got into the makeup drawer in my mom's bathroom and then forgot to sweep up the footprints in the powder all over the floor?" 

  You suddenly feel your face heat up, your eyes narrowing as you give a pointed glare at him. You can feel the embarrassment going through your body as you roll your eyes, glancing at him. He's grinning like a smug bastard, although that isn't far from what he is. "It's not like you to get all sentimental on me, big guy; you getting soft?" The weak rebuttal gains a snort from him, and in turn you laugh a little and shake your head.

  There are a few moments of silence that pass between you as he lay there, and for a good few moments you aren't sure whether he's asleep or not. But his occasional movement to check your progress leads you to believe that he’s only half asleep. Frank focuses on the touch of your skin against his. The gentleness of your hands is surprising regardless of your often harsh words. Your breathing stops when you were focused; something he noticed a while ago. That and you looked really cute when you were very focused on something. The music starts to have that's segment where it has the guitar solo, and you seem a little caught up in it before opening your mouth to speak.

  "Look, Frank...", you start, avoiding eye contact by focusing on his abdomen. He can feel himself sighing a little. "Another lecture, doc? I'll wait a good few days before I get myself into trouble again." Frank looks down to see you smile and snort a little. "Well that too, but I wanted to let you know...that you can come here for whatever." You sit up, looking him in the eyes. It seems to only just now restrict him that you are not in fact his hip size, and now that you're eye level he feels much more tense. But not enough to run. "It doesn't just need to be when you're hurt or like...- yeah. Anything you need I got it for you, man.", you say, placing a hand on his uninjured shoulder.

  The song had long since died out to another one that he isn't sure of, causing him to feel a slight unease in not being able to predict which beats and notes will come next. He'd never liked unpredictability, but he's almost certain that he can't avoid it. You soon look down from staring at his unchanging facial expression with a grin, but this one seems more...sad. If that's the word for it. More dismal. "Is it cool if I uh-"

  He clears his throat after the failed statement, causing you to raise your head with a slight look of surprise. "Is it cool if I spend the night? Might not wanna- yknow -walk with stitches in my leg..." The excuse seems to be satisfying enough to you, and you grin. Nodding, you slowly stand up. Aw shit- you're kinda cute when you smile- "Yessir it is, but be careful if you wanna take a shower because the cat likes to sit in there whenever someone's in the room.", you respond, running a hand over your head. You leave the room in pursuit of leftovers, causing him to feel a moment of clenching tightness in his chest.

Shit, he might be getting soft.

<----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> 

[bigkyle990]

A Witchy Pirate part 6

Links!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Back to things calming down for a bit and setting into the meet up with Amity (which I only have a partial idea of what I want to do with)

A short time after the attempted raid by the Emperor’s Coven, the three women found themselves back in the living room. Most of the mess that Luz had made while she was injured was cleaned off of the couch. 

Lilith had come in with some drinks for them and Luz was now wearing a shirt lent to her by Eda. “You finally got these printed huh?” Luz asked with an amused tone as she looked down at the “Bad Girls Coven” shirt. “Of course, there was no way I was canceling that t-shirt order.” Eda shrugged before taking a sip of her drink. “Now, you have some explaining to do, what happened to you and how are you able to use magic that effectively? Did you somehow get a bile sack?” 

Lilith took a seat next to her sister and nodded. “Yes, I’m curious about that myself, along with that glyph you used to heal yourself. I’ve never seen a spell quite like that before.”

Luz leaned back and nodded. “It’s one I came up with after a fight with a guy called Blackbeard, he had a power that allowed him to control darkness as well as absorb things into it and then cast them back out. Normally I use the Siphoning Glyph to take in attacks and reuse the energy right away, but if I want, I can combine a new one into it and have the energy used for that. It’s handy, and probably will be hell for the Witches around here.”

“Okay, guy controlling darkness, you making new glyphs… That’s all well and good, but you still haven’t actually explained what’s going on with you? What did the human world go nuts in the last seven years?” Eda asked, wanting to get to the meaty stuffy. Luz shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been there in the last seven years.” Both women looked at her incredulously. “No seriously.” She held up a hand. “I don’t know what happened with Belos’s machine, but it didn’t send me home. When I got pulled through it, I ended up on a completely different world. There were humans there, but along with them there were giants, fishmen, minks… All kinds of different races of people. Along with plenty of monsters and other strange things. See basically…” Luz began explaining the last few years of her as a pirate. The ups, the downs, and everything in between. Afterwards, Eda leaned back in her seat, looking like she was trying to even believe half of what Luz had told her. “Okay, so your power comes from this Devil Fruit thing? It gave you a bile sack?” “Well, I wouldn’t say it gave a bile sack, rather it gave me an actual magical core. A center of energy within myself that I can manipulate in anyway I want. Bella couldn’t find anything attached to my heart whenever she did a medical exam.” Luz did her best to explain, honestly even after all this time, she didn’t have a complete understanding of how her own devil fruit worked. 

“Still, it’s hard to believe that such a power can be granted just by eating one of those fruits... “ Lilith stated, attempting to wrap her own mind around things. “There must be some kind of draw back to it though, correct?” Luz nodded. “Yeah, it probably won’t be a major problem around here, but eating one causes the sea to turn it’s back on you.” “And that means…?” Eda raised an eyebrow. 

Luz giggled, waving her hand a bit. “Sorry, I have to remember that most people aren’t going to even know a small amount about them now. Basically it means I can’t swim anymore.” The sisters looked at her with widened eyes. “Wait, it made you forget how to swim!? I mean you could just learn how to again, right?” Eda asked, looking oddly at Luz as she laughed. “No, I remember how to swim, I just can’t. See, if I was to fall into any kind of standing water, a lake, the ocean, a tub of water...  It would completely sap all my strength and keep me from using my powers, on top of that I’d start sinking like a rock.” “So we keep you away from large bodies of water, understood.” Lilith said with a nod, before noticing the young woman looking to her right hand every now and then. “Is there something wrong?” Luz jumped a bit, thinking she had been subtle about it and sighed. “Sort of, like I told you before, our crew was in the middle of a war just before I ended up back here.” She saw both nod and continued. “Well, I don’t know what’s happened to the others… If they’re alive, if they made it back to their own world and families. I’m worried.” “You cared about them.” Eda stated. “Of course!” Luz shot up, surprising them a bit. “They were like family to me, we went through hell and back together and I didn’t even get to say goodbye, again!” Luz was tearing up a bit thinking about the others. This wasn’t some little war like it had been with the Payback War or even like the war of Wano the Straw Hats had started against Kaido and Big Mom. This one had quite literally set the world on fire. The Straw Hats and those backing them taking on the world to make Luffy the King of the Pirates, their own flag thrown in with the Rubber Man as well, going up against the World Government and its own secrets.  Add in the remains of the Beast Pirates and Big Mom Pirates, and you had yourself a war that was going to turn everything on its head, no matter who won. And the thought that she’d left her own behind was eating at her. That was, until she heard Eda speak up. “Hey Kiddo, what’s that on your arm?” She asked, pointing to Luz’s right hand. Said young woman blinked and looked down, only for her eyes to shoot wide as she fell back. There, forming on her arm was a marking that only looked familiar to herself. She felt her eyes well up as she traced a hand over it, hoping it wasn’t some fake. Her fingers traced over a dark purple dragon like design that started about her mid forearm and wrapped around till it’s head was on the back of her palm, mouth open and trying to bite down on a green gem like design. “Luz, Luz, Boiling Isles to Luz!” Eda called, snapping her fingers to get her attention. “Huh, wha!?” Luz blinked looking at her. “What is that?” She asked again. “Right right, sorry... “ She wiped some tears away and held up the arm. “It’s a Hoard Mark, something that my crewmate Spike gave all the commanders, and since it’s here… it means he’s got to be alive still!” She grinned and then got a look of realization. “Oh! This means I can change clothes! I know I put away some spares for sure…” Luz mumbled as she suddenly reached into her pocket and seemed to start digging around in it. 

“Uh, Kid, I don’t think you’ll fi-” Eda started to try and reason with her former student, only to pause and eyes go wide as not only did Luz’s arm go deeper into her pocket, but she started pulling out large objects. “No… No… Not there…” She mumbled, pulling out a few large pieces of treasure, a massive anchor that shook the house when she set it down, there was a moment when an elephant's head popped out of her pocket and was shoved back in. “I swear, Spike would steal anything…” She mumbled before her eyes lit up. “There it is!” She called out, pulling out a large clothing trunk from her pocket, it was marked with her name. She set it to the side as both sisters looked curiously at the trunk, which she popped open, showing that the inside had a large number of clothes inside. “Okay… Um, how did you do that?” Even Eda’s hair couldn’t store that many things away, certainly not as large. “Huh? Isn’t this Adora’s…” Luz mumbled as she pulled out a red jacket, before shrugging and putting it away. “Like I said, it's the Hoard Mark. See, Spike ate the Hoard Hoard Fruit, which made him a hoarding person. He could take anything he wanted and store it away into a separate pocket dimension for his personal use later.” She explained while looking over a shirt that held the Crew’s Jolly Roger on it, it was a dark purple color. “Hmmm, maybe… Anyway, he was able to develop his powers to let him give other people a special mark that gave them access to the storage space as well, just have to have it active and reach into some kind of container. Can be a bag, a pocket, box… Anything like that and it always expands to fit whatever you’re getting.” She pulled out a dark purple dress shirt and held it over her chest. “Think I should go formal? I am planning on meeting up with Amity tonight.” She smirked, giving a bit of a mischievous look. “You’d slay her for sure kid.” Eda laughed. Lilith giggled a bit and nodded. “Yes, I’m sure she’d love it, but try not to get your hopes too high, it may not be the same now.” She tried to warn her. 

Luz started getting a few other things, a pair of black dress pants, black tie, and a black blazer to go over everything else, and nodded. “Oh I’m sure, I know that I certainly had my fair share of relationships over the last seven years. At least two serious ones, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try and see if anyone is in the way.” She smirked, grabbing one last thing and closing up the trunk to put away. “Guess I’ll go get ready, it’s nearly time for our meet up.” She said, heading to go get a shower.

[hollybrookesbcu]

Critical Thinking Lecture 3

Smart Textiles

Social status and cultural identity can be associated with textures.  There are many modern day applications for textiles. Such as, Interior, automotive, garments, construction, medical, defence, agriculture. This shows that textiles uint just how something loos, its is all practical and has functionality.  There is a development of new smart textiles. They can transform a structure, they can sense, transform and transmit date, they can transfer energy and they have dynamic aesthetics (through the transformation of colours or patterns). There is also an advancement if technical and mechanical processes. For example, textiles that includes performance enhancements (textiles that can become stronger/ lighter, moisture and temperature management, abrasion resistance, reflectivity), and advanced technology for design and manufacturing (this can be used for sustainability; biomaterials, waterless dye, digital and 3D printing).

Smart and Electronic Textiles:

E-Textiles is textiles that incorporates conductive fibres and electric components within the structure.  Smart textiles is textiles with intelligence, for example, sensing, reacting, communicating or supplying energy.  Passive smart textiles is the early phase of smart textiles. This textiles only senses environmental conditions.  Active smart textiles is more smart than passive smart textiles. This textiles has activators and sensors. It can sense and change colour and shape.  Ultra smart textiles is the smartest textiles. It can sense, react and adapt to environmental conditions.

Historical Development: The use of conductive threads has been used since 1558-1603). Gold threads were woven into garments to give a shiny look. Metallic threads were used, purely to decorate.

In 1883 an electric corset was developed. There were electrical wires to stimulate blood flow. They promoted this by saying that there were benefits for ‘ladies in all stations of life’.

In 1911 electrical heated gloves were created for airplane drivers. In 1930 they developed heated blankets.

Generation 1 of smart textiles includes ‘The Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard’ in 1996-98. This motherboard can detect bullets and monitors body signs (such as heart rate).

Generation 2 of smart textiles was ‘The Levi’s ICD Jacket’ in 2000. There were 4 styles to this jacket. They had portable electronic devises and integrated an electronic system. All of the wires were hidden (which is convenient because it makes the jacket look more stylish). However, you need to remove the electronics to wash it, which could be quite time consuming.

An example of a brand is Jackard. They want the components to be the size of a button. So that the user won't see or feel them. The textiles that they have created doesn't require a lot of knowledge about it or how to use it to create with it. This means that everyone can create with it.

Generation 3 of smart textiles is the future of smart textiles. We can expect there to be electronics embedded into textiles at a yarn level. There may be fibre electronics. Electronically active yarns.

This is fully washable and wearable.

Market Structure applications for smart textiles: The global smart textiles market size is expected to reach 5.55 billion USD by 2025.  The defence and military segment us anticipated to account for the highest market share by 2025.

Military and protection: There will be an integration of sensors and triggers and controlling units in military wear. This will mean a higher performance; which shows that the smart textiles industry is having a large, positive impact.  The smart textiles in military wear can help to camouflage, monitor health and detect location.  These developments will be incredibly beneficial to firefighters and workers in extreme environments.  An example is ‘Spine’, which is an embedded computer. It has multiple sensors and has energy storage. There is a flexible charging pack in the back that automatically charges when the person wearing it, gets into a car.

Sport:  The developments of smart textiles will also have a major impact on the sports industry. Sportswear may include thermal comfort (such as swear control), they may measure ECG, they can give data of performance (which can be then used to help them improve their performance) and they will have higher visibility.  An example, is The Under Amour E39 which will monitor techniques.

Another example is NADI X Pants. They are yoga leggings that vibrate in order to enhance performance.

Medical And Healthcare:  There are many developments to help the medical industry. However, there are also limitations. For example, its a long and expensive process to authorise them, meaning they are not available yet.

Hexoskin is a garment that will monitor breathing rates heart rate recovery, acceleration, calories, activity level and much more.

Dynaback alerts incorrect movements and helps to exercise. For example, if you are sitting in a position that could be damaging to your spine, you will be alerted. This is very convenient because it means that less people are going to be needing to go to the hospital for back problems, which will, in the long run, save the NHS a lot of money. Not to mention, lockdown has meant that many people are having to work from home/ complete school, college or university work from home, where they may not have adequate workspace. This might mean that their posture is being ruined. These developments may have the ability to eliminate this; this shows that Dynaback has a large-scale application to modern problems.

Smart Aesthetics: Cutecircuit creates garments that contain LED’s. They are electronically controllable and can change colours and patterns. The brand’s inspiration for creating this was, ‘if it doesn't exist, we can create it’. I think that this is very motivating, as it shows that the fashion and textiles industry has endless possibilities and opportunities. The garments can be recharged whilst they are being washed. The brand also said, ‘lives are digital, and this should be incorporated into what we wear too’. This product is also more sustainable because it eliminates fast fashion; therefore, it not only has an impact on the development of smart textiles, it has an impact on sustainability.

THE GALAXY DRESS X MSI CHICAGO (2008)

CUTECIRCUIT CREATES AN EXCLUSIVE HAUTE COUTURE COLLECTION FOR MAGNUM (2013)

Textiles are being produced that can sense and respond to environmental stimuli, such as heat, light, moisture and pressure.

Lauren Bowker created ‘The Unseen’. She said that she hopes to, ‘change the way the world uses colour’. The Unseen allows to visualise pain and anticipate illness. You can see the strength in your body. The colour can communicate data. It responds to multiple triggers. She said that, ‘to see is to believe, what will you see?’

Elektro Couture have created bendable, washable garments.

Mimu gloves are a pair of gloves that can be used to create music. They cost £2500 which, for most, is an unaffordable price.

There are many challenges. Firstly, the development cost and final price is currently twice what customers are willing to pay. If the customers aren't purchasing them, it may not develop any further, which would create a halt in the industry.  There are technical issues; there are still elements that have not been solved yet.  Not to mention, social, economic and regulatory issues.

Manufacturing with sustainable goods:

Tomex have created textiles from shell seafood waste and coffee grounds.  It is an alternative to faux and animal leather. It is all 100% compostable and free of plastic. This sounds like a major turning point for sustainability. I think that this will be incredibly helpful in reducing the amount of clothes and fabrics that end up at landfill. I think that it’s very impressive that, not only is the fabric made from safe and sustainable sources, it is also biodegradable, meaning it can be safely and sustainably thrown away. However, one issue that I have considered, is that if people have an allergy to shell seafood, could this mean they cannot purchase the garment? As this could effect the people who wear it and the people that they are around.  They have also created Biosequins.

Living colour is a brand that uses bacteria to add natural colour to fabrics. They use micro-organisms that are fed nutrients, which they then extrude as a pigment. The brand can chose how they want to grow. They had to learn everything from scratch; which I think is inspiring that their idea, which may have seemed impossible, managed to be developed, without them having any prior scientific knowledge. They have to constantly ensure that everything is safe and clean. This might be a limitation to the brand, as it is dangerous to the people involved in the brand’s health. The pigment can dye both natural and synthetic fibres which is very impressive as it is quite uncommon. The brand deconstructed some jackets to create something new. They also worked with Puma to create footwear. They want to raise consumer awareness.

Mylo Vegan Leather us made from mushrooms. The mushrooms take only two weeks to grow. This has been sued by Adidas and Gucci. This is very sustainable because it produces no greenhouse gasses and it requires less water.

Biometrics/ Bionics/ Biomimicry:

We need to consider, how we can reuse energy use, is it multifunctional and how to use abundant energy sources.

Lotus Leaf is an example of self cleaning and having water repellent properties.

The Morpho butterfly’s wing structures cause light to distract from surface and create a multi-colour change effect. These properties can be further researched in order to mimic this into textiles.

EXTRA RESEARCH ON THE MORPHO BUTTERFLY

Speedo created a fast skin swimsuit. It helps the wearer to swim faster by reducing drag caused by friction between the body and the water. This was taken from the texture of sharkskin.

3D printing can be used to create both soft polymers and hard materials. We can use 3D printing to create textiles structures that are flexible and adaptable.

Performance enhancement: Technical Textiles:

Nomex fabric can be used for firefighters and police. It reacts when exposed to extreme heat.

An example of temperature management is Polychrome lab. They created a reversible jacket that can change temperature. This was the first lightweight, temperature jacket.

Defence Techniques:

High-tech PPE is currently being used. PPE that can potentially give a remote diagnosis and that can monitor contact tracing, is being developed.

Innovative Technologies

Innovative technology is using scientific knowledge to create use in practical results.

Digital clothing:

Gives a larger outlet for creativity. Digital clothing decreases the damage to the environment, meaning it is a sustainable alternative. Retailers can address more varied demographics through digital designs. It also reduces global supply chains.

Carlings created digital clothing that was genderless, cheap and had no size. It sold out within a week; which shows that digital clothing is better for the environment and doesn't reduce sales.

The concerns with digital clothing are that fashion designers aren't currently trained for this. 3D artists are expensive. These things mean that it may be costly or time consuming before digital clothing can be mass produced at a high quality.  Not to mention, there are codes that don't exist for all fabrics.

Augmented pattern design:

Augmented pattern design is a mission to reduce waste. It makes it easier to purchase. However it assists the growth of fast fashion.

Fabric samples go straight to landfill. Just one brand eliminated 1.3 million samples from going to landfill, just from using augmented pattern design. It also takes minutes to create, as apposed to weeks/ months.

I personally feel as though a digital sample may not be as effective as a physical sample, because you cannot touch and feel it to make adjustments. However, this is a justified compromise, for the sustainability issues that digital samples eliminate.

It is assumed that by 2030, augmented design will be adding significantly to the UK economy.

