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fizzingwizard · 4 years ago

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Another Sunday, another episode of Digimon Adventure: (how tf do I do punctuate??). It is a good time to be a fan of Yagami Taichi.

I remember being 11 years old, the last episode of Digimon Adventure made be bawl my eyes out, and although I was excited for 02, really I just wanted more of Adventure. I guess I’m just slow to like new things (well, I am), but I would have super happy if the producers had been like, “02 will be a reboot for Adventure with the same characters and similar storyline.” And then do the same thing for every new Digimon season xD I’m sure I’m pretty damn alone in that opinion and don’t get me wrong, I love 02, and I think Tamers was good. And yet xD

^The screenshot that sums up the episode: Greymon gets his butt kicked while Taichi hangs on for dear life

I know the bond between children and Digimon is what powers them, and I’m kind of wondering if having a physical connection improves that in this show, because these kids are always riding around on their partners. (Not able exception - Togemon, because ouch. But I expect to see Mimi on her boxing glove at least lol) I have to rationalize it that way because otherwise it’s like why would having an elementary school kid on your head while you rush into the line of fire count as a battle strategy

This ep picks up pretty much where we left off, which means it’s probably only been hours since Yamato joined the group at the fortress. Already the atmosphere is completely changed.

I can see them, but they can’t see me... Ishida Yamato’s modus operandi

more below

Here is a very Digimon-esque tableau: everyone gathered around Koushirou and his computer. Yamato still being standoffish. I imagine he jumped at the chance to stand guard at the entrance so he doesn’t have to get too close to anyone.

Agumon’s fight with MetalTyrannomon went... not so great. Yamato coolly tries to explain to Taichi that evacuating was the only way, otherwise they’d risk all being destroyed, and that would be the end of everything.

Taichi’s fist tightens and begins to shake...

... he doesn’t look like he totally agrees with Yamato’s reasoning, but he doesn’t have a better idea. But, being Taichi, he can’t just let it rest.

Yamato talking to Taichi’s back while Taichi frantically starts to sort out his Feelings is just how they communicate. This is a common shonen anime trope for the hero and his foil. Yamato’s pushing, Taichi’s not exactly hiding, but he doesn’t want to face him until he can face him with resolve.

Yamato: Look at me. Look at me!

Taichi: *sweating* It feels like a hole’s burning in the back of my neck, so... I’ll pass

Taichi finally explains out what’s got him so knotted up: he regrets Ogremon’s death. Like we saw last episode, the battle that began as revenge turned into a battle of samurai pride. And Taichi is evidently a samurai. He wanted to see that battle to the finish, out of mutual respect for the opponent (who he’d never met before and who had been trying to kill him previously... but y’know when you’re kindred spirits that’s all water under the bridge)

Yamato doesn’t really get it. This is where these two are fundamentally different. Taichi attac, Yamato protec, then everybody gets a FIGHT!

I mean, not 100% of the time, but the bottom line is Yamato’s not so big on this pride thing, although he does have pride of his own. But he’s definitely not into taking unnecessary risks, especially if it puts his friends in danger. The trouble is, Taichi doesn’t think he takes unneccessary risks either... just necessary ones ;)

The other kids can already feel the tension increasing and Taichi and Yamato haven’t even raised their voices at each other yet. Lol buckle up kiddos

Jou wonders if he should make them stop, and Mimi instantly turns around and begs him to try. My Joumi heart LEAPT.

TBH I was surprised she did anything at all, I was expecting Jou’s “Should I break them up?” to just end there with nothing happening. Instead we got an adorable Joumi moment where Mimi shows that as much as she teases him, she already somewhat relies on Jou (to be fair, I do think Mimi’s the type to rely on anyone who offers when she’s not sure what to do herself). Jou, being Jou, is unprepared aaaaand wigs out.

Jou: Oh no oh no oh no she actually expects me to get between them?!?! But but I flunked Tough Guy school! That’s literally why I’m a nerd! This girl’s trying to throw me to the wolves!

Fortunately for Jou, he has a redheaded savior.

Sora: Stop it. He’ll wet his pants again and I don’t have any more extras.

Sora shows her insight into people’s hearts and understands that Taichi and Yamato need to hash things out. It’s not dangerous... yet. But the way she’s more or less frozen in place along with the others says she’s... maybe a bit on her guard, at least, lol.

Koushirou, being Kousihrou, is completely oblivious to all of this and focused on his computer.

Oh yeah... the real reason Taichi turned his back to Yamato earlier - whenever they look directly at each other, they suck each others souls out. I CALL BODY SWITCH

I mean jogress

I mean marriage

They spend like the entire first half of the episode arguing omg get a room.

Then... Agumon wakes up!

And even though it’s a cartoon, it’s clear to see the way Taichi’s body fills with relief. I wonder if Yamato didn’t realize or didn’t think Taichi was that worried about Agumon. 99 Yamato tended to feel that Taichi was insensitive to others. But while he can be, Taichi also doesn’t express his emotions in the same way as Yamato. They’re both wont to hide how they feel, but while Yamato goes quiet and aloof, Taichi just acts like everything’s normal. So maybe here, Yamato really thought Ogremon and MetalTyrannomon were the only things on Taichi’s mind. Just a guess.

Awwww montage of cute...

a boy and his dinosaur!!

Maybe to Yamato’s surprise, Agumon totally echoes Taichi’s feelings about Ogremon. “I wanted to settle the score with him.” Weird as it sounds, they made a manly bond with Ogremon and running away just doesn’t sit right. Agumon’s raring to go...

... but his stomach isn’t quite ready yet hahaha.

Yamato’s probably used to Gabumon’s appetie but I suspect Agumon’s tummy growl has errr exceptional resonance

Glad to see the return of the Digimon’s bottomless pit aka stomach. I think it was just last week I complained about that not really being a thing so far. This time it was the other Digimon who went gathering, but I hope to see the human kids rushing around in a frenzy to care for their partners’ appetites soon lol

While the others eat, Taichi and Yamato decide they haven’t finished vampiring each other’s souls and sneak out to the mouth of the cave. Sora follows them to see if she can watch any hot yaoi action.

Lol but I do really like the framing heart. All we can see of the boys is their shadows. Sora keeps her distance but she’s watching them intently from a distance. I assumed she was just gathering more data on how short a leash she needs to keep them on.

Turned out that was not quite correct... reluctant to interrupt though she’d been before, once they start talking about what to do next she adds her input. We’ve got Yamato on Taichi’s one side and Sora on his other side. It’s the beginnings of TAIORATOOOOO *more airhorns*

^I can’t see anything but Goku and Vegeta bahahaha. Also why is eleven-year-old Yamato SO broad-shouldered, between that, his deeper voice, and his perfeclty coifed hair Taichi must seem like a toddling infant to him bahahaha. Like come on Yamato is not a child you must be kidding

Already Yamato is getting into the habit of Looking At Taichi while Taichi Looks At Literally Anything Else.

These two don’t need words. They talk with their vampiric eyes.

Koushirou’s hyper focus on his computer finally pays off and they all gather back around. Everyone starts cheering when the hologram appears even though they don’t know what the heck it is. This is Koushirou, so it must be awesome!

It turns out to be a map of much usefulness.

And it turns out Ogremon was telling the truth about the path to the holy Digimon being straight ahead, while fires Taichi up even more.

^Obligatory ‘Gomamon is cutest Digimon’ cap

Koushirou also gives Taichi special data on MetalTyrannomon, including his weak point. Taichi is THRILLED. He’s happier about this than he is about finding the route to the holy Digimon. This is the difference between Taishiro and Taito guys. When Taichi gets a reckless idea, Yamato tries to talk him down, or at least be sensible about it. Koushirou? Koushirou is a FREAKING ENABLER.

They wait with baited breath for Yamato’s reaction. Though he seems underwhelmed, Yamato admits Koushirou’s information “does seem reliable.” That’s all the permission Taichi needs to go back to freaking out over how awesome Koushirou is.

They come up with a plan to lure MetalTyrannomon away so Taichi can fight him while the others take the chance to escape and head towards the path to the holy Digimon.

^Obligatory ‘Sora is best girl’ cap

Yamato waits for the others to get away before following after... he stalls for a minute as if unsure whether it’s really alright to leave Taichi on his own. In the end he joins the group... All things considered, I think he’s pretty thrown off by Taichi, tbh.

Yamato’s group doesn’t make it far before they encounter a very suspicious looking lake.

^More evidence that Yamato is not really an elementar school kids. He’s clearly at least 15. He’s been routinely failing every year in order to get held back until he can be in the same class as Takeru. That’s the extent of his overprotectiveness

It sure is fortunate that Koushirou’s genius extends to fluency in English or they’d have no idea this lake of dark mist is bad friggin news.

Or... maybe they would have:

Mimi sneaks behind Jou and pulls his middle school exam workbook out of his bag.

And immediately chucks it into the lake.

Where it disintegrates.

This is how Mimi’s mind works. She’s smart! They need to know what would happen if they went into the lake without actually going in it. So they need to put something else in first. So far so good. What should she throw? A stick? A rock? One of Sora’s endless towels?

No, Jou’s workbook. Duhhh.

She probably felt she was killing two birds with one stone here x’D Experiment complete, and Jou prevented from anymore whining about not having time to study. Mimi is chaotic good.

gosh I love Joumi

Jou is lawful neurotic

Greymon shielding Taichi is just soooo cute even if it still feels weird that he has to be up there in the first place

The battle rages between MetalTyrannomon and Greymon, who just won’t quit even though he’s losing... pretty bad... I mean...

He just grabbed a missile with his bare hand...

Taichi: Now I know what it’s like to be a firework

Loop-de-loop! Taichi’s suction cup shoes strike again.

Courage going UP!! Reaching a fever pitch! The evolution that’s been looming for two episodes finally happens!

MetalTyrannomon: Eat my dust!

Woooooooo, MetalGreymon is just as freaky as ever. Always my least favorite evolution in Agumon’s line, but the glowy purple wings are cool.

Also, nipple missiles.

MetalTyrannomon: I can’t believe I was beaten by some meddling kids!

So yeah, we are back to killing Digimon willy-nilly. None of this “but what about their hearts?” shitck. Always found it amazing in 02, a children’s cartoon, that said “Yeah the characters you loved last season were totes murderers but it was justified and sometimes you just have to kill.” And fourteen-year-old Taichi is just like, “Yeah, I’m a murderer, and you should be too.” XD And Miyako hits LadyDevimon with a skateboard. Priceless

This scene is adorable but Taichi’s butt looks so saggy.

I’m kind of wondering how evolution works in this show. They jumped right to jogress in like episode two or something, but we haven’t seen it since (I would sort of expected Taichi to think of it when it was clear MetalTyrannomon was too strong, though I would also expect Yamato to nix that idea both because he doesn’t want to and because to him it’s a pointless fight and not the priority). Since then, the Champion level evolutions went similar to 99 Adventure, with everyone getting their special episode, and I’m sure that’s how it’ll go down with the next level too, but there was no gap at all between going from one level to the next. I’m trying to say, they seem able to reach the next level awfully fast. They didn’t need to meet Gennai and collect the tags and Crests, the Crests appear already uploaded in their Digivices. I’m not complaining, as always I’m glad this show is not just a carbon copy of the old one, but I am curious if evolutions are easier to attain in this series, or if there are going to be more of them and that’s why they come so quick, or if the series just won’t run long enough for there to be significant gaps of time between evolutions.

Episode ends with the group deciding, like I predicted last week, to split up and try the Left and Right routes, since the Straight one is blocked. Gays go right and lesbians go left, of course. :P

This episode was pretty fantabulous, I loved it, Digimon is awesome.

Next week it’s no surprise what we’re gonna get.

WeeeeereGarurumon! Also my least favorite evolution of Gabumon’s line but still cooler than MetalGreymon hahahaha.

I’m also totally stoked for the grouping of Yamato, Jou, and Sora. There’s tons of potential for Yamato and Sora to bond, although my prediction is that while he’ll pretty much like her (even if he won’t admit it to himself), she’s going to find him a little difficult. But she’ll have an easier time talking to him than the others do. I also fully expect Jou to drive Yamato out of his mind lol.

This also means the other group is Taichi, Koushirou, and Mimi. I assume we won’t see too much of them next week, but I hope that means they’ll get their episode the week after, because I am dying for some Taishiro moments. Practically salivating. Also, Koumi fans can probably look forward to Mimi and Koushirou Not Getting each other too, lol

#digimon adventure 2020 #digimon psi #digimon adventure reboot #psi spoilers #digimon #fizz watches digimon 2020

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panharmonium · 4 years ago

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what kind of research did you do for your will and merlin fic? (i would absolutely love just,,, an in-depth explanation)

Oh, man, this is such a nice ask! I think anybody who ever writes anything would probably love the opportunity to ramble about their process, and I am no exception, so thank you!

I can definitely give you the in-depth explanation - I’ll just pop it under a cut here, so that anyone who’s not interested can just scroll past. :)

So when I first began working on the thing that turned into Wheel of the Year, I just started writing, without worrying about research. And that was good to begin with, just to get a handle on the characters, but before I’d even finished the first section I knew that I needed to do a LOT of research if I was going to be able to continue writing the story at all. It was kind of a situation where like - if you asked me to write a story that takes place in a school or a veterinary hospital, I could do that with a high degree of accuracy/believability, and without any prep work, because I’ve worked as a teacher and a veterinary technician. But writing about a medieval farming village was going to be impossible to do in a way that felt real/convincing without me doing a lot of reading.

I’ve never been a medieval peasant farmer, you know? I lived and worked on a small farm for a brief period of time, so I had a teeny bit of background on large animal work, but it was still minimal, and it lacked all of the historical context. So even the most basic scenes felt impossible for me to start, because it was like - ‘well, what would this person even be doing on this day? How would they be spending their time?’ It’s hard to write characters doing anything when you don’t even know what the possibilities are.

I wanted to make my Ealdor into a place that felt real, specific, and convincing. And I couldn’t do that with just sort of a foggy, movie-type image of ‘it’s a Medieval Village™ with Crops and some Cows.’ So I just decided that I was going to do the research. I wasn’t going to follow an exact historical profile, obviously, because it’s a fantasy show, but I really did want to have a basic understanding of the context of that general era; otherwise there was no way I could ground my story in reality.

So! My approach was basically two-pronged, encompassing a) character/show prep and b) historical/context prep.

Character/Show Prep

I started off by doing a close watch of 1.10. This included lots of screencap-taking of the village exterior, the house interiors, and the villagers. (This is the point where I realized that Will was a woodworker, from looking more closely at his home and the tools he was consistently shown carrying, and that ended up really shaping a number of parts of the story, so it just goes to show how helpful this step was.)

I knew from the beginning that this fic was, by necessity, going to include a number of characters who didn’t exist in the show (or, I mean, they existed, but they existed as extras, not characters in their own right). Ealdor is too small for these people not to show up - Merlin would be working in close proximity with them every day. He knows every single one of his neighbors. They see each constantly. It would be unrealistic to write this story with them being only vague and out-of-focus.

And this was a little bit of an intimidating thought, because the idea of coming up with that many original characters is just...well, you know, it’s enough to make a person hesitate, but it had to be done. So, I decided I wanted to base everybody on an actual extra who appears in the episode - I took a lot of screenshots of all the villagers, starting with the people Merlin’s age (because they would be the people with whom Merlin had the most contact), and I gave them names. And then I began to build out the rest of the village from those characters - parents, grandparents, siblings, friendships, who gets along, who doesn’t get along, etc. I have a bunch of screencaps in my folder that have all the characters labeled with everybody’s name, and then another folder of family trees that I built - most of which didn’t even end up featuring in the story, obviously, but it helped me in terms of feeling like I had a solid context for who lived in the village and how they all related to each other.

I tried to draw as much info from the background canon as I could. For example, there’s a blonde girl in the background of the final battle who drags a bandit off his horse and then just DECKS him with one punch, absolutely clobbers him - so I took that small moment of characterization and used it to help me create one of Merlin’s agemates.

(And this wasn’t all done in one go, obviously; I’m more of a ‘let things emerge naturally’ kind of writer, so as characters came to me in the course of writing, I was matching them with actual faces in the show and continuing to build out the world.) And ultimately, the result now is that when I watch 1.10, it’s a funny experience, because I feel like I “know” every character onscreen - most of them have names and stories for me, because any character that appears in the fic is based on an actual face that appeared in the show - I could point at them and say ‘yeah that’s Ellinor/Peter/Margoret/etc.’

I also combed the rest of the show for every single reference to Ealdor or Cenred’s kingdom, in order to get a solid understanding of the geography surrounding Merlin’s home (hence my recent post summarizing what we know about Ealdor and why the BBC’s supplemental map is incorrect). I did the same thing with Cenred himself - I rewatched everything that included him and took notes on particular things that he said or that were said about him. This helped in terms of figuring out what the political state of Camelot/Cenred’s kingdom was at various points - ie, in 1.10, there’s a throwaway line saying that 'our treaty with Cenred was years in the making’ indicating that the two kingdoms have recently made peace but have previously been at war for a long time, and that affected parts of my story.

I also did a lot of character prep for Will specifically. I started a document full of notes about everything we knew about him (and about his relationship with Merlin), and then I kept expanding on it with a detailed analysis of the canon in which he appeared and the person who I understood him to be - it grew to be very, very long (I ended up cleaning it up and posting it over a year later, after the fic was finished), and it was very helpful in terms of feeling like I really knew him inside and out.

And those were the most important things I did in terms of working with the show/characters!

At the same time, I was doing a lot of work on the historical prep.

Historical/Context Prep:

I needed to learn more about Will and Merlin’s daily context in order to write about them with any degree of believability. I’m an old-fashioned nerd, so I started with books.

I read six books before and during the writing process of this fic, with scattered pieces of others. The ones I read fully were the following:

Life in a Medieval Village (Frances and Joseph Gies)

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England (Ian Mortimer)

Life on the English Manor 1150-1400 (H.S. Bennett)

Daily Life in the Middle Ages (Paul B. Newman)

The Middle Ages Unlocked (Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania)

Chaucer’s People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England (Liza Picard)

Those Who Worked: An Anthology of Medieval Sources (edited by Peter Speed)

The first four were the most helpful, but all six had useful info in them. And basically what I did was I just sat down with the book and a pencil, and as I read, I took in-book notes on all the things I thought would be relevant/important/interesting/helpful:

And as I went, I was filling in that diagram I posted the other day about the medieval agricultural year.

This was all extremely helpful in so many ways...just - by giving me the context of what various tasks actually looked like and what the flow of the year was and various other daily life things. I could not have written this fic without doing the research. It wouldn’t have worked for me.

So that was where I got my foundation, but as I was writing, a thousand smaller instances came up where I needed more specialized information, and that’s where I utilized lots of internet resources. My bookmarks folder for this fic has 200 items in it, and those are just the things I remembered to save.

Some sample titles of articles I actually read, in case I haven’t embarrassed myself enough already:

“Temporary freedoms? Ethnoarchaeology of female herders at seasonal sites in northern Europe”

“Five Early European Winterings in the Atlantic Arctic (1596-1635): A Comparison”

“English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200-1500)”

“The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in England, 1300–1483��

“Seasonal Management of Cattle in the Booleying System: New Insights from Connemara, Western Ireland"

And so on.

I watched absurd amounts of videos on how to do specific things - how to carve thatching spars, how to build a wheel, how to thatch a roof, how to build willow hurdles, how to use a drop spindle, how to shear a sheep, how to use a hand quern, etc. I can’t begin to list the number of topics I typed into Google or the number of research holes I fell into. The littlest thing could take hours to figure out - the fic would take me to a place where the characters were going down to the cow byre, but then I’d have to stop, because ‘what would a cow byre even reasonably look like?’, and then I’d do a day of research on different types of barns/byres in England throughout history and ultimately hardly any of this information would even make it into the fic but I just. Needed. To Know. (And I’m not complaining at all; I’m glad I did it, and I had a lot of fun with it. But it was a Process.)

