#is this an adequate amount of spider people. can i hit post now

[dawsonscreekwasalwaysbad]

Spider-Man must have such an easy time putting up halloween decorations.

[hallodraws]

Silkster | A Spider Story (02)

Wordcount: 2,252

Summary: “In September 2018, NYC, college student Jonas Jaeger reels from his first experience with Spider-Man - only to realize his night with the spider is not yet over.”

Warnings: Very minor mention of blood and hinting to a character that passed away.

Author’s Notes: Like I said before, this started as a graphic design exercise for my MCU OC, Silkster. Eventually, it snowballed into a full-fledged-fic. This is just for fun and stuff like this always gets my creative juices flowing. Hopefully, you guys enjoy reading and maybe I can share more of this story (and maybe art?) as it develops. Welcome to part 2. ♡

『 02 』

I continued to run as fast as I could - far after the bridge had ended. The brisk September air of New York City dried out my throat from running so long; eventually, I had to stop to give my lungs a break. I must've run a full extra block before realizing I could no longer see Spider-Man or the thug he was now apprehending. I couldn't hear any signs of a struggle or anything of the sort. In fact, the city was quiet. I was left with only the sounds of crickets, light traffic, and the whistle of a soft wind tunneling from the bridge's north side.

I felt as my wrist throbbed. As I looked down, I saw the rough and slightly bloody scrape made when the chain got tugged from my arm. It was a small injury but in a very inconvenient spot. No matter what I did, every movement I made with my hand caused an ache. I tried my best to wipe the small amount of blood there was out of the way to get a better look at the damage. I remember wincing as I attempted putting pressure on the cut. I didn't even notice the figure above. Without warning, a massive thud came from behind me.

"That looks like it hurts," I heard through a muffled voice.

Without thinking, I spun around - swinging as hard as I could. I wasn't going to be a victim of this mugger again. Because, it is my luck, it wasn't the mugger. With one solid punch, I made contact with a familiar red mask. It didn't take long for the realization to hit me. I just fucking punched Spider-Man.

"Ow! Holy shi--" The masked vigilante yelled. He was silenced soon enough by my ever-growing panic as I reached for the spot I targeted. 

"Spider-Man!" I shouted, "Oh my god! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to, I swear! I thought--" I remember my words just becoming one long jumbled mess as I tried to force out an apology as quickly as humanly possible. Somehow, saying it faster made it not as bad. I know, that sounds stupid. But, much to my surprise, my rambling was greeted by an overwhelming laugh coming from behind the mask.

"Hahaha! Don't worry about it! I shouldn't have snuck up on you." he said as he rubbed his cheek. Soon enough, his laughter began to calm. 

"Still... I'm sorry." I didn't know if I should smile or not. Was it rude to act relaxed after punching someone? Spider-Man seemed pretty calm, so maybe I should follow suit.

"What's your name?" he asked me.

"Jonas, uh... sir." I looked at my feet, unsure of how to adequately address my protector. Was it like talking to a police officer? I figured I should be as polite as possible; That way I would avoid any chance at offending him.

"Sir?! What happened to just Spider-Man?" The vigilante chuckled as he gave his (probably now sore) face one more rub for good measure.

"Sorry." I apologized again, "It's just I've never met a hero up close and personal before." I felt embarrassed when I said those words for some reason. Calling him a hero to his face sounded weird. I felt my face flush. I think he noticed how uncomfortable I was.

"Well, Jonas..." Spider-Man said my name, stepping forward, "...that's a mighty strong swing you got there."

It was strange, I thought. People usually picture superheroes as insanely ripped and intimidating. They were essentially gods amongst men. But Spider-Man didn't fit that image, per-say. He was just about as tall as me and couldn't possibly be that much older. This revelation of mine didn't stop the nervousness in my voice from coming out.

"Haha... R-really? You think so?" I stuttered.

"Yeah!" he raised his fists in a confident stance, "I bet you could've taken that guy yourself if I didn't show up."

"Please... I was a wreck." I retreated, my eyes rolling into my head at the compliment that couldn't possibly be true, "I wouldn't have been able to do anything. I was pathetic." my voice faded into my natural shyness once more. Spider-Man stepped forward again, filling the space between us.

"Scared maybe. But not pathetic." He placed a firm hand on my shoulder, "And there's nothing wrong with being scared."

"You're not scared of anything. You're a superhero. You're Spider-Man." I argued. Don't ask me why. I think it was my nerves. When a superhero compliments you - take the damn compliment.

"Just because I'm Spider-Man doesn't mean I don't get scared. I was terrified when I saw that guy pushing you over the bridge." His voice changed a bit. He sounded concerned. I felt his hand tighten ever so slightly. 

"You were...?"

"Uh, Y-Yeah I was." Now he was the one that sounded nervous. I felt his warm hand leave my shoulder, but he continued, "Scared... I wouldn't make it in time. Scared that I might've made things worse. Scared of the unthinkable." He paused. I couldn't see his eyes behind the mask, but I could tell he was looking right at mine, "But ultimately, I was scared of what might've happened if I didn't do anything at all."

The wind whistled once more. I didn't know what to say to that. What could I have said to that? In the end, a barely audible "Wow..." was all I could muster up.

"W-what? Did that sound stupid? Too cliche?" he began to fidget as he looked away. Was he embarrassed? The whole situation was so strange to me. Seeing the action shots of Spider-Man on the news was so much more different from actually seeing and speaking to him. He didn't seem like an authority figure or soldier. He wasn't super smooth