Synflux uses 3D scanning to determine measurements.

Blockchain Technology:

The supply chain is date-stamped and linked together to create a chain. This means that everyone is accountable and it prevents fraud. It also allows for faster duple and production of goods. Not to mention, it verifies if something is sustainable or not, because where it has come from is recorded.  

Innovative Design:

AI:

AI can be used to design and create a fashion range. This means that there are uncontrolled outcomes, for example, garments with digital glitches such as missing buttons and holes. AI isn't very effective because without humans, everyone would dress the same.

3D Printing:

This is effective because it means everything is custom designed. It is environmentally friendly (you would only print what you need and you wouldn't need loads of water or dyes). It creates new fibres. Not to mention, prototypes and samples are cheap and fast.

However, file piracy and authenticity is an issue. If someone gets hold of the block chain, the work could be easily copied. There would be a loss of jobs (specifically manufacturing). They also can't be mass produced as this would take a very long time. Its limited because not many materials can be used and they may not have stretch, however, fibres are being developed.

Some examples are the lace mini skirt, The Fragility Dress and the parametric skin suit by Julia Daviy,

and the spider dress.

The Kinematic dress is 4D printed, as it came out of the printed already constructed.

[torispencerkeene-blog]

Masks: Myths and Facts

Personal Rights/Politics/Fake News/Conspiracy

Myth:  Covid-19 is a government/left-wing conspiracy. Covid-19 was designed by China to destroy America. It is China’s fault we are dealing with Covid-19.  Fact: There is absolutely no evidence that Covid-19 is any of those things. 

Myth: Covid-19 has been stopped. We are doing fine and there is no need to continue wearing masks. Fact: Covid-19 is still raging in the United States and several other countries. We as citizens must do what we can to help. Just as we vote to elect officials to protect us, we also need to do our part in protecting each other.  

Myth:  Doctor Fauci and the CDC have said I don’t have to wear a mask. That means I don’t need one.  Fact:  Yes, that was the original statement. It has since been explained that those statements were made at a time when medical professionals didn’t have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and the government was hoping to avoid creating a panic and to avoid people buying all the remaining products that doctors, nurses, and first responders needed.  Also, since the time those statements were made, months of research has shown us that masks do reduce transmission (by as much as 85%). 

Myth: Masks are a symbol of tyranny. Masks are stepping on my personal rights under the constitution. Fact: No one is asking you to wear a mask because they want you unheard, because they are trampling your rights, or because of socialism. The reason people are encouraged to wear a mask is to protect those around you. Your family, friends, neighbors, store clerks, etc. 

Myth: Wearing a mask makes me look weak (my husband said to put this one in).  Fact:  While I have no science to back this up, I can tell you, wearing a mask doesn’t make you look weak. It makes you look smart. Kind. Considerate. Raffish maybe. Dangerous. It certainly doesn’t make you look weak. 

Are there Dangers to Wearing a Mask?

Myth:  My breath gets caught in the mask, trapping carbon monoxide and making me sick.  Fact:  Only particles are stopped by the face masks. Your breath cannot be stopped because it flows through the tiny spaces in the material. No fabric you would use to make a mask is air-tight. Masks don’t stop your breath, only bacteria and particles and the moisture that is carried on your breath.

Myth:  Masks trap harmful bacteria against your face and can make you sick.  Fact:  On the inside of the mask, only your own bacteria is caught. Since it is yours, and you’ve already been exposed to it, there is little chance it will cause you to become ill. 

Myth:  I don’t need to wash my masks.  Fact: You should wash your masks after each use (and only use them once). While your own bacteria is caught on the inside of a mask, the bacteria other people carry might end up on the outside. That is why you should always remove masks by the loops that circle around the ears and wash them with soap and hot water (a washing machine is fine). 

How to Wear a Mask

Myth: Homemade cloth face coverings are ineffective, and shouldn’t be worn in public. I should be using an n-19 respirator.  Fact: Wearing a homemade facemask might not stop a healthy person from getting Covid-19, but it does reduce the risk. Also, wearing homemade masks can help prevent those who are Covid-19-positive from spreading it to others because the fabric can trap some, or all, of the particles that spread the virus.  While respirators would work better, they should be reserved for medical workers and first responders. 

Myth: I only need to cover my mouth. A loose-fitting mask is fine.  Fact: You should always cover both your mouth and nose with your mask. Make sure the mask fits snug against your face so nothing can get in or out around the sides. 

Where to Wear a Mask

Myth: If I don’t feel sick, I don’t need to wear a mask.  Fact: Many Covid-19-positive people have no symptoms, or have delayed symptoms. Wearing a mask protects others in case you have Covid-19 with no symptoms. 

Myth:  You don’t have to wear a mask at home. Fact:  If you are Covid-a9-positive (or are waiting for results and feel ill) you should isolate yourself in a single room. Any time you leave that room, you should be wearing a mask and practicing proper social distancing and safety precautions. 

Myth:  If you’ve already had Covid-19, you don’t need a mask.  Fact: The antibodies for Covid-19 have been shown to reduce greatly over time. More information is needed to discover how long they last, or how likely it is that someone will be infected a second time. 

Myth: I don’t need to wear a mask outside. Fact: Sometimes it is necessary. While it is true that the risk of spread is lower outdoors, there is still a possibility of transmission. In any crowded space, or whenever you are within six feet of other people, you should wear a mask. 

Myth:  If I wear a mask I don’t need to stay home (or social distance). Fact:  Limiting exposure reduces risk. While masks and proper protective measures are extremely important, they are not foolproof. In any enclosed space, your risk of transmission is greater, even with a mask. Maintain social distancing whenever possible, stay home (or alone) as much as possible. Your are only helping yourself and the ones you love. 

Myth:  You have to wear a mask when you swim. Fact:  It’s probably better not to get your mask wet, especially with sea-water. If you are going to go swimming, keep the mask on when you are on the beach or at the pool-side, and any time you are around people. You can take it off to go into the water, but remain away from people who do not live with you. This should reduce the risk. Remember, six feet is considered the minimum safe distance. 

How to Wear a Mask:

Wash your hands before putting on your mask. If you can’t wash them, at the very least, use some sort of hand sanitizer and avoid touching your mouth, nose, and eyes until you can. 

Start at the top. Cover your nose to your chin, then loop it around the ears. 

Make sure the mask fits close to your face to avoid contaminated air from leaking around the edges. It doesn’t need to dig into your skin, but fit snug against it. 

Whatever mask you use, make sure you can breathe easily through the material. (I have found spandex material fits better around the nose and covers it easily without fogging up your glasses, but it should be reinforced over the mouth so no particles can get through. 

If at all possible, keep the face covering (mask) on the entire time you are out. If for any reason you can’t do this, keep a clean spare in your bag, purse, briefcase, or even in a zip lock bag in your pocket. (I take mine off every now and then to smoke a cigarette, but I make sure I am far from other people when I do so. 

When removing the mask, only touch the ear loops. This helps you avoid getting anything on your hands (but to be safe, you should wash them or use hand sanitizer). Put it directly into the laundry, your place for dirty masks, or into a zip lock bag so that no germs will spread to the rest of your things. 

Wash your masks before reusing them. Moisture allows bacteria to grow and they can smell if you don’t clean them quickly (have enough spares that you can wash some while having others for use). 

For more information (Sources) Note: The CDC has directions for making your own face covering. 

www.CDC.gov www.WHO.int University of Maryland Medical System - Wearing a Mask: Myths and Facts Pacific Northwest University - Fact vs. Fiction: Face Masks TriCare - Face Masks, Stress: Covid-19 Myths vs Facts AARP - 7 Myths about Face Masks

[amandajoyce118]

Agents Of SHIELD Season 6 Finale “The Sign” And “New Life” Easter Eggs And References

Season six comes to a close with Izell trying to bring her people to Earth and Sarge determined to stop her. Or does it? There are complications that arise from the Chronicoms still trying to start the third version of their planet that make Izell not the biggest problem by the end of the two hours.

As always, there are spoilers. You’ve been warned.

Spoilers.

You good? Because spoilers.

The Episode Titles

Both titles get said aloud in their respective hours. That’s not usually the case with the show, but the writers did it a lot more this season. 

Robbie Reyes Had Something Inside HIm

Oh, look, another Ghost Rider reference this season. Could all these references, and the talk of a demon inside Sarge be leading to something? Like, I don’t know, that Ghost Rider spin off that Hulu picked up? I know a lot of people were hoping for him to jump in and save the day, but I think it’s more of a case of MCU synergy, like - don’t forget we have this in the pipeline for when this show is gone. There’s still Robbie to look forward to.

The Temple

In case anyone thought the overhead shot of the temple looked familiar, it’s the same one used by the VFX team in season one for the episode “0-8-4.” Mark Kolpack confirmed it after last week’s episode.

Deke’s Stolen Tech

Like the audience has been saying all along, all of Deke’s tech is stolen from either SHIELD (and therefore, his grandparents), or the future. We get back to the Fitz that’s exasperated with him as a result, but really, Deke has a pretty good memory for tech considering all of the pieces he’s had his team bring to life. You know there weren’t files on every single thing he recreated.

I also appreciate that he brought all his lemon artwork in with him and had it out with his grandparents about not being appreciated. They needed to air that out. It also reminds us that he and Fitz probably don’t get along so well most of the time because they are actually a lot alike, they just use their abilities in different ways. They both feel unappreciated, despite all of the effort they make. Deke deciding to step up reminds me a lot of season one Fitz. Or, you know, Fitz taking the long way to the future and everyone not giving him credit for that, just being annoyed that he didn’t have weapons stored on the right floor of the Lighthouse.

“I’ve never been to a planet that’s so into guns.”

Sarge has always used his special knives before, but melting them down to create bullets never occurred to him. He thinks Earth is super into guns, but… we all know this line is really aimed at the US with its lack of gun control, right?

“Zombies, why not?”

Deke’s quip about designing a zombie video game felt like a nod to our cultural obsession with the undead (and Marvel’s own zombie universe in the comics), but the repeated mention of zombies - especially Piper’s line - makes me think The Walking Dead. In case you didn’t know, Brianna Venskus also guest stars as a member of the Oceanside community on The Walking Dead where she kills zombies.

Also, I love the touch of Deke biting the show’s version of a zombie to get out of a tight spot. Way to subvert the trope. (Side note: Did Piper get Flint medical attention? Did Jemma swing by and pick them up? Are they okay? Is Flint 2 still alive? Inquiring minds want to know.)

Taking Someone’s Skin

Enoch mentioned several times about wearing skin in this and last season. We even saw him shower without his “skin” when he debuted. I like that we get a better idea of what he means by wearing skin now. We see that the Chronicoms can literally take another Chronicom’s skin. It’s a nice link back to those mentions.

The Tunnels

I don’t know if they reused the same sets, but did anyone else get season two vibes from the tunnel where they stationed Deke to hold off the shrike-zombies? It very much looked like the tunnels of the underground Kree city where Skye became Quake - just with a different color pallet.

Sarge’s True Form

Kind of looks like a Chitauri. But also kind of looks like something from the comics I can’t put my finger on. Maybe I’ll find it, but I don’t even know where to look because I honestly can’t remember what he reminds me of.

May In Cryo

That looks an awful lot like the same chamber that kept Fitz snug into a new future. How long is May going to be on ice?

The Empire State Building

When Daisy points out that she can see the building, and Mack says it’s the only one above the clouds, Jemma makes the remark that it’s probably the tallest building in the world. That gives you a very specific window for where and when the team jumped to. Now, you could choose dystopian future. But that seems unlikely. Instead, it’s more likely the team is somewhere between 1931 (when construction finished) and 1970 (when it was dethroned as tallest building). Personally, I’d lean closer to the 30s than 70s given that would mean the series could play into the criminally cancelled Agent Carter as well. And there are spoilers out there on the internet that makes that seem much, much, much more likely. But if the jump drive has been upgraded to allow them to time travel, really, season seven could go anywhen it wants to, which will be very fun.

LMD Coulson

How much did you love Daisy slamming that button down when she realized Jemma meant Coulson? Daisy just wants her family back, guys. Too bad he came out of a brightly lit machine and not a dark corner for the real nod.

You’ve got to love that they need an expert in SHIELD history (again leaning to the past) and that Coulson, whose brain is already on file with the tech Jemma and Fitz had planned on destroying. I’d like to point out here that, while the show has demonstrated how much Coulson loves his history, it also made him a history teacher in the Framework. Likewise, in the comics, Coulson actually kept his own personal database of files on the heroes he worked with. He knew everything. That’s either going to be a huge asset for them next season… or it’s going to bite them in the ass like it did in the comics. Because when his files were stolen, it meant the enemy had very specific ways to kill the heroes he loved on hand.

The Fitz-Simmons Separation

*Sighs* Less of an Easter egg, but... Okay, so I think everyone was prepared for this to happen in some form. At least there’s a logical explanation for it this time. The Chronicoms have scans of Fitz and Simmons’ brains that are interacting in a computer program. They know how the two think, plan, and make moves. The two of them allying with Enoch, then splitting up, means the Chronicoms no longer have the advantage because the two aren’t thinking the same way the program expects them to. It also means if the Chronicoms capture one of them, they don’t have access to every bit of new knowledge. These two can’t catch a break. (One question though: how much time did they have? Jemma’s not significantly older, so unless she’s an LMD/Chronicom upgrade herself, it can’t have been too long.)

That’s it for this week…. Until next season! Let me know what I missed. I’ll reblog this a few more times if I catch anything else or edit it.

[melody-garnet]

Instructions on sewing a basic face mask*

*Dutch-language instructions and patterns are recommended by the Belgian Government’s Federal Department of Health and have been translated by me, who has a master’s degree in translation for this language combo.

Summary:

1.You make a very simple rectangular mask with pleats. 2.You make that mask again but you add a lip inside. 3.You sew those two masks together along the top and sides, but not the bottom. If you run your finger downwards on the interior or the exterior, your finger should not catch on the pleats (see image). 4.You add long ribbons to every corner of your two-layer face mask (not elastics!) so you can tie the ribbons away from your mouth. 5.Because you added a lip inside to insert a disposable filter through the bottom, e.g. a filter cut out of a vacuum bag.

The focus of the design is safety, ensuring: - a tight, secure fit to your face (covering nose, mouth and chin). -the possibility to insert filters of various width and density.

Follow the instructional video in English:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNQTSIQnLo

Do not use this face mask to approach a known infected person or to take care of a known infected person. Use it to keep from (accidentally) infecting others!

VERY BASIC MATERIALS IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE:

(see below the cut for specifics)

-two bandanas or tea towels for the face mask -loooong ribbons made of non-stretchy fabric so your hands stay away from your mouth -vacuum bags or a third bandana/tea towel for the disposable/washable filter -scissors, needle and thread

REMEMBER TO BE HYGIENIC: sterilize before and after sewing sterilize at least daily by washing at 90C or 195F store the mask in a zip bag when you’re not wearing it

Extended version of (translated) instructions and where to get the patterns below the cut.

INTRODUCTION:

This simple pattern is based on a design of Dr. Chen Xiaoting, a Taiwanese anaesthetist.

This translation does not include the actual patterns, only the translated instructions. To print the patterns, you will need to print the pages 7-18 of this file or copy-paste https://maakjemondmasker.be/pdf/Mondmasker_patroon_en_handleiding_20200318_v2.pdf into your browser. The patterns available are Large Adult, Small Adult and Child. The face mask should be big enough to cover your nose and mouth and to go underneath your chin. You may need to do some comparing to really understand the marks written on the Dutch patterns. For ease of reference, I will include a translated template of the child’s face mask (not to size). Note that especially the seams and placement of the pleats differ from size to size. Template of pattern marks, translated (not to size!) :

REMEMBER TO BE HYGIENIC:

-Sterilize your equipment before cutting and sewing For the love of god, don’t thread your needle by licking the thread, just cut the end with sharp scissors.  

-This face mask is a washable fabric casing, which allows it to be reused, combined with a disposable filter. --Sterilize/ wash the mask at 90°c/195f when it’s finished --Dispose of the filter at least daily --Sterilize/wash the mask (and cloth filter) at least daily

-Always wear the same side of the mask. --Visually distinguish interior from exterior by using different colour fabrics or mark the sides with a big I or O. --Generally, the lightest colour is worn on the inside. If you’re making a mask for vets or -god forbid if necessary- for medical personnel, preferably use a light colour (white, beige) for the inside and a darker colour (blue) for the outside.

-Only wear the mask when necessary -Don’t wear the mask around your neck: either you’re wearing it in front of your nose, mouth and chin, or it is stored away in a sealable freezer bag

PRINTING INSTRUCTIONS:

Print the pattern on A4 paper sheets (NOT US Letter Paper). Always print at 100%, do not scale the pattern up or down!

Measure whether the test square on your printed page is indeed 5x5cm or 1.96inx1.96in.

For the sizes Large Adult and Small Adult, you will need to:

1.     puzzle the correct halves together,

2.     cut out the vertical sides of the paper in order to properly align the pattern,

3.     tape the parts together.

Pair the pattern pages (they have an orange number in upper corner) like this:

1 & 2 (introduction) 3 - 9  (large adult ext.)

4 - 10 (large adult int.) 5 - 11 (small adult ext.)

6 - 12 (small adult int.) 7 & 8 (child ext. and int.)

The seam allowance IS included in the patterns on the pdf. You don’t have to add these yourself when cutting the pattern.

MATERIALS:

-For the exterior of a Large Adult mask: one piece of fabric of at least 20cm by 20.5cm (7.87inx8.07in). This fabric must breathe well and should not absorb moisture easily. Use a synthetic fabric (polyester) if possible, but cotton may also be used. -For the interior of a Large Adult Mask: one piece of fabric of at least 20cm by 20.5cm (7.87inx8.07in). Ideally you should use polypropylene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonwoven) but cotton may also be used.

·       Ensure that both pieces of fabric have a clearly different colour. This way you can be sure to always wear the same colour to the inside.

·       Do not use stretchy fabric. This way the mask would not fit securely. Stretchy fabrics are also harder to work with when using a sewing machine.

·       You could try to wash your fabric in advance so that it does not shrink too much during its first (very hot) sterilization wash.

-The ribbons should be long enough to tie and untie the mask easily at the back of the head (e.g. 50cm or 19 inch each). This way the mask can be taken off with the hands at a safe distance from the face. -Materials to make a disposable filter (a vacuum bag, a charcoal filter, even just another layer of fabric if your fabric is really thin) that you can cut to the size of the face mask. -A standard needle and synthetic thread are fine for this project.

SEWING INSTRUCTIONS

1.      CUTTING THE MATERIAL

The paper pattern includes the seam allowance. You don’t have to add these yourself when cutting the pattern.

Cut:

·       4 ribbons of at least 50cm / 19.68in each.

·       the fabric for the interior (fabric 1).

·       the fabric for the exterior (fabric 2).

Mark:

·       the locations of the pleats and folding direction.

·       the seam lines.

·       the “nose” edge.

If your fabric is more floppy than stiff, you may need to extend the lip on the fabric for the exterior.

2.     FOLDING THE PLEATS

Fold the pleats on both pieces of fabric, on the ‘right’ side of the fabric:

·       Following the paper pattern, place the black dotted line on the red full line in the direction of the arrows.

·       Pin into place.

·       Do this for every pair of red/black lines.

·       Double-check the pleats are in the right direction (see the cross-section). The lip is folded upwards into the ‘wrong’ side, the pleats are folded downwards on the ‘right’ side.