I also used a lot of primary sources. I used this site for primary source images, to get an idea of what things looked like. I spent a lot of time on this site reading Old English and Middle English songs/poetry/texts + their accompanying analysis. I spent too much time reading Pliny’s The Natural History, for one chapter. And a lot of these sources were adapted and used in-fic for various purposes (hence my desire to include a bibliography, heh).

I used this Old English dictionary and this Middle English dictionary a lot (I took both of these subjects in college, but I have forgotten literally every shred of OE I ever knew, which wasn’t much to begin with. My ME reading is better, but…still. XD) I used this resource on period carpentry frequently, as well as a number of others. And a myriad of other sites.

And that was kind of how it would go. After the initial ramp-up (reading all the books and doing the basic research/character work) I would write until I encountered something that needed more specialized knowledge (...which happened basically every couple of pages, ha) and then I would research again.

…looking back, I’m suddenly not surprised this took me over a year to finish. I’m a slow writer anyway, but…yeah there was actually a lot going on here. XD

Ultimately, did any of this need to happen? No, absolutely not. Fanfic 100% does not require this kind of thing, and I honestly think most of the time it’s better to write fic without worrying about this kind of stuff, just to have fun. I only did it because I felt like in this particular situation, I needed to do it in order to be able to write about this subject at all. Before I did this, I felt stuck, like I couldn’t move forward because I just didn’t know enough. The only things I could see with any clarity were Will and Merlin themselves - everything else about their context felt like looking at a video game’s world map when I hadn’t explored anywhere yet, so the whole universe was still masked by clouds. But afterwards, I could see what I was doing, and I felt free to move around, like I had more places to go.

So overall, I’m glad I did it. And since then, I’ve read many more history books on different subjects, because as it turns out I am not done writing Merlin fanfiction, and therefore I am not done researching, either. XD

Thank you so much for asking this - I hope this answers your question!

#the last chapter of my fic is an appendix/bibliography that does summarize this #but it makes specific references to spoiler-y things so #here is the non-spoilery version of what i did #with some info that didn't make it into the appendix as well #<3 #the once and future slowburn #writing #replies

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dvp95 · 5 years ago

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quiet on widow’s peak (4)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, mystery, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 3.9k (this chapter), 13.5k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Phil did not invite Chris and Sophie to come to Rossendale with him. Not because he doesn't like spending time with them, but because he wouldn't know how to explain a situation to his parents that he doesn't even understand himself. To his knowledge, PJ also did not invite them.

"Change it," Chris whines from the backseat. He'd lost the scuffle against Phil to claim the front, and he's been complaining about Phil's music choices for half the trip so far in retaliation.

"You like McFly," Phil huffs, continuing his search for an album that won't elicit a loud sigh from behind him.

"That's fucking slander, is what that is. You hear that, PJ?"

"Oh, I hear you both," PJ says, flat. "Loud and clear."

They've only been driving for probably forty minutes and PJ already looks like he wants to kick them all out of his car. Phil doesn't exactly blame him, although he resents being lumped in with Chris in the 'annoying background noise' category.

He has no idea how they've managed to invite themselves along, but Phil was too polite and PJ was too smitten to tell them off when they came out to the car with their bags.

So, this is a group activity now. Phil's parents had been thrilled to hear it when he texted them the updated situation - they're taking it as a sign that Phil has a motley crew of good friends again, like he'd had as a kid and again in uni. He supposes that they're not wrong, exactly, but he's definitely anxious about introducing them to Chris.

"I like this song," Sophie says, mild, and Chris closes his mouth.

"Fine, this one is alright," he says begrudgingly. Phil glances at them in the rearview - Sophie is patting Chris' knee and giving him the sort of smile that always makes Phil feel like he shouldn't be present. He looks back down at his phone so he doesn't have to sit with that feeling too long.

PJ turns up the volume, probably to curb any more bickering before he has to toss them all out of his car, and Phil tries to just lose himself in the music for a little bit.

His friends sing along at varying levels of obnoxiousness and Phil tries not to keep opening the Tumblr app to see if someone has messaged him. Well, someone specific. I'm going north today!, is the last message sent between them, and Phil is still waiting for Winnie to offer to meet up or something.

After their non-starter interview, Phil and Winnie kept missing each other's free time to finish it over Skype. Phil kind of wants to hear more from them before he checks it out himself, but that's not looking likely at this point, especially if he's lugging his housemates along with him all weekend.

Phil opens a puzzle game on his phone and lets the mostly-mindless swiping distract him. It's a long drive up to Rossendale, and the last thing Phil wants is to be left alone with his thoughts.

Phil's parents love having guests round almost as much as they love to have him home, so Phil isn't at all surprised to walk in and smell a roast cooking. He expects that treats will be made as soon as the oven is free, because that's what his mum is like.

"Hello," Phil calls into the house, kicking off his shoes. His friends follow his lead - PJ puts his boots carefully on the mat that Phil didn't bother aiming for, and Sophie struggles with a particularly stubborn knot in her laces - as he hangs up his jacket. "Mum? Dad?"

"Child," his mum greets him happily, appearing in the entry to the kitchen and making grabby hands at him until he envelops her in a hug.

"Missed you," Phil tells her, quiet enough that his friends won't hear to make fun of him.

"Oh, I missed you," she says, giving him a kiss on the side of his face. She turns her beaming smile onto his housemates, who all pause in what they're doing like a frozen tableau. It's a little funny. "More children! Hello! I'm Kathryn, it's so nice to meet you. And so nice to see you again, PJ," she adds in that somewhat pointed voice that Phil hates so very much.

"Hello, Kath," PJ says, grinning wide. He gives her a hug, too. Chris holds out his hand for her to shake when she's done squeezing the life out of PJ, but Kath will have none of it.

"Don't be silly," she says, wrapping her arms tight around Chris' waist with a laugh. "We hug in this family."

"Really?" Chris asks, and the look he gives Phil is almost more embarrassing than if he'd asked 'so why isn't your son a hugger?' out loud. "Something smells absolutely delicious, Kathryn. Is that you, or is supper cooking?"

Phil stops himself from groaning out loud, but barely. He probably shouldn't be surprised at all that Chris' cheeky, flirtatious charm extends to mothers as well. Kath laughs and smacks lightly at Chris' chest before she turns to Sophie.

Skilled at making people feel comfortable in four seconds flat, Kath chatters away about supper and how lovely Sophie's curls are and how long it's been since she's seen Phil, did they know how long it's been? She herds them all into the kitchen like they're cattle and insists that Phil take their things upstairs while she puts the kettle on.

"Er, alright," Phil says, looking at the small collection of bags that they'd brought with them. Their clothes and toiletries are all there, of course, but so is all the filming and hunting equipment. He'll have to make at least two trips.

"Your father got the guest room and Martyn's room all set up before he went out," she tells him, either not noticing or ignoring his internal struggle.

Oh, wonderful. Phil had somehow forgotten about the part where they had three beds for four of them. He's positive that his housemates won't mind sharing with each other, but now he's been tasked with the anxiety-inducing puzzle of whose bags to put where.

"Okay," Phil says again, even though they've moved on to talking about their favourite kinds of cakes so that Kath can wow them all with her skills. He tries to catch PJ's eye, but PJ is too wrapped up in a conversation about strawberries to notice.

Alright, well. Phil grabs as many bags as he can carry and brings them upstairs, feeling some tension deep inside him get a little tighter as he notices that most of their personal effects are packed away, either in storage or already on the island, and his childhood home looks more like a show home than he's comfortable with. The stairs only creak a little under his weight, nothing like the old house in Brighton, but Phil still feels unsettled.

In the end, he throws PJ and Sophie in the guest room. It's a selfish move more than anything, because he's brought PJ for enough visits to be familiar with the way his parents look at each other every time PJ teases him.

They don't ask. They're not the type of people to pry, and Phil isn't the type of people to offer information unprompted. They've all been in this limbo for years where Phil doesn't tell them that he likes boys and they don't outright question if PJ is just a friend and, frankly, Phil is tired of it. So, Chris can sleep alone.

He takes his own bags up last, because he knows that stepping into his bedroom and seeing all the personality stripped from it is going to make him feel things he isn’t prepared to feel. Phil takes a deep breath before he goes inside, and releases it shakily as he drops his things on the floor.

The beige carpet is almost mocking him, telling him that it's time to grow up, and Phil leaves the room as fast as he can.

God it is so hard to get anything done here. Sorry to complain at you randomly but like... I forgot how hard it is to work when my parents are hovering and asking a million questions lmao

Winnie still hasn't responded to Phil's early morning message, but the frustration of his parents distracting him and his friends from their work is starting to get to him. Chris has completely charmed them, somehow, and both Sophie and PJ are too polite to put headphones on and ignore them the way Phil has decided to.

Surprisingly, he gets a reply right away: omg how have i never considered the fact that you had to tell your parents you wanted to hunt ghosts for a living thats so fucking funny also that sucks i live in a house full of students and i always have to go to the coffee shop to work on essays and shit

There's nothing good like that where my parents live. Your coffee place is in the city, right?

“No! He didn’t!” Chris is laughing, somewhere in the living room, and Phil has to turn up the white noise on his headphones. The idea of his parents and housemates trading embarrassing stories about him while he's holed up at the table with audio files he hates makes him itch.

yeah, Winnie says. Phil is so thrown off by the short message that his fingers pause on the keyboard.

Is he annoying them? He doesn't mean to. Phil thinks over the messages they've exchanged since talking on Skype, the wheel of worst case scenarios spinning quickly.

Before Phil can apologise or even really get his anxious mind to settle down, his laptop bloops again, once, twice, three times. Relief from the worry that Winnie doesn't like talking to him curls around Phil's shoulders, relaxing them.

It's a screenshot of Google Maps with an address pulled up, a different building circled in a bright blue. yeah i hella recommend and it's really close to wilkins as well, is the message accompanying the screenshot. Then, right afterwards, 10/10 hot chocolate if i do say so myself.

Phil isn't very big on hot chocolate on its own, but he is very big on quiet coffee shops.

It takes a lot of cajoling and promises that he won't be out too late for Phil to convince his parents that they'll be fine to drive to the city by themselves. His dad gets the same look on his face that he always does when Phil talks about work, but his mum merely pats his cheek and says, "Oh, love, be careful. I'll be cross if I have to get you from the police again."

"That was one time," Phil says, feeling his face flush as Chris looks at him with glee.

"One time too many," Nigel says, a bit too sternly to be a joke. Phil wonders if his friends pick up on it or if they just think he's banting like he's been all through supper, that same dry humour that Phil can see in Martyn making him funnier than his housemates had expected.

PJ and Sophie both laugh a bit, so... probably just Phil's knowledge of his dad making it more pointed than it really needs to be.

The coffee shop is open late, so Phil and his housemates decide to do some recon at the Wilkins place. The sun hasn't quite set yet, and the street isn't completely deserted or anything, so they have to wait for a good moment to leave the car.

They're careful. They've done this before.

The Wilkins place is an older townhouse in Rusholme with windows that have been boarded up since the early noughties because they kept getting broken. Technically, someone still owns the property, but the Wilkins family either didn't care about it or had forgotten it existed, because it's been abandoned as long as Phil can remember.

It also isn't very scary in his memory. It's draughty and has rats scurrying about, but the electricity and heating still worked, somehow, and the social situations he'd gotten thrown into at Martyn's shoulder were definitely more nerve-wracking than the house itself.

All of these things are still more or less true, according to everything Phil has been told, but when Phil climbs in through the loose boards of the kitchen window, the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. He hesitates for so long on the sill that Chris pushes a bit at him, reminding him to move before some annoyed neighbour calls the police.

It's dim inside but not so dark that Phil's eyes strain; the streetlights and setting sun filter in through the boards and showcase the dust covering every surface.

Phil helps Sophie and then Chris through the window, PJ giving them boosts from the outside. They take the various bags from PJ and Sophie immediately pulls out the camera, ignoring the thuds that PJ's feet make as he launches himself up and clambers in like a monkey.

"Sexy," Chris drawls as PJ nearly tumbles onto his face. He's grabbing out equipment of his own, and so Phil is tasked with getting PJ through the window safely.

"At least I've got a modicum of upper body strength," PJ says. Neither of them are bothering to whisper, and that's making Phil anxious.

He can't put his finger on it, but... it doesn't feel like they're alone in here. There's probably someone hiding out from the chill of late October in one of the various empty rooms, and Phil's worst case scenario wheel is spinning so fast it's making him dizzy.

"Do you hear that?" Sophie asks, hushed. That stops PJ and Chris from continuing their bickering, and all three men freeze as they strain for whatever it is that Sophie's hearing. After a moment of complete silence, Sophie shakes her head. "It stopped. Hopefully the mic caught it over you lot."

PJ looks appropriately abashed, but Chris just shrugs. He's got a flashlight and an EMF meter, and he slings one of the bags over his shoulder before disappearing.

This is technically for Phil's channel - they're checking the place out, and Sophie is filming just in case something happens - but Phil still feels weird when PJ ducks off in another direction and Sophie stays at his side instead of following one of her boys, camera steady in her hands and the tip of her nose pink from the cool air.

"What did you hear?" Phil murmurs, beckoning her further into the house. The sound of creaking wood is so loud, like it's right above their heads, and Phil can only hope that it's one of his friends going upstairs.

"It could have been the wind," Sophie says mildly. "Or rats."

"Is that what it sounded like?"

Sophie blinks up at him and her mouth twists in an emotion that Phil can't place. "No. No, it sounded like a person talking."

Yeah, that's what Phil was afraid of. "Someone might be living here," he whispers, focusing on the dark hallway and trusting that Sophie is following.

The creaking again, this time from beside them, and Phil peeks his head around the corner to confirm that the staircase is what he's hearing. Chris is halfway up it, flashlight off between his teeth as he grips the railing like he's afraid the stairs are going to give out under him.

Phil hates this part. He'd rather do this completely alone than have to herd his friends like sheep. He leaves Chris to his own devices and moves into the lounge. This is where the majority of the litter is, empty bottles and cans and crisp bags everywhere. Phil takes a couple photos of it all and sends them to Martyn.

Remember your friend who used to bring a garbage bag to every party? Looks like he was the only one lol

He pauses. All too aware of Sophie's eyes and possibly the camera lens on him, Phil sends the photo to Winnie as well with a different caption: Does it always look like this?

Neither of them respond by the time Phil has picked his way through the first floor, which is at least good for his focus, but it doesn't explain why the house feels so much different than it had seven or eight years ago. Phil feels unsettled here in a way that he doesn't usually get anymore, goosebumps down his arms that aren't from the cold and the constant, unnerving feeling that someone is looking at him from the shadows.

Phil's phone buzzes as he and Sophie debate in whispers if they should go upstairs. Phil hates leaving anything to someone else, even if it's just a few rooms that surely PJ and Chris are capable of exploring on their own. He's in the middle of trying to explain that to Sophie when his voice catches in his throat.

"Peej says we should go," Phil says, interrupting himself. "He found something weird in the attic."

"What's he doing in the attic?" Sophie hisses.

"Dunno. I didn't even know there was an attic."

"We should go, then," says Sophie, like that decides it. Although it does rankle a bit to be lower on the totem pole of his own project, Phil has to admit that Sophie is right. If PJ is saying that it's time to go, then it's time to go.

Phil climbs out of the window first, taking the equipment with him, and then helps hoist Sophie safely down. She's so small that it's not even a strain, really, even with how little exercise Phil gets. They wait, huddled together, and Phil feels some of the knot in his chest start to loosen when he hears Chris and PJ arguing in whispers before the window boards get slid out of the way again.

"What did you find?" Phil asks immediately, and PJ hushes him on his way down.

"Let's go, I'll tell you at the café," he whispers, leading the way down the pavement with strides so purposeful that Phil wonders if he's been in this area before. It's all the rest of them can do to keep up with him, and Phil spares a moment to feel sorry for Sophie and her short legs.

He hangs back with her and lets Chris keep pace with PJ. Chris is still talking at a silent PJ in a hushed, passionate tone, like he's fighting with a brick wall, and Phil doesn't need to be involved in that.

The coffee shop is only a couple of streets away, but the tension that the Wilkins place and PJ's subsequent discovery has brought to the group makes it feel much further. PJ stops in front of a purple door, and Phil has a begrudging respect for his ability to remember where something is after simply being told the address. The shop is small and a little dingy, but the lighting inside is soft through the narrow windows and there's a fireplace that Phil longs to curl up in front of like a cat.

Chris scowls at PJ and holds the door open for him in the same breath. Phil doesn't understand their relationship and at this point he's too afraid to ask, but he ducks into the inviting warmth anyway to try to get the goosebumps off his skin.

The two employees behind the counter look at the door like they've been caught with their hands in a cookie jar. A girl with brightly-coloured hair is holding a bunch of marshmallows, a hand poised mid-throw, and an unreasonably tall guy with an unreasonably large mouth is gawping as one of the marshmallows hits him in the chin.

"You missed," Phil informs them, grinning a bit as he unwinds his scarf.

"Oops," the girl laughs, setting the marshmallows down and pulling up a customer service smile. "What can I get for you guys?"

While PJ and Sophie pore over the menu and Chris starts asking if she'll throw marshmallows into his mouth if he asks very nicely, Phil's eyes drift to the other worker.

His mouth is still open, a bit, and his face flushes when their eyes meet. "Er," he says, glancing behind him as if Phil is looking at someone else, and that's so endearing that Phil is sufficiently distracted from the mystery down the street.

Phil isn't extremely self-conscious or anything, but he also knows he's not going to be the hottest guy in a room, so he's a bit flattered and a lot confused about this guy's reaction to him.

The thing is, the guy is very attractive. A couple of perfect curls poke out from under his cap, and there's some type of shimmer on his face that Phil could not put a name to if you paid him. He knows literally nothing about makeup, but he knows that it makes this giant of a man look softer and his blush even more obvious when it deepens.

"Hi," Phil says, giving him a little wave. He can still hear Chris chattering on and Sophie debating the merits of a hot chocolate versus a cappuccino, so he's pretty sure nobody is paying them any attention. The guy twitches like he wants to look over his shoulder again, but he stops himself.

"Uh, hi? Sorry to be, like, weird, I just - I didn't expect -"

The voice is familiar, the rambling is familiar, and then it clicks. "Oh, hi," Phil says again, warmer this time. He steps closer to the counter and grins up at them - an unusual thing in itself, since Phil doesn't meet many people taller than him. "You didn't mention that you work here."

Winnie's shoulders slump forward in a kind of relief, and they scratch the back of their neck, looking awkward and out of place even in an outfit that coordinates with the colour scheme of the whole shop. Phil looks the uniform over and immediately regrets it, because he didn't mean to see Winnie's name tag and now he feels weird about knowing something he wasn't actually told. He doesn't feel too weird about being here, though, because - well. Winnie had technically invited him.

"Honestly, I didn't know you'd be 'investigating' so soon," says Winnie. They're still blushing and the finger quotes are somehow cute, even though they're being used to poke at Phil's career. Their nails are dark and sparkly, and Phil desperately needs to stop noticing things about their hands. "I would have told you, probably, or I'd just - I dunno, try to make a better first impression."

"You're making a fine first impression," Phil assures them.

Winnie snorts. "Oh, bullshit."

"Phil," PJ says, nudging him. Phil suddenly remembers that there are, in fact, other people around him, and he can't just keep looking at Winnie's long, dark eyelashes. "What are you having?"

Honestly, Phil hasn't even looked at the menu. He's so easily distracted by pretty boys with big hands and - oh, right, he's got to be careful about that, even in his own head. Especially in his own head. Winnie isn't a pretty boy, he really shouldn't be thinking about them like that at all.

"Uh," Phil says eloquently. He's very particular with his hot drinks, usually, but he's got a lot going on in his mind right now and it's easier just to shrug at Winnie than to look away and think. "Dunno, actually. Surprise me?"

Winnie smiles, and Phil's stomach twists. "I can do that."

#quiet on widow's peak #phanfic #phanfiction #dnp fic #words words words

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cosmiciaria · 5 years ago

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In defense of Final Fantasy XIII-2 (long post - mild spoilers ahead!)

Disclaimer: Sorry for the pics bad quality. I don't own a ps3, my friend lent me one, and I don't really know how to take screenshots, so I did my best to make my photos look visible. Just don't mind them much.

SO, I'll start by saying that this game IS BAD and it's part of a badly executed and hated trilogy. To be honest, I don't appreciate Final Fantasy XIII much: the first time I played it I was blinded by (light – sorry pun) the visuals and the crystals and everything was shining and whatever. But then I replayed it, and started seeing all the things people were complaining about. As I skipped some scenes to make my second playthrough smoother and faster, I noticed one thing: I was bored. I wasn't enjoying the gameplay, I didn't understand the story in its entirety even if it was my second time playing it. It was one of the first videogames I played in English (hello from Argentina) so I thought that maybe my limitations with the language were dampening my experience, but I asked a friend about the plot and she told me she didn't understand it either.

At any rate, I only played FFXIII because I wanted to play FFXIII-2. I didn't know why, or what, but something in the sequel (cof cof Noel cof) gave me the urge to try and see it for myself. Like I mentioned before, I don't own a ps3, so I had to wait until in 2015 they released the PC ports. I was so happy with this, that I decided to complete the game 100% and see everything it had to offer.

And it has so much to offer! Yes, I won't deny it, the plot is all over the place, and this is where the trilogy goes to hell with its story. But, let's just say we are all aboard the suspension of disbelief train – if we do it, we'll find there's a great story behind all the time gates.

What I enjoyed the most about this sequel was the characters. In XIII I spent HOURS complaining about how annoying everyone was (except for Fang, she's perfect). I couldn't relate to or stand anyone: Lightning became obnoxious with her monotone, Hope was a crybaby with a pretentious revenge plot that didn't work out well, Sahz is just kinda there not contributing anything to the plot, Vanille just has that oh-please-kill-me squeaky voice and Snow is… I hate Snow. I just hate him. The little fondness I have for him stems from my love for Troy Baker's performances, but oh my Etro, Snow is just like a shonen hero in the body of a 21-year-old man. It's just not right, it defies the laws of anime and videogames. Please eradicate him. I hate Square Enix for creating a character like him and forcing me to play as him and use him as a Sentinel because he's just that good in that role, damn him!

But in FFXIII-2? Suddenly, I found myself rooting for Noel and Serah. We get to learn about Noel's backstory, his sad present, his depressing lifestyle. The inexorability of his tale, the imminence of his decaying world. And he becomes such an endearing partner! He's always there to catch Serah if she falls, he's always asking her if she's feeling well. He's proficient, he's efficient, and he's not complaining about stupid stuff. He even doesn't want to talk about his past because he doesn't want to bother Serah – PLEASE Hope just learn something from this man!

And what about Serah? She's not the best character, I give it to you, but she goes from damsel in distress to a badass time traveler in a blink of an eye, and I can certainly get behind that! She's selfless, she faces everything head on, even though she's scared. Her journey began with the search of her sister, but slowly she found herself surrounded by things she couldn't quite comprehend, only to learn that she was more entangled with the fate of the world than she'd anticipated.

And if you do some optional stuff, you can learn things about Mog as well – not only his features are useful (and funny), but he's also the comic relief, adding extra spice to some of the conversations. His exaggerated expressions and his cute voice make up for a good companion.

And I cannot NOT mention Caius (Liam O'Brien I stan). Say whatever about him, but I love his characterization. He's well made. Yes, he wants the same as countless others villains from the FF franchise, but this time I can understand his motives. I feel pity for him. I want to help him. He's cursed beyond redemption. And he's got the best theme song ever.

I can understand these characters. The game spends enough time on everyone so we can learn to care for them, they show us how their relationship nurtures, their dynamics. And I care! This is something XIII-2 made right and XIII did not: I don't care about Lightning, or Hope, or Snow, but I do care that Noel and Serah succeed in their task. I don't care about Barthandelus or the Pulse Fal'Cie, but I do care about Caius getting what he wants. XIII had so many characters but spent too little time in developing (properly, at least) their strengths and weaknesses, but most of all, their relationships. The only real relationship that feels genuine is the one between Fang and Vanille, but that's because they know each other from before the events of the game; whereas the rest of the team feels like… badly placed pieces of puzzle trying to fit.

I know you're gonna say, hey, other FF put together characters that had nothing to do and it worked (yeah, I can mention FFXII and to a certain extent, because Penelo and Vaan were just there for the lulz I guess). In XIII it just didn't work for me: I couldn't root for any of them, and when the game was finished, I was kinda relieved.

That doesn't happen in XIII-2. Maybe they got it, maybe it was out of luck, I don't know, but characters here are better fleshed out, and we can learn to care and root for them, so we want to see it through to the end by their side.

That's just one thing that XIII-2 did better.

Gameplay was enhanced: now it's faster, more strategic, it doesn't bullshit you like when the leader died in XIII. I'm not going to delve deeper into the Pokémon thing, but yes, you can catch them all, and it adds a lot to the stakes because there's one more thing to gain besides the battle: the monster you're fighting. The game added so many features, it blows me away: the time travelling, opening new paths, closing some; the fragments, which give you experience points and insights in some of the lore; the fragment skills, additional things you can earn or do if certain requirements are met; the f*cking casino that has chocobo races, something that was lacking in the previous game; you can add ADORNMENTS to the monsters you tame to get the ultimate fashion experience. I don't know, there's so much to do, too many timelines to visit. There are too many sidequests, but all of them are linked to the main plot, so you feel like you're still learning things from the main story. Yes, I know, they reuse the same map over and over (Yaschas Massif and Oerba, I'm looking at you), but they compensate with some brand new maps, like Academia 4XX AF which must be my favorite location, so full of life and futuristic style, and the Archylte Steppe, with its weather changing feature.

Sometimes the lack of gameplay slaps you in the face but in the good sense, for instance in Academia 400 AF, where you have a forced battle every two seconds. The sense of urgency and danger is well conveyed through the use of random encounters with enemies. Or when you visit the Void Beyond with Serah, that you're alone, and you have a ghastly Mog following you around, with some of his features blocked. They used everything they had at their disposal, and they used it well. Gone are the days with the endless hallway that we complained so much about in XIII (as if FFX wasn't linear as hell too, but we don't complain about that one – don't dare because it's my favorite FF I warn you): now you can choose how to play, when to play, face that monster or go for an alternative ending. They listened to our whining and gave us this sequel, yes, that nobody asked for, but yet, they did.

There's a huge world-building surrounding all the time travelling thing: in the future, time travel becomes something of an everyday topic, so when you walk around in Academia 4XX you can hear kids playing "let's go and destroy those evil paradox monsters". They built a world around the idea that you can time travel, and that's how Hope gets to live and see every era, monitoring his work that will take centuries to be fulfilled. This is how we should take the time travel in this game, not as doomsday-serious as in Terminator or Back to the Future, but with a more light-hearted approach. I think that's what they tried to do, and it works well that way.

However light-hearted this game tries to be, it has some sad and depressing bits, mostly around Noel and his way of life. Whenever his theme song kicks-in, you can understand all his character without a word. And that takes me to another thing this game excels at: soundtrack. Now, I won't say it's better than XIII, because the first game has some awesome music as well, but I'll be damned if I don't give enough credit to this game's songs. Yeul's Theme, Noel's Theme, Wishes – you learn everything of these characters by just listening to these beautiful vocals. And I also love that the music took risks, like the Crazy Chocobo theme – I swear that thing is both the best and worst thing out of this game.

Confession time: I can't stop shipping Serah and Noel. I'm just so angry that Snow exists because it forbids this ship in the canon. I have one major complain about it, though: I can't help but notice that both Caius and Noel are infatuated by a fifteen-year-old. I can't discern how much of it is "loyalty beyond boundaries" or "I love her, I truly love her, like I'm in love with her" kind of love, but still, it bugs me a bit. Caius and Yeul's relationship feels more natural, given that he's her guardian, and he acts upon this role the whole game, until the end, where Noel clearly states that Yeul always came back because she wanted to stay by Caius's side. So it leaves me wondering. And Lightning Returns pretty much confirmed to us that Noel was in love with Yeul, which of COURSE I don't LIKE at ALL but I'll roll with it. I'm just glad that we got XIII-2 ending where Jason Marsden's voice breaks when he yells Serah's name. They gave me enough content for a thousand fics. Let's pretend that Noel's attitude in LR doesn't happen, ok?

You can hate this game. I can't blame you for it. Nobody wanted it, it doesn't connect well to its predecessor unless you read two novellas, and it forcefully leads us to Lightning Returns where, I can safely say, the plot goes to hell, almost literally. But this game exists, and it doesn't deserve half the hate it receives. If you play it it's because you enjoyed XIII (I highly doubt that you'll make yourself go through this suffering if you didn't like the first one – if you do, I just don't know why you hate yourself so much), and if you did, there's no way you're not going to see all the good things they added in this one. Enjoy it for what it is, and not for what it's not, or for what it could've been.

I sometimes wonder what could've happened if this game didn't have "Final Fantasy" on its cover. Because the time travel is intelligent and fun to play, the world-building around the Farseers and this bleak future is interesting and well made – the problem with this game is that it's a Final Fantasy and that it's a sequel to an already quite finished story. It feels like they forced a sequel, and maybe they did. But I, for once, am glad they did.

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stuffman-main · 5 years ago

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a stream-of-consciousness writeup on the state of the game

despite my wildly inaccurate initial predictions on how long it would take i’m...okay with where wots is right now

if you’re not aware i’ve gone back to work part time. so production is going to slow down. it might finish this year, it might not.

since starting on it in earnest last december...i spent one month doing comms to replenish my bank account, lost about one month to despair-related unproductiveness, and probably lost about one more to general inexperience/inefficiency. so i’d say there’s about six months of actual solid work in the game. with the AI half-done I’m optimistic that it can be done within another six. the battle sprites will be the most work, along with however much character art i decide to put in the game (although i would like to have full vn-tier character pose variety, that seems unwise to go forward with).

having heard people with more experience lament how they’ve spent 3+ years on their games (though i have no idea if it’s been full time or not)...I think I’m doing okay. wots won’t take anywhere near that long.

i have come to accept that ghost nun was a necessary mistake. i had no fucking clue how to organize my programming and it made me get my shit together. i’m learning from wots as well, in my next game i absolutely need to spend some time figuring out a better way to program UI windows so i’m not spending tons of time moving things up and down a few pixels and recompiling until it looks right.

the AI is actually working pretty nice, in the limited context for which it is currently coded. it has a tendency to be a little cowardly, backing away from threats until it accumulates enough reinforcements to lash out, or maybe squirrel away towards a different objective. on most maps this isn’t a bad strategy. I’ll have to tweak things once campaign/war room playtesting starts in earnest.

the AI is currently only concerned with property-based play - i.e. capturing everything and fighting whatever gets in its way - so it has no idea what to do in a predeployed situation. it’s also totally defenseless against an HQ rush if the HQ is off on some random island or something, because it’s ignoring units that aren’t on the way to its targets.

it also doesn’t use powers yet. i’m not looking forward to that. every CO is going to need their own heuristics to figure out whether using their powers is worthwhile.

but. it works. and I feel confident saying it probably has the best capture phase AI of any AW game or clone, which contributes a lot towards putting it in a good position to fight back.

i also feel good about the sound situation. i have a lot more work to do in finding mood/conversation music but that’s relatively easy compared to character themes.

i’ve started writing the script in a text file. i constantly reread and fiddle with it a few days later once it’s not fresh in my mind anymore.

if this game is going to succeed financially at all i am 100% certain that the script is going to be of critical importance. I suspect the number of people that will buy it just because it’s a strategy game with cute girls for $5 is limited. basically, the way i see the game doing well is people taking screenshots of entertaining conversation bits, having people go “what game is this” and spreading through word of mouth.

thankfully, after doing purplequest i am reasonably sure i can write dialogue that most people will find entertaining. it is pretty much pure luck beyond that.

i need about 3k sales to recover the amount of money i started with. 10k to continue doing this for a living permanently. that’s a lot. not something that’s impossible for a first-time indie dev but enough to cause worry, especially with reports showing the typical no-name steam game getting, like, 50 sales. granted, a lot of that is trash like low-effort VNs and procedurally-generated shovelware (btw i am aware that sounds arrogant as fuck, but if i didn’t have confidence i couldn’t be doing this), but wots is not going to catch eyes with its amateur hour SNES graphics.

to go off on a tangent i am actually concerned that the game will be dinged for the units looking too similar and making the field hard to read. it hasn’t really been a problem while i’ve been playtesting but at a glance i don’t think it looks good. the sprites probably need yet another pass to give them more unique poses and stuff, but there’s only so much you can do when all your units are basically clones of each other.

the other glaring issue is the halfassed way multiplayer is being implemented...to be honest it’s kind of an embarrassment but there’s nothing I can do. i just don’t have the means to host and moderate an official server, not even getting started on how i know fuck all about netcode.

my current plan is that if wots does really well, i’ll put together a private server client and see who wants to host it. beyond that i’m not sure what i can do.

the WORST POSSIBLE THING THAT COULD HAPPEN is for ninty to finally decide they’re making another AW game. since Intelligent Systems is on record saying the reason they haven’t done it is because they haven’t thought of a way to have the same level of characterization/personalization that’s selling their FE games, if they DID go forward with it, it would be safe to presume the new game would have a level of depth that would blow wots (and wargroove and whatever) out of the water. so i do have an invisible time limit here.

ANYWAY stay tuned, the reduced resolution refactor gave me an excuse to go through and improve the UI some more, so I’ll have some screenshots eventually.

#war of the sprouts

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queenofthemindynasty · 5 years ago

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Even If You Say ‘No’ - pt 8

Pairing: Hoseok x Fem!Reader

Summary: {Y/n}, a brilliant, young producer at BigHit Entertainment, tends to be overly self-critical of her work and scarcely gives herself credit when it’s due. Hoseok, A.K.A. J-Hope of BTS, puts so much effort into keeping up the spirits of the other members, he hardly has time to worry about his own well being. What will happen when the two cross paths?

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Idol Universe

Warnings: explicit language, implied self-harm

Word Count: 2143

{Y/n} posted on Twitter about the mixtape’s release when she arrived home. The next morning, she checked her notifications. What she saw was a blast of freezing cold water to the face.

A thousand likes, three hundred retweets, and twenty seven comments.

She checked the other platforms. Since she was a new artist on Spotify and had only recently made an account to release Mirrors on, so she wasn’t sure how to find the number of streams on the album. But on SoundCloud, she could see that it was just short of a thousand likes and only twelve hundred streams. And on BigHit’s YouTube channel, the music video didn’t even have one million views.

It was fine. It had only just dropped eight hours ago, and most people had probably been asleep at the time. It just needed a bit more time. It always took a while to get the notification out to everyone anyway.

But by the next day, not much had changed. She saw that @bts_twt had liked her Tweet, and Hoseok had posted a screenshot of the title track on the Spotify player, which had gotten quite a bit of attention. But what else was to be expected? The comments on his Tweet were mostly just things directed to him and the boys anyway, like, “I love you, Oppa!” and, “When is BTS releasing their next album?” The same went for the posts from BigHit. Hoseok’s post had only caused hers to about double in likes, but still very few people had commented. The stats on YouTube and SoundCloud hadn’t gone up by much either. Maybe people were still working on translating everything. That had to be it.

Now it had been a week since Mirrors’ release. {Y/n} had been counting the days as they passed by along with the numbers. She was beginning to lose hope. For the most part, things had remained stagnant since the second day. It was looking like she’d gone completely off the radar by now.

Today, {Y/n} decided to try and look into the number of Spotify streams, and she eventually managed to figure it out. However once she saw it, she wished she hadn’t.

Six thousand.

Not six million. Six thousand.

A deathly feeling washed over her. This was what the years of anxiety, hardships, failures, improvements, sacrifices, and sleepless nights amounted to. What was she doing? Why was she sitting at this desk in this studio? Why was she here? What had made her think it had been a good idea to follow this path? She wanted to cry, enough so that this little room would fill up with tears and drown her. If this was what chasing after her own naïve fantasies got her, she would have preferred to just die. No one would have missed her anyway.

It had been weeks since the negligent mistake she’d made. Since she had allowed Seokjin to walk in on her and Hoseok in her studio. Since then, the two of them had had barely any chances to spend time together. They’d say ‘Hi’ to each other every once in a while in the hallways, but that was the most face-to-face interaction they’d get outside of work-related matters. Of course, that wasn’t the end of the world. They still had the ability to talk via keyboard. That was what she would have thought. And yet, it rarely ever happened. They no longer shared late-night conversations over text, and he never called her anymore. The most she would get from him these days was the occasional quick check-in like, “Have you eaten today?” or “Don’t stay up all night!” She’d always answer as soon as she got the notification, but receiving a reply to that would usually take at least five minutes given that she did get one. He’d always been busy, but not for every single waking hour. Even during days off. She was sure he was just trying to be cautious. He and the boys rarely had much privacy while they were around each other, which practically was every single waking hour. She appreciated his efforts, but despite that, a dark feeling still clung to her insides. Hoseok’s silence could almost be called excessive. Wouldn’t he at least be able to chat with her at night, with the rest of the world oblivious to any words the two of them might exchange? She wasn’t expecting him to drive over to her apartment in the middle of the night or anything. Maybe just a few words about how his day went or what his schedule had been like lately. Maybe even one or two pictures of himself that he’d taken during the day. Anything as long as it went past three messages between them both. But there was nothing like that.

Her fingers thrashed around, tangled up in the cheap pair of earbuds she carried around. This couldn’t go on for any longer. It was like she was incomplete not having him as a permanent factor of her daily life anymore. She missed seeing his smile, hearing his laugh, feeling his touch. He couldn’t be blamed for not reaching out to her; it probably wasn’t his fault. But they’d seen each other too infrequently as things had been before this whole disaster had started. Now it was even worse, all because of the silly agreement he’d been forced into along with the other six boys. They had to escape this somehow.

“So what do you think?”

She clenched her teeth as she waited for Hoseok’s answer. His hands were clasped together on his lap, and he sat with a relaxed posture across from her. “{Y/n}, I know our relationship is important, but I just don’t see that happening.”

“Why not?” she countered, her words gaining a biting inflection. “There are plenty of other idols who have public relationships.”

“Yes, but most of them are retired. Plus, we’ve already signed the contract, and everyone knows that—”

“Who gives a damn about that stupid contract? We never did.” A voice was telling her—urging her—to stop herself from going down this path, to turn back before it was too late. But she disregarded it. “The company’s rules are outdated and just—just messed up. Why should we have to follow them?”

He shook his head. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit unreasonable?”

“Unreasonable?! Is that what our relationship is to you then?” She glared at him. What was his problem? Why was he acting so superior all of a sudden?

Hoseok’s shoulders rose, and he sat up straighter. “No. I’m just saying I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“So you’d really rather us not see each other at all than try to fix this?”

“What? No!” His brows twisted. “What the hell gave you that idea?!”

“Well, what else can be done about it?!” she shot back in an accusing tone. “We’ll only be free to do what we want if people accept us, or else we just continue on like we have been.”

An irritated sigh left his lips. “Listen, you’re not—”

“Shut up!”

His eyes widened.

“Don’t tell me I’m not worth it. I already know that.”

“Why are you acting like this? Why won’t you listen to a single thing I say?!”

“Because! I already know what you’re about to tell me.” His nose upturned and brows creased, he shook his head, speechless. “You don’t want to go through with this because you’re ashamed to be seen with a worthless piece of shit. Am I wrong?”