After checking, press the pleats down with an iron. This may be easier one pleat at a time. You can bast the edges of the pleats down into the short side’s seam allowance.

3.     FOLDING THE LIP

Fold the small seam on both fabrics inwards into the ‘wrong’ side and hem the seam into place with a straight stich.

·       Go for a straight stitch of 3mm, or, no smaller than 1/8 of an inch.

Fold the lip on fabric 1 inwards into the ‘wrong side’ and press down with an iron.

You can bast the edges of the lip down into the short side’s seam allowance.

4.     ATTACHING THE FABRICS

Put both fabrics down with their ‘right’ sides (pleats) facing up. Align the fabrics so that their long edges are connected:

·       The edge “nose” of fabric 1 is touching the edge “nose” of fabric 2.

·       The edge of fabric 1 with the lip (on the ‘wrong side’) is the furthest long edge away from you.

Sew along the edge “nose” and attach the fabrics together into one.

5.     ATTACHING THE RIBBONS

Pin a ribbon to every corner of fabric 1:

·       the lengths of the ribbons currently point to the insides of the pattern.

Fold the seams of the short sides inwards over the ribbons and press into place with an iron.

6.     CLOSING THE “PILLOW CASE”

Fold the mask along the seam “nose” with the ‘wrong’ sides out:

·       You can check this easily by the seam of the short edges (the sides are not hemmed yet) and the lip on the top fabric (the long edge now closest to you).

Sew the short edges together along the seam allowance:

·       Make sure to secure the ends of the ribbons as well as the edges the pleats and the lip with these side seams.

·       Use a lockstitch if you can. You secure the ends of the thread by going back and forth at the beginning and end of sewing the short edges, making the thread pull itself tight.

Take care not to catch the length of the ribbons into the side seams!

7.     FINISHING THE PIECE

Turn the face mask inside out by the open edge (where the lip sits).

·       The pleats etc. of the mask should now look like the cross-section.

You can now cut some filters more or less the same size of your mask out of vacuum bags.

Sterilize the mask:

·       Wash it in a washing machine with a program at 90°C / 195F.

·       Then store the mask in a sterile bag or container (e.g. freezer bag), or wear immediately afterwards.

[jeanjauthor]

And don’t forget to consider how much worse it is for someone in a wheelchair, manual or motorized, being transported in a van.  My family just bought a van with a ramp out the back for my sister, who is slightly mobile but mostly gets around in a wheelchair.

She just got a motorized chair so her independence has been greatly increased, but...  Those things are not designed like car seats, they aren’t sprung like car seats, and my sister already has sitting issues from her illness-caused injuries.  Every jolt, every sway, every jostling is magnified for her.  She has to manage her anxieties about What If...?  every time she travels this way.

Even just being the driver of the van she’s traveling in causes me a lot of unwanted stress, because I’m afraid of getting into an accident with her in the vehicle.  Especially a rear-ending, because I’m pretty sure she cannot get out any other way, and if that hatch and ramp are damaged, we’re screwed.  Jaws-of-Life time, and the destruction of a brand-new expensive vehicle.  (I mitigate my anxieties by reminding myself I’m a pretty cautious driver, and just add more breaking distance, etc.)

“Doing Nothing” can genuinely be exhausting.

Unfortunately, we’re trained as a society in general to devalue anything that isn’t capitalism-style labor.  If it doesn’t make money?  “Not worthy of being called effort, let alone labor!”

Seriously, think about how little housework is valued.  If you tallied up the minutes in by-the-minute payment increments for professionals hired to do those tasks, most “do-nothing housewives” would be making two to three times the next-highest breadwinner in probably at least 50% of American households.

Don’t believe me?  Here’s a list of professions that most “stay home house spouses” and other various homemakers (grown children, grandparents, etc) handle day in and day out:

Daycare worker

Early childhood educator

In-home nursing attendant / assistant (helping any household members who are ill, checking in on them periodically, making sure they’re comfortable, etc)

Chef (cooking a meal)

Waitstaff (serving a meal, setting the table, etc)

Chauffeur

Housecleaning service

Plumber (unclogging/plunging the toilet, etc)

Teacher’s assistant (helping kids with their schoolwork is something a TA does)

Home repair handyma’am work (*feminine gender used to remind people that women can do this work, too, and often do! If my tall, just-reach-up-and-do-it dad wasn’t home, you bet my mum pulled over a chair and changed the burnt-out lightbulb on the ceiling herself; she wasn’t going to wait hours and hours for him to do it!)

Laundry / drycleaning services

Interior decorator

Professional landscape maintenance work (there’s a lot more to keeping a yard or garden looking nice than mowing the lawn, such as weeding & pruning, watering, and more)

Landscaper (designing the family garden, not just maintaining it)

Micro-scale agriculturalist (growing a vegetable garden, harvesting berries from bushes, fruit from trees, etc)

Pet walker

Pet groomer

Voice acting (reading stories aloud to your kids at night counts--especially if you “do the voices”--and VAs start at $200/hour.)

Dishwasher (yes using a dishwashing machine counts; the pros use machines that take only 90 seconds!)

Garbage / Recycling collections service (taking things to the dump, taking garbage & recycling materials to the curb, cleaning the cat litterbox, etc)

Donations coordinator (taking things to be donated and/or shopping in thrift / gently reused / consignment stores)

Event coordinator (THIS one is a BIG-time “invisible energy drain” because it’s emotional labor that can include not only getting everyone to after-school activities and/or social gatherings on time, but also medical appointments, and important social events such as remembering birthdays and anniversaries, and DOING something about those events)

Party planner (this one is a little different from the last one if we consider that it’s a home-based party, because that involves cleaning, rearranging, cooking, decorating, etc)

Tour guide (taking the kids to a park, to the science museum, to a local attraction, etc)

Physical education instructor (playing with the kids)

Personal shopper (”Honey, can you buy me a light blue shirt in a size Large?  I need a new one for the office!” “Mooom, my shoes are too tight, I think my feet grew!”  “But Daaaaad!  Every girl is wearing a pink hair bow!  I need a pink hairbow or I’ll socially diiiie!” etc)

Postal service worker (”Honey, this is the tax payment, it needs to go straight to the Post Office today so nobody steals it out of our mailbox, but I have to work late and there isn’t a Post Office on my way to work...”)

...Each and everyone one of these tasks, and many more I haven’t bothered to list, can also be found in a professional job category.  And most of these services are NOT cheap.

Y’all are getting these things “for free” from your housewife, househusband, housespouse, housemate / roommate, etc.

Yet we don’t think about it.

We just take it for granted.

This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to the mindset of “riding in a car isn’t ‘work,’ people!  You’re just sitting there!”  Because we don’t value other kinds of invisible work as a culture.

It is work, and we need to start valuing all kinds of invisible efforts.

Whenever I take a long car ride I end up exhausted afterwards, and I'm always like "why am I so tired? I was just sitting around doing nothing all day."

But the answer, it turns out, is I was doing something. Riding in a car jars your body in many directions and requires constant microadjustments of your muscles just to stay in place and hold your normal posture. Because you're inside the car, inside the situation, it's easy not to notice all the extra work you're doing just to maintain the status quo.

There's all sorts of type of work that we think of as "free" that require spending energy: concentrating, making decisions, managing anxiety, maintaining hypervigilance in an unfriendly environment, dealing with stereotype threat, processing a lot of sensory input, repairing skin cells damaged sun exposure, trying to stay warm in a cold room.

The next time you think you're tired from "nothing", consider instead that you're probably in situation where you're doing a lot of unnoticed extra work just to stay in place.

[craniumculverin]

Crude Fortuity (part 2)

It’s not as many scenes as I wanted to have done, but I decided to stop nitpicking and just post what I have done! Some of this has been written for like 2 years now, for pete’s sake... Enjoy!

 A brisk wind whips through the tents, the sound of taut canvas joining that of the camp’s weary denizens. The fires built for light and warmth are but embers save for one or two that are more sheltered, drawing those still awake. Percy is quite content to remain sequestered away from the rough voices and occasional shouts. One of the tents closest to where he’d been working until dusk had been designated as a sickbay, which is where he currently sits, recording the day’s events.

Luckily, aside from the two that had abruptly ensured his stay, many of the cases he’d seen were relatively minor, and thus could sleep without supervision. Hypothermia had been the most widespread problem, some minor lacerations and a few instances of frostbite, fewer of which required amputation. Quite a fortunate outcome, medically speaking. Of the three and a half dozen or so men only five had been found dead, and right before nightfall all had finally been accounted for. Quite fortuitous indeed, considering how many had been trapped. The two unconscious forms currently occupying the other end of the tent, however, were anything but fortunate. They’d taken up most of Percy’s time, and rightfully so.

The arguably worst off was a Mister Lorcan Quinn, a young Irishman of diminutive build, about 19 years of age. When he was laid out on a table he’d been unconscious and terribly pale from blood loss and exposure. Besides multiple fractures to his right leg, numerous abrasions and extensive bruising, his left leg had been crudely amputated below the knee, a makeshift tourniquet of rope tied just above - it was so tight and slick with blood Percy had given up on removing it in the end. Truthfully it’d likely been the only thing that kept the boy alive during the apparent trek down the mountain, but the damage it had caused had been an issue in and of itself. As the doctor rushed to stop the flow of blood, it also became evident something had occurred prior to the amateur amputation.

“…Both tibia and fibula appeared to have suffered severe comminuted fractures prior to where cuts were made, as large bone splinters were still present in surrounding tissue, some of which would have had to be removed. The bones had been twisted severely at the knee - tendons and muscle damaged beyond recognition. Likely to have been broken or mangled in a way that trapped him, thus the amputation. Most probable to have been done with an ax, with extreme force, done in 2-4 swings.

Due to the severity of the knee’s condition, massive blunt trauma caused by crude technique, extensive tissue damage from the rope, and lack of viable skin to create a flap, further amputation was required. Patient awoke as sawing of femur began but quickly passed out. Procedure went fairly well, assistant performed admirably despite inexperience. Setting of fractures in right leg left to assistant and two other men, done quickly and precisely. Bandaging finished and treated for remaining injuries and hypothermia once in sickbay.”

Percy sighs as he finishes his entry, writing slightly askew from having to balance the journal on his knee. He curses his inability to find a pencil and hopes he wasn’t using his good blue ink - the lamp he’d been given is too dim to tell, and too low on oil to make any brighter. Pausing to let the page dry, he removes his spectacles to rub at his tired eyes before placing them back on the bridge of his nose.

Looking over to the prone forms across from him - particularly Mister Quinn, who’s shivering required an extra blanket - Percy feels a little resentful. As of yet no one has bothered to see that he himself has somewhere to sleep, and frankly he didn’t want to leave the decently warm tent to inquire about it. They’d given him a chair at least, one with a sturdy enough backrest. What little luggage he’d packed aside from his medicine chest sat in the corner, a number of coats and shirts inside suitable to sleep under. He could make due for tonight, if it meant not having to interact with anyone until morning.

The doctor flips to the next page for his final record of the night, glancing up at the other occupant of the sickbay’s cots. The snoring man’s bandaged feet hang over the edge, a few dry pairs of stockings stretched over them. His hands are wrapped as well, but neither are anywhere near as thickly bandaged as his head. A small frown crosses Percy’s features as he dips his pen, unsatisfied with how he’ll have to start this particular entry.

“Patient: Alfred (surname unknown)”

He huffs after finishing just the one line. Why no one in camp would come forth with the man’s full name was a mystery, and the Captain had been too preoccupied to be of any assistance on the matter. Surely at least one of these loggers would be privy to such information? In lieu of a surname Percy opts to include a more thorough description - some way of properly identifying him.

“Blond, green eyes, fair skin, strong nose. Likely English accent. About 6 feet in height, solidly built. Age anywhere from 20-25 years.

Severe head trauma resulting in large laceration over right parietal, no fracture or depression, unable to detect possible intracranial hemorrhaging. Likely moderate to severe concussion. 3 broken ribs, at least 2 partially fractured. Moderate to severe bruising across body, primarily front of torso, legs, and arms, unable to detect possible internal trauma or bleeding. Moderate abrasions, lacerations to face and hands. Minor abrasions, blistering to feet. Beginnings of frostbite to all extremities, particularly hands. Hypothermia.

Patient was found carrying Mister Quinn at the outskirts of camp after the avalanche and resulting landslide. Reportedly collapsed as assistance approached but remained conscious, became distraught when Quinn was taken from him. Put up weak resistance at first before being half-dragged into camp. Appeared confused and unable to form intelligible speech, no other immediate signs of brain trauma. Repeatedly tried to get up during procedures and had to be held down. Eventually forced to be made unconscious by way of chloroform when-”

“Dr. Hewlett, you awake?”

Percy’s eyes close of their own accord at the sudden intrusion. “Yes, come in.”

The flap of the tent’s entrance is pulled open, letting what little warmth that had accumulated out into the night. The Captain pokes his head in, quickly frowning. “Where’s your cot? Told Ben to bring one for you soon as he was done with whatever he was up to with those bloodied rags.”

Ah, that explains it. Benediktus, the camp’s New Pthumerian “doctor” turned assistant, had been sent to use what was left of the boiling water to wash out any bandages that could be reused. Given the nature of the task and his apparent perfectionism, he was likely still at it, much to the chagrin of the cook.

“Ben is likely still at work on his last task I’m afraid. Is there something I can do for you Captain?”

“There isn’t, just wanted t’check in before I make m’last rounds. I’ll have a cot and blankets brought in,” the man pauses as he inspects the cramped space, “unless you want t’sleep elsewhere? Not sure a third will fit comfortably with your equipment and such…”

“I’d rather sleep here. Neither of these men are stable enough to go unsupervised for long.” And they were better company than anyone else he’d have to share a tent with, being unconscious for the foreseeable future.

“Alright then…” The Captain gazes over to the slumbering patients, a surprising amount of worry etched into his weathered features. As explosive as the man’s temper was, Percy had quickly come to realize he cared deeply for those working under him. He knew every man by name, and as soon as they’d all been found his demeanor gradually shifted from a demanding tyrant to a concerned leader - strict and immensely gruff, but concerned. A much more pleasant man to deal with than Percy’s initial interaction had led him to believe.

After a short time the Irishman must have realized he was lingering; he clears his throat and stomps his boots before entering, shutting out the chill outside air. “Is there anything else I can d’for you Doctor?”

“Thank you Captain, I do have one request,” Percy shifts to better face him, motioning to the larger of his two patients. “What is Alfred’s surname? I couldn’t find anyone that knew, or were willing to say.”

The stout man is quiet before bursting into laughter. “Pwaw hahaa! That’s all? Sorry Doc, I’ll have t'check the ledger for his full name - Alfred’s never been fond o' using his, ever since I first met the lad. As t’why the others won’t say, he tells anyone that asks something different. T’mess with them, I think.”

“Really? How odd.”

The physician leans back in his seat as he considers his strange patient. The other man grunts in agreement, then shrugs his broad shoulders. “Aww he’s prolly just a bastard or a runaway is all. People are strange about such things… Anything else before I away?”

Percy is silent for a moment before his eyes light up. “Ah yes! I am curious - why do you call yourself ‘Captain’? A strange choice of title, for such an occupation.”

The Irishman’s face instantly falls into a grimace. “I don’t, but the men do. I figured it’d save time and confusion if you just called me by that bloody nickname. If you want t’call me by m'proper name it’s Murry Buckley, though by now most o' this lot likely’ve forgotten it.”

“…Well that was sensible of you. That’s all for now Mister Buckley, thank you.”

“Thank you, Doctor. These two would be goners without you, I have no doubt about that. And the other men you saw to as well - I truly appreciate your efforts.”

“Hmm Lorcan yes, absolutely - he was practically dead when he came to me. But Alfred… hmmaybe,” ponders Percy aloud as he watches the two patients. “His head wound probably would have closed on its own. Eventually. But inflammation and discharge would've been an issue, not to mention his chances of… Anyway! You’re very much welcome. I myself appreciate being allowed to stay here for a time.”

“…Right,” the Captain gives him an odd look, “I’ll eh, I’ll make sure that cot gets t'you. G'night Dr. Hewlett.”

“Good night Mister Buckley.”

----------

One would think being stuck in a logging camp so soon after a natural disaster would be stressful, what with the questionable terrain and so many antsy workmen, but as far as Percy is concerned it's really quite dull.

His time is primarily spent cooped up in the sickbay tent or directly outside at the tables, his responsibilities keeping him anchored to where he can easily be found amidst the rows of canvas and piles of equipment. It's hardly the natural beauty he'd expected to appreciate during his time here, and to make it worse Buckley is adamantly insistent that he stay within the camp proper until their surroundings are deemed safe. Given that more than half of camp is either buried under snow and mud or is where the men are working, that leaves Percy just enough space to feel much like a caged animal, restless as it paces along the bars.

There's technically something to do with his free time - even in the midst of seeing to the injured on that first day, Ben had eagerly asked he impart any medical knowledge he'd be willing to share. He later agreed, despite having mixed thoughts on the matter; it's something to put his mind to besides the very few instances that someone requires medical attention, yet also involves having to plan on regular interaction with the young man. However, it turns out the student's shockingly wide range of duties keep him far too busy or exhausted to hold a focused conversation, and when he can he tends to stop in unannounced and for too short a time. While hashing over lectures is pleasant enough, doing so has begun to feel rather meaningless as the boy never lingers long enough to finish any. Percy may as well just open a textbook to a random page and tell him to start reading!

Speaking of, the physician had cracked open his neatly packed chest of books as soon as he'd made adequate space in the sickbay to do so. Many of the tomes he simply couldn't leave behind also happen to be those he enjoys rereading, which he quickly decided on doing - only to realize a logging camp may in fact be the worst place to attempt such an activity. Maybe once the men are spending more time sawing logs and climbing trees they'll stop shouting all the time, and with such colorful profanity.

So, with such a severe lack of things to occupy himself, he's taken to observing. Everything.

How the fog grows and shrinks along the foothills as time passes, what sorts of wildlife can be seen along the outskirts of camp, the cloud patterns and wind directions in relation to the terrain, the unfamiliar types of trees and plant life, where paths have formed from foot traffic and which are used more, how the Captain maintains order and directs the men, the sorts of roles present within the camp, which men tend to do what, who interacts with who and how, all the while sorting out which names belong to which faces. None of it is in the slightest bit interesting, but it's something to pass the time.

And of course he properly sees to any and all medical complaints the workmen might have, as he'd promised. He's not negligent after all, just bored out of his mind.

As for his two long-term patients, neither have been able to remain conscious for an extended period of time. It's a day and a half full of incessant humdrum before either finally come to, and unsurprisingly it's the young Irishman. While the redhead has simply been in too weak a state, Alfred had developed a fever during the first night, which, along with his head trauma, has made it difficult for him to stay awake for even a minute at a time. According to Mister Quinn - or simply Lorcan, as he prefers - his coworker would "snap out of it soon as he gets hungry enough." Percy sees no point in rebuffing his deplorable grasp of medicine as, despite the constant pain and soreness he's sure to be experiencing, the boy is already talkative enough without further prompting. The doctor has to repeat himself thrice just to get his name out amongst all the questions and chatter.

Once word to both the Captain and the cook - whose name is actually Cook, poor man - has been sent, Lorcan finally quiets enough to take in an explanation about the extent of his injuries and what has become of his leg. He wearily pushes away the covers to examine his new stump as Percy finishes, condolences left to hang in the air. A decent amount of time passes of him blankly staring at the mass of bandages - then he heaves a sigh and winces through a shrug, expression belaying a sense of minor annoyance.