He tossed up an arm in disbelief. “That’s—” he half-scoffed, half-laughed, “—not true at all! Why would you—”

“Admit it.” She swallowed hard, spiting her own weakness. “I was never good enough, was I?”

“Babe, please. You’re—”

“Don’t call me that. I don’t want to hear it.” It was impossible to look at his face for a fraction of a second longer. “Just…leave.”

“What the—for fuck’s sake, you can’t even listen to a word I say, can you?!” he accused, standing abruptly, the desk chair reeling backwards at the sudden movement. Hoseok’s figure towered over her. “I can’t do this anymore. Shit, none of this would’ve happened if I’d never met you!”

Whatever she’d been preparing to spit back at him in defence lodged in her throat, taking the form of a rock. She choked back her tears, too angry at him to be sad. “You know what?” she stood up to confront him. “I just wanted us to be able to spend more time together, but with the way you’re acting now, forget it!” She was using every ounce of willpower in her to keep her voice from shaking. “Just go! And don’t ever come back! I don’t ever want to see you again!”

Hoseok’s tone lowered. “Fine then, you won’t.”

Wait, that wasn’t right.

But before {Y/n} had the chance to object, the door had already slammed shut behind him. Hoseok was supposed to refuse to leave until he’d made her realise how much he truly loved and cared about her. Not this. Something in her, having been chipped and fractured over the duration of whatever this had turned out to be, finally shattered and vanished. Maybe it was the tiny sliver of hope that she’d had left: that everything would resolve itself in the end no matter what she did. But that thought had gone out the door along with him. She’d been helpless to stop it. Just like she was now helpless to stop the tears from falling to the floor.

All {Y/n} could do after what had happened was cry. It was all she could think about day and night. Even when she tried distracting herself with work as Map of the Soul: Persona would be coming out in two months, she couldn’t tear her mind away from the constant thoughts of overwhelming regret. Now more than ever, it felt like she was being drowned to death. If only she had wings and could fly to Fukuoka so she could apologise to him, free herself from this emotional prison. But of course, even if she could, would she even have the courage to face him? It was clear enough to anyone that he’d seen her face enough to last the rest of his life. There probably wasn’t much anyone could do to change that at this point. They shouldn’t have even gotten into a relationship to begin with. If only she could just forget everything.

When her phone dinged at 11:54 at night with a notification from V Live, signaling to her that Hoseok was starting his birthday countdown broadcast, she considered ignoring it at first, knowing it would only worsen her mood and keep her awake longer. But it was obvious that she wouldn’t be getting any sleep either way, and she’d be an even more despicable person than she already was if she did ignore it.

As she watched silently, fingers still and removed from the comments section, not much of what he was saying got processed. She could only focus on his precious little chuckle and nervous fumbling and radiant grin and how much she loved and adored every part of him. But these things only served as reminders that he didn’t need her love or adoration. It was without a doubt that he wasn’t wondering if she was watching right now. She could tell just by the joy in his smile that she was the last thing on his mind. Every time he addressed the Army and told them how much he loved and appreciated them for their birthday wishes, he wasn’t including her. The Twitter fandom had posted messages with such unparalleled thoughtfulness in their hashtags, #OurPieceOfPeace and #LightOfHopeDay, for example. She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to Tweet anything. She and he hadn’t been together for a year before it all ended, and she’d always assumed that they would be celebrating this birthday as a couple. She’d even bought him something as a gift before everything went to ruin, but it was impossible to give it to him now.

Before her mind could process what was happening, Hoseok was wishing his viewers good night after struggling to figure out how to end the broadcast, and her screen was plunged into darkness with a message saying, “Broadcast has ended. Uploading for replay. Please wait.”

Then to her surprise, the message went blurry.

Tears were once again springing to her eyes. Hobi was gone, lost to her. And he was never coming back. All she could ever do was cry.

After so many months without seeing it, she once again found herself picking up the familiar, stainless-steel blade out of the drawer of her nightstand, a weak smile creeping its way onto her face.

#my writing #bts #fanfic #bts fanfic #bts x reader #jhope x reader #hoseok x reader #angst #fluff #idol universe

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1wngdngl · 5 years ago

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Pokemon Shield playthrough

I’ve been playing this game a lot since last night, and I still haven’t gotten on the train yet ;) I like to take games slowly to make sure I notice and experience everything along the way. It looks like the best way to share my game progress is through screenshots, so that’s what I’ll do. Cut for length and spoilers - I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers and leaks for the past couple weeks, so if you want to be able to experience the games fresh yourself, now might be a good time to click away. [This post covers up thru getting the Dynamax band]

I went ahead with the “standard” female character, but you can bet I’ll be customizing her as soon as I can. What’s with that knock-kneed stance, anyway? Pokemon trainers should stand strong and confident!

Chairman Rose greets us. Everyone online was guessing he’ll turn out to be evil or something. He certainly looks suspicious, doesn’t he?

And here comes the first surprise of the LP - a brand-new Pokemon, not even seen in trailers! (except for that fuzzy 1-frame image from a while back.) Its trunk looks kinda like a soup ladle. Maybe it’s a play on a teacup/teapot elephant? I wonder if it evolves...

Here’s Leon fighting an unknown trainer - maybe a Gym leader?

I really like the art style of the map - it’s so whimsical :)

The map also shows current weather for all locations. Look at all the different stuff going on in the Wild Area at the same time! I’ve been to the real England, and I don’t remember it having such extreme weather...

The map also has a few useful features, like displaying your next objective, and showing the facilities in a town (but only once you’ve been there yourself). The towns and such all have really interesting names that emulate that old English sound.

First thing I do when I gain control in a new Pokemon game? Change the battle style to “Set”. It seems more fair, plus it helps make the game just a bit more challenging.

I’m a little sad that the old option to change menu/text box borders seems to be forever abandoned, though... >.>

My house. It’s a pretty decent-sized place. We have a pet Munchlax and a few Budew outside. My character practices her whistling.

My mom. Or “mum” as the game calls her. The dialog is noticeably slanted toward a more British dialect - I wonder how they handled the accent in other languages?

Speaking of my mom, she seems rather big compared to me, doesn’t she? Quite a bit taller. I’m guessing my character is around 12 - when I was that age, I was the same height as my mom and done growing. Maybe they think people won’t believe this character is the mom’s child if she’s too tall?

Also, my dream is to one day have a /dad/ in a Pokemon game. Seriously, why does every other house I visit have a husband and wife, and my character is always stuck being the only child of a single parent? What if in one of these games, my dad was the champion or the evil team leader - how fun would that be?

My bedroom. The pink clock on the wall reminds me of one from a previous Pokemon game - was it ORAS that had those round clocks on the wall that you could set?

My first step on my journey. Looks like my mom spends every minute gardening - I guess the Budew help her?

Ah yes, every Pokemon game needs a “power of science” guy :)

Here’s another surprise - how many Pokemon games give you a fishing rod right at the start?! Usually you have to track down three different fisherman to get the three versions of the fishing rod. I’m also happy to see that Pokeballs have their own pocket again :)

The handy map tells us where to go next, with even a little picture of our destination.

The champion of Galar, of course, has a huge house.

Wow, a Purrloin! I forgot that they stood on two legs. I like its little bed.

Also, Leon’s family decorate their house mainly in trophies.

I guess this is Hop’s room - I like his artwork. I know Leon has a Charizard - does he have these other two Pokemon too, and that’s why Hop has posters of them?

Leon’s room is mostly a shrine to hats.

Speaking of Leon, he really knows how to play to the crowd ;)

So, some people are wondering if /Leon/ will turn out to be evil in the story. I didn’t really get that vibe from him. He seems like a genuinely nice guy, but he does seem like he has some worries on his mind, like his cheer is sometimes forced?

Maybe he actually hates the limelight and gets uncomfortable with attention? Maybe he’s secretly terminally ill? Maybe there’s some massive threat about to attack the Galar region? He seems really concerned with making sure that Galar has lots of strong trainers. Maybe he knows something about the legendaries?

Alternately, some people were saying that maybe Leon isn’t actually a great champion, and his fights are rigged in his favor by the chairman. /If/ that were the case, I bet that Leon is actually unhappy with that situation and wants to make the tournament more fair.

Or maybe everything in the game is exactly as it seems ;)

Nothing important here, I just like this screenshot. I wonder if Fletchling are native to Galar too?

My first Pokemon! (in this game, at least...) I picked Sobble because he’s the most endearing.

My first battle! I like how the interface is laid out, and how detailed the background is beyond the fighters - you can even see Leon standing there.

My Pokemon's details. I don’t play competitively so I don’t know if it’s a particular “good” Sobble. It seems like this species is a fast special-attacker, so I’ll have to keep that in mind.

The Slumbering Weald (my spellchecker doesn’t even recognize that word :) ) It’s very spooky and seclusive - and it’s right next to the starter town too! You’d think if it was really that dangerous, people would put up more than a flimsy wooden gate to keep trespassers out...Hop, of course, is an idiot and runs right into it; and I, the spineless protagonist, have no option to say no. >.>

My first wild encounter! This starts the trend I noticed all during the opening hours of this game - most of the wild Pokemon are brand-new, totally-unrevealed species. Like this squirrel thing. (Although some people guessed we would get a new squirrel based on that shirt design). I wonder if it evolves?

This part was actually pretty scary, with the Pokemon (I can’t remember its name...) suddenly appearing out of the fog. The Pokemon acted almost like a hologram in battle though - my attacks couldn’t touch it.

What if the twist is that the legendary wolf Pokemon are just illusions, perhaps even man-made ones created to keep intruders from discovering some secret in the forest?

Anyway, we escape from the situation perfectly fine, because of course we do ;)

I noticed that this particular generation gives you quite of a bit of money at the start, but I guess that’s because you encounter the first boutique so early. There’s a fair number of affordable options too. Some of these Pokemon shirts I wish were /real/ shirts.

My new look :) Mostly I just ditched the dress for jeans. This looks like a comfortable outfit, although that knapsack is a bit unwieldy.

We visit the professor’s lab. She has a lot of books, plants, and a tea set. I wonder if she ever has problems with Polteageist?

The new Pokemon center design. I love that the move deleter/relearner and nickname functions are all in one place - I always hated flying around the map trying to remember where they were.

That Pokemon behind the counter is another totally new one. Could this be a Galarian Audino?

Using mystery gift, I was able to get this “Gigantamax” Meowth. However, due to my rule of only using Gen 8 Pokemon, it’s just gonna chill out in the box >.>

Leon is very generous with Pokeballs. Even the items you find on the ground are generous, often containing 2 or 3 “copies” of an item when you check it out. Is that a new thing for Pokemon?

Here I battle my first trainer that isn’t named Hop. He has that squirrel shirt and is a total pushover.

Just chilling by the professor’s house. It looks like maybe you can only fish in fishing spots (those darker circles on the water), but at least you get your fishing pole right away.

Also, I discovered that while I could not sit on beds or chairs inside, I am able to sit on this bench :)

The way the Pokemon mill about in the tall grass is very interesting. Some will try to avoid you, others like this Yamper will chase after you. It makes the routes feel a lot more populated.

I guess this is Sonia’s room. It’s very pink. I wonder if she even /wants/ to do Pokemon research, or if she’d rather be a fashion designer or something.

The in-game time of day doesn’t seem to match up with the Switch system clock, at least not from what I’ve seen so far. For example, suddenly it is sunset and I catch a falling star. (look how the reflection in the water changes :) )

I haven’t decided yet if I want to buy the Switch online service, but in the meantime I decided to at least pick my profile picture. The icons you can choose from actually reveal quite a lot about the trainer classes and gyms that are in the game. For the first time ever, we have a Dark-type gym! Their logo is a sideways version of Team Yell’s logo - does that mean that Team Yell or Marnie is the Dark gym leader?

I spent a while catching Pokemon around the professor’s house. I can’t tell if I got every possible species without looking online, but I did build up a good roster.

I found it really cool how many new, surprising Pokemon showed up this early in the game. There’s the fox one (which is a Dark type and reminds me of Zoroark), the turtle one (which has got to be a pre-evolution of Dreadnaw, probably the 1st of 3 stages), the bird one (based on the “Rook” in its name and the fact that it learns Dark-type moves early, I’m guessing it’s a pre-evolution of Corviknight), and the bug one (can’t wait to see what its final stage looks like).

I went through the party to find the best Pokemon that fit my self-imposed rules (only new, Gen 8 Pokemon, no overlap of types). I know that this means I won’t be able to use Galarian forms or Gigantamaxes of old Pokemon, but just because I’m not using them in my main playthrough doesn’t mean I can’t catch them :)

Next time: I step onto the train and leave my home behind.

#pokemon #pokemon shield #pokemon gen 8 #let's play #lps

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fly-pow-bye · 5 years ago

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DuckTales 2017 - “Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Colleen Evanson

Storyboard by: Vince Aparo, Emmy Cicirega, Ben Holm

Directed by: Tanner Johnson

Sorry for the wait.

This episode directly continues from the last episode, and I decided not to spoil the ending in that review. One thing that can already be implied by that title card I have is that Della does indeed make it back to Duckberg and reunite with her family. Before she can, she spends quite a bit of time trying to get to that reintroduction.

Specifically, she needed to find the best way to reintroduce herself. Well, that, and having to readjust to Earth's gravity and realizing she can't just jump over the gate. I like how the clouds move in the background with every cut, showing that she is taking quite a while on just this one step.

Right behind that door, Scrooge McDuck has found the Cartographer's Quill: a magic quill that makes maps to. One special thing about this scene is that, if this is the first episode you ever seen, this one scene does show each of the nephew and honorary niece's personalities very well. Scrooge exclaims this will be the most important adventure of their lives.

Della Duck: Sup party people! I'm back in the hizouse! ...oh, that was terrible, can I get a do-over?

Needless to say, those quill plans will have to wait for an indefinite amount of time.

One thing I'm glad to note is that they do bring up one of the most obvious questions that has come up since we've learned whatever happened to Della Duck: how did Scrooge not see her on the moon? They didn't answer it, but Scrooge does say he did indeed search the moon. They don't go any further than this, because there's far more important matters at hand, but the wonder is still there. Future episode, perhaps?

Speaking of wonder, Huey, Dewey, and Louie finally get to see their Mom outside of one photo. Or, as she wanted to name them, Jet, Turbo, and Rebel, respectively. I guess it's neat, and Dewey really thinks so, but was Della just that lucky to name her kids after their personalities before they were even born? Must be a mother's intuition.

Dewey the first to say something, and he says “who’s the cyborg?” Either the long hair threw him off for a second, or, after what felt like years, they just don’t think it could honestly be their long lost mother. Dewey just immediately goes for a hug, showing right off the bat that he's going to be the mama's boy.

How do you survive in a barren wasteland? Barren I could understand. Is that what he thinks the moon is? She never modified her leg, because as the Junior Woodchuck says...by the time she mentions that, Huey's already going to make this a group hug. Louie seemingly needs more time to think about it, thinking this could be another trap from Magica. In a few seconds, he completes the group hug anyway.

As for Webby, she's just crying over how heartfelt this scene is. I usually say these scenes are just trying to force a reaction, but...me too, Webby, me too.

This is going to be a constant through the episode, and while this is spelled out for us at one point, we can tell what everyone feels just through their expressions and actions. As said before, Dewey is a pure mama's boy, which makes sense since he's been the one looking for her since episode 1 of this reboot. In contrast, Louie always has this disinterested expression on his face. Huh, and she wanted to call him Rebel. She really is a great mother. Huey is somewhere in the middle.

Since the family is finally reunited, with one exception I will talk about later, this episode starts a new arc. Della is essentially a brand new character to the DuckTales canon. This show needs to get this new character to fit in, and this episode is essentially the in-universe version of that.

Della is happy to be with her family, and vice-versa for the most part, but she wonders where her brother is. Webby tells her that Donald is currently on vacation, much to Della's disapproval, but she's sure it was much needed.

Oh yeah, that's the other thing. Remember when I said the Donald and Della plots in the last episode felt connected in all but the situations they were in? Turns out, I could have added a "yet" to that. See, he saw the rocket fall to Earth, knew immediately that it was Della, and rushed to reunite with his long lost sister. However, his trademark bad luck set in, as Della already left the rocket, and Donald accidentally pressed that "irreversible emergency launch" switch.

He's lost in space now, and the worst part is that nobody else knows. At least with Della, Scrooge knew what happened to her, even if he never knew where exactly she went until now. To everyone else, Donald's just having a vacation, probably napping on one of the cruise ship's many, many hammocks. The episode makes a few cuts to Donald's current situation, revealing a few more details, but we'll save that for another review.

Back to the Earth, we see that most of the episode is her trying her hardest to be "the best mom ever" to make up for all the lost time. She makes her kids cakes for various special occasions. She even makes a special cake made out of Fizzy Rocks. Dewey ends up being the only, because he wants to shift to Turbo!

Della tries to tell the kids a bedtime story, but the kids are a bit too old for fairy tales, so she has to tell another story from her past. This time, we hear a story from her childhood, and it turns out that the apples don’t fall far from the tree, as she also adventured to distant places.

Specifically, this is the story of the Gilded Man of El Dorado; similar the golem of Jewish legend, except from the Aztec civilization. Originally a protector of the people, the Gilded Man blew a fuse and caused the golden streets to be covered blood red from all the gnawed bodies. She really pushes this story as hard as TV-Y7 can go.

Della stopped him and his "gory gears", but even she’s not sure if the robot will awaken and seek vengeance on their family. Oh yeah, and it’s probably sitting in the garage. Needless to say, this does not help the boys sleep.

The next morning, after getting a haircut, Della wakes up her kids with an airhorn, and brought them airhorns of their own. She then tries to teach Huey how to do an amazing skateboard trick with a shield from a nearby suit of armor. Not helping matters is that aforementioned airhorn made Huey temporarily deaf throughout most of the episode.

This goes about as well as one might expect, though Louie does initially get a rare moment of happiness in this episode. Sure, this is reckless child endangerment, but he could get a sick viral video out of it. Unfortunately, he ends up getting hurt as well, and this causes a ruckus that a nearby Mrs. Beakley can only sigh at.

Mrs. Beakley: (after lifting a fallen chandelier with one hand) I’m used to cleaning up after children, dear.

Ouch. This isn't the only household dweller that she'll have a negative relationship with, though in this next case, it's vice versa.

See, Della used to be Scrooge McDuck's pilot, and she's none to happy to find out that Launchpad happens to be her replacement. Yeah, how dare Scrooge McDuck get another pilot when his pilot goes missing for 10 years! This doesn't get brought up again in this episode, in fact, Launchpad doesn't even appear after this, but, again, this will probably be a subject of a future episode.

She sneaks up on a family meeting, where Scrooge is essentially talking about the very point of this episode. The boys tell Scrooge that while she might be endangering them, she's only trying her best and she's their mom. At least, Dewey and Huey seem to think so. Louie, who has been the least happy so far, admits that he doesn't know how to say it, but says that, as he hasn’t had a mom for so long, he doesn’t know how to have one. Scrooge has a theory on that.

Scrooge: That's because she's not a mom! (waits about 10 seconds) ...not yet anyway, she’s been gone for so long.

In those ten seconds, Della already ran off into the garage, sobbing and talking to herself about how she’s blowing it. She wishes she can have a monster to fight, and...

...oh, hi, Gilded Man! Turns out, he really did end up in Scrooge's garage, currently in an indefinite slumber. I'd say more, but my thought process ended up being "She's going to activate it, she's going to activate it, she's going to activate it..."

Sure enough, this golden android only needed a kick in the...hands to get activated. Okay, maybe that saying wouldn't go anywhere.

Della Duck: Aw, phooey.

Eh, she said it better the first time. Maybe I'm just a little miffed that she's essentially replacing her brother, and she's outright stealing his catchphrase. Della tries to deal with it herself, because "nothing can stop Della Duck!" The title kind of fit in a different way than I expected. Scrooge shows up, wondering what is going on, and is forced to face off against the giant golden monster.