“Guess I’ll be working for m'dah after all. A boring job for me back home then, hurrah."

He throws his hands up in mock celebration, earning him a bemused look and raised brow from the physician. “My, you appear to be handling all of this exceptionally well. I’ve had men make more of a fuss over losing a single finger than you are with most of a leg. May I inquire why that is?”

Something dark crosses Lorcan's features before he shivers and wraps bruised arms around himself as best he can. “T'is better than being dead out in the middle o' nowhere. T'die in the country God forgot…”

“Hm…" Percy idly considers the patient as he moves to gently cover his residual limb - much like a listless cat eyeing a possible plaything, contemplating if it's worth the trouble of pouncing on. "…If it’s not too upsetting, could you recount what you remember? Of how you came to lose it, I mean - from my understanding such an injury isn’t common to receive from an avalanche or landslide.”

The hint of humor goes completely unnoticed as the young man is absorbed into his thoughts, a frown crumpling his freckled features. Lithe fingers begin to pick at the stitching of his blankets.

“…I woke up with m’leg trapped under a tree, likely the one we’d been up when it hit. I d’know how long I was out before that, but… I already knew m'leg was done for. All that blood… and the pain was- I was ready, wanting t’die by the time I heard Alfred call out,” Lorcan looks over to his slumbering compatriot and dryly chuckles. “I was gonna ask him t', t'just- …But he was out of his head with how hard he must’ve gotten knocked. Thought he could somehow get the both of us out of there alive, all on his lonesome.”

“A belief that turned out to be true.”

Lorcan is shocked when he turns back to Percy, before disbelief quickly blossoms. “We weren’t- the others didn’t come find us up there?”

“No. At the time they were all occupied with digging out those still trapped under the snow and debris. Alfred carried you to the edge of camp, where the two of you were found.”

There's a brief silence as the two stare at one another, and then Lorcan bursts into laughter.

“Hahahahaaoo damn! Of course he did, the lunatic! Couldn’t leave behind anyone what showed him a lick o' good will! Bloody idiot!” Despite the harsh words, tears well up in the redhead's eyes as his voice begins to waver. “Gonna get him- himself killed for sure one of these days, with that stupid loyalty of his! Pigheaded l-loon!”

He suddenly turns away and clutches at his curls for something to hide behind, no longer able to keep from outright crying. Percy quietly moves to focus on the contents of his medicine chest to let the boy gather himself. There’s evidently some history here, concerning Alfred risking his personal well-being for others' sakes, and it seems he may have done so for Lorcan at some previous point. Unless the boy is simply wont to being ridiculously over-emotional. Hopefully neither of these possible traits will interfere with their recovery in any way, or his time tending to them.

A few sniffles are heard as Percy finishes noting what and of how much he'll need to restock upon reaching civilization. Lorcan is rubbing his reddened nose along his forearm when the physician pointedly turns to face him, his bleary eyes glancing up before sheepishly breaking eye contact. His voice is somewhat hoarse as he tries to casually continue the conversation as though nothing had happened.

“…Didn’t take him long t’take his ax t’my leg though, that’s for sure. Smiling like a madman he was!”

“An ax? Goodness!” exclaims Percy, brows raised in faux shock. He’d obviously figured that out right after getting the residual stump clean enough to see the damage, however practicing a little more sympathy and interest than he usually bothers with may be appropriate, given the youth’s sensitive nature - and it's proven to do wonders when he has to stay in constant contact with a patient.

Still, Percy is ever curious. “How many swings could that have taken? Alfred seems like a strong sort, it couldn’t have been too many… The pain must’ve been truly exquisite!”

“Hell if I know Doc - I was screaming my throat raw just from him tying the rope ‘round it. Once he put the ax t’me I must’ve been out like a light! Just heard him say t'close m'eyes after stuffing his gloves in m'mouth… What’s ‘exquisite’ mean?”

“Intensely felt, as in pain that is 'agonizing' or 'severe',” says Percy somewhat listlessly. He’d gotten his journal out to make an addendum, but alas, his curiosity is to remain unsatisfied. His guess is still at around three swings.

“Oh. Then yeah, it was the exquisitest pain I ever felt!”

The boy attempts to shift himself further upright only to lean too far on his stump. He jolts backward with a yelp, gripping at his blankets as all color drains from his face. Before he can do any further possible damage to the immense amount of work, Percy jumps up to push him down to lay against the flimsy cot. He checks for any fresh blood seeping through the strips of fabric, a distinctly calm but chiding tone in his voice as he works. “You won’t be very active any time soon, I’m afraid - bed rest is of utmost import for a proper recovery. Don’t try to do anything without assistance until told otherwise, you’re in quite a delicate state. Should we both do our best, your chances of survival are still less than desirable.”

“Great, okay, sounds good,” Lorcan deafly wheezes as the doctor’s nimble fingers painfully press and prod, “don’t feel much like a walk anyway. Not that I could.”

About a half an hour of constant one-sided gab passes before Ben asks to be let in with three dented cups of steaming soup in hand. Assuming the third is for the New Pthumerian himself, Percy stands, expecting to be asked for another impromptu lesson. But the student merely shakes his head as he’s offered the seat and hands the older man two of the cups. “It’s not for me sir, I’m needed back at the stove. Cook said to bring it for Alfred in case he woke up as well. Wouldn’t let me leave unless I did, sir.”

“Oh? Mister Cook must be confidant of Alfred also waking today if he’s willing to risk rations going to waste. Thank you Benediktus.”

“It won’t go t’waste, I’ll eat it if it gets t'cold before Alf is up!” says Lorcan, panting around a mouthful of the too-hot food.

The pale assistant bows slightly before seeing himself out, allowing Percy the space needed to sit back down to his meal. Inspecting it reveals it’s the same three main ingredients that every dish has been comprised of thus far - potatoes, salt pork, and beans. Cook added some kind of local herb to alter the flavor at least, and soup is new to the menu. Chewing on a bit of tough pork, the doctor wonders how many of the men have suffered from scurvy since becoming loggers.

“Sometimes we find berries in the wild, or catch fish and trap rabbits and the like. Around here are hermit-types living in the hills that sometimes give us veg they couldn’t eat or sell, though it’s usually started t’rot.”

Percy looks up to see Lorcan watching him with a mischievous grin. “You looked like you were thinking about how shite the food is - which is fair, ‘cause it is. Not even Cook can change that, though at least he bothers t’try.”

Swallowing is difficult with how little chewing has accomplished, but the physician manages. “Not- ahem, not necessarily, no. Just that what’s on hand is rather nutritionally lacking. I’m surprised all these men can handle such long hours and hard labor on so little.”

“Eh, t’is not so bad,” the redhead licks his spoon clean before setting the empty cup on the nearby makeshift nightstand, “Sometimes Cap’n bags an animal, what with having the only gun. He’s already shot down a wild pig since we set up this camp - took Alf ages t’cut up! Huge, monstrous things they are here, can get big as a coach! Still get extra meat with how much was dried.”

Percy looks up as he pokes at a chunk of gristle. “Alfred butchered it? Why not Mister Cook?”

“‘Cause he wasn’t ever trained at butchery like Alf was.”

He halts his meal to arch an eyebrow. “He was a butcher before becoming a logger?” Seems like quite a step down in terms of lifestyle and earnings.

“He wasn’t, but he did work for one way back - before enlisting in the Army.”

That causes the other brow to rise as well. “A soldier turned logger, with a history of butchery… Interesting choice of career changes, to say the least.”

“And he wanted t’be a priest before all that!”

Lorcan's gleeful excitement suddenly disappears and he leans closer as he hurriedly glances in his friend's direction, obviously uneasy. “Don’t go spouting off that last part though, and don’t let him know I told you any of that! I don’t think he’d like me sharing it! Oh, and never call him Alf like I do! He hates that!”

“Never, and I won't say a word,” Percy says as he finishes his soup, making note to be careful of what he says around the lose-lipped youth.

His cup is placed atop what luggage he couldn’t fit beneath his cot, next to the third serving. He pauses to consider whether or not to actually wait or just split it with Lorcan now. Why let hot food go to waste by going cold on such a chilly day? As he reaches for it a quiet gasp catches his attention. Turning, the doctor sees Lorcan wide-eyed and fully focused on the sickbay’s other occupant, prompting him to swiftly make his way between the two cots to inspect his feverish patient.

Alfred’s eyes are open, blearily staring at the ceiling. Resting a palm against what little of his forehead isn’t wrapped reveals his fever has come down some since morning. The waking man clenches his eyes shut and weakly tries to shake Percy's hand off, grumbling. “Responsive to touch-” He gently turns Alfred’s face toward him, forcing one eye open, then the other. A hand knocks into his elbow, clumsily trying to push him away. “-pupils are of equal size, coordination isn’t overly impacted, no hand tremors…” 

“Alfred, you awake? You alright?” Lorcan anxiously leans back and forth, trying to see around the physician's bent form. Alfred squints up at Percy and mumbles before swallowing, voice hoarse and gravelly from disuse.

“Whadda… we havin’…?”

Both Percy and Lorcan pause to stare at him out of confusion, but the younger's exuberance soon returns. “Soup! With the same old taters and meat as always, but this time Cook did something t’make it taste different!”

“Smells good…”

"Able to swallow unaided. Comprehending and responding to speech, his own is minimally slurred though this may be from just waking… Southern English accent…"

“Don’t it though?“ Lorcan laughs and claps a hand on his remaining knee. “What’d I say Doc! The smell o' food wafts across that snout o' his, t'is only a matter o' time 'til he’s awake!”

“Lack of facial movement is due to swelling… Hemorrhaging seems unlikely, concussion doesn’t appear to be overly severe…”

“So it would seem,” says Percy absentmindedly as he starts checking the dressings over the head wound. A few chunks of blood-clotted hair had already been cut out of the way to clean and close the injury; now that what remains has been washed and dried, he sees that more will have to be removed to keep redressing from becoming a hassle. “Perhaps I should just cut it all off - trim the beard too, keep those whiskers from getting caught in his cuts and scrapes.” Once his mind is made up he realizes the blond has been staring at him, expression blank save for a hint of slack-jawed confusion. Percy smoothly draws away to retrieve a flask and the third cup of soup before returning. “Do you need help to sit? You’re parched I’m sure, have some water.”

"I’m alright,” croaks Alfred, clearly having trouble moving with the pain of his battered ribs and limbs. Eventually he figures out how to rock forward until he can get his elbows wedged behind his back. Once fully upright he doesn’t take the proffered flask, instead looking across to Lorcan with an air of utter perplexity. “Why’s you only have one leg Lorcan?”

The redhead’s smile falters. “’Cause you cut it off, ya dolt. Don’t you remember?”

A second passes before Alfred’s bruised features try to distort in disbelief. “I wouldn’t do that! ‘Least not to you… ‘less you really deserved it, or…” He trails off as his gaze drifts back to the doctor, face falling into open-mouthed puzzlement. Then he squints harder. “…Who’re you?”

Percy flashes a pleasant smile as he empties a hand to extend to the bewildered man. “My name is Dr. Percival Hewlett. I’m a physician that has been tending to you and Lorcan for a few days now.”

“Oh…” He looks down to the hand before taking it into an awkward, bandaged grasp to give it a weak shake. “Call me Alfred.”

“Very well Alfred.”

The blond doesn't relent his grip on Percy's hand as he continues to dumbly stare up at him. An awkward silence grows heavier with each passing second as Lorcan looks back and forth between the two, even more baffled than the physician. Then Alfred knits his brows together. "Your hair is white.”

Percy stifles a sigh and forces his smile to remain extant. “Yes, it is. Drink please.”

The water flask is held directly in front of Alfred’s face, which he finally takes. He can’t quite get the cap off, but once Percy’s done away with it he drains the contents in a few gulps. Wiping his mouth with the back of a hand, his drooping eyes light up on seeing the cup still in the doctor’s grasp.

“That breakfast? What are we having?” Percy wordlessly hands it to him before excusing himself to go stick his head out of the tent, hoping to catch a passerby to report to the Captain.

“I already said, it’s soup,” Lorcan gingerly leans forward to get a better look at his friend’s face, “you feeling alright Alf? Hearing okay?”

Alfred pauses shoveling food into his mouth to think. “Ah guht ah headehk tha’ hurths ah lot,” he says through meat and beans, swallowing before he continues, “and breathing hurts, and my head hurts. A lot. My hands-”

He frowns as if he’s just noticed why his fingers can hardly bend. Percy returns with the chair to sit closer, noticing Alfred’s unnerved expression as he looks between his wrapped hands and bundled feet. “You had signs of frostbite in a few of your digits. You’re lucky to have not lost any, however it’s likely the affected areas will be especially sensitive to cold from now on.”

“Oh,” the blond says flatly, before gobbling down the rest of his soup.

The cup and spoon are forgotten - and retrieved by Percy - as he settles into vacantly staring at the tent's entrance. Or, perhaps more accurately, whatever happens to be in front of him. Lorcan is openly worried as the doctor comes back from setting their emptied cups outside, casting a sidelong glance his way as he sits.

"Is he… okay?"

Percy can't resist giving him a vaguely curious look. "Why? Isn't he always like this?"

"He… isn't…"

"Ah. Well I figured as much," his tone suddenly turns matter-of-fact, "he has a concussion, which is the cause of his odd manner and may plague him for some weeks. Otherwise, considering his injuries and the exertion of getting back to camp, he's doing remarkably well."

"Oh, okay. Good." The youth is still troubled as he watches Alfred, but seems a little more at ease. "So he's not gonna stay like this then?"

"There is possibility of permanent changes to his overall demeanor, but I believe it's quite an unli-"

"You're both too damn loud," Alfred gruffly mumbles. A drawn out groan escapes him as he rests his head in his hands. "Why do I have such a God-awful headache…?"

"You got hit on the head really hard, got a bad bump and passed out," says Lorcan in a surprisingly confident tone. This time Percy's curiosity is genuine as he stares at the boy. "It's worse than when you got decked in that nasty fight outside the last camp - you need t'sleep and rest up, lay low and all that."

"Oh." Alfred appears to think over his friend's words. "…I got in another fight? Did I win?"

"You didn't. We both lost and got the beating of a lifetime. But that's not your fault, just is how it is."

"…Oh."

The blond sounds disappointed as he fiddles with the bandages on one of his hands. He looks over at Lorcan to say something but stops short on seeing the sickbay's doctor, silently observing the two. Percy matches his gaze, both concerned and impressed at how little appears to be going on behind those dull green eyes. Perhaps permanent changes to one's faculties following a concussion may be more likely than he'd originally thought… Lorcan's sudden assertiveness melts away as he looks between them, his anxiety now almost palpable in the sudden quiet. Interesting - and here he'd suddenly sounded so sure of himself. Was this sudden change just some sort of show, trying to impress the doctor for some reason? Or maybe it was meant to be something familiar for his debilitated compatriot; a tone and voice Alfred would be more used to hearing from him? Something to help anchor him to the present, since he's unable to-

"Who're you…?"

Percy's brows rise as he brings his focus back to the man in front of him. Without missing a beat he smiles and uncrosses his arms to offer a hand. "Dr. Percival Hewlett, a physician. I've been tending to you and Lorcan for a few days now."

"Oh," says Alfred as he awkwardly takes it in his own, "you can call me Alfred."

"Very well Alfred."

The doctor's hand is allowed to be gently pulled away as Alfred dazedly blinks. "…I'm gonna sleep now."

Percy nods ever so slightly, still smiling. "You do that."

Alfred dips his head in a sort of nod, then eases himself back down. After getting comfortable his breathing instantly evens out, and soon snoring once again pervades the sickbay. Lorcan is the first to break the silence that has fallen over the tent's other occupants. "You sure he's okay?"

"…He will be, with time."

----------

With the monumental task of getting his logging camp back in working order, the Captain isn't able to drop by until the next morning, just after breakfast.

Despite having been awake just minutes prior to scarf down his food, Alfred is asleep when the foreman enters and somehow remains so as Lorcan loudly greets him, eager to finally talk at someone other than Percy. "Cap'n hey! How's the camp? We still have a job out here, still in business? And who's dead? Doc said men died but didn't give any names! Have y'heard from the employer yet?"

Mister Buckley pauses in removing his cap to give the voluble boy a tired frown. He sits in the chair Percy had offered with a sigh, the hat coming off to reveal a bald head in stark contrast with his wildly bushy cheeks. "Calm down Lorcan, it's not even been a week. We're still just getting our bearings - I'm only just figuring out who to send to the nearest town, and even that's hardly a priority right now! No word's gotten t'our employer so no word's come from them, and as for the men… Well, none o' that's anything for you t'worry about. How are y'feeling, lad?"

Lorcan visibly deflates at the lack of news, but brightens on being asked his status. "Horrible! Everything hurts, I'm more bruised than not, m'legs hurt like a bitch even though one of 'em is- M'leg is gone! That's a damn good indicator of how I'm doing!" He winces after leaning forward too far as he gesticulates, but quickly sits back when he sees the flash of concern in the Captain's face. "But! I'm still alive somehow, and Doc says m'stump's doing well, and that he'll give me something for the pain it's causing. So it's not all bad, I guess."

"The morphine is for your overall pain," Percy chimes in from where he sits on his cot, still focused on once again trying to read one of his books. "I doubt it'll have any affect on the amputated limb sensations you're suffering. Unfortunately there's very little known about the phenomena, and even less on treating it."

"Oh that, I still get such pains m'self from time t'time," Buckley mutters as he shifts his walking stick to eye his wooden hand. "It'll hopefully die down for you like it did for me, but I've heard one can suffer these phantom pains constantly - for years, even a lifetime. Only time will tell."

Lorcan frowns and momentarily falls silent, lip quivering as he again stares at the remainder of his leg. He suddenly shuts his eyes tight and shakes his head, only to stop with a roguish grin directed at his superior as he jabs a thumb in Alfred's direction. "Anyhow, enough about me - let's talk about Alf! He got knocked in the head and now he's stupid! Useless as a toothless saw he is, dull as one too!"

The Captain's brow furrows as he glances at the slumbering, bandaged blond, then twists in his seat to give the doctor a questioning look. With a heavy sigh Percy sets aside his attempted reading, casting the giddy redhead a disapproving glance before addressing the foreman. "Alfred has a significant concussion. He's having trouble retaining new information along with remembering events directly before and after he sustained his head injury. However his cognition will improve in due time, so no, he's not 'stupid' or 'useless' now."

Buckley instantly relaxes back to his neutral frown. "I'm familiar with those too, aye - apparently had a few m'self over the years. Explains why he's sleeping so soundly for once." He suddenly turns back to Lorcan with a scowl, jabbing his own finger at him. "Don't you go spouting rumors about Alfred like that! The last thing I need right now is for him t'get riled up again and lose me even more men!"

The physician raises a brow as Lorcan scoffs and waves him off. "Aw y'know I'd never do that, he's m'best mate! Besides, every time he's really pummeled one of the guys it's been for good reason. Remember when-"

"I remember every damn time he's caused me trouble, thank you very much!"

"Come on now, he's just one logger! He can't've done that much."