After making an attempt to beat up this robot with his cane, not exactly working like it would in the NES game, Della bumps into something. This causes a Rube Goldberg effect that ends with a propeller landing on a car, causing its alarm to go off. Suddenly, the robot mysteriously puts his hands over his ears. Almost like he really hates noise, but they don’t really catch on.

They're probably distracted by family drama, of course. While this monster mysteriously stopped, Della confronts Scrooge that she heard what he said about her not being a mom. Scrooge then turns off the car alarm so he can explain the rest of what he said. Unfortunately, this conversation would have to take a break before it can make any progress of talking sense into Della before she goes on some reckless treasure hunting, because that robot is going towards them again!

It feels like the episode is setting up what Della wanted in the episode: she would save the McDuck Manor by herself, proving that she's the most adventurous Mom ever. Both Webby and Scrooge, usually invincible in this series, are essentially damsels in distress. As for Mrs. Beakley, the former Agent 22 and lifter of an entire chandelier, she gets knocked out by the monster, too.

Della tries to stop the monster as well, in the same way that she stopped the monster before, but finds that growing up sucks in at least one other way. There are three more people that haven't got involved, and, seemingly on a hunch, Dewey decides to use his airhorn. It's here that Della finally learns that the creature is weak to noise, and it's possible the kids might be able to save the day.

It turns out to be a mixture of both the mother and her children that save the day in the end, which is fitting. The boys combine their airhorns with duct tape, even showing them rushing in and getting the duct tape from Donald Duck's houseboat. I don't think anyone would have questioned if they just had it on them, but the attention to detail is much appreciated. This airhorn contraption is then shoved right into the Gilded Man's neck, and Della uses her metallic leg to jam those buttons right in.

Della even gets to show off how great of a mother she is, and it's not by defeating a giant monster or finding a huge treasure like she said she would. She detaches her robotic leg, jumping out of the android, and saves one of the boys from getting crushed by the rapidly deteriorating robot.

I kind of saw this coming: it's Louie she saves. This finally gets Louie to say "thanks, Mom". My heart's just too full. I've said in the last review that this is the end of an arc and also the beginning of a new one. She's never really annoying, overpowered, or out-of-place with the established characters. She just wants to be a good mother, and that's all that matters.

This family bonding is missing something, and I'll just say that Donald's in for a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, it's going to be a while before we find out whatever happened to Donald Duck, and while I didn't spoil a twist in the last episode that shows up here as well, it's not the focus of the episode. Another future episode!

How does it stack up?

This is another big episode. I'd argue it's better than The Golden Spear in that it doesn't seem to repeat itself as much. There's a few scenes in this that I skimmed through, but trust me, they are funny to watch. I couldn't hate this one, it's too precious.

Had enough of Della? First, why? Second, too bad, because the next episode has her, too.

← The Golden Spear! 🦆 Raiders of the Doomsday Vault! →

#fpb dt 2017 #fpb reviews #disney #ducktales 2017 #ducktales

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megatentious · 6 years ago

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Majin Tensei 2 and Shin Megami Tensei If… let’s talk about them

This past year saw the fan translation release of two 16-bit Megaten games, Shin Megami Tensei If… (lord help me if I need to type this ellipsis every time) and Majin Tensei 2. I am maybe the only person who decided to play through both of these games for the first time in English in one year, and so maybe it will be instructive to see how these two series black sheep (can you call a game a black sheep if no one has actually played it?) fit together in the context of the larger franchise. Or maybe this is just an ungainly excuse to cobble together months-old observations into blog content. Let’s find out!!

Both of these games come from a period when Atlus was still trying to figure things out from a game design perspective, testing how much they could push their console audience with PC dungeon crawler inspirations. There were no compunctions at this point about making unforgiving design choices, even in their crowning achievement mainline series games. Sometimes this worked, like the lack of guidance in Shin Megami Tensei 1 leading to perfectly tuned feelings of lonely exploration. Sometimes this didn’t quite work, like the tedious backtracking and brutally untelegraphed stat skill check requirements of Shin Megami Tensei 2. “Getting Megaten’d” is a message board expression meant to describe the sudden game overs that can occur in this series after hours of play, so it’s not as if unforgiving punishment is something that has been eradicated from the more modern games. But there’s a reason even many Megafans (yes i just said megafans, please deal with that) refuse to play anything in this franchise that released before the Playstation 2, and it’s because of choices that are perceived as promoting tedium and time-wasting. We’ve seen how this can affect their big marquis mainline successes, but what happens when you apply these principles to dicier spinoffs? Well…

Majin Tensei 2 is at least, quite conceptually ambitious. Spanning numerous worlds and time periods, showcasing political intrigue and explicitly defined characters with varying motivations, five distinct endings across light-dark and law-chaos axes, hidden events that depend on how many turns you take and which demons you have in your party, there is a lot (too much!) to keep track of. There are ideas in Majin Tensei that pre-sage much of what makes up Devil Survivor, from demon races with differing map skills to introducing demon fusion to a strategy RPG space that was mainly just Shining Force and Front Mission. In practice though, what you do repeatedly in Majin Tensei 2 is slowly s l o w l y clear fifty plus maps, maps that will occasionally provide fun challenges, but more often that not will repeat large not particularly memorable landmasses with simply hellish amounts of monsters. Seriously look at this screenshot I took, this is less than one third of the map!

There’s a reason that so many volunteer debuggers dropped out during playtesting, and there is a reason that 100% of the ones who persevered used fast forwarding emulation features to finish. This is because Majin Tensei 2’s sluggishness can be linked to the infamous Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. problem, S.T.E.A.M. being a largely unloved Intelligent Systems strategy game on 3DS that was raked over the coals in reviews for allowing enemy phases to go on for inordinate amounts of time. Majin Tensei 2 does that game one better by allowing literal minutes and minutes to pass as each enemy decides its action one by one. Do you remember that map in the screenshot above? Imagine twice as many enemies as that taking 10 seconds each to complete their own turn. Majin Tensei 2 makes it clear that you are absolutely not supposed to kill every enemy, through turn limit bonuses and appeals to your general sanity. But that still doesn’t stop the game from dumping demons haphazardly across each map in the manner of someone pounding the bottom of a trashcan to make sure every piece of refuse has tumbled out. So even if you are trying to be efficient, with each passing turn you’re going to be dealing with plenty of downtime.

So yes, the game is cruel. Just to take one example, Majin Tensei 2 spends the whole game teaching you that you need to keep someone tough at your home base even if you think you are safe, since at any moment some sort of aerial demon can sweep in from 12 spaces across the map to occupy it and end your game. And then in one level 40 chapters or so in, the game will punish you for keeping anyone behind at your home base by spawning multiple inaccessible dragon type demons who will one shot anyone who was trying to hold down the fort no matter what (did I mention that this game has instant permadeath for all demons and instant game over for any of your five human characters, five humans whom you cannot possibly level up sufficiently to all be able to survive multiple demon attacks?). Majin Tensei 2 is willing to mess with you to the extent that it absolutely wants you to cheat. After all, this is a game that in 1995, allowed you to save after every turn, which is another way of the designers telling you that savestate abuse (or in my case, copious use of the rewind button) is built into the design.

So why put up with this sort of nonsense? Well, for one, you’re dealing with the atmosphere of a 16-bit Atlus game, a combination of visuals, sound design, music and tone that is simply unlike anything else in the industry. And there is absolutely satisfaction to be found in slowly conquering the game’s maps. But those who scoff at something like, say, Soul Hackers, will find this game absolutely impenetrable, which likely means it will only ever be played through by advance Megatenists (okay i changed it to this, are you happy). Majin Tensei 2 tries to do quite a bit, switching up much even from its direct predecessor, and the play experience ends up suffering despite the ambition.

SMT If in comparion, well … If is by far the least ambitious game in the series to date. While Majin Tensei 2 lavishes you with cool unique digitized photo backgrounds, an extraordinary soundtrack with lengthy moody electronica from the late great Hidehito Aoki, and spectacular boss sprites, SMT if reuses all the most drab and uninspired wall textures from its predecessors, and offers absolutely nothing in terms of new music. Worse yet, many of the reused tracks have somehow depreciated in the conversion. Listen to the offkey shrillness of the iconic Ginza music here , seriously what did they do to it!?. If does feature some lovely new boss sprites, showcasing demons from rarer mythologies that were never again revisited (where are all my Persians at ATLUS???), but even some of the best of these are hidden in new game plus routes the average player will likely never see. The general fugliness of the overall game and relentless asset reuse gives the whole experience a very unfortunate rom-hack feel, and though it’s not hard to figure out why the game ended up this way (it was cranked out less than 9 months after SMT2) it doesn’t make things better.

I should note one important item here, however, and that is that the PSX version renders almost all of these complaints obsolete. It’s the version I first played actually, stumbling through the first few hours untranslated during a Japanese PS+ trial period. The PSX version not only offers very dramatic visual upgrades and some excellent needed remixes, there is a small measure of kindness built in for the player through the game’s Easy Mode. It’s only in this mode for whatever reason that Atlus offers a design “solution” for the most infamous portion of the game, a dungeon in which you are required to wait for hours of lunar cycles in order for students to dig your path forward. In Easy Mode the time requirement is halved for you. Behold the design advancements of the 32-bit era!

If is generally an odd game in the context of the series. There is a type of person out there who likes to call this game Persona Zero, and for people who have played the Snow Queen route of Persona One I can see why the comparison is made. But despite the initial high school setting and pseudo-selectable party members, it still feels strange and off-putting to play a Shin Megami Tensei game with almost no meaningful narrative choices (routes here are essentially locked in at the start). Guardians are seen as proto-Personas, but in this game they are earned only through dying and are associated with combinations of stat augments and skill lists that are frequently at odds with each other. What you end up with is a system that is interesting conceptually (should I die to gain useful spells at the cost of my current stats?) but unworkable in practice (it is almost never worth the steep steep battle count cost to experiment). The seven deadly sins theming is sometimes used to inform the map design and dungeon concept, but again more often than not these concepts simply lead to unfortunate tedium for the player (shout out to the final dungeon of Reiko’s route though, which very brilliantly mashes together traditional SMT dungeon design and a thematically cool map floor I won’t spoil for you).

If we look at SMT If through the prism of 16-bit Atlus design principles, having the foundation of SMT1 and 2 to work from should in theory have led the developers to refine their decisions in ways that ought to have helped the player experience. Instead, the game makes bold choices that result in remarkably less fun. For example, If understands that guns were ludicrously over-powered in 1 and 2, and tries to course correct by … making it much more tedious for the player to use guns? Bullets now cost money and can only be bought by slowly ticking up the counter to 99 one click at a time, with each bundle purchase of 99 filling up a limited inventory slot. The encounter rate is as insane as usual, Estoma takes a little bit more time to get than usual, and the game’s economy does not afford you that many useful things to spend money on in terms of equipment. Combine these three aspects of the game and every player invariable ends up large quantities of makka on hand to spend on bullets to your hearts content, and given that bullets are still far and away the best way to dispatch groups of enemies, you’ll find yourself engaging in this tedium in order to play the game efficiently.

I’ve spent a lot of time repeating the word tedium in these observations, and it’s unfortunate that this is the main takeaway most players will get from playing these two games. Both SMT If and Majin Tensei 2 devise interesting systems and then execute them as grimly as possible from a playability standpoint. There are aspects of true unique accomplishment in both games (Majin Tensei 2 has the funniest demon negotiation dialogue in the entire franchise! SMT If’s final dungeon really is super cool!) but the kind of player who is willing to experience them is essentially a rounding error. I don’t have any regret at all that I played through each of them in their entirety (FYI Majin Tensei 2 is longer than Dragon Quest 7 or Persona 5 and SMT If has a new game plus with all new dungeons that increase difficulty and dullness), but I might understand if you have regret. Then again who knows, you made it to the end of this aimless and dull writeup so maybe these games will be right up your alley! Be sure to let me know!!!

#majin tensei #majin tensei 2 #Shin Megami Tensei #shin megami tensei if #games no one has finished

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eris0330 · 6 years ago

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Because I can’t go to you, there’s no name to call.

☽Pairing☾ ; Taehyung | Reader

☽Genre☾ ; Fluff (not a lot of fluff but i guess it’s fluff??)

☽Word Count☾ ; 5.5k

☽Summary☾ ; Your first trip to Amsterdam, starting it off as a mess and Taehyung’s adventure with your purse, while constantly forgetting to ask your name.

☽Notes☾ ; You know... this is hella cringe btw. But after the concert in Amsterdam, i had to. (I had that cliche feeling with Tae, but i know it wasn’t like that but i still felt like writing this)

Early mornings of the sun rising behind the big airport building, the boys waited for their delayed transportation to the hotel. Namjoon were surprisingly energised to explore Amsterdam, when they had a day off for themselves. The others were still very exhausted of prior concerts and the little amount of sleep they got, during the time on the plane. Taehyung were busy looking through the photos he was able to take in London, to make sure he had taken the perfect shot of a memory to keep.

“We probably need more than one car” Jimin stated, turning on his heel to look out for the vehicle.

“With all the stuff that we have, we need a bus” Jungkook replied, yawning at the lack of sleep and energy to tease his older brother.

“At least this didn’t happen in public, where everyone could see” Yoongi muttered under his mask, while the vibrations of his throat shot into the fabric. They decided to use a private exit, so there wouldn’t be a stir at the airport. It was quiet and unrealistic, not having a crowd of people welcoming them to their destination. That was until Taehyung caught the eye of a young woman, handling her suitcase and her phone almost touching her nose, to navigate herself. He patted the leader on the shoulder, who was busy talking to his manager about food.

“Look” Taehyung whispered, pointing his slim finger in your direction while the other followed suit. They didn’t expect anyone to be at their exit, besides the staff of the airport. But, as far as they could see, they had been wrong. It didn’t take long before one of their own staff members went to speak to you, while your suitcase fell to the ground because one of the wheels didn’t like to hold up.

“Excuse me, Miss. You’re not allowed to be here” A security guard and staff member met to approach you on the way, while you almost dropped your phone. Your hair swinging to the side, still visibly affected by the hot weather and the wind being the devil.

“Sorry, I think I’m lost” You excused, focusing your eyes on your phone which were malfunctioning of the google map. “This is an exit, right???” You added, pointing on the screenshot you had of the map and not paying attention of the boys standing a few metres away. The staff member was clearly puzzled but still cracked a smile, when you didn’t put much excitement to the boys behind him.

“Yes, this is an exit but it’s a private exit” He replied kindly, while pointing to the exit door to tell you which way to go instead. Your eyes focusing on his fingers moving, while your ears listened carefully to his directions. Looking down on your phone again, you realised what was wrong.

“Oh damn it, it’s upside down…” You cursed, putting the phone back into your pocket. Giving up on using the picture, you trusted the man you had just met to know which way was the right one.

“Sorry for the inconvenience… I’m a little bit of a mess alone, it’s my first time here” You chuckled, while kicking your suitcase for betraying you. The staff member laughed at your state, but still with kind eyes for you to remember. The security guard who didn’t kick you away yet, were patiently waiting by the staff member to get a signal. You didn’t seem like a fan, by the way you acted while the most popular boys were waiting for their vehicle which most fans knew about. Taehyung kept staring at you, watching the staff laugh in return of your answers. He was curious, what you were saying and still unsure why he didn’t look away. He thought it could be from the lack of sleep, that kept him in his dozy state. But soon enough, you were looking into his direction. Your big eyes, with slow motion blinking and a faint smile growing on your lips, were mesmerising to him. Seconds felt like minutes, as he could see into your soul. But, it didn’t last long until you were gone from his sight to find the real exit. His eyes shuffling to find a tiny glimpse, but nothing but the back of a dark brown coat was to see. The staff member returned to stand with the rest, while everyone could see the vans approaching. The boys scattering their things, to get ready for going to the hotel. Taehyung was still taking turns to look behind, that maybe you had accidentally walked out here again. Were you a fan? It didn’t seem like it to him. But more importantly, what was your name?

“You’re going home? Could you drop off the suitcase at my hotel and tell them to place it in my room, or just till I get back?” You questioned politely, whilst your friend was tired to do any more exploring in Amsterdam. Her dark circles increased hearing your words, thinking it wasn’t her fault that you broke the wheel on your old suitcase. You have been walking around in Amsterdam central whilst looking for a new suitcase, since the one you had intended to use, broke during the trip.

“Fine, but you owe me” She answered, taking the (thankfully) empty suitcase and went on the tram to get near your hotel as you requested. Your friend is from Amsterdam and were kind to show you around, but none of you had imagined you would fall in love so easily. The red bricked buildings and river with couples and families walking side by side, to enjoy the scenery of romance. Even spending a whole day to drink coffee, eat and take pictures, it felt like you haven’t seen enough of it. Letting your friend go back home to get rest, you decided to explore the corners by yourself. Some shops were about to close, but the nightlife of Amsterdam was waking up under the streetlights.

“Hobi, come on” Taehyung pleaded, while putting on his coat and adjusting his hat. After a whole day resting in their room, he felt the need to go outside and explore what had been hidden. Hoseok agreed to go with him, as for his own enjoyment. The two always had a great time together and Taehyung did need someone else to take his photos, of him. Walking side by side out to the open air, met with laughter and music, their adventure in Amsterdam had begun. His camera in the grip of his soft palmed hand, walking slowly by the river and the faint smiles that lingered in his memory. The music from every bar on the corner, playing briefly into his ears and sent him back to memory lane. The bridge, with couples taking romantic pictures made Taehyung think of his own love life. Sitting beside the river, he requested Hoseok to take a photo, taking in the beauty that reflected in the water. Taehyung’s eyes scanned the lights flashing and the compliment from Hoseok of how the photo turned out, that it was perfectly intact. If it weren’t for the children laughing from the building across the river, he’d never had notice, the same brown coat that he remembered from this morning. His eyes grown wide, whilst Hoseok watched the grimace of longing in Taehyung’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Hoseok questioned curiously, watching in the same direction as Taehyung. It’s not that you wore a unique clothing style, which explained why Hoseok couldn’t catch on what made Taehyung stop breathing. The only response he was able to get, was a waving hand while walking towards your direction. Your silhouette disappearing in the alley towards central of everything, where street performers would show off their talent and even a place for people to unite as tourists. Taehyung followed quickly behind, unable to hold himself back. He needed to be sure, that it was really you. Hoseok followed behind with steady steps, unknown to the real reason for the fast phase. “Tae, hold on, where are we going?”

Reaching the end of the alley, Taehyung stood still as he had feared, he lost your silhouette. His breath was heavy, while scanning the people crossing his path. Hoseok were dumbfounded, blocking the way for people to pass them. Unsure what to do, he put a hand on Taehyung’s shoulder, gesturing to move on instead. But Taehyung was unable to move, pointing his finger in the direction of a bench. Hoseok’s eyes followed lightly, to find you using the bench as a table, to put things in your bag and drop your wallet in the meantime. A man crossing their sight, and you were gone again. Taehyung ran towards the bench, finding a red wallet and not a single glimpse of you were to be seen. Not long after, Hoseok followed along to stand beside him while looking at the red shaded purse in his hands.

“Wasn’t that the girl at the airport?” He questioned, as Taehyung bit his lip to pursue something he had never done before. He nodded as an answer, looking down while debating if it were something he could possibly do anything about. Hoseok chuckled lightly, patting Taehyung’s shoulder in empathy. “Then don’t you think she would be happy to get her purse back?” He smiled, looking at the stars shining in Taehyung’s eyes. There was joy in his voice and hope in his smile, that drove the adventure to a treasure hunt. Minutes turned to hours, walking along the dimmed light buildings and shops closing, due to only people who like to party were out in the night life. Hoseok’s feet were hurting and his energy were draining quicker, while Taehyung were determent to find you again. But it didn’t help, that even though he could remember every smile and heartfelt eyes in front of him, it was nowhere to be seen in front of him. The fear that he would be walking endlessly and never get to see you one last time, would haunt him for the rest of the tour. You weren’t a fan of them, so he wouldn’t be seeing you at their concert. He would travel further, with you lingering on his mind and not the opposite.