"Oh? How's about I list off what he's done just since you joined up!" The captain leans forward to shove his remaining hand out to start counting. "Got in a fight with a driver for talking bad about his own wife! Got in a fight with other workers over going out t'solicit some doxies! Knocked out a prospective employer for- wait, no, I told him t'do that… But! I didn't tell him to stomp his face in, which he did anyway! Gave some village bloke a blackeye for striking his mouthy brat! And in the camp before last, he beat a couple o' newly-hired men into a bloody pulp! Over something as silly as possibly planning t'rob a nearby-"

Something between a snort and a scoff erupts out of Lorcan. "Possibly?! They asked if I wanted in on it when I caught 'em talking! Were gonna use your employering them as their alibi, was the only reason they joined up! Christ Cap'n, Alf wouldn't've bothered beating 'em that badly if they were just thinking about it!"

"And how the hell d'you know that?! He's prone t'overdoing it regardless of who or why, damnit! The one time I agreed t' let the lot o' you that hang around all year off for a day, I get word he got drunk and broke someone's jaw! Over bumping in t'him!"

Face a mottled red at this point, Lorcan seems at a complete loss as he gapes in disbelief. His voice comes high and drawn out once he finds it. "That guy broke a chair over his head! During a fisticuffs tourney! Not even the bloke's mates felt bad for him after Alf was through with him! Who told you that?!"

Buckley's own reddened features make a minute shift from furious to contemplative. The tent feels utterly devoid of sound as the two Irishman glare at each other in some odd sort of battle. Even with the sudden lull, Percy is still far too entertained to interrupt, let alone cease his covert notetaking.

The Captain is first to break, his shoulders lowering as his expression turns more curious than infuriated. "…Was Alfred and that man in a match when he took a chair t'his head?"

Lorcan flings his hands up. "Yes!"

Buckley straightens in his seat, still frowning. "Well that was just unsportsmanlike, that was."

"Thank you!" The vexed redhead's hands are thrown in the other's direction before they're dropped into his lap.

"Would you all jus'… please shut up…"

The three turn as one toward the source of the weak request, who is now very much awake. Alfred's face is set in an aggravated grimace while he attempts to cover his ears, turned as far away from the raised voices as his injuries will allow. Percy is immediately up and maneuvering around Buckley to lean over the blond, a touch regretful for forgetting his patient's current sensitivities in lieu of some enthralling snippets of his past. To their credit the two Irishman look exceedingly sheepish, the older moving himself and the chair closer to the entrance to be out of the way. Once he's settled he gives Lorcan a glance before addressing his other employee, voice lacking most of its previous volume.

"Apologies Alfred, y'know how Lorcan and I can get going… How are you, lad?"

There's a long pause as Alfred merely grumbles, blankly squinting up at Percy as he makes sure no dressings have come loose from his head or hands. When he answers he closes his eyes with a frown, as if watching the physician takes up too much of his concentration. "Head hurts a lot. Chest hurts like hell… When's breakfast?"

"You had it not ten minutes ago, mate," says Lorcan, concern once again lacing his unusually quiet voice, "salt pork with wild radishes and broth? You said it tasted bad?"

Alfred's expression twists into something even more sour. "Oh… yeah, it tasted bad." He opens his eyes to dully stare up at Percy again, wincing at what light there is within the sickbay's canvas walls. "…Who's this? 'S'hair's weird..."

Percy makes no reaction even as Lorcan snorts in amusement, but it takes a moment for Buckley to angrily splutter his shock. "Don't be rude, boy! That's the good doctor, he's the one that saved you and Lorcan's lives! You've been living in the same tent for days now, y'could at least remember his name!"

"Lay off 'em Cap'n, Doc wasn't lying about his memory…"

Lorcan suddenly sounds exceedingly tired from behind Percy as he straightens after finishing his inspection. "I have a better chance of learning t'read just from being near all o' Doc's books than Alf does of remembering past a few hours ago. Dr. Hewlett's been patient as a saint, he has - introduces himself every time Alf asks."

"I believe repeated phrases and experiences may help form new memories faster, particularly for cases such as this," the physician quietly comments to the Captain before turning back to Alfred, hand extended. "My name is Dr. Percival Hewlett, a physician. You and Lorcan were badly injured some days ago, I've been tending to you since."

His words are met with a rankled, blank stare that lasts long enough to become unsettling. Without looking away, Alfred slowly draws a hand from where he'd buried them under his pillow to take the offered hand. He gives it a rigid shake. "…Call me Alfred."

Pain erupts in Percy's hand and he's suddenly wrenched downward. Another hand slams into his chest to halt his descent, the fingers curling into an equally crushing grip on his shirtfront. Their faces are mere inches apart, but the chilling, furious intensity of Alfred's glare freezes him in place.

"Don't call me Alf. Or Fred. I hate that."

The doctor barely manages to keep his alarm in check as he forces himself not to struggle. He gives a shallow nod. "Duly noted."

A suffocating silence fills the meager space for the span of a second, and then a red-faced Buckley takes an incensed breath only to be cut off by a frantic Lorcan at full volume. "He knows already, mate! I already told him! You like him, remember?! Remember you told me that - you said it just this morning!"

Alfred's expression returns to one of agony as soon as his friend starts shouting, forgetting his grip on Percy's captured hand just enough for it to be pulled free. The grip on his shirt falls slack as soon as he tries to lean away; he straightens and shuffles back until his calves bump into the other cot, massaging his aching hand as covertly as possible. "What a shockingly strong grip for being wrapped as such, in an overall weakened state - and with the pain of frostbitten digits! Goodness, what an extraordinary tolerance for…" He forces that thought to a standstill, lest he start thinking up experiments he has no way of making seem necessary, let alone acceptable.

Lorcan's loud assurances send Alfred rolling into the canvas wall as he cringes in pain. A choked sob escapes as he curls in on himself and grasps his head again, eyes clenched tight enough to draw tears. "Fffuuuckkin' Christ, just… shut up! How can I like him if we jus- I don't like him! Same as I don't like anyone right now! Just sod off, all of you!"

"Alright, we're done here."

The Captain curtly stands and dons his cap with a grimace. "He can throw a tantrum which means he's feeling fine enough. I'll try to check in t'night before lights out, but no promises. Lorcan, keep your voice down. Alfred, don't you dare strike anyone, especially Dr. Hewlett - I'll have you sacked if you do!"

Alfred flinches at Buckley's sudden unrestrained volume and practically snarls on hearing his name, spitting grumbled curses at the man as soon as he stops talking. Meanwhile Lorcan simply nods and remains silent where he lays, anxiously glancing between his friend, boss, and doctor. Very much content to put more space between he and his decidedly unpredictable patient for now, Percy follows the Captain out into the overcast daylight, quickly shutting the flap behind him when a pained, angry hiss comes from inside. As soon as he turns the old Irishman bids him to follow to one of the further tables nearer to Cook's firepit, already hobbling there himself.

"M'sorry about that Dr. Hewlett," he says ruefully once they're out of earshot. "Lorcan and I fall int' arguing easily - or rather, we get t'discussing loudly. I wasn't thinking. I know for m'self how bad light and noise can be with a head injury, so I don't blame Alfred for getting so bothered. Are ye alright?"

Percy simply hums, too intent on organizing his thoughts to respond. He ceases rubbing his sore hand to cross his arms against the chill, finally looking away from the sickbay to focus on the other man. "I take it this sort of… volatile manner isn't uncommon for Alfred? Until now he's been nothing but amiable; I'd never have guessed he'd be anything but."

Buckley sighs and sits at the end of a bench as if already weary of the topic. "Aye he's- he can be a temperamental lad. Like a kettle that doesn't whistle every time its come t'a boil, if that makes sense. Little t'no warning of when he'll… But I don't think you've anything t'worry about, Doctor, it's not too common an occurrence when he acts out. Plus Lorcan seems t'think he already likes you. Heh, aren't you lucky…"

The physician tilts his head slightly, gaze drifting as he taps a finger against his arm and quietly weighs his words. "…Pardon my eavesdropping, but from what you'd shared with Lorcan, it sounds like he's quite prone to acts of violence. I would think I should've been made aware of that as soon as we knew he'd live. Especially when he's in such a delicate state right now, mentally speaking."

The Captain grunts, absentmindedly fiddling under his jacket's cuff at whatever keeps his fake hand strapped on. "I'd've mentioned it beforehand if I thought it'd be an issue, honest. It's not- Look, Alfred can be a hotheaded eejit at times, but he's no rampaging madman. More often than not he gets violent because someone has acted out of line - and he's usually good about knowing where the line is, and when it's a matter o' talking or striking! He's a pain in m'arse when he wants t'be, but he obeys every order I give and makes sure the rest o' the men do as well. I'd honestly say he's only a touch more heavyhanded than someone in a peacekeeping position ought t'be, in this line o' work… And, if he really is fond o' you..."

Buckley's gaze turns vacant and his demeanor to one of amused ponderment as he spins a lock of facial hair between his fingers. He abruptly stops to haul himself back to his feet with the help of his cane before looking at Percy once more. "Far as I know, the only person Alfred's ever actually claimed t'like is Lorcan, and we've all seen now what he's willing t'go through for him. I think you've less to fear from the lad than most, Dr. Hewlett."

A chortle escapes Percy before he can think to stop it.

"Oh I'm not fearful, Mister Buckley, not for my wellbeing," he says with an amused smirk. "If this information affects anything, it's my concern for Alfred's recovery and the state of your operation. You already have to make due without him and his 'peacekeeping' for a number of weeks; it'd be a shame if his volatile nature were to somehow lengthen that time."

Another grunt comes from the Captain at the thinly-veiled warning, understandably far more weary than before. "Between you and Lorcan being his only company for the time being, I certainly hope that volatile nature of his finds no reason to show itself in the first place… If you'll excuse me, Doctor."

With a nod the older man turns to trudge up to where the majority of the men are gathered, still hard at work clearing out the remaining debris from their previous worksite. Percy watches him for only a few seconds before he retreats back to the sickbay, his lack of layers having thoroughly chilled him through. Rubbing his hands together nor blowing into them relieves the numbness beginning to nip at his fingers, but a satisfied smile graces his lips regardless. Despite the need for warmth he slows the closer he draws to his tent, every snippet of information he's gleaned within the last hour running through his mind.

The only intriguing, possibly worthwhile thing to be found in this bustling camp, and it's one of the two men he has to stay in nigh constant contact with. Time will tell if this is as much a blessing as he hopes it could be, or more the curse he's already begun to suspect it is… No, it's a blessing and a curse, really. But he won't squander this chance just because it's unpleasant and far from optimal.

Nothing is pleasant at the moment, but it'd be even less so without the distraction of a temporary study subject.

----------

It's not as cold this morning when he wakes up.

His breathe doesn't come out in such huge puffs of steam as he stares up at the ceiling of the tent. Alfred runs a hand over where his head feels itchy, finding fabric instead of skin or hair. His head hurts really bad. For a few seconds he's lost as to why before he remembers he got hurt. Really bad. He breathes in deeply and winces when the inside of his chest burns, but it's not as bad as he thought it would be. It's too much to open his eyes all at once, so he tries to slowly ease them into a squint. On looking at his hands he can see they're not bandaged, and wiggling his toes reveals they're in a similar state. Alfred's smile is lopsided but genuine; he's getting better.

Sitting upright is also easier than he expects, so he tries standing as well. That's much harder but he manages, wavering when the pain in his head skyrockets and his vision goes dark around the edges. Eventually he can see Lorcan asleep in the cot next to his, which is good. With just the one broken leg now it'd be strange for him to be anywhere else.

Alfred looks over to the other end of the tent where the flap is, wanting to go find food. Sitting with a periodical in hand is a spectacled man with odd hair, passively watching him from his place blocking the exit. He's familiar, but…

Alfred knits his brows together and frowns. "Who…?"

"Dr. Percival Hewlett, a physician," the silver-haired man says coolly as he closes the magazine and sets it aside. For some reason it feels like they should shake hands, but there's no offer, and it feels like he shouldn't offer either. Obviously because they've… met before?

"Right, right," Alfred sheepishly mutters as he scratches at his stubbly cheek. Of course he already knew Dr. Hewlett's name, and that they'd met. He's Alfred's doctor. "How long has it been since what happened… happened?"

"Six days. An earthquake caused an avalanche which in turn caused a landslide that toppled the tree you and Lorcan were up. You carried him to camp and have been in my care since. Your head hurts because you have a concussion, you've already eaten breakfast, and it's nearly noon."

"Oh…kay…"

Having his questions answered before asking them is unsettling. Hewlett is an unsettling man.

"Yes, so I've been told. Please sit down."

Alfred's eyes go wide - did he say that out loud? He instantly sits as he was told, ignoring how the room wobbles in response as he rubs at his mouth, cheeks tinged red. The doctor remains seated, smirking now as he continues to stare at him in silence. It was annoying and uncomfortable, Alfred decides. He's never liked people staring at him for very long, like they're sizing him up - especially if he's not looking nice. It makes it more difficult to ignore like he's supposed to, when people annoy him. If he doesn't he otherwise might accidentally punch them. It makes them stop, but usually just makes things even more annoying in the end.

"Does that happen often? You 'accidentally' harming people?"

This time Alfred flinches and makes a noise treacherously close to a meep. Hewlett outright chuckles at him as he leisurely stands, causing the blond's ears to burn - from embarrassment or anger he couldn't say. The throbbing pressure in his head intensifies so much he presses it into his hands to keep it from bursting, hissing as he draws a breath. God, but his head hurts something terrible…

"Yes, I'm aware. There's not much else I can do to help with that, I'm afraid. Here."

Alfred just huffs when the doctor mind-reads again, but looks up when legs come into view. A few strips of jerky are in an outstretched hand, a tin cup in the other. Suddenly remembering why he wanted to leave, Alfred's face brightens. "Ah, thank you!"

Dr. Hewlett hums and remains there long enough for the foodstuffs to be snatched up before returning to his seat. He doesn't pick up the periodical but instead pulls out a little book from his breast pocket, along with a pencil stub. For a while the only sounds in the tent are of scribbling, the occasional page flip, and Alfred gnawing on cold jerky. Eventually his meal is gone and he gulps down the tin's remaining water before setting it on the nightstand. Then he just sits.

He's not sure what to do now that he isn't hungry, so he tries to think. It's easier than it used to be, he's fairly sure, but it still doesn't feel right. His head hurts worse than a hangover, but it's also… really foggy, like it's caught in a raincloud. Thoughts get lost before he can find them and he can't remember things the way he usually does. It isn't a good feeling… Can he still read? Alfred suddenly sits a little straighter as panic starts to bubble up. He can't stand the idea of not remembering how to read - it's one of the only things he's got in life! He looks to Dr. Hewlett for an answer but gets none; the man doesn't even look his way. He must not have been thinking loud enough this time. "Can I still read?"

Now the doctor looks up, mild surprise in his expression. "You can read?"

Alfred is annoyed again. "Can I?"

Hewlett seems confused for a moment before his eyes light up. "Has the concussion specifically affected your ability to read? Is that what you mean? Hm…" He picks up the magazine and comes closer to hand it to him. "Can you tell me what's written on the cover?"

Alfred has to concentrate to make his eyes focus, and then even harder to figure out how to say words he's never read before. "…The… assehh- ass-ee-luhm journal, of men-tall science… i-issue t-twaahgh!"

The headache grows so intense that his vision blurs and darkens before he can finish, each throb accompanied with a spike through the back of his brain. A whine works its way out as he drops the magazine to hunch over and grip at his dressings in a bid to lessen the dizzying pain. The presence next to him silently disappears as the world shifts and turns unnaturally, only to reappear again.

Alfred doesn't want to talk anymore. He's about to blindly throw a punch when the doctor softly speaks up. "Here, lay down. I've something to cover your eyes to keep out the light."

For a moment he wonders if Hewlett is really talking to him; his tone is more gentle and kind than Alfred has heard directed at him in a long time. He blindly settles back into the cot and then something weighty and fabric is laid over his eyes, making it so he doesn't have to keep them shut as tight. It doesn't make his headache go away but it makes the ache around his eyes stop. "Thanks…"

"You're welcome. You can still read by the way."

"…That's good," Alfred winces at his own voice, "Is there anything you… for pain…?"

"I'm afraid not. Everything I have on hand would likely tamper with your recovery," Hewlett sighs. It sounds as though he turns away as he mutters, "Medicus curat, natura sanat…"

Already trying to will himself back to sleep, Alfred frowns. "…'Nature heals?' Why're you… speaking Latin…?"

"You know Latin?" the doctor quietly exclaims, more surprised than before. He gets no reply, as instead soft snoring begins to fill the small space.

Hewlett watches his strange patient for a moment longer, before retrieving the little journal to flip to a certain page and add to its contents.

[schalaasha]

Top 20 Games of the Decade

Hi, I felt like writing about my top 20 games of the decade because I kept thinking about it. This is a semi-ranked list, but I decided not to throw numbers into the mix since, really, outside of the top 2, I can’t think of how to rank the games prior to them. I also commissioned hyiroaerak (@/HRAK__S2 on twitter, https://hyiroaerak.weebly.com/work.html) for art to commemorate this occasion.  Our characters are cosplaying as characters from our games of the decade!

Mega Man 10

I actually like Mega Man 10 more than Mega Man 9 out of the two platformer revival games in this series. Though a bit of background on this: Mega Man 4 is my favourite, and I prefer the games that are not 2, 6, 7, or 11, so I suppose that contextualises this for others.         Either way, despite it not having weapons that were as useful as Mega Man 9’s, I felt like 10’s level design and pacing worked more for me in my favour. Though I’m saying that as someone who liked the double fortress design in earlier games so that might invalidate how I feel.

 Time Attack mode from Mega Man 9 returns as well as Proto Man (but he’s unlockable right off the bat). It also has a proper Challenge Mode compared to Mega Man 9’s challenges, whereby challenges for certain levels or bosses are unlocked when you actually do it in the main game. Being able to play as Proto Man off the bat allows for the fluidity Mega Man had in 3 and beyond by letting you slide and use charged shots. I personally liked being able to play as Proto Man off the bat as while he has the 3 and beyond advantages for his moveset, he is a glass cannon and you still have to watch where you’re going.

 I feel like the levels were a little better designed and if I needed more of a challenge, Hard Mode was still there to cut my teeth on. I liked the colour schemes throughout the level maps a lot more than 9’s as well. The bosses felt particularly gripping and trading blows with them fit into a nice rhythm.

 It has more content than Mega Man 9 and I had a lot more fun with 10 than I did with either 9 or 11. The formula itself is pretty static compared to other Mega Man games, but I like simple things. Why fix what isn’t broken? It’s just a nice piece of cake at the end of the day and that’s all I really want.

  Trauma Team / HOSPITAL: 6人の医師

When I started university for the first time in 2006, I was pre-med.  I eventually got sick and tired of the politics and people in the program (ie: folks saying they only wanted to go to med school so they can get rich or make friends with pharma reps who might give them perks), and I left the program to pursue program majors and a minor to prepare me for speech-language pathology instead.

 We had a Wii in our student lounge. My main university campus wasn’t exactly big and a lot of the people who hung out in the student center were kind of cliquey. I think I had the benefit of being really good friends with one of the guys who was the biggest social butterflies at the school so I got to meet a lot of people or get involved with stuff if I felt like it. So that meant I got to play with other students in games or wi-fi sessions during classes or after classes if I didn’t have to commute home right away.

 Because almost everyone I knew at my school wanted to go into medicine, everyone played the Trauma series. Some kids played Under the Knife during class. Some kids played Second Opinion on the Wii in the student lounge. Some kids played New Blood. This was before like… Farmville took over everyone’s computers at the time.

 Trauma Team came out way after that, and some of us were either graduating or staying in school an extra year because we didn’t know what to do after the recession or knew what to do but needed extra courses for graduate school.  So the Wii was free to use.  I don’t think people hooked it up as often anymore anyway. By 2010, a lot of us who had met each other in first year decided to go our separate ways, not even in the same majors or programs anymore. A lot of us either branched out into research, psychology, neurology (like me), kinesiology, epidemiology, forensics, genetics, etc. So Trauma Team for the rest of us who were still there was a good fit.

 Trauma Team took some influences from the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic considering that was when the development phase occurred. Now, I live in Canada, and Canada was one of the focal points for the 2003 SARS outbreak. This was when health bodies in the country decided to make some changes to how they respond to potential pandemics. A lot of things they tell medical students or any students studying health policy (like I was at the time) emphasized how different parts of the hospital or medical or health care staff need to work together in order to care for a patient. I actually find the different professions involved in Trauma Team useful and a reflection of what my class of 2010/2011 became later on (a lot of us graduated in 2011 and took an extra year).

 Diagnostics and Forensics were what I was really interested in since they don’t play the same as surgery/emergency medicine since they played out like a point-and-click. Later on in life, I had to look at so many medical reports and radiology reports and file them but by then I realised what my patients had but I can’t tell them myself since I’m not a doctor. But Trauma Team gave me a chance to do so and practice my terminology as a student. A friend of mine, who ended up becoming a doctor at a hospital in Toronto, really enjoyed endoscopy since it merely involved using the Wiimote as an endoscope and the nunchuk to steer. A lot of us played co-op too.

 The difficulty in Trauma Team, I felt, was decreased from previous games. But that doesn’t really spoil it. It was a varied game and it looks fantastic. It’s a shame that the game style hasn’t been replicated or given a sequel in later years, because while I’m older and my classmates are doing completely different things and I haven’t seen some of them in years, I’d love to take a stab at these types of games with a well-practiced laboratory technologist’s hand.

  Sonic Colours

I think it goes without saying. My first community when I joined the old forum was the Sonic community. Just a bunch of people who were interested in talking about Sonic so much in almost every thread that we ended up making a community thread together. I don’t post in the new forum everyone is at but I still talk to mostly everyone via different social mediums.

 I wasn’t around when Sonic Colours came out but I think I remember reading the joy everyone felt when nearly universally everyone in that thread seemed to really like Sonic Colours. I remember the thread title still. I preordered Sonic Colours because apparently previews were saying it was… good? I didn’t bother playing Sonic Unleashed until after I’d joined the forum, but hearing Sonic Colours would be a return to form since I was one of those people who didn’t adjust well to the 3D games made me interested.

 Sonic Colours is everything I wanted from a 3D Sonic game. Or rather, a 3D version of a platformer. I didn’t really like where 3D platformers were going because they were hard to look at, hard for me to pay attention to, and to be honest I got dizzy while playing a lot of them since you’re expected to work in a 3D space as opposed to a 2D space so it was really hard for me to process. I really like the hybrid nature of the level designs that’s where Sonic Colours got me.

 Sonic Colours isn’t without its hangups: some of the levels are really short; existing mostly for ranking/getting red rings. Sonic’s jump is pretty floaty. The script is fairly short even if the jokes can be funny. Bosses are reused. Sonic Colours is not a perfect game, but the attempts it made were fantastic enough in its own right.

 The music continues to be great, but the areas are visual spectacles. Whatever you think of the series, it’s fairly undeniable that the games try to have style. From the lighting, to posing, to setpieces, to colours used in assets in the level design – Sonic has always had really great ideas.  Sonic Colours is no exception – areas like Aquarium Park, Planet Wisp, and Sweet Mountain have a variety of neat level ideas and they look good trying to execute it. From popcorn on the floor to one of the best darned water levels in all of video games due to the drill wisp, to a fresh take on a grassy knoll with beautiful music, Sonic Colours can bring tears to your eyes because of what it attempts. Terminal Velocity Act 2 is also one of my favourite parts of the Uncolourations games partially because it’s a well-executed setpiece, but it also showed me that maybe those 3D racing bits aren’t that bad.

 The bosses may be really easy, and the final boss ends far sooner than it should before it could perfectly execute its Kamen Rider reference, but I think the point was to fully enjoy the theme park that Sonic Team threw at you this time.

 In 2020 I like to say that out of all of the Uncolourations games, Sonic Unleashed is my favourite due to the balance it struck and its presentation/artstyle, and basically having one of the best soundtracks of the previous decade. But I recognise everything that Sonic Colours brought to the table. If it wasn’t for Sonic Colours, I wouldn’t be friends or acquaintances with so many people that I am with now.

  Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Have you ever played a game that made you feel warm and toasty? Canadian winters can be really cold, you know.

 When I lived at my old run-down house, my old room didn’t have good insulation. Whenever it got cold, my room got really cold. I had my own personal heater because we didn’t really have a good heating system in my room either. So I only wore flannel pyjamas, wrapped myself in faux-wool blankets all the time, and went to sleep covered in at least four quilts or comforters (which is something I still do out of habit sorry). I used to make hot choco every day because it was just so cold in my room.

 I love Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Kirby’s Epic Yarn makes me feel warm and toasty inside because I think of being wrapped up in yarn and sheets and scarves and I just feel so happy. There are so many pastels used in KEY’s earlier stages that I can’t help but to feel toasty and happy when I’m playing it. It’s not the most challenging game. The game is really easy and all you mostly do is collect furniture, music, beads, and parts of the results wheel in every level, but I don’t think that’s the point of it. The point is just to have fun. Watching Kirby turn into a car to sprint, watching him turn into a little parachute or transform during those vehicle bits, you just can’t help but to feel so enveloped by the cute.

 Being able to interact with cloth by pulling a loose button and releasing something, taking off tags, pulling on stray thread, spin balls of yarn… it feels so fulfilling because it’s a clever use of the medium. It’s exactly what you’d do if you’re stitching or knitting. Placing furniture around Kirby’s little apartment makes the Animal Crossing fan in me so happy.

 I appreciate the lengths Good-Feel went to producing the level designs. They took photos of the fabric they bought and created the graphics that way. The music is calm and relaxing, with lots of woodwind and piano and lighter sounding instruments. The entire game feels so soft and sweet. It’s a visually-impressive game since everything animates incredibly fluidly.

  Cuphead

Like anyone my age or older, I grew up watching a lot of older cartoons by Max Fleischer with watercolour backgrounds, hand-drawn characters with a lot of focus on expressions, rotoscoping, etc Lots of slapstick and musical scores out of that decade.  I would have never believed I’d play a video game that looks like that but here we are playing Cuphead this decade.

 Cuphead is a blend of that artstyle with older run and gun style games. It combines a gunning experience with puzzles, reflexive actions, and dying… and dying a lot. And learning. Underneath it’s cartoony and child-friendly veneer lies a game that is unrelentingly difficult. There aren’t really any checkpoints in the game save for one. You can’t regain lost health. It’s just you versus the game. You may spend hours on one single level learning everything about it. And you can’t beat the game until you finish off every other level on regular difficulty.

 Different levels have different forms: they can be run and guns á la Contra, which are actually, oddly enough, breathing room levels. They’re probably the “easiest” levels in the game. Other types of levels can be straight up shmup-like boss fights where you’re flying in a plane. They can be hard as a regular shmup.

 The best crafted types of levels are the ones that include platforming as part of their boss battles because they use the artstyle and ideas involved in the art piece as interesting platforming mechanics. You have a more limited control scheme but the scenario you’re involved in is really interesting and unique. You fight a woman in a play and the setpieces in the play change according to how far you are in the boss fight, for example. The game also has a parry mechanic whereby you can double-jump off of anything that’s coloured pink and fill your super meter in order to kill bosses faster. The parry cues change per boss so it’s really cool to see what they look like every time you encounter something new.

 I think while Cuphead can be utterly unforgiving, I think it should be experienced at least once for how much work was put into making things look so fluid and how creative every boss and level can be. It’s what I wanted the UBIart framework to eventually evolve into. I think the game’s aesthetics and sound are its own reward in addition to that feeling when you finally conquer That One Boss.

  Asura’s Wrath

Asura’s Wrath was a game I was incredibly iffy on even buying at all. I heard about how the ending was part of paid DLC, that the game didn’t have a lot of gameplay, and that it was incredibly unremarkable. I don’t think I had a remarkably low bar or anything for this, but I decided to purchase it on the cheap.

 Asura’s Wrath definitely isn’t a game for everyone, and I feel as though it’s an acquired taste. The main character’s art might not jive well with everyone, the lack of ‘play’ will probably deter some folks, and its episodic nature/final chapter unlock sequence would probably get on people’s nerves. With that said, at first, it seems to be an action-cinematic game without necessarily expanding on the “action” part. A lot of it at first seems to be a bunch of QTEs to move the narrative along, with the narrative not necessarily being that strong in the first place. I think that’s due in part to the game’s structure initially. The first few chapters and the first act truly don’t seem very remarkable. The Buddhist and Hindu aspects of the game are very obvious and very central to the game’s plot, but at the same time, they don’t seem to be specifically mentioned whenever someone talks about the game to me. The Asuras were not one singular character or a god, but a race of warlike beings exhibiting wrath and pride. They were incorporated into Hinduism and Buddhism through their mention in The Rigveda. With that said, I was continually impressed by how many references—whether it was mere mention of regular terms/concepts/people, the artstyle and inclusions of things like lacquer skin, mandorlas, Vajras and Pretas, and also Siddham script—was included in this game. Asura’s Wrath ended up feeling incredibly natural and a nice way of shedding some light on non-Judeo-Christian religions.

 Anyway, I genuinely liked that the game felt like a playable anime. I don’t feel like the game would be as effective if it were put into another genre, or were less cinematic. It ends up getting its message across with its carefully-researched artstyle, great scene direction, well-composed music, and penchant for feeling like it was a fantastic shounen anime. I also feel like the game has more combo-based gameplay than people give it credit for. A lot of the complexities come to the forefront on Hard mode, and going for S-ranks and finding ways to do that quickly and effectively on higher difficulty modes is always an interesting affair.

  Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

I finished marathoning all of the Ace Attorney games in 2010. I don’t recall if I was doing it before Ghost Trick but I think what enticed me to get the game was its amazing animation. I hadn’t seen 2D sprites move that fluidly in a very long time. Characters have exaggerated movements, exaggerated dances (ie: the panic dance), and they have big flashy gestures to show off the game’s animation engine.

 You’re introduced to all sorts of eccentric characters, many of whom don’t overstay their welcome (Circus case from AA2, I’m looking at you). You have a desk lamp, a doggo, a dancing detective, a little girl who’s the focal point for one episode, etc. Everyone’s dialogue is relatively snappy, their expressions and animations make them stand out from others, and due to how everything is presented right down to the character art portraits, everything just jumps off the screen.

 Because you’re a spirit with amnesia, you’re given the ability to go through time, and also the ability to through environments by hopping from object to object and possessing them in order to influence what happens in the past to save people in the present.  This is just a path to trying to figure out who you really are or to find who or what killed you. A lot of the gameplay revolves around trying to figure out which objects to manipulate and when in order to influence an outcome. It makes the game partially point and click, but also partially a physics puzzler. I don’t think I remember a single object in the puzzle segments that was wasted. In other circumstances, you must manipulate time in order to save someone in their last four minutes.

 If anything, I feel like Ghost Trick is a necessary inclusion simply because of its style and attention to detail, as well as its sort but sweet story where nothing overstays its welcome. Its soundtrack also feels similar. The game is fairly consistent and nothing really changes in terms of progression over most of the game. But I see that as a plus as opposed to a minus for the most part. It helps to bring the game to a compelling and surprising conclusion.

  Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

I marathoned all of the Assassin’s Creed games in one year prior to Assassin’s Creed III since I wanted to see what the deal was with the series because the first game wasn’t that great from a play perspective for me. The thing that resonates the most with respect to Assassin’s Creed for me is marshmallow-flavoured birthday cake and a bag of regular Bugles. I started this marathon on one of my birthdays that decade.

 Assassin’s Creed II is one of my favourite games out there, but Brotherhood adds so much to the formula despite its middling storyline compared to its predecessor. But that’s because most of Ezio’s growth happened in the previous game. He is a middle-aged man searching for the Apple of Eden, and while the story does not carry as much emotional impact, that isn’t exactly what I’m looking for with respect to the earlier AC games.

 One of the things I absolutely love about the earlier AC games is its attention to detail even if it isn’t necessarily completely accurate. At first I missed the fact that I could explore many different towns like I could in AC2. But then I realised how big Rome and its surrounding area is. Rome is gigantic, and it has so much attention to detail with historical buildings everywhere (which you need to pay to rebuild), old tapestries from the era, citizens dancing in the streets, lovers flirting with each other behind pillars, etc. There are more roofs and buildings to parkour over and between. The game adds towards that require you to take over them before you can use them to gain access to vendors and things to renovate. You can also find the glyphs (much like the ones from the previous game) to solve puzzles in order to gain access to more lore.

 I genuinely love the renovation aspect of this game. It’s more involved and a lot better than what the previous game tried to do with its economy. You renovate in order to gain access to shops, which in-turn generates income for you, and then you can renovate other stuff based on the income that you generate. It’s something that I’ve come to miss in later AC games. It felt a lot like a Suikoden game in some aspects.

 Platforming missions return in the form of finding parts of a cult and cutting the beginnings of a conspiracy off by its limbs. They’re faster paced than AC2’s tombs and there is more variety in terms of what you platform through. I like both types equally since one allows you to marvel at the beauty of a cathedral, while the other allows you to clock a few folks while making your way through a lair.

 In addition to the lairs, there are different types of missions for each faction that you forge alliances with, there are Da Vinci missions that involve new war toys and blowing things up in a scripted way. Assassin missions can vary in terms of how you carry out the assassins (albeit still scripted; improvisation was not a thing until ACUnity).

 The crux of AC: Brotherhood is being able to recruit assassins to your cause. Random citizens throughout Rome may be under attack by Borgia soldiers, and once you save them, they are recruited to join your cause. You level them up, send them out on missions, improve their gear, and ask for their help when you can and when they’re available. This feature gets expanded upon in later AC games but it gets a very good start here.

 Brotherhood is so full of content and a lot of little things that playing it for me makes it feel like comfort food for me. It may not have the best story and it certainly isn’t as memorable in that sense as its predecessor. But it’s so fun that I can’t help but to feel satisfied every time I turn it on.

  Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

I played the original Pac-Man CE on 360 years ago at my cousin’s house, where they added a timer and a morphing maze to the base original game. I thought it was a neat novel thing at the time but didn’t think further.

 Pac-Man CE DX adds more mazes and more mechanics and more modes to the championship edition base. It added sleeping ghosts where, if Pac-Man moves near them, they wake up and they chase him around the maze in a line until you can finally eat them all and rack up a huge score. You can also elect to use a bomb at a small expense in order to save yourself and send ghosts to the middle of the maze again. These changes assist in maintaining the game’s flow and it never makes a score attack daunting or boring.

 Devouring big long conga lines of ghosts following you is so satisfying while you’re listening to a bumpin’ soundtrack and chilling out looking at the cool lights on the maze. Really and truly, while at its core, PMCEDX is a score attack game, it makes for a beautiful loving chill sensory experience and I couldn’t ask anything more from it.

  Deadly Premonition / レッドシーズプロファイル

I think I, like a lot of people, was introduced to this game via the GB series. I didn’t have an Xbox 360 so I eventually imported the Japanese version for the PS3. The game’s dub was already in English; the text was in Japanese and it was pretty easy and reasonable to get through. Deadly Premonition actually the Guinness World Record winner for most critically polarizing horror video game since the reviews at the time were so all over the place. And yes, I will contend that Deadly Premonition is definitely not for everyone.

 I am not the type of person to play shooters. I actually hate them a lot. I don’t like gushing blood in video games, and I don’t really like the act of murdering someone in a game. I used to play a lot of survival horror games when I was younger on the PS1 and PS2, but a lot of the time you’re dealing with the undead or oddball things going on around you so it’s not nearly as bad I think. It’s funny; I deal with people’s bodily fluids and body parts all the time in real life as part of my job (ie: I’ve had to help dissect someone’s stomach before fresh out of the operating room), and it doesn’t bother me. But the mere act of seeing it done or doing it, makes me feel squeamish. I don’t like it. I don’t even like watching blood being drawn from me or needles being stuck into me, even though I’ve done it to other people as part of my work.

 For the most part, inexplicably, in Deadly Premonition, you’re dealing with the undead anyhow. I’m not the best person at shooters, but I certainly know what’s a good one and what isn’t.  Deadly Premonition is not a very good shooter. It’s really janky. Some of the weapons don’t make sense in terms of how balanced they are. The controls are also really janky. This is not really a surprise considering the game’s strength wasn’t supposed to be its shooter aspects. In fact, those parts weren’t even supposed to be there.

 Deadly Premonition is often cited as an artistic piece or a good game simply because of its story and character writing.  It has an excellent main character who was cast almost perfectly. It has a lot of eccentric characters filling the town of Greenvale to help you solve the murder mystery or help obstruct it. The end result of having an unreliable narrator works out in the game’s favour. It helped sprout pop culture references, weird humour, quirky dialogue and more. I have certainly never watched Twin Peaks but I got the allusions either way since the show was so big. Slowly uncovering how every cast member lives their lives throughout the town and every day makes you more emotionally connected with them.

 Greenvale is more of a sandbox than just a place where a crime is committed. You can play darts. You can race cars. You can do a ton of sidequests somewhere that will reward you elsewhere. You can collect trading cards??? You can carry some lady holding a pot everywhere? You can taste-test for one of your coworkers? You can do a lot of stuff that makes zero sense but I still end up enjoying it all anyway.

 It looks like a PS2 or Dreamcast game or something and I almost found that utterly endearing in the era in which it was released. The soundtrack itself is so dissonant and doesn’t always fit the situation. Sometimes the sound mixing is so all over the place that it often results in making a scene more hilarious than it should be. There’s a song that’s just… American Idiot… on the soundtrack for some reason. Along the way, you start wondering “is this game real? Am I real? Is this really happening right now?” and yes, yes it is.

 In the end, because of its cult success and getting people talking, it allowed Swery 65 to make more games. Deadly Premonition was lightning in a bottle for him. He followed up with D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die (unfortunately in limbo). He cowrote Lord of Arcana and Lord of Apocalypse. He recently released The Missing. If anything, I’m more interested in what he makes. I’m eagerly looking forward to The Good Life.

  999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Text/Puzzle-adventures, rather than pure visual novels, became a staple of some players’ libraries due in part of the popular Ace Attorney series, Professor Layton series, and whatever Mystery Case File games that were published by Nintendo. 999 is not a pure visual novel. It’s a puzzle adventure game with visual novel elements. With art by Kinu Nishimura and a story written by Kotaro Uchikoshi (who had a few visual novels under his belt), it was difficult for me to ignore this game. I was also at a point where I really wanted to get into a lot of the games that Aksys published so it was a natural choice to buy.

 A lot of the localization and language in this game was edited so that while it stays true to the spirit of the original language, a lot of care was put into making the dialogue and writing sound natural in the English language versus going line by line exactly. It worked out in the game’s favour because the script was fairly large. Based on Uchikoshi’s past games, he likes to ask a question and generally incorporate some pseudoscience in his narratives. 999’s version of pseudoscience ended up being morphogenetic fields (see: Rupert Sheldrake). This theory ended up the basis for a few characters and it is the way the story unravels. He also took inspiration from another older game of Chunsoft’s: Banshee’s Last Cry where the player is put into an unsettling position right off the bat. Indeed, 999 starts the player in media res, but the player is already in trouble when you begin to control the main character.