“Let’s get coffee, if we do have to look for her all night, we might as well load up the fuel” Hoseok suggested, pointing towards the Starbucks that was about to close but only a few people were still inside to buy their last cup of coffee for the night. Taehyung yawned, but still tried to keep his hopes up. His heavy steps towards the shop, stopped in an instant when he caught the brown jacket stand in line. Your hair falling lightly down to hug your cheekbones and the soft makeup shining against the lights, it was like a wish come true. The red purse squeezed between his hands in his pocket, unsure how to approach you in the first place. There was still a person in front of you, but he knew you needed the purse before ordering. His eyes shaky, since he could easily get recognised by fans by standing in such a bright place. Hoseok pushing his back with light touches, making his feet move towards your direction. Standing behind you, he realised the height difference were significant and your perfume tickled his nose, like the coffee grinded beside him. While you got to the cashier, Taehyung was still battling to what to say at first. What if you thought he was a thief? Would you report him? Thank him? He was scared, to what your first words would be to him.

“Oh… I can’t find my wallet…” He heard you mutter lightly, rummaging through your pockets and the cashier didn’t feel like wanting to wait, or make a ‘discount’ on this late coffee. You panicked at every second, not able to feel your purse anywhere near. Cursing under your breath of how much of an unfortunate day it had been, you didn’t need to lose your purse in the midst of hell. Taehyung could see the panic form on your slim face, taking in the courage to pat you on the shoulder.

“Uh-Uhm Excuse me” He stuttered in English, making you look him in the eyes. It was the same feeling he had, looking at you the first time. As if he didn’t need to ask for permission, to take a piece of your soul. “We found-“ Pointing at the red purse he had taken up from his pocket, he smiled lightly. Taehyung wasn’t bad at English, but when he was nervous, it was hard to form proper sentences.

“OMG! Thank you!!!” You almost screamed, making Taehyung take a light step back of surprise. It was the first time, he heard you sound excited. It made his heart jump, but also skip a beat that were indescribable. Taking the purse out of his hand, you rummaged through it to find the money and check if anything were lost and surprisingly, everything was there. Paying the cashier, you once again turned around and thanked Taehyung with the biggest smile you could form. The joy rising in your eyes, almost able to cry tears of joy. He was unable to speak, letting you go get your coffee which were ready at the counter. Unable to form any sentences, you were gone out of the shop while Hoseok were ordering a warm chocolate that they could sleep on. Taehyung were spaced out, watching your silhouette yet again disappear. His body almost following, but his throat was too dry to even say a word. He didn’t know your name, he couldn’t call your name to stop you from leaving him again. He was mad at himself, for letting you go so easily.

“Come on Tae, be proud, you found her and gave her the purse back!” Hoseok chimed, wrapping an arm around his neck. The younger man was still annoyed at himself, but he was right, he found you again and even gave back your purse. But Hoseok wouldn’t understand the feeling he had, of the longing to see you again. He wouldn’t understand, that there was more reason to find you again. Walking out of the shop, while the sign was taken back in by the staff, they tried to figure out how long they had to go before they reached their hotel. Taehyung sipped lightly on the chocolate drink, letting the taste bring memories of Christmas and love evolve in his body.

“Excuse me…” A faint voice, making his eyes grow and the sound of footsteps approaching. You were standing in front of him, not walking, not running or disappearing, you were right there.

“Thank you, for finding my purse” You spoke softly, making his ears ring of happiness. His throat feeling dry, but tingly of the warm chocolate that he had just tasted.

“No problem, No problem” Hoseok answered with a smile, making your knees weak before watching Taehyung bite on his lip. He wanted to say something, something smart? Something funny? What did you want to hear?

“We tried to find you” Taehyung stuttered lightly, trying to find the confidence he once had. Your head tilting, making his heart thumb harder in his chest.

“Find me? You mean you were looking for me??” You questioned curiously, looking at the two men in front. Their unique style of fashion, making them stand out from the crowd while you barely managed to outshine in the sun.

“Y-Yes, I saw you with the purse” Taehyung muttered, watching your lashes bat at him, imagining the fairy dust falling down your cheek.

“Thank you, it’s my first time here and my suitcase broke as the first thing this morning, going through the airport. My 4G wouldn’t work either, so I had to use an old photo for reference to find my way out, which led me to the wrong exit because someone told me the layout didn’t change. Now thinking back, I could lose my purse in the process of this whole trip, then I would feel pretty ashamed and bummed.” You explained softly, looking down on your attire, that were significantly different than theirs. They were clearly foreigners, but so were you in this whole mess. “Did you use a long time trying to find me?” You added, making the boys exchange looks to read each other’s mind.

“No no no, very easy” Hoseok claimed, with his biggest smile he could perform. The salvation of a beautiful laughter ringed in your ears, making you blush of the way his voice soothed you. Taehyung was stuck in his own world, repeating the same sentence over and over again. He never wanted to be portrayed as a stalker, but he wished he could tell you that they used hours, just to give back the purse and have one last glimpse. He never imagined, that you would stand right front of him and talk, as if you knew each other from the beginning.

“Are you guys also on vacation in Amsterdam?” You questioned again, hoping to get a bit of speech from the other man. His golden-brown eyes, hidden underneath his glasses and a hat covering his soft light brunette hair.

“No no, important business” Hoseok waved his hands, making you give him a confused grimace but still giggled of the way he spoke.

“So, you’re on a business trip?” Making Taehyung gulp lightly, unaware how you couldn’t know him already. It’s not that he’s the king, but he was certainly known by a majority of people and the fact he was going to perform tomorrow, was surreal because people knew BTS would be there. But you didn’t seem interested in his fame, nor looks for that matter. There was something in the way you spoke about your messy start of a trip, to the way your eyes always searched for his during the speech.

“Yeah, a short business trip” Taehyung replied, giving you a smile that you deserved. So far, it was something you didn’t think you’d need, but your eyes felt blessed to see this up close. Chuckling lightly, you fished out your phone to take a photo of the building that was across the road. Even though through Taehyung’s eyes, it was spontaneous and unnecessary. But, the picture turned out beautiful. You didn’t need to take the time to focus on an object, or choose a filter but just decided to do it. You were bold and he loved it already, watching the image get saved in your library.

“This will make me remember, that two heroes found my purse and brought it back to me” You chuckled, putting the phone away while watching Taehyung’s smile grow wider. You knew they had business to do, rather than staying and talking. Even Hoseok were confused of how the atmosphere has turned, right before his own eyes. He didn’t have to heart to drag Taehyung away, but someone had to do it.

“I hope you guys will enjoy Amsterdam, even though you’re on a business trip. Thank you, again.” You chimed, watching the clock strike eleven. Hoseok nodded fondly of your wishes and were patting softly onto Taehyung’s shoulder, signalling it was time to go. But Taehyung couldn’t just walk away, not like this.

“Take good care of yourself and hope you get to enjoy Amsterdam without accidents, or else we will help” Taehyung replied with a husky voice, sending butterflies erupt in your stomach. Mentally taking in a deep breath, you collected yourself to confront the beautiful man.

“When will we meet again?” You joked with a heartfelt laugh, making Taehyung turn to Hoseok, who had no idea when they would meet again. They were busy and it was rare, that they would return to the same place again. Something broke in his heart, giving you the answer.

“I don’t know…” He muttered under his breath, looking down on the ground which showed the short distance between the two of you. You nodded softly at his response, giving him a last glimpse before waving a goodbye.

“Time will tell” You chuckled, making his eyes wide at your words. They weren’t negative as a scolding, but uplifting like hope. The two of you, held the eye contact as long as you could. No words needed and Taehyung felt the same feeling grow inside, like this morning when he saw you for the first time. Parts of him felt happiness, even though he was waving your way to say goodbye. He knew, that he wouldn’t see you again but he was grateful to be able to, just once.

“Wait, did you get her name?” Taehyung abruptly spoke, looking back at Hoseok and then towards you, who had disappeared once again. He panicked, not even thinking about asking your name during the time talking.

“Didn’t you look at her Starbucks cup???” Hoseok questioned, but unable to hold back his laughter seeing the scene unfold. His evening had been strange, but enjoyable to see his friend happy.

“Of course I didn’t, and do you think they get everyone’s name right every time??” Taehyung replied, rolling his eyes of the foolishness. Once again, an opportunity lost in the sea of people.

“I can’t believe you made me do this” Fidgeting with your bag, you sat down on the concrete watching people pass you by, blending into the queue that was formed. Your friend invited you mid-afternoon to go with her to a concert, because she had an extra ticket that she couldn’t sell. Part of you didn’t want to do it, because you didn’t know the music you were going to listen to, but it felt like an opportunity for adventure.

“You owe me” She replied, with a sheepish smile while the music blasted from a nearby speaker. Your head tilting slightly, thinking of a familiar voice soothing your ears.

“I ONLY ASKED YOU TO TAKE MY SUITCASE BACK TO MY HOTEL WHICH WERE ON THE WAY, WHILE YOU TAKE ME TO A CONCERT THAT IS LASTING OVER TWO HOURS? HOW IS THIS JUSTICE??” You spat, making your friend laugh because she knew you didn’t have the heart to tell her ‘no’. Besides, going to a concert weren’t a bad idea but it was the problem that you didn’t know much of the artists. Looking around on the people waiting in line, they seemed younger than yourself and walking with a lot of merch. Their bodies swaying to the music, which made your own soul dance along. Watching a big pastel pink banner with seven boys smiling, you recognised two of them. The boy with joy and love in his eyes, while the other seemed like something that weren’t real but curiosity growing on his lips.

“Who are the first two guys from the left?” You questioned, not remembering asking about their names last night. You were shocked, thinking that you had spoken to singers that were popular across the world. They didn’t seem like an artist to walk around the street, more of all, trying to give back your purse.

“Who? Oh them! Hoseok is the first guy on the right, he’s just called J-Hope, because he’s all of our hopes and we’re his. Taehyung is the guy next to Hoseok and he’s usually called V.” She explained pointing at the banner, making you baffled of the stage names.

“V, like the letter ‘V’ as in Vendetta?” You asked again, making her roll eyes of your absence. Her tongue clicking, while taking out her phone to open YouTube.

“It’s for Victory, but here, let me give you a few lessons before we step in there. People might slaughter you, if they knew that you didn’t know their names in the first place” She explained while making your body get chills, of the thought that people would come for you. Watching interviews, learning their names in an instant and watching solo performances, even the performances that were special as a group. They were all pretty good looking and talented, you could barely get enough of it. Their bodies and voices merging into a dream, unable to think that you met two of them yesterday.

“I must have looked like a complete fool yesterday…” You muttered, watching Taehyung’s performance of singularity, that made your heart thumb harder.

“What did you say?” Your friend questioned curiously, seeing the line started to move. “-Oh! The doors must be open, let’s get in!!” She yelled, getting up from the ground to walk alongside the other attendants. Your knees weak from sitting too long, or that fact you have seen what the boys could do from a screen, was going to happen in front of your eyes. It didn’t take long before you were inside the venue, watching the people find their seats, if they had seat-tickets. In your case, your friend got you both a standing ticket. Their music displaying on the screen while waiting for the performance to start, you saw the people surrounded the both of you. Elbows, hair and people stepping on you already, were making you re-think the decision. But when the music started blasting, there was no way to go. People came rushing and pushing to get up front, making you separate yourself from your friend. The girls screaming and waving their army bombs, as the boys entered the stage. Their voice loud and clear, with the rhythm of perfection sway your body. Screaming together with everyone else, because that’s what they could do, make everything into a party wherever they went. They were even more beautiful in real life, tall, slim and clear skin. Perfect fashion and voices that were making your heart skip a beat, while the dance moves made you paralyzed. They were real and not animated, like a dream. Even though people were pushing to get up front, you somehow came closer to the stage. You didn’t know how it happened, but went with the flow while it moved. You didn’t care where you were standing, as long you could hear the boys and see a tiny glimpse of them. After a while, Taehyung was singing his solo song with Singularity. His dark outfit with a flower-like-robe making his movements look like mixture of an angel, dancing with the devil. His eyes speaking a story, which you couldn’t understand but wanted to learn more. His voice, husky and beautiful that fitted perfectly with the instruments. Taehyung didn’t seem like the guy you talked to yesterday, stuttering words and were low-toned. On stage, he was confident, smug and knew what he could do to people. It was like watching another person, with stars in his eyes.

“Go Tae!!!” You yelled, forgetting the fanchant and fell into the music. There was a wish, that he could hear you but in reality, thousands of others were doing the same. As long you could be a part of it, it didn’t matter whether he could hear your voice or not. After what felt like minutes, turned to hours and the concert were about to end. You watched the boys enjoy themselves on stage and dreading on the fact they looked eagerly tired, wanting them to go home and sleep it out. They all stood in a line, getting time to talk about the concert and that they went to Amsterdam before in a show they made. Their bodies in fitted denim jeans and white shirt, made you lose your breath of how good they looked. Namjoon were the spokesman, by the way he was taking the lead. His English were perfect and intact, with the deepest voice to make you fall asleep. The other were doing their best and without any help, they talked with the audience. Encouraging them and supporting their way of speaking, made them add a lot more to their thanking speech. In the middle of the words, your eyes fell back on Taehyung. His hands behind his back, watching the audience while his friends were speaking. You knew it was your imagination, but it was like he stopped at your spot. His eyes blinking slowly, biting on his lips and never looking away. You didn’t dare to look away either, when it felt like your eyes locked. Unable to pry yourself away from the beauty and the way he spoke, with only his eyes. They were calm, soft and confident at the same time, almost like a prince. Your curiosity grew, whether he could see you or not, but it was worth a shot to shout his name.

“Taehyung!” Your voice almost breaking, trying to call his name in the hopes he heard. But his eyes grew wide, almost paralyzed in his movements. You didn’t know if he heard you, or just felt like teasing his fans that were shouting too. You smiled softly, enjoying the moment that felt like you had eye contact. The man on this stage, were your hero last night and without knowing, he was a hero to everyone else too. A gentleman, hidden underneath a goofy but adorable featured guy. The neighbour kid you’d want to take care of, just because. Waving lightly at his way, you heard the other boys talk about the next concert.

“We’ll be back next year!” Namjoon spoke determent, making the fans cheer. While your eyes continued to stay on Tae, making him smile regardless. Looking down on his feet, to then come back to your sight within a second. It felt like an acknowledged fact, that you will see each other again some time. He didn’t have an answer yesterday now, but now he does. Maybe he was smiling at you, maybe he wasn’t. It didn’t matter, because it felt like it. It felt precious, standing to watch him like this. Hearing the last song play and white confetti getting shot into the air and their bodies moving for one last time, you enjoyed the last few minutes you had with them. Their arms waving goodbye and Taehyung continuing to come your way, making a smile that were unforgettable while you shouted his name. He looked surprised, but still determent to make everyone have a good memory of him before leaving. The boys were standing in a line, bowing to the people for a great concert together. The lights turning off and they were never to be seen again, while the audience found the exit. You were paralyzed, with tears falling down your cheek, unaware that you had shed a tear in the middle of it. Your friend found you easily, walking with her worn out legs to hold an arm around you in excitement.

“So, did you like it???” She questioned with joy, walking with you to get outside. The stage fading in the distance, while you tried getting a last glimpse of the stage, hoping that he would be seeing you leave. Giving it a last smile to the stage, you turned to face your friend with tears drying away.

“I’m definitely coming back next year” You chimed, while the both of you shared the moments within this venue.

Behind the big screen and speakers, the boys were wiping away the sweat. Their things getting collected and their wires taken off, while watching the audience leave one by one out of the multiple doors. Taehyung was standing in the middle, hiding in the shadow to watch for that one single person. Your hair swaying, before watching your soft smile that was only for him to see, to your body disappearing like he was used to. His shoulders hanging, making Hoseok step over to pat him softly on the neck.

“Did you really see her?” He questioned, remembering the agreement they did. Even though you didn’t look like a fan, Taehyung was hoping that you’d show up anyways. Hoseok agreed to make a sign if he saw you, or if Taehyung did he had to give Hoseok a signal. When the show was almost over, he didn’t actually think he’d get to her you scream his name. Your eyes lighting up between the army bombs and a smile so blinding, but memorable. His fingers making a sign towards Hoseok, making it seem like nothing to others but Hoseok knew, that Taehyung finally found what he was looking for.

“Do you really think we will come back next year?” Taehyung asked curiously, looking back at Hoseok who held the biggest smile on his face while sweat still dripped down. Answering with confidence, he patted one last time before joining the others in the dressing room; “Definitely”

Taehyung could only chuckle of his friend, who were exhausted yet excited, knowing that Taehyung saw you at the concert. Now that you knew his name, all he needed was for him to know yours.

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totaldramafan-lauri · 6 years ago

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Beetles...beetles everywhere...*shiver*

Bit of a smaller progress update this time around. I have to be up early today, but I still wanted to play some Smash just for the purpose of getting in SOME progress before Springfest.

First off, I couldn’t download the 3.0 update right away due to a server error. I tried multiple times, too. Luckily, I looked it up on Twitter and I’m far from the only one to have this issue. Many many people were hyped for Joker, so the servers overloaded...I heard a similar thing happened when Octo Expansion came out in Spla2n. Nintendo REALLY underestimates how many people get excited for these competitive games, huh? XD

Since this doesn’t effect me playing single player stuff, I didn’t let it stop me from getting stuff done. It bummed me out a LITTLE, but hey, it’s not like I was gonna immediately try him, and Stage Builder can wait. I got other stuff to do!

First off, I cleared Classic with my boy Olimar. I love the theme of exploring different planets and featuring characters from outer space, and it gave me more time to reacquaint myself with him. Afterwards, I got challenged by Pokemon Trainer and lost. I considered playing Classic with K. Rool, but decided to do that later. Like...maybe after I’m done with WoL, I’ll have this stretch where I try out newcomers one after the other.

In WoL, like I said, I didn’t get as much done as I usually do. I didn’t uncover any new areas, and instead just spent some time clearing out the southwest jungle area. My main goals were to activate the green switch and to save at least one character, and I accomplished both, though not without some annoyances on the way. Nothing as irritating as the Kapp’n fight or as rage-inducingly hard as the Star Rod fight, but still notable. There were a couple fights featuring multiple of one item, and they chose the most annoying flipping items to base fights off of! There was one fight against a girl named Roll Caskett puppeting an Isabelle, and every single item was a Hocotate Bomb. OK, I’m not sure what the correlation is, but it was really annoying having to keep track of and dodge every single one of those things! While they keep slaughtering my Pikmin as they lag behind me...XD So that one took a couple tries! But it wasn’t the worst. There was also some guy named Andy, and in his fight, against a Dr. Mario and three Snakes, had a gimmick where they would heal if left alive too long, and EVERY. ITEM. WAS EXPLOSIVE. Every single type of bomb, even the fake Smash Balls, were there, and the Snakes contributed their own explosions. PLUS, it was at the Halberd, so I also had cannonballs and lasers to worry about. The only thing not working against me is that the opponents could hurt each other. So, that fight was a major pain too, but at least it was an interesting challenge.