 The puzzles were added to the game so that it would be received well by a wider audience than just visual novel readers. They were naturally and seamlessly integrated into the experience that the game became almost wholly about the puzzle rooms and whatever flavour dialogue occurred during the puzzle rooms. A lot of inspiration seems to have been taken from browser-based escape games like the Crimson Room from 2004. Escape the Room games were a subgenre of point and click adventure games and it was nice seeing the concept integrated in a narrative experience that wasn’t Myst (see: http://www.fasco-cs.net/ for more information). Due to the puzzles being a fundamental part of the game’s story, with them getting more and more difficult, the final puzzle for the entire game at the end of the true route is both a relief and also incredibly impactful due to using both of the DS screens and also revealing a lot to the player about the narrative.

 If I had criticism for the game, I feel like it would be having to play the game repeatedly, doing the same puzzles repeatedly in order to unlock another prerequisite ending for the true ending. I did not play the later port which rectifies this but I’m not entirely sure that being able to see the branches would be great for the game either. I also feel like, just like a lot of Uchikoshi’s writing and previous games, that when the characters start cracking jokes when they have to urgently do things to not die, the tone feels a little off.

 With that said, 999 is one of the more compelling text/puzzle-adventures from last decade, and it uses its native platform to its advantage. There weren’t a lot of games that used the DS screens to convey a narrative properly but when you are faced with the revelation that the game was using the two screens for a remarkable reason, you feel like the game is a natural and powerful addition to any DS library and gives significance for the dual screens.

  Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

The funniest thing about Metal Gear Rising was that I actually disliked it at the beginning when I first started playing it. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time, and I didn’t ‘get’ the parry mechanic. At first, I guess I was playing it for the sake of playing it? It definitely took me a while to even warm up to it. The camera was obnoxious (and still gets to be obnoxious in some places), and I felt incredibly nauseous while playing it sometimes.

 It wasn’t until I got to the Mistral boss that I finally … found what I was looking for… I’m sorry. I’m serious, though. Metal Gear Rising truly shines during the boss battles. When I finished that particular boss battle, I’d reflected that I was smiling like an idiot the entire way through. I don’t think I’d fought satisfying boss battles in years prior to that. Returning to previous chapters told me that Platinum really likes to frame and teach players via trial by fire. Learn to parry yourself, here’s a test to see if you can parry well and you can get a trophy for it, here’s the final test to see if you can even parry (Monsoon). I loved that Metal Gear Rising threw a lot of what we knew about Metal Gear Solid out of the window, with a significantly interesting score, boss battles that centre around the climax of a battle (expertly done via excellent sound design as I noted in my SotY writeup this year), and a more interesting and personable version of Raiden. It relies far more on offense than defense and stealth, and that’s okay to me. It ends up separating Raiden even more from Snake.

 The final boss is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of affair, and I ended up loving every single part of it. I felt like it was one of the best final bosses in years. Don’t know how to parry? You’re fucked. Don’t know how to use the game’s other offensive rush tactics like Defensive Offense and running? Good luck. The game makes sure you try to know how to do these things before even bothering to attempt the boss, with the major roadblock being Monsoon. And if you can’t parry by then, the game brutally tells you that you aren’t doing it right by making the boss battles ramp up to significantly require you to use one of the game’s core mechanics for elegant combat. This isn’t the most elegantly-designed game whatsoever. In fact, it can be really sloppy. With that said, it’s one of the better action games I played all decade.

  Papers, Please!

Papers, Please is work. It feels like work because it is work. You can grant freedom and admittance to people, or you can just take their freedom away or not permit them to cross the border. Everything you do is controlled by the government, or by rules and regulations. If you do something wrong, you’re written up. Do enough wrong, and your pay is cut. Do enough wrong and your pay is cut multiple times, and you can’t provide enough for your family. Everything about the game just feels like work. Even right down to the end of the day when the whole thing feels like a budget calculation and spreadsheets. Everything about the game’s UI feels a lot like work. Where do you allocate space to do your job? How much money do you allocate to heat/food/medicine? It ends up feeling very tedious, but somehow fulfilling.

 You are an immigration officer in a fictional Soviet state. The interesting part of the game is that it doesn’t only feel like a job, but it also feels like government and self-evaluation. You end up studying why the government keeps regulating the border the way they do, and thinking about how mundane the job can be. You know that people’s livelihood and family lives hinge on whether or not they cross the border, and sometimes your penchant for following the rules and disallowing people across the border may be called into question when people plead with you to go through. Do you accept docked pay so you can reunite people or save people from slavery, or do you do as you’re told and live with the consequences of your actions. In a small way, your ethics are called into question. It’s a nice reminder that a lot of things, despite people being people and having their own stories, generally seem to come down to bureaucracy and pieces of paper as opposed to a full understanding of humanity or extenuating circumstances.

 I’d also like to add that Jorji is one of the best characters of 2013 to me. I think his glass half-full philosophy / if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again philosophy is something to look forward to whenever I encounter him in-game.

 In many ways, Papers, Please feels a lot like the Milgram experiment. Are you going to make cruel judgement calls to separate a family, or keep people in slavery because the authorities and higher-ups essentially tell you to do your job so you can keep your family healthy? Papers, Please in many ways is written incredibly well. It doesn’t use reams of text to make you understand the overall premise of the game but through your actions, you’re also helping to tell the story. That’s the sort of weird and wonky player “agency” that I find interesting.

  World of Final Fantasy

The Final Fantasy series had a better decade than the last decade, I feel, considering the quantity of releases increase from the previous decade.  However, it had a lot of growing pains to deal with at the beginning of the decade. Final Fantasy games sell well all the time, and more people playing games than ever, it makes sense that sales numbers continuously increase. Attach rates aren’t as large.  Final Fantasy XIV came out in 2010 and it was not a good game at all to the point of having to be structured for its 2013 re-release. Final Fantasy XIII had mixed reviews, as well as its subsequent direct sequels.  Final Fantasy All the Bravest wasn’t exactly the best mobile debut for the series. The brand also suffered from dilution – the Final Fantasy name was attached to almost anything and everything for the sake of sales, and numerous spinoffs were released and the quality varied.

 Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII, originally planned to be part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis setting with Final Fantasy XIII were renamed and rebranded/redesigned to be their own titles: Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy Type-0. Both games also had mixed reviews and multiple delays. If anything, I can probably say that this decade was the most divisive for Final Fantasy fans.

 World of Final Fantasy came out during the same year Final Fantasy XV. I think I’ve made my feelings about Final Fantasy XV fairly well-known.  Perhaps my feelings about that game influenced how I felt about World of Final Fantasy but as someone who has played this series for decades (for reference: the first game is one year older than I am, and my first Final Fantasy was the first game), I felt like World of Final Fantasy was a love letter written to fans like me. I am a long-standing fan of the series over the course of decades and have been through its up and downs, and while I don’t like every game in the series (we all know how I feel about half of the games in the series, after all), I can still look at them for their influence on the rest of the series.  I also like the newer games equally as the older games and dislike and like games from all of the eras, so I don’t really have issues with how the series is represented in general unless the games are really bad.

 World of Final Fantasy feels like a Kingdom Hearts-esque exploration of the Final Fantasy games while throwing Pokemon into the mix. It involves a lot of older references as well as bringing new references in and throwing it into a presentation mode that fans of all ages can enjoy. The main characters are chibi which fits right into how the older games represented characters, but they can also grow taller to represent how the newer games are represented. You can create stacks of party members according to their height and balance well accordingly out of classic Final Fantasy enemies and characters in order to battle against other classic Final Fantasy characters, villains, and monsters.

 The game is exactly what I wanted a mainline Final Fantasy to look. It retains a cartoony look, embracing stylization while adding so much detail to the areas’ setpieces so that they also stand out while the characters move around on the map. I also felt like the score was also a brilliant blend of old and new: with Masashi Hamauzu composing the score but also remixing older Uematsu themes to fit within the context of the score. The score was loftier compared to Hamauzu’s older works and the strings, synth, and piano works incredibly well to bring the game’s world to life.

 The idea for WoFF was to try to bring younger fans into the fold, hence the Pokemon-like influence for using and rearing many classic FF enemies so that children could start to recognise them. The loftier script was also written in-mind taking into account both lighter storytelling from older FF titles and some darker bits taking into account newer Final Fantasy games. I’m not too sure that SE was very successful with bringing younger fans into the fold, but the way the game was written fit well with what I remember liking about FF for the first few games I had played. I also enjoyed that characters were chosen for their involvement to the plot versus them simply picking the most popular ones. This is why we got characters like Eiko and Shelke as well as regular FF mainstays. All of the characters were woven into the story well, as citizens of Grymoire as opposed to characters who just have their regular identities transported into Grymoire instead.

 I felt like the Pokemon mechanic was handled well. I even loved it enough to have the idea commissioned in combination with our FFXIV characters.  I liked that it changed up whatever skills you had access to, it influenced your stats, and it looked adorable to boot.

 I would absolutely love to see a mainline game made by this team because I felt like the loose style of storytelling and worldbuilding made for a very good Final Fantasy game, and in essence, WoFF was the real Final Fantasy XV to me. It felt more “Final Fantasy” than a lot of the games released in the same decade, or even compared to ones released in the previous decade. It was a nice step and touch to demonstrating that there were staff members who remembered what Final Fantasy is to older fans.

  Va-11 Hall-A

I’m too young to have a big attachment to older PC games like the ones on the MSX or the PC-88/98. But I’ve always had a fondness for their graphics and their music, like sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong time or something. It’s one of the reasons why I gravitated hard to the PC Engine—I felt like it was a way for me to finally experience stuff like that.

 Valhalla is supposed to be a bartending simulator but in reality, mixing drinks is a bit of a break and distraction between the visual novel bits. Usually if you’re stuck in a futuristic landscape akin to Bubblegum Crisis or Blade Runner, you’re asked to investigate a mystery or explore it. But nope, you’re a bartender making drinks and making enough to scrape by and pay your rent. You hear a lot about the world from various clientele while you serve them drinks but you don’t necessarily have to do anything with the information they give you.

 I worked as a medical administrator for a few years and over that time, I got to hear a lot of stories, meet some famous people (like been on TV people or youtubers or people who got paid to do things for celebrities), and just meet a lot of neat and interesting regular people. I got to hear stories about people’s health or their personal lives or witness people falling in or out of love. You don’t necessarily have to do anything with that information (in fact you can’t due to patient confidentiality), but the stories become sealed in your head. I can’t help but to think of some of these people I met for those few years or where they are now. I actually run into some of them at my current lab so I keep getting to see some of their stories. You eventually learn how quickly icebreak in situations like these to make people feel at ease or find a topic of conversation while they’re waiting. I even used my phone to gauge news because a lot of the time when I got home, I was too tired to do anything or getting news in the palm of my hand was incredibly easy to do.

 In this sense, I understood Valhalla. It may look dull and it doesn’t look special but you’re the one who makes it so that it doesn’t have a dull moment in the bar. You’re the one who has to make it enjoyable even if your pay sucks. Because you don’t want to be miserable either. It’s through the conversations with others that you learn about Jill because she has to add commentary too. Everyone has a different way of requesting something and it’s up to you to figure out how to decipher it. It’s a lot of like practice in being in the service industry.  You need to consistently gauge a conversation in order to actually give the client what they want to unlock more conversation.

 The pacing in this game may be a little slow, but it doesn’t feel like a hindrance because the writing is really good. Something always happens to keep you interested or you have to mix drinks to keep yourself on your toes. The humour comes across well, and nothing really falls flat. Part of the reason why I feel like the writing is genuine is because the game’s developers wanted to write something that reflected how they live in Venezuela, akin to laughter in the middle of despair according to the developers. The writing is balanced well with the music and the visuals which makes the whole package a wonderful experience.

 This game also has Rad Shiba so it belongs on the list by default.  

  El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

I had gone to Catholic Schools all my life. I was even in a nursery school operated by nuns when I was a toddler, and they always tried to get me to write with my right hand instead of my left (which left me ambidextrous for some things lol).  Because of my experiences with religion growing up, I absolutely had questions and doubts and concerns with metaphysics, theology, and epistemology. Every Catholic, I think, as they grow up and have to take religion classes, and having to take what the province mandates as metaphysics are somehow inserted into math and biology syllabi without even being mentioned in the coursework at all, questions it. And that’s okay. You should. The best religion and philosophy teacher I ever had growing up always said we should question everything we learn including what he taught us.

 Going through school, though, and reading the Bible and having Bible study, my friends and I always sorta wondered what it’d be like if a game was made about this stuff?  I know it may be a little sacrilegious but there are so many stories in there that would fit a game. Throughout my life, as I became acquainted with others from different branches of Christianity or other western religions, I talked with others who played games who… surprisingly had the same ideas and desires?  It probably won’t ever be done. El Shaddai is inspired by the Book of Enoch and while it is considered as non-canon in most Christian and Jewish sects, I guess it might come close to what some of us wanted.

 El Shaddai was a game that I picked up mostly because I bought almost every niche game back then. I just looked at some of the trailers, thought it looked just okay, and picked it up because I felt like Ignition was going out of business and it would be a novelty item. Ignition did not have the best reputation among the people I talked to back then. I played Lux-Pain whose localization left a lot to be desired. Nostalgia was a middling RPG. Arc Rise Fantasia’s localization left a lot to be desired despite being a good game. Deadly Premonition had an English dub already but the text localization wasn’t that great. I felt like El Shaddai was the most polished game that Ignition released. They got incredibly great voice actors, including Jason Isaacs. They developed a score attack combo ranking system for replayability. They had a fantastic art director and background art. They made two bishounen that screamed for female audiences to pay attention.

 All of it didn’t exactly work out for the time the game came out, and I always contended that the game was released before its time. Unfortunately, all the effort put into El Shaddai didn’t exactly save Ignition. I feel like if El Shaddai were released in the later half of the decade, it would have been accepted. However, I also feel like its marketing was mishandled. It doesn’t feel like a Devil May Cry successor. It shifts between genres continuously. It is very much like Nier in this regard: it is not for everyone and it has its own unique feel that sets it apart from other games.  It is also a score attack action game, not a hard character action game.

 One thing I really enjoyed about El Shaddai was that all of the setpieces aren’t exactly the same. It ranges from a watercolour painting to abstraction to 2D children art to more abstraction to Final Fantasy VII and keep going like that. It references rhythm games, 2D Platformers, racing games, action games, Devil May Cry (with its own brand of Devil Trigger to boot), and other genres to create something that syncs up very well with the rest of the game due to lore reasons: different enemies prefer different things so that’s why each environment looks different or the gameplay styles may be a little different. I’m okay with this because it shakes things up per chapter and the game doesn’t feel stale at all. You’re expected to adjust to new mechanics per area.

 The combat is a lot like Rock-Paper-Scissors, where certain weapons beat other weapons, or some bosses change which weapons they’re weak against (and the game gives you other weapons so you can adjust accordingly during fights). The weapon you wield also modify your platforming abilities (ex: one allows Enoch to dash, one weighs him down, etc), and they also vary in terms of character strength. In order to obtain G-rankings for each stage, the player needs to analyse which weapon would be the most useful for certain enemies and combo while guarding, guard-breaking, and stealing enemies’ weapons.

 I am putting El Shaddai on this list because I really enjoyed it for what it was. It’s a brilliant score attack action game with a fantastic soundtrack and fantastic art design. It made for a pleasant sensory experience and made some religious figures fairly compelling with good character designs. It’s definitely one of the most rewarding and prettiest score attack games I’ve played this decade.

  To the Moon

Everyone goes through life with regrets. I’m in my thirties now and I think I’ve done things I’ve regretted, or I didn’t other to do something and I’ve regretted that. Kan Gao was inspired by his grandfather’s illness when he was writing and making To the Moon, he’s noted that when he gets old and when his time would come, he might end up regretting some decision he’d made throughout his entire life.  Everyone goes through that when faced with introspection. You can have the courage to love, you can feel pain, you can live your life fully, or not live it enough. To the Moon explores this, and while the writing isn’t the best and can be a little messy (this gets improved on in Gao’s later sequels to this game: A Bird Story and Finding Paradise), I understand what To the Moon was trying to accomplish. To the Moon is an exploration of everything that life throws at us, and the results of the decisions made throughout our lives that touches everyone and everything around us until our time passes.

 Eventually you build up so many wishes and have a big bucket list but eventually there will come a time where you won’t remember why half of those things are on those lists.  To the Moon relates the story of Johnny Wyles, an elderly man on his deathbed with one wish: to go to the moon. The problem is that he could not remember why. The general flow of Gao’s games have involved two scientists from Sigmund Corp, specialising in wish fulfillment at the end of someone’s life, creating memories for people in their final moments to generate comfort for the patient. How ever you may feel about the moral implications of generating false memories for someone prior to their end of life, this is merely a set up for traveling through time to understand what the patient had wanted and what they’d accomplished.  

 Johnny’s character revolves around another character with an ASD. I will also note that my brother has autism (compounded with a multisystem syndrome). While the central focus was on Asperger’s Syndrome (Tony Attwood books being mentioned in the game), I’m a little happy that ASDs are being brought up in games and the game truly hit home for me. The writing may not be stellar, but I felt that the theme of the impact of medical disorders was communicated well. Particularly the theme of why communication and connections with others is so difficult for those with ASDs and those who take care of those who have ASDs. It’s easy to sympathize with the characters trying to express what they mean to each other.

 The game itself is relatively short. Regardless of its length, players must confront some uncomfortable situations and emotions that people struggle with daily or even at different points in our lives. I’m older now and I appreciate this game a little more since I’ve come to experience more of what the game had been trying to tell me a decade ago. The writing may not be the best, and it can be a little messy at times with respect to how it’s presented and written, but a lot of its messages come across as utterly genuine. Slowly unraveling the reasoning behind Johnny’s desire to go to the moon is beautiful. This game is quite human and I appreciate all three games that are a part of this subseries that came out this decade.  I am looking forward to more.

  Nier Gestalt

If you’ve played a Drakengard game or the first Nier game at all, you kind of know what you’re getting into.  Not the best graphics of the decade, plays pretty janky, having bosses that can be difficult to manage, etc.  So going into Nier Gestalt in 2010, I knew what I was getting into. Not a lot of people bothered playing this game since I don’t think it got as much promotion considering it came out during the same year a mainline Final Fantasy game got localized.  Nier also got a little scrutiny since the west got a different protagonist from the Japanese version.  I will say that this worked out in its favour, since the protagonist being one of the central character’s father versus her brother makes for a better, more interesting story than having yet another shounen protagonist.

 I will support the case that, like the Drakengard games before it, Nier Gestalt was difficult to get into. The gameplay is jank.  Easy is too easy.  Normal doesn’t drop enough stuff to warrant playing on the mode. Hard can be a little hard but eventually it evens out. I generally used spears for the charge portion of the combo but in the end it doesn’t necessarily matter what weapon type you use. It doesn’t even matter if you use magic or not unless the game prompts you to do so. It’s either broken or not and the game doesn’t have a set balance for anything. Combos are boring and you’re essentially mashing a button. Even playing through the Nightmare DLC for extra drops, it continues being like this. I was used to playing shmups so it wasn’t necessarily revolutionary that AoE attacks looked as though they were spat out from a shmup either.