But the absolute WORST fight was the Beedle fight. Yes, Beedle, the “THANK YOOOOOOUUU” guy. Never before have I hated a pun so much because every single item in this Item Tidal Wave fight was a BEETLE! FLIPPING BEETLES! EVERYWHERE! My least-favorite item! I’ve never liked those things, I think they’re so stupid and cheap. I go out of my way to disable them in multiplayer whenever I have the chance to, and I normally don’t mind items. I draw the line at that one. And of course WoL has a fight that’s all about the things, featuring the flipping item magnetism thing on the enemies, so they’re getting them more than I do. WELP, gotta stay on the bottom layer of the stage, since if I go any higher up, I can’t flipping escape beetles! They’re OHKOs in the stupidest way possible! So yeah, I hated that fight! All it was was trying to keep track of every single beetle on the stage so I can dodge them, and making sure my enemies weren’t holding one before getting up close to them. It wasn’t fun. It was ridiculously stupid.....which I guess fits for the Spirit. XD

But yeah, there was still some silver lining. I made it to the green switch, I rescued another character (even though it was DK), located another character that’s currently blocked off, and found some cool Spirits. In particular, I don’t regret fighting Beedle, since his shop contained a handy support Spirit, Stork, which costs two slots to grant you immunity to strong winds. Not resistance. Immunity. Outright IMMUNITY to strong winds! Gee, I wish I had that before! But at least if that terrible gimmick ever comes back, I’m prepared...

So...yeah, that’s about it. I still had a lot to talk about even though it was a shorter session. I was able to get my revenge on Pokemon Trainer before ending and trying again for the update, this time being successful. It’s taking a while, but it’s moving!

Gotta say, after spending over an hour playing as him and only him, I officially like Olimar again. Geez, I forgot how fun he can be to use! Even though his specials aren’t as good as they were in Brawl, his smash attacks are so good! The elemental damage from the Pikmin is really something, and Purples are just downright powerful when you land one. Throwing Pikmin and having them latch is something I don’t remember utilizing a lot, but I’ve been doing it more often today.

No map update this time, since like I said, I didn’t uncover any new areas. The only difference from my last screenshot is that the switch icon in the jungle is gone, and one of the character icons in the jungle is gone.

.....Oh, sweet! My update finished as I was typing this! How I missed you, Stage Builder...Hopefully I come up with designs later!

#lauri plays smash ultimate

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nedmallory · 6 years ago

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Weird question but do you recommend a chrome book for like studying and work like that bc I’ve heard they can be slow

Hey, not weird at all! I just got mine mid March, but I haven’t noticed it being slow at all! My laptop completely died on me during midterm season and I had a ton of papers and online exams to do, so my plan was to just use this in the meantime and return it to best buy as soon as my work was done and then I could buy an actual laptop. I obviously decided to keep it. I would recommend using a Chromebook for schooling, but only if it’s not going to be your primary device at home like it is mine (if you spend a ton of time on it, anyway)

First off, before I go into pros and cons (no false sense of hope here… under the cut I’ll tell you everything I love about it and everything I hate or get annoyed at), I should mention I’m using the Samsung Chromebook Plus

All in all, I LOVE my chromebook. It’s got its flaws, but most of them have easy fixes. I hope this full length article helps you decide what to do! If your main concern is getting you through school/work, I say go for it!

8/10 would recommend! I’d love to say 10/10, but there are enough flaws that I can’t in good conscience tell you to go get yourself a chromebook knowing it does some real stupid stuff.

Pros:

lightweight - seriously, I spent all day on campus carrying my Dell around in my bookbag and I’ve never been one to have back problems but carrying it around all day hurt. Sometimes I’d literally just abandon my bookbag (with my laptop in it) in the hall in one of the academic buildings while I went to find something to eat all the way across campus. Like, seriously. According to google the UCF campus is 1415 acres. I don’t even feel weight from my Chromebook while I’m walking campus with it in my bag.

Convenience - It’s essentially half laptop, half tablet. You’re getting the best of both worlds. Google play store (so you can play games and use the device as an e-reader) but you also get the internet at full capacity rather than the dullness of a mobile browser.

Stylus apps - This stylus was a lifesaver for me last semester. I had college algebra last semester, and with math I’m always wasting a ton of paper, so I bought a whiteboard I could carry around with me but it took up too much space at the desks in classrooms. With a Chromebook, Google Keep (note taking app) is built in. when I didn’t feel like wasting space (and dropping my calculator, pen, eraser, markers, board) I could just pull up my stylus apps on half my screen and my math modules on the other half.

Also, have you seen my newer editing attempts? Working with just my finger on this device was already pretty good, compared to on my phone. But using the stylus helped me to get a clearer view of everything I was erasing and more wiggle control

Quick boot up time - In the manual, it claims that the chromebook boots up in 10 seconds. I’ve found that it takes about half that time to start up

2 in one - it does have 360 mode, so you don’t have to use it as a laptop all the time. In tablet mode, you get all the essential uses you get in laptop mode (except the ability to split the screen) plus you can use emojis on the touchscreen keyboard that pops up

Apple Music - On my samsung tablet, I can’t access apple music (the app shows up, but I can’t download it). On chromebook, I can. No itunes though, which is a bummer, but I don’t really need it.

Easy streaming - Watching Netflix/Hulu is such a breeze. I haven’t experienced any buffering issues like i constantly did with my last laptop

Amazing touchscreen - With my Dell laptop (which, again, gave out on me) my touch screen often had meltdowns or prevented my touchpad from working. Seeing as how Samsung has essential experience in touchscreen development, I’m not shocked that I’ve never had an issue with this touchscreen

Have trouble remembering urls? no more - Built into the computer, you have what appear to be google (and other brand) apps, but they’re actually shortcuts that take you directly to their respectful websites. Google drive (which is also built in through the files app), Lookout, Google Maps, Weather Channel, etc. I don’t use them, but it’s such a great gesture.

Memory - I use a lot of space and I haven’t even begun to run out yet! There’s also a slot for external memory (an SD card like what you’d insert into your phone something I wish Apple would do instead of making me pay for more storage every month. Unfortunately for me, this doesn’t work for apps. It’s only so that you have another storage method for your files. After my previous laptop died I lost all my running club pics, so with this chromebook, I have the option to just go ahead and save them directly to my SD card so that doesn’t happen again. It’s kind of like using a flash drive for safe keeping except, ya know, it’s not a flash drive replacement.

It’s made to fit YOU - If you don’t want someone to get into your files, they can’t. You sign in with your google account, but you CAN create additional user accounts (which includes a guest account)

Resetting the computer is easy! - You can’t go wrong. Your options are

restore default settings

COMPLETELY wipe the computer of all info (the option you’d choose if you wanted the get rid of the computer, so it’s essentially… factory reset)

Virus control - While there’s no harm in buying yourself an antivirus program, you don’t necessarily need it with Chromebook because google’s actively fighting off viruses for you. I started out using antivirus programs before I realized I didn’t need it. I haven’t had any issues at all with the security of my computer, with or without any kind of protection

Cons

Limited keys - You have to make sure you remember key combinations to perform certain tasks. For example, at first I thought I couldn’t get caps lock on this computer. To do that, it’s alt+search key. scroll to the top of the page? alt+ctrl+up arrow. screenshot in laptop mode? still can’t remember which symbol matches up with that one.

Ctrl Alt…. What? - You don’t have control alt delete anymore. The task manager apparently can only be accessed through settings, which if your chromebook freaks out on you either wait for it to settle down or shut it down are your only two options. Which brings us to con #3.

Freaking out - Lately I’ve been noticing that if I have too many apps open at once, my chromebook will stop funtioning properly for a couple minutes and it’ll do one of two things

shut all my apps down without warning

system reboot

Google Print - It wants to hijack your printer, but I refuse to give google access to store info from my printer. I have my Canon hooked up to my chromebook, but I won’t allow google access to it. They’re basically asking to save the info of everything you print to their servers and your printer will only be available for devices you allow access to your google print account (can’t be set up from chromebook anyway).

USB C ports - Okay admittedly I do like these ports, It serves as the charging port, so you can charge the computer on either side. You can also use it as a normal USB port so long as you find devices with the usb c tip BUT this means you need to buy an adapter if you want to use HDMI or a flash drive/other devices that use usb 2.0/3.0 ports

Speaker location - They’re on the bottom, so as long as you’re not covering them up, your audio should be pretty decent

Google Chrome - What I LOVED about using Chrome on actual laptops was that you could have several different user profiles under the same google email on your browser. I had 2. One for my personal multi fandom tumblr, and the other for my marrish tumblr accounts. That way I could just switch windows to change tumblr accounts. You can’t do that on Chromebook. You’d need to create different accounts for your log in screen… which… is it really worth creating new emails? (says the girl who creates a new email everytime she wants to get a new free trial) Now my only option is to use 3 different devices for different tumblr accounts (I just created a choices safe main blog so I can actually find choices posts without doing a ton of searching, so I need an extra layer now)

Microsoft Office/One Drive - Who’s that? We don’t like her apparently. Seriously. You can’t have microsoft office, because all downloads come from the play store. If you like the mobile version of Word, congrats! This system is a winner for you! If not, you can always use the online version on Outlook’s website if you use that. Don’t even THINK about trying to download the one drive app. Seriously, it doesn’t work on Chromebook. I’ve been trying to sign into it since I first bought this laptop. Only when I looked at the horrible reviews last week did I realize I’d NEVER be able to log into the app.

Also streaming - There’s this god awful sound that sometimes plays when streaming on the CBS website. It usually isn’t there, but I gave up on watching SWAT (sorry shemar and criminal minds, I still love you) because I never know if this’ll be the moment when that screeching will begin. It only happens on the CBS website though (while it’s hooked up to my tv)

Ooh speaking of hooking up to my tv - HDMI sucks. that’s all. I hate the border that surrounds the chromebook’s visual. And if you’re watching videos that already aren’t full screen? Good luck streaming comfortably.

Digital Textbook app used for UCF - Okay so we use Yuzu for digital textbooks at my uni and I can’t figure out how to get the app to let me in. Pretty sure that’s the app’s fault though. You have to sign in through a mobile browser to use the app, but the chromebook uses a full capacity desktop browser so I CANT log into the app. I have to use the online version if I take my chromebook to school with me instead of my actual tablet. So whether or not this is the chromebook’s fault is a bit iffy.

Here are some photos for proof if you need to see what you’d be signing up for!

Nobody can….

Instead of a “start” menu… we have a search menu. The top bar shows your most recently used apps.

#not choices #long post #sorry #anon #cg answers #i'll add a pic of the hdmi situation in a few!#tumblr really messed up the quality of those pictures

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bmaxwell · 4 years ago

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Best Games of 2020

2020 was a lot. It will be remembered for many things far above and beyond video games. COVID-19 shut the world down in a way never seen in my lifetime. It changed day to day life for many of us, and cost many of us loved ones. It was also the year when the ugly parts of our capitalist society were shown in broad daylight. It feels like 2001 again in that our lives will be divided into pre-2020 and post-2020.

For me personally, I was able to keep my job and work from home, and no one close to us died to the pandemic. We stayed home as much as possible, wore masks, wiped down groceries, and did our best to control what we could. It can be hard to talk about stuff like video games and sports with the usual sort of fervor when the world feels like it’s falling apart around us. It feels like playing the violin aboard the Titanic. But self-care is especially important in times like these, and it’s healthy and necessary to close Twitter, or for-the-love-of-god fucking Facebook and get a breather sometimes. Finding a balance where I could stay informed without completely submerging myself in misery wasn’t always easy.

And so. 2020 was a pretty good year for games, though it must be noted that there is a cost to that escapism - the industry is rife with stories of abuse, burnout, and coverups from companies such as Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red, Naughty Dog, and many others. That can add an additional layer of exhaustion to what is supposed to be a relaxing escape. So I can understand the people who say they don’t want to hear about abuse in industry, they just want the games. But also, fuck those people. “I don’t care if you suffer to entertain me, I just don’t want to hear about it.” Fuck the whole entire way off.

But I digress. Like most years, I played a lot of games. I played a lot of coop beat-em-ups with my kids this year. Minecraft Dungeons and Streets of Rage 4 didn’t make the list, but I spent hours playing them with my middle child. And it wasn’t a 2020 release, but I had a blast playing River City Girls with firstborn. It was a good year for fans of tactics games with stuff like Gears Tactics, Troubleshooter, Wintermoor Tactics Club, and Fae Tactics. 2020 also saw new console releases, though the launch lineups were especially thin.

Gaming-wise, 2020 was the year of Xbox Game Pass for me. I spent most of this console generation (justifiably) dogging Xbox for their lack of platform exclusives, but I decided to pursue an Xbox Series X before a Playstation 5. Game Pass is the main reason for this. The “Netflix for games” thing has finally become a reality, and Sony just doesn’t have an answer for the bonkers value of Game Pass. We head into the new console generation with Microsoft leaning heavily on Game Pass subs, Sony still banking on a few console exclusives, and Nintendo, uh, doing their own thing over there. What a fascinating time for the industry.

Honorable Mention

It’s an honor just to be nominated.

Monster Sanctuary

If you start with Pokemon, strip away the anime, and mix in a healthy dose of metroidvania, you have Monster Sanctuary. This means there are monsters to collect, level, and evolve, and lots of combat revolving around elemental strengths and weaknesses. And I am here for that shit. A game like this lives and dies by its combat, and it’s very satisfying here. The game has plenty of choices about which skills to focus on for each monster, which gear to equip, and which monsters to keep in your active roster.

That said, between a couple of nasty difficulty spikes and some super-frustrating puzzle rooms, I was close to walking away from the game on multiple occasions. It’s a testament to the game’s quality that I kept coming back to it.

Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is one of my favorite games ever. Each game in the series since the first has felt like a small incremental change from the original. I played Wild World on the DS quite a bit, City Folk a bit less, and A New Leaf not at all. I was thinking that maybe enough time has passed that I could get wrapped up in New Horizons, but I fell off it after a month or two.

I’m wondering what I would want from a new Animal Crossing game, and the answer is nothing. How much can you change the game and still have it be Animal Crossing? I don’t think the game is bad by any means. My whole family shared an island community for a couple of months. It’s impossible for a new game in the series make me feel the way that first game did.

The most memorable part of New Horizons is the museum. The museum is huge and absolutely lovely, with fish, bugs, fossils, and art each having their own wing. There were a few nights where the tranquility of the museum made for a nice end of the day.

Tell Me Why

My wife, firstborn, and myself have made a nice routine of playing through “choices matter” games together (starting last year with Detroit Become Human and following up with Life is Strange 2). Tell Me Why is the latest one one of these we tackled as a group. These game have created some memorable moments for us; who could forget their child yelling for them to “shoot the hooker”? (thank you, Detroit Become Human).

Tell Me Why was on my radar because it’s One of These, but also because it features a transgender protagonist. As a parent of a trans child, I was both excited at the prospect of this and also worried that it is such an easy thing to fumble. I’m pleased to report that DONTNOD handled the writing of the trans person very well without being hamfisted, preachy, or tryhardy with it. The character of Tyler is a believable trans man, and the topic is spoken of matter-of-factly without placing special focus on it; being trans is a part of Tyler’s story, but it’s not the entirety of his identity.

Less impressive to me was the story itself - especially the way it wrapped up its main conflict. The game trades in the idea of memory being imperfect, which is fascinating in and of itself, but I did not like it as a game mechanism. How did this REALLY happen? One character remembers it one way, and the other remembers it differently. Choosing between them felt cheap and hollow to me; I want you to tell me what happened, don’t ask me to choose. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game, and it feels like a step forward in mainstream storytelling for LGBTQA characters.

Ghost of Tsushima

Ghost of Tsushima is flat out gorgeous. Practically every area and every moment in the game is begging to screenshotted to the point where it can sometimes pull me out of the game world a little bit. That’s not necessarily a complaint because, as I said, the game is freaking beautiful. But every part of the world looking like a painting makes it feel more like it takes place in a fantasy world and less like a game from feudal Japan.

I also had some ludonarrative dissonance going on with the game; you play as Jin, one of the few surviving samurai in his homeland which has been invaded by the Mongols. His uncle is being held prisoner, and combatting the occupying force would be impossible without using dishonorable techniques like hiding, attacking from a distance, and ambushing from the shadows. I, however, have no qualms and savored every opportunity to catch my foes unaware. So Jin voices his doubts, then goes into a camp and proceeds to cut his enemies down from shadows as I cackle with glee.

Ghost of Tsushima also combines dark souls-esque* combat with Ubisoft-style open world gameplay where you’re hunting down icons on a map. That kind of open world game is hard for me top stick with, especially after I spent ~30 hours with Assassin’s Creed Origins early in the year. All of makes it sound like I’m pretty down on Ghost of Tsushima, which I’m not. I’m hoping I’ll come back to it at some point when I have more of an appetite for One of These.

Crown Trick

My Dungeons of Dredmor hole has not been properly filled in a long time. Chcocobo’s Mystery Dungeon is the closest I think. These games are what I think of as roguelikes, though the progression between runs makes them roguelites. *tips fedora*

Crown Trick is a turn-based dungeon crawler where the map is a grid, and each time you act, the enemies act. Add to this clockwork puzzle gameplay a good variety of weapons, relics, and events and you’ve got a lot of replayability. It doesn’t have Dredmor’s ridiculous combination of skill classes, but it does have a neat Mega Man-esque system where you defeat minibosses and add their skill set to your build.

Top 10

10. Star Renegades

Star Renegades was not on my radar at all until I heard Austin Walker talk about the game on Waypoint Radio. Two things gave me pause:

- It’s a sci-fi-ass game. It’s a setting I don’t care for. Star destroyers and aliens and galactic battlecruisers aren’t my jam. - Austin Walker’s enthusiasm is infectious. I’ve tried games after hearing him gush over them and those games haven’t worked for me.** That’s not an indictment, he and I just have different tastes.

Star Renegades ticks a few important boxes for me: it has a lot of characters to unlock, it’s highly customizable, and the combat is turn-based with a twist. Every action, whether friend or foe, appears on a timeline. Some attacks will push their target’s action back on the timeline, so there’s a puzzle element to the combat that keeps it feeling fresh. You can choose the makeup of your party on each run, which helped give the game a buttload of replay value.

It’s not flawless by any means. The writing tries a little too hard to be cheeky and ends up feeling tryhardy and a little flat. A decent run in the game would often take 2-3 hours, which makes it feel deflating when it ends in failure - which it frequently did. The sections of the game where you move between zones on an overhead map feels needlessly clunky, and sometimes I ended up with movement points I couldn’t spend because of how the game handles that system.

I enjoyed Star Renegades a lot, but my time with it was weird. The game has unlockable characters, so unlocking them all was my first priority. The game’s runs are pretty long, I was playing sub-optimally trying to unlock things, and the game is more difficult than I’d expected. It took me a long time to complete the unlocks, then I had a hard time actually finishing a run successfully. Eventually I was ready to be done with it and turned the difficulty down to easy**** just to finally get a W. Still, the positives far outweigh the negative here, and Star Renegades is one of my favorite games of 2020.

9. Immortals Fenyx Rising

Man, something happened to me this December. I’m currently finding myself playing a lot of Forza Horizon 4, Destiny 2, and Immortals Fenyx Rising. None of these is My Kind of Game. Immortals is probably the least surprising of these, because it at least has swords and bows and stuff.

Still, I dismissed and mocked Immortals Fenyx Rising when it was first shown. It was called Gods & Monsters back then, and the idea of Ubisoft making yet another open world game, this time aping Breath of Wild was not appealing at all. I only ended up with the game after trading in Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox credit and looking into Immortals because I was very surprised to see it on Game Informer’s game of the year list.

To get a few things out of the way, it absolutely recycles a lot from Breath of the Wild: you’ll be hang gliding, scaling walls as a stamina meter drains, finding shrines that contain puzzles and combat and climbing towers to get a vantage point and find points of interest on the map. The latter feels the most fumbled in this game - you can zoom in and survey the landscape, and your controller vibrates when you are looking near a point of interest. Move the cursor over it and press a button to reveal it on the map. They split the difference between Assassin’s Creed’s “all the icons pop in automatically” and Zelda’s wonderful “manually mark places that look interesting to you on your map” system and ended up with something neither functional nor interesting.