 I wasn’t quite understanding why game started acquiring a cult following, because what I’d played of it was pretty boring and standard. “It’s just a regular ARPG starring an older character versus a young protagonist,” I said to myself. I guess that was the reason.  I didn’t quite understand why, even past acquiring Kaine, because I guess I accepted that there weren’t a lot of NPCs and certain towns were the way they were due to, what I surmised were, RPG conventions. It wasn’t until I finished the questline for the brothers, where their mother tried to run away with a man and abandon her children, that I finally started to understand.

 Within every substory, there was something that resonated with someone.  I couldn’t fathom why someone would want to abandon their responsibilities, and at the same time I understood. Sometimes you just want to take care of yourself. With the way the older brother sort of understood why even through his anger and disappointment, it resonated with me. I finally ‘got’ the story, so I wanted to play more. This became one of those rare games where I played only for the story and lore and abandoned any hopes of the gameplay getting better.  I fished, I upgraded weapons, I did enough sidequests for the trophies. I almost platinumed this game, but since the drop rates are so terrible for this game, I didn’t.

 I started enjoying the game for what it was. It was genuinely a fun romp where it feels like everyone taking part in the game’s design contributed something unique and something they were fond of.  If you read any interview from Emi Evans from this time period, you’d realise language is something she’s particularly fond of, so much of the composition and lyrical content of every song was a phoneme from any language that would make it sound like an evolved or a sort of Esperanto version of a current language. This came into play with the game’s lore, and many of the interviews were interesting to read from back then.

 Many of the game’s stages borrowed from different genres of video games. There were the obvious shmup references, the rail shooter reference, the visual novel reference, the Resident Evil/fixed angle horror game reference, the Shadow of the Colossus references, the 2D platformer references, the Zelda references, the top-down puzzle game references, etc. For what the game lacked with respect to its combat, the game excelled at reliving genres and putting maps together in such a way that it felt like an ode to other games and genres that inspired it. The City of Façade’s language being a loose phoneme reconstruction of Japanese felt right at home with the dungeon’s Zelda references complete with Zelda fanfare for me. The Forest of Myth being one long visual novel was so hilarious and unique at the same time.  

 Playing more of the game and opening up the lore with every playthrough was neat. I don’t particularly like when games waste my time, but Nier made each new playthrough worth it. Killing bosses quickly for a trophy, redoing dungeons to see the enemies’ perspectives, and unlocking more of the story and learning more about the world that came from a Drakengard ending felt satisfying. As someone who was studying linguistics at the time, constructing nonsense words from drops out of different morphemes to act as accessories or armour was really amazing for me.

 Much of Nier felt organically put together, from characters’ writing and what they wanted from each other, to the dungeon design, to maybe even the combat design… it felt like a truly special game made from the heart with as much lore as it could possibly include. I had purchased the Nightmare DLC primarily to get weapon drops and while it isn’t nearly as interesting as the rest of the game, it has some implications for the lore. The music and resulting soundscape lends so much to the worldbuilding and includes many peoples’ languages from the area with French, Japanese, English, German, etc phonemes thrown around to sound utterly organic and special.

 At the end of this, I have come to realise that despite saying to myself that I never played this game for the game… I’ve been lying to myself this entire time. I actually did play the game for its game parts. Those are the bits I remember the most about it, and they’re the reasons why I genuinely loved the game. It’s unforgettable for me and it’s why it’s one of my favourites in general.

  Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

I did not care about MMOs in my late 20s because I was far more focused on finishing school and actually working hard in my field. I think by the end of university, I barely played games because I literally didn’t have time for them. I probably stressed myself out a lot. I threw myself into a semester where I had what felt like 500 evaluations, had to study a lot, had to write papers, and I ended up breaking up with my ex-boyfriend amicably. I was on my own a lot and to be honest, I think I felt okay that way. I think maybe others thought I was unapproachable.

 My best friend now turned fiancé had been begging me to start playing Final Fantasy XIV for a really long time, since he was in the beta prior to its 2.0 release. I made excuses and said I won’t play until a speedster class was implemented since nothing really stuck out at me. In reality, I was mostly busy. Well, Ninja got implemented late 2014, so I ran out of excuses. I got a copy of ARR but to be honest, I didn’t have time for it and I didn’t play it much so I didn’t bother to try harder since my focus was elsewhere.

 Luckily, I got into a semester where I didn’t have that much coursework to think about so I ended up playing XIV more. I caught up during ARR and really my intention was to only play through ARR and finish the story and quit. But my fiancé’s friends were so nice and welcoming to me. When the servers shut down for Heavensward maintainance and I’d finished the ARR storyline literally that night, I made the conscious decision to buy Heavensward. By that time, I was falling a little too hard for my best friend and I really liked my newfound friends. I wasn’t ready to leave Eorzea yet.

 Of course, I had some quests to finish up during Early Access so I didn’t get the opportunity to play with anyone I knew during the main storyline for Heavensward. Heavensward was leaps and bounds above anything I experienced in ARR. The story was well-written, the English voices were recast and given better direction, character deaths were meaningful, a smaller cast made for good character building, the environments were large and you could only assume things happened in each area eventually (they didn’t in the long run), each area was different, it reminded me of Canada… Heavensward made me feel at home.

 Almost every job felt built on, since nothing was really truly culled. A lot of what you got felt like an extension of what you already did. The three new jobs didn’t start out too well or too balanced. Machinist was a mess. Astrologian felt weird. Dark Knight had some growing pains but probably performed the best out of the three once the Alexander raid was implemented given that its specialty at the time centered on magic defense. I was one of the five people who really liked bowmage since it required you to think before you cast but you still did a lot of damage if you thought before firing. I swapped to an omnihealer main officially halfway through the patches because my fiancé requested it.

 Heavensward had a lot of growing pains. For all the team did for the base game, they took a six-month vacation to recharge. 3.1 wasn’t really worth the wait and a lot of people quit the game or stopped playing because nothing really meaningful was added to the game other than a faceroll raid, poorly-tuned exploration missions, and two dungeons. Gordias earlier in the expansion nearly killed the raiding community as a whole.  3.2 didn’t fare too much better, though it did add the best raid tier that has yet to be topped. 3.3 was when FFXIV solidified itself as an MMO with a grand story to tell, with one of the best conclusions a Final Fantasy game had seen in almost a decade. The sound design was near-perfect for this patch, and it was when a lot of us genuinely felt comfortable with the game and its future. Heavensward wasn’t perfect; it still had its missteps and balancing issues, but it was the most comfortable and profoundly skilled I’d ever felt with the game.

 Final Fantasy XIV may not be what it used to be.  I feel old and I feel like I’ve played the game for a really long time.  Now while it’s riding the wave of success, currently having the best story Final Fantasy has seen in a very long time, I can’t help but to remember Heavensward when we finally felt assured about the game and it felt like a cohesive gift to players who were active at that time.  I got to know so many people during Heavensward, and now I’m engaged to my best friend partially due to our experiences together playing at that time.

  Undertale

The late half of 2015 was a really bad year for me. The first half was really great. I started playing FFXIV often, I finished the hardest year I’ve ever had of my 9 years of university so far with high grades and was going full-on hard into my residency year, I fell in love with my best friend.  I was pretty happy since I finally felt very successful.

 If anyone can recall (or this may be new to the person who is reading this), towards the end of 2015 my dad was falsely accused by our neighbour of possession of a weapon (it was a gardening tool), and he had a restraining order put against him so he couldn’t live with us anymore.  My little brother is severely disabled so that’s why I still lived at home so I could help out.  Without my dad around, it was so much harder.  I came home from my days at the hospital every day after a 12-hour day, had to babysit my brother since my mom still cooked food to carry for my dad who had to live at my aunt’s, somehow had to find time to study for my licensing exam and do some work for school and my thesis, had to find time to socialise a tiny bit otherwise I’d go crazy, maybe had to take my brother to his appointments by coming home a little early, and then had to find whatever time I had left to sleep.  I stopped posting on message boards because I literally had no time to do so and I wouldn’t have anything of value to contribute to discussions either.  

 I detached myself from a lot of people. It was actually kind of lonely. It was really hard. I lashed out at people when I shouldn’t have. I don’t look back on those days other than the bright spots with fondness at all.

 Before that, everyone was telling me to play Undertale but I sort of didn’t want to? I felt like the fanbase was sort of making the game unapproachable around the time it came out. By the end of the year, I was so out of the loop about games that I didn’t give a hoot.  A friend of mine, Shadow Hog, bought the game for me on Steam. I still have the e-mail message for it.

 My now-fiancé got his own copy so we could play it together because at that point I didn’t want to do much of anything alone. I was actually sinking deeper into depression and verging on a mental breakdown. I was not mentally sound and every single week it felt like someone had to save me from doing something stupid.

 I started Undertale and I didn’t really think much of it at the start.  I can’t remember when it started clicking with me but maybe it was around the time I got into a battle with Tsunderplane and Vulkin and got to Hotland that I gave up and started having fun with it because it was just… silly. It was time to let down your hair and have some fun for once and not feel completely guilty about it.

 The idea of having to win and achieving a certain ending by sparing your enemy isn’t necessarily new – SMT’s demon negotiation, Silent Hill 2’s morality system, and MGS3’s fight with the Sorrow have some sort of sparing mechanic. The hybrid of a turn-based battle system with enemy negotiation, as well as dodge system inspired by a shmup makes every encounter both strategic (ie: having to avoid bullets while also sparing enemies in a set order per battle) and consistently active.  Unless you are going for a certain other ending, you cannot just sit there and hold down the attack button and expect to win.  That said, this makes a lot of encounters a little longer than a standard RPG battle, but the flavour text for each uniquely-designed enemy makes many of the battle worth it. Undertale isn’t a hard game unless you’re playing on a certain route. But I don’t necessarily think the gameplay part of Undertale speaks properly for it. The dungeon maps are relatively simple. They all have their little gimmicks. The battle system is relatively easy to understand.

 The reason why Undertale has such a prolific fanbase is primarily because of its character writing and ability to make and use memes properly enough that they catch on. Many of the characters are easily encountered early, are easy to draw (propels a lot of fanart), and understand due to the character writing. What also helps is that the game is 4-6 hours long, and it came out at the right time with the right kind of word of mouth.  Undertale could have easily fallen into the sea like so many other RPGs before it but it didn’t.  My fiancé and I were shopping for work clothes one day at a store that sells business clothing, construction clothing, and scrubs. He was wearing a shirt with the Delta Rune on it since he loves game shirts that are relatively subtle. Even then, one of the sales clerks pointed it out and was pretty excited to see it.  It was pretty crazy to both of us how popular Undertale had gotten.  I don’t think the popularity was unwarranted. I think it’s a fantastic game, helped by a considerably lengthy varied and catchy soundtrack. Granted, I was not as exposed to how explosive its popularity was when it came out. But I understood why so many people liked it. It wasn’t for its gameplay.

 As I progressed through Undertale, instead of thinking of the lore (which was well-written), I was thinking of how the monsters treated your character with respect and love because you treated them that way.  They didn’t go out of their way to fear you, and welcomed you as one of their own.  In the end, they were hesitant to even kill you, and you were hesitant to kill them.  Even then you still had the spare/save commands.

 At the very end, you only had the Save command.

 And that’s how I felt. When Hopes and Dreams started playing, I couldn’t help but to cry. When I was repeatedly nudged to press the Save command, I didn’t actually feel like the game nudged me to do so. That was something I wanted to do. Just remembering how depressed I was when I started playing this game and then progressing to its true end with Hopes and Dreams and SAVE the World playing, I couldn’t help but to feel like my hopes and dreams were still alive.

 Even if I was going through a really hard time in my life, hope was still there as long as I had people around me that supported me all the way through. That was the time in my life that I realised who my real friends were. And in the end, I felt like Undertale told me my friends saved me and that my dreams weren’t crushed, now matter what threw at me.

 And that’s why it’s my game of the decade. It may not be the most perfect game that came out this decade or the objectively best-crafted, but it did so much for me. When I was prompted for my game of the decade, Undertale was the first thing that popped into my head. I didn’t question it. I just knew. I don’t think we’ll get another Undertale again in my lifetime, but I’m glad to say that I gave it a shot and I love it for what it is.

[showmetruecolors]

Being a nurse during the COVID-19 Era.

I was a nursing student during the Ebola crisis where they taught us how to suit up and doff properly without being contaminated. It so happens that the hospital I was interning in at the time was planned to be the hospital in NY State that would take on the first Ebola case if it were ever to hit our state. They made it clear that if the case were to come to the hospital, the student nurses were to not even be on the same unit, and that they would move us. However, in cases of lack of assistance, they would need us to know how to properly enter and exit the room with the hazmat suit without providing contamination to ourselves and the environment. 

I have also been a nurse the past almost four years during crazy and erratic flu hits. I have seen flu kill the terminally ill and the elderly. I have also seen the flu hit my coworkers pretty bad as a result of working in health care. Working overnights in a section of the emergency room, we always have flu patients and we are always prepared to a certain extent, how it would affect our patient once getting report.

But not with COVID.

As of two Saturdays ago, I am currently a part of one of the designated groups of nurses for COVID-19 for my hospital. I am on the float pool and they started by emptying out one of our main units to reserve them for COVID-19 rule-outs and positive patients. (Obviously the expansion of designated COVID units grew over a week...) There are cameras watching us every time we enter and exit a room and put on and off our PPE gown. With that, staff must sign (pretty much their life away) each time they enter or exit the room, by providing contact info, DOB, who watched us and their info, etc. This includes staff that also enter to pick up the garbage. Everyone in the hospital had to learn the steps of putting on and taking off the protective equipment. Not just nurses and doctors. At this point, it felt all hospitals were ready to respond to this clientele and the caseload.

At first I was so thrilled to be one of the COVID nurses and to be assigned on one of the COVID units. And then, came the first time another nurse and I actually had to gown up. Each time we gown up in the protective equipment, we must have another nurse on the other side of the glass watch us and check off a checklist of things we are doing. The purpose of this is to also catch any contamination to ourselves or the environment quickly. The first situation of us gowning up, I was actually the observer. Gowning up takes some time so after a few minutes of checking off the checkboxes, watching her, and giving her a thumbs up after every step, then comes the part of the eyewear which then caused me to look up at this nurse’s eyes. She had tears filling up her eyes , something I didn't notice while checking her method of donning her equipment, and her hands were shaking as she was placing the eyewear onto her face. She has a young child at home and she used to tell me about how she is also a caretaker for her parents. I wonder if this is what she was thinking of before entering the room. I heard rustling behind me and I turned around. Two evening administrators were there intensely watching from the distance almost unsure about walking near the door where we must stand to observe.

Later that evening when it was around the 3rd time I had to gown up to go to my own patient’s room, I went in the with PCA so he can assist me with closing the back of my gown as well as him getting comfortable coming in and out of the room per protocol. I looked up halfway through our gowning process, to see staff and admin watching us as well. Everyone had a look of fear in their eyes. I turned to look at the PCA who would not make eye contact and always had a strong demeanor when it came to things like codes, rapids, etc. He looked startled and like he didn’t want to talk about anything. At that moment I realized, we actually don’t know anything about what is behind those isolation doors once we enter. All we know is that it is airborne, we have only SOME information about the viral processes and the human body reaction, and that the human race can only receive oxygen in only three different ways before complete intubation... (Breathing on their own, nasal cannula, and Non-rebreather. The other options would cause viral shedding, leading to worsening of the viral spread and even contamination.) We also knew that each time we gowned up and enter the room, we were able to see facts and theories in front of us and assist us in understanding the virus more and how to manage based on other EBP methods from past, and new methods. Which made the situation SO interesting.

On my second shift being one of the COVID nurses, we learned more about the virus. And one thing was confirmed about my previous shift, and it was that the beliefs even among staff/the hospital and community members about what it all is, varied...

We started learning that after a couple of days of confirmed testing, people were coding. There seemed to be a peak time that the virus was causing severe respiratory failure and a systemic failure response and our managers told us that this was an ongoing and similar experience with other hospitals that they have collaborated with when discussing support during emergency responses. Days later, a nationally recognized public health organization actually published a report online that showed the timeline graph of peak levels during viral process and that proved the theory to possibly be correct. After a certain amount of days, almost regardless of intervention, certain people were rapidly deteriorating.

I walked into shift that day briefly assisting my colleagues in a code. Although this person had several cofounding factors that would've made even the basic flu difficult for the person to overcome, it was scary to see. Next thing you know a staff member’s gown had ripped in the process of helping the patient. Some staff were actually nervous for her. She followed proper decontamination protocol but it was still the fear of the unknown that is controlling everyone that is causing complete mayhem and chaos.

It is also the lack of supplies causing unreal scenarios....I took complete pride in the fact that my team would be some of the first COVID nurses , until I realized we didn't even have enough n95 respirators...that we were reusing products...(Which almost puts us at risk for contamination of ourselves and our environment and loved ones) we also don’t have enough face shields or goggles. So we are reusing them every shift. We can blame politicians or our actual health care orgs or whomever you feel is responsible when it came to emergency prepardness and allocation of funds. But all I know is that I am, as well as other staff, are becoming more and more at risk every shift as well as at risk when community members can't follow basic instructions and educate themselves with resources that are actually not factual. Which brings me to my next thanggg - When I see families out in the super market using gloves and masks, I get angry.

1. The masks you see people wearing are not n95 respirators so you will catch corona and even TB regardless. Jokes on you, folks.

2. Gloves? Are you serious? You think that will protect you? Each time you pick up an item wearing gloves and touch your face/fix your hair (which is what I actually saw the other day) you’re not protecting yourself. That glove is now contaminated regardless, and unless you’re bleaching the shit out of the products you are buying before placing them in your vehicle or bag, they are holding onto whatever the environment has, as well. Contaminated or not.

3. I understand the fear of the city/stores closing down so you must stock up on essentials and food. However, you are now defeating the purpose of preventing viral spread and you’re causing large groups in one tight area to take place. (Shoutout and much love to grocery store / restaurant employees, etc.) It’s to the point where I am less of a threat if I walk into a patient’s room with symptoms of COVID and then run over and cough on and hug 100 people, than those who have been at Walmart or the grocery store everyday this week spending a long amount of time getting items. I understand the need to have essentials, and that online services may be more expensive, but at times like these, they may be worth it especially if you or someone you are at home with is compromised in some way. This also, by the way, helps with the job industry including forcing one to have more self-awareness with WIC covered products and can assist in monitoring that they are not taken off of shelves and into carts out of pure human PANIC as opposed to other replacement products.

4. This happening does not give you the excuse to blame a certain group of people. If you do not know what corona is (and by going to CVS the other day to pick up my acid reflux meds and hearing chatter about it at my second job by non-medical personnel , I realize this is the case) then you need to shut the fuck up and not be an inherently racist prick. The end. No excuses.

Do not panic. BUT. Stay home once all your essentials are brought together. I know that during these times, there may be job and financial hardships, loved ones you are concerned about, and some children’s/college students’ education is on the line and being effected as a result (as is mine...), and that there is fear due to the unknown contamination of the virus and due to the different directions in leadership and advices. But please try to stay calm. And stay home. Staying home is the only thing you have control of at this moment, that can eventually help restore everything going on. The more you stay home, the more you’re helping ease the situation/exposures which can eventually lead to the life we were living before where you can work, go to school, etc. And since you will all have time now, educate yourself on the spread of Corona and understand WHAT it even is. One of the leading issues seems to be that no one was properly educated on it, causing the reaction everyone is having which is putting more people in danger and hospitals in complete stress and OVER the capacity to diligently care for patients that have the virus, among with other serious illnesses.

Flatten the mother fucking curve.

Love,

Emily RN