That’s where my complaints end though. The game’s art style is similar at a glance, but it’s vibrant and gorgeous, and never feels like Breath of the Wild. The combat is snappy, responsive, and challenging. The puzzle design is often creative, clever, and rarely frustrating; most of my frustration has come from my overthinking the puzzle solutions. There is plenty of gear to find, and the game’s cosmetic options are intuitive and welcome. The game’s narrative is better than I expected; it feels like a B-tier Disney movie. The writing has made me smile a few times, and made me roll my eyes a few times. Zeus as comic relief is a pretty major miss, but it’s fine apart from that. It helps that I’m already familiar with Greek mythology.

It’s a huge, beautiful world where traversal and combat feel great. It’s sometimes hard to get anything done because I am constantly distracted by tracking down an icon on the map, or just exploring because I saw something cool or strange. Not all of the puzzles and challenges work, but that’s okay because I can move onto something else. Immortals Fenyx Rising is this year’s Dragon Quest Builders 2: gaming comfort food where it feels good to sit back and check things off a list at the end of a long day. Still don’t like the name though. And fuck Ubisoft.

8. Atomicrops

The first mention of Atomicrops I remember was “What if Stardew Valley was a twin stick shooter?” which is bullshit, because the games bear no resemblance beyond “there’s farming”. Beyond that first blurb, what appealed to me is the idea that the game’s days take place in 2 phases: during the daytime, you go out and fight baddies to gather seeds, and at night the baddies invade your farm and you fight them off while planting and watering crops.

It’s also a run-based roguelike, and I am 1 of 26 remaining people who is still psyched to play those. Give me a challenge, mix up the details, let me upgrade stuff between sessions, and turn me loose. The game has a good variety of weapons and the challenge is satisfying and rarely feels unfair (apart from the bullet hell problem of too much stuff on the screen at times). I don’t love the art style, but the music sure makes up for it.

7. Wintermoor Tactics Club

A game needs more than charm to be memorable and enjoyable. Charm can go a long way though, and Wintermoor Tactics club has it in spades. It takes place at a small college, and you play as a girl named Alicia. She and her friends are members of the school’s tactics club, and much of the game takes place around a table littered with graph paper, rulebooks, and snacks. As someone who loved tabletop RPG’s in simpler times, and never had the traditional college experience, a prettied-up version of that appeals to me in a huge way. It’s not wholly idyllic though, and it touches on issues of discrimination and what it’s like to be an outcast.

The gameplay itself is pretty straightforward tactics stuff and it works fine but isn’t really the draw here. I was propelled through the game largely by a desire to meet the next character, get the next story bit, and keep basking in the game’s wonderful aesthetic and smart writing. There’s something lovely about sitting around the table and playing a game with friends, and this game really captures that.

6. Ratropolis

Ratrpolis is “A fusion of roguelite, tower defense, city-building, and deck-building!” which sounds like a hodgepodge of nonsense. And it kind of is. It’s a city building game where you are periodically being invaded from either the left or right side of the screen (or both). You choose from 6 leaders, each with their own pool of cards and play style, start with a basic deck of cards and slowly evolve it. The cards consist of buildings, military units, and various economic and military buffs. The major things that set this apart from favorites like Slay the Spire are that it happens in real time, and there is an economic aspect to manage. Tax money comes in every few seconds, and it’s possible to make poor decisions early on and not understand why you feel hamstrung later.

I spent a lot of games like that, not really understanding why I’d be doing okay and then get overwhelmed. I had a few rage quits early on, but I could tell that there was something there. I started approaching it with the mindset of building an economic engine in the early game, and I started having a lot more fun and success. Each of the 6 leaders feels distinct, and figuring them each out has been a lot of fun. Runs are usually no more than about 30 minutes, which feels about right.

5. Final Fantasy VII Remake

Despite identifying as a big JRPG fan, I’ve never enjoyed a mainline Final Fantasy game enough to finish it. This year I finished 2 of them: Final Fantasy XV and the Final Fantasy VII Remake.*** I played the original Playstation Final Fantasy VII release, I think I got through disc 1 and a little ways into disc 2. It didn’t resonate with me, so I came to this year’s remake with no reverence for the game. When many of the original game’s fans got upset with how much the remake changed the script from the source material, I didn’t have a horse in that race.

The remake is gorgeous, the combat and upgrade systems are engaging, and the story is interesting enough to keep me wanting to see what’s next. The 1997 release of the game had some stuff that isn’t going to play the same in 2020 like the scene where Cloud is crossdressing, the game’s themes of environmental activism, and, uh, the entire Don Corneo storyline come to mind. But the game handled all of this pretty well. I’m glad to say that this is one of the best RPG’s I played this year, and I look forward to the next entry whenever the hell it comes along. Cloud is still an unlikable punk though.

4. Monster Train

Slay the Spire was a surprise hit a couple of years ago, and inspired a lot of folks in the indie space to take a crack at the deckbuilding genre. Monster Train managed to to take inspirations from Slay the Spire but still feels like very much its own thing. Both games have you progressing through a series of encounters consisting of battles, shops, or small events trying to defeat the big bad at the end of a journey. You start with a deck of basic cards and upgrade them and add new cards along to way. You can’t really start a run planning on making a certain style of deck, you just choose from the cards available and watch the strategy form. The way this process tickles my brain makes these games endlessly replayable. The “one more run” is very strong here.

Monster Train differentiates itself in a couple of ways. First, where Slay the Spire was always just your one character battling one or more enemies, here you are summoning multiple creatures on the lower 3 levels of a 4-level train (I don’t know either). If the enemies reach the top floor of your train, they attack your core directly and eventually defeat you. This adds a strong spatial planning element - now you’re thinking about which combatants you want on each floor, and in what order.

The other notable difference between the games is that while Slay the Spire has four heroes, each with their own unique pool of cards, Monster Train has five factions. It’s one better. The first three factions feel pretty standard from a creativity point of view - red/green/blue are fire/nature/ice. The last two factions you unlock feel wholly unique though: there’s a faction that summons weak, cheap units and feeds on them for combat bonuses, and one that is made of candle beings who are powerful, but melt away. Okay, the real reason is that each time you play, you’re choosing a main faction (each has 2 champions to use from) and a secondary faction (you don’t get their champion, but you get access to their pool of cards). This makes each run feel unique and makes the game feel endlessly replayable. Even after unlocking all of the factions and their cards, and winning a run on the hardest challenge setting with each faction, I’m still playing Monster Train.

3. Spiritfarer

If Kentucky Route Zero is my “It’s Not You, It’s Me” game this year, Spiritfarer might be my “Love at First Sight” game of the year. The game’s striking visuals grabbed my attention immediately when I first saw the trailer at E3 2019, and it was billed as a game about saying goodbye. My only reservation was that it was coming from Thunder Lotus Games, whose previous titles (Jotun and Sundered) both fell flat for me.

Spiritfarer ended up being everything I was hoping for. You play as the newly-appointed ferryperson for the boat that transports souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Your ship acts as your base of operations, and you build living quarters, a kitchen, a forge, and lots of other facilities on it. The beings who join you on your ship are anthropomorphized animals, each with their own story. Your job is to help them be at peace, then send them to the next life once they’re ready.

In practical terms, you’re spending a lot of your time sailing from island to island to talk to people and find resources. There’s a plenty of crafting and time sinks in the game, and I appreciated the excuse to luxuriate in this game world. No game made me cry this year, but Spiritfarer (Alice’s story in particular) sure did try. It was the perfect respite for the nightmare that was 2020.

2. Yakuza: Like a Dragon

A lot of Yakuza fans were concerned over this game’s switch from the series’ usual brawling combat to turn-based RPG combat. I was not one of them. Everything about this game sounds like the sort of fan fiction someone like, well, like me would come up with on a late night drunken bender. “What if it was Yakuza, but like, JRPG battles? Why would that happen.....OH oh oh what if the main character was a big fan of DRAGON QUEST so he just, like, saw the world in those terms? You could have party members, and a Pokedex of all the weirdo scumbags you fight, and you could change jobs by going to a temp agency!”

All of that is in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. And I love it. The series’ producer says they decided to pivot to a turn-based combat system after positive reaction to an April Fools Day Yakuza RPG joke they put online. And there are some rough spots. Your party members get caught on the world’s geometry sometimes, and combatants are constantly milling around so AOE abilities feel like a crap shoot. The Yakuza series has always had about 30% too much combat, so translating it into a genre known for grindy gameplay feels like a perfect storm of sorts. Thankfully, I’m a fan of grindy RPG’s so all of this is directly in my wheelhouse.

This eighth game in the Yakuza series is the first with a new protagonist - goodbye Kiryu Kazuma, hello Ichiban Kasuga. Where Kiryu was very stoic, Ichiban is a hothead with the perfect mix of kindness, earnestness, and stupidity for a JRPG hero. He is an incredibly likeable and charismatic character, and I hope Ryu Go Gotoku Studio tightens up the battle system and keeps this iteration of the series running.

1. Hades

Hades seemed like a slam dunk. My favorite studio was making an action RPG based on Greek mythology. The announcement was the best possible version of “AND you can play it right now!” I bought it (in early access) immediately and played it a bit, but I didn’t want to burn out on it so I only briefly checked in on it every few months. As a result, my hype was pretty low when the game reached its 1.0 release.

Once I decided to fully engage with the game though, I was unable to put it down. SuperGiant’s games have the best writing, music, and voice acting in the business. That’s a pretty high bar to aim for, and they hit it once again with Hades. Both of their post-Bastion games (Transistor and Pyre) are games that I have to recommend with an asterisk though; the gameplay parts of each game is an acquired taste and will put some folks off.

Hades, however, I can give a full throated recommendation for. The gameplay is tight and the combat feels good. There’s a lot of variety in the weapons, so you can either find one that fits your style and stick with it, or do what I did and change it up every run. They also managed to achieve something incredible - they largely took the sting out of losing in a run-based game. There are things to unlock between runs as you’d expect from a roguelite. I found myself enjoying chatting with the denizens of hell as much as the moment to moment action gameplay. I’d respawn back home and make my rounds, taking to people and spending my cash. I had a route I’d travel each time, and that route ended with Skelly in the weapons room. Oh, the gauntlets grant a bonus if I use them this time....the door to start a new run is just right over there....okay I can do one more run tonight.

That personality and dialogue is sprinkled throughout the runs themselves too, in the form of the various Greek gods you talk to and get boons from. The variety in weapons and boons give the game tremendous replayability and give the game a deckbuilding feel. Every character in the game is incredibly well developed and well-acted. Zagreus is a likeable and relatable protagonist. He wants to get away from his disapproving father and find his estranged mother, and he and his father can’t see eye to eye.

The story and gameplay in Hades do equal lifting, the game is an incredibly complete package. The game also provided a couple of the most memorable moments of the year. Hades might just be SuperGiant’s best game. It’s certainly their most complete game.

*It’s very much on the lighter side of this gameplay style, akin to 2019′s Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Plus there are difficulty settings, which I appreciate.

**Invisible Inc, Dragon’s Dogma, and The Outer Wilds come to mind.

***Final Fantasy VII Remake is only the first installment in a series

****Cloaked in shame and failure.

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term6itmedia · 5 years ago

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Progression of M.A.R.S (Weeks 51-54)

The penultimate project closes on a note containing determination... here’s how I made Olympian!

Start

The Olympian started out as a simplistic base, like all other projects do. To start out with, I made a tile sheet in Photoshop:

Looks very small, doesn’t it? That is because it is a pixel-art, or as I call it, pix-art.

After creating the tile sheet, I got to working on the main area of the game... a track. After doing that, I created multiple segments of the character that would be used in the game, which I would use as frames.

If you don’t know what frames are, picture a cake cut into quarters. The first quarter of the cake would be seen to start with. When certain circumstances apply, the second quarter of the cake would show up, with the first quarter disappearing behind it. The process would continue until you got to the final quarter, after which it will go back to the first quarter. These same principles apply to any sprite sheet, as multiple frames are drawn on one sheet, but manipulated by whatever game engine is used to show a specific frame.

Then I put the character into the game. I didn’t want to work on the animations at the time, so I did the only other thing I could have - work on the base mechanics for the game!

How it works is that when the RUN button is pushed (which would be A on a controller or Space bar on keyboard), the player speed will be increased. Overtime, the speed drastically decreases to give a sense of realism to the game, like a person cannot keep building up speed and then run across the field at ridiculous speeds.

This took a while to get to a more realistic and balanced level, as at some times the players would be moving too fast or too slow.

Creating CPU Players

This was probably one of the greatest challenges I've ever faced while making a game... computer-based players. If you don’t know what that means, it means that programmed intelligence controls the players, not other people. Every non-playable character uses the same code as a regular player, but has random branches to go off of, which control how the player works internally.

I was going to give players speed based on their look, but I felt like that would take more time than I was willing to invest, so I made a difficulty levelling system:

The names of the difficulties listed come from popular terms used for runners, particularly athletes in training showing off to their relatives.

Couch Potato is someone who spends too much time sitting down on furniture, hence “couch”.

Slow Coach is someone who is trying their hardest from their view, but is incredibly slow to the other competitors.

Mediocre is a term for average-levelled performance.

Bolt is a reference to the fastest runner in the world, Usain Bolt.

Speedy Gonzales is what some runners get called by viewers who think they are fast, but nowhere near fast enough to outrun them. It is also a reference to the fast mouse from Looney Tunes, who is allegedly the fastest mouse in Mexico. For perspective on how fast he is meant to be (if you don’t know), imagine you’re sprinting around a track. About 4 seconds after you’ve set off, Speedy would have already finished, which is more than half of Usain Bolt’s world record.

Each difficulty has a maximum speed, so it is not possible for a fast player to lose to Couch Potato CPU players unless they do absolutely nothing or fall asleep trying.

After a lot of testing and analysing, I’ve come up with a table which shows the average that the CPU players finish at.

As you can see, the results vary between values very far when it comes to the 110-Metre Hurdles event. This is because of how random the random-number-generation (RNG) is. Not one CPU player will finish the race first upon the other two, or jump over every single hurdle. Long jump is absent from this list as I didn’t feel the need to implement CPU player AI for that event specifically.

Creating a Buttons-Per-Second system (BPS)

We all know how great button-mashing can be, it can be used to get ridiculous scores and do some post-game events early in other video games, but how fast can we possibly be?

I have decided to create a system that measures an average of how fast the player is mashing the buttons, as it will provide statistics for a player’s performance and overall skill level.

In this screenshot, you can see it in action. The meter on the right shows the overall level of speed that player is going at currently, with the arrow pointing to the exact number. Numbers 5, 10 and 15 are listed on the meter, while MIN is 0 and MAX is 20 - which means I don’t really expect anyone to get higher than 20, not even the fastest players.

However, this wasn’t enough to show how good players really were. After some brainstorming, I came up with an idea - to include a final average and the difficulty level associated with said average.

After pressing the button a certain amount of times (114 to be exact, because that is how many presses are needed to clear the 100-metre sprint in-game), the results show up. This result is taken from time checks in the game’s code:

If the time is over 22.5 seconds, you will get Couch Potato.

If the time is between 19.5 and 22.5 seconds, you will get Slow Coach.

If the time is between 16.5 and 19.5 seconds, you will get Mediocre.

If the time is between 13.5 and 16.5 seconds, you will get Bolt.

If the time is under 13.5 seconds, you will get Speedy Gonzales.

Whatever difficult appears on-screen at this time tells the player what is the highest difficulty they can easily play, with some error that doesn’t account for qualification time, but gets close enough for the main player of that difficulty.

As for inspiration behind this “speed test”, I was inspired by a clicking speed test known as the MCRPG Kohi Click Test (http://www.mcrpg.com/kohi-click-test).

That, and I wanted to give players a chance to warm up on something that isn’t an event, which also serves as a good test for skill level, so they don’t get surprised by the CPU players running at speeds they cannot achieve.

As you can see in both of these screenshots, I can button-mash just over 14 times a second, which means I can easily clear the highest difficulty, which ALSO means I took slower players into consideration, hence the skill level options.

But enough about speed tests, onto the events!

Constructing the player system

I worked on both the CPU and the main player systems at the same time, but I never really covered the player system yet.

The player and CPU systems work in the same class, but the player is excluded from the AI because of it’s set ID. When this ID is chosen, the code will get out of the function and go to the next player before anything happens.

If the player takes too long to finish the race, when the timer goes past 40 seconds, the event will end immediately with no exceptions.

Being the complete mad person I am, I wanted to try and see if it was possible to end the race at exactly 40 seconds, as it ends when it goes over that. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that it is impossible to finish on exactly 40 seconds (after spending about 2 hours trying), but a time close to that can be achieved (39.99 is my best).

The long jump event has no timer however, but there is a certain distance you must jump in order to qualify. Because I thought that some players faster than me might be able to achieve ridiculous distances (my best is 10.93m), I made the map so large that not even the best players can get past the end.

I actually tested this with a macro that can do 60 button presses a second, and the furthest distance that can be achieved is somewhere around 25 metres. Then again, I don’t expect anyone to get that far to begin with, but it is there just in case it happens one day.

Confronting the hardest challenges

Making the final event, 110-Metre Hurdles, was a huge challenge to create. Mostly to do with the colliders involved.

If you don’t know how this is structured, the hurdle have a collider attached them, which means that if anything were to collide with it, it will follow behaviour that is either scripted or pre-built.

So, when an athlete collides with the hurdle, the hurdle will slow them down greatly. The player can continue, but they’re put at a huge disadvantage. There is no time penalty for hitting a hurdle, but the player has to act fast if they want to qualify after hitting a few of them.

So how is the athlete going to get over the hurdle without proper controls? Are all of them going to collide and fall to the ground? Well... no!

Using this function in the game’s code, the player can jump over the hurdle and miss the collider (which is placed a little bit lower than the very middle of the hurdle).

The player gains a little bit of speed out of the jump, which makes sense because in real life, you really need that extra push to jump over a large object or cross large gaps. This is also because players button-mashing at lower speeds can gain the speed required to jump over the hurdle without hitting the collider, because you can hit it on the way down too, much like real-life hurdles.

Audio

Because the game is made in a retro style, it would make sense that I did retro-based audio for it. Luckily, I found a way to do that. See the video for more:

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Publishing

Publishing a game is possibly one of the most nerve-wracking things you can do when making a game. Whether it’d be for Steam, Epic Games Store or Itch, it is a difficult choice, because you need to decide whether or not your game is done. Luckily, because I work in a class of 20+ people, I had a few try out the game, including my lecturers. After the testing process, I did a few bug fixes... and now it’s time to publish it!

I used itch.io to do this. Here’s how you upload your own game to itch.io:

Create an account.

Go to “Upload new project”. This can be found in the dropdown menu in the top right of the page.

Provide details about your game. Is it for racers? Is it a puzzle game? Is it a game that has no ideas whatsoever?

You now have the option to provide your game for free, or you can charge people for it. There is an option to accept donations as well, should you wish to provide it for free for whatever reason.

Upload the files of your game, but DON’T UPLOAD THE SOURCE FILES! Build your game first, then upload the executable file!

Publish, and BOOM! Your game is now available to download anywhere in the world.

I’m quite happy I did this, as this was a new barrier I knew I was going to have to tackle at some point in the future (as I’m going to be an indie games developer when I graduate).

Final Reflections

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Personally, I really like how I structured the M.A.R.S project. While the drawing outside of the digital workshops were entirely irrelevant to my final outcome, I think I managed it very well.

If anything went wrong over this time, it would be the trial and error I went through to get certain parts of the game working. The CPU AI was a bit tricky at first, but that was because I didn’t know how to exclude certain player IDs. And now I do. The hurdles were the hardest part alongside the long jump event, the jumping mechanic was difficult to construct because of floor collision detection and air movement.

The true question is, has anything gone wrong to the point where I said “Nah, I’m going to scrap this.”? The answer to that is no, because I planned out everything as I was creating it, and I found new ways to overcome problems that I have run into but failed to do in one way, and possibly another.

If you want to play the game for yourself: https://hdifentertainment.itch.io/olympian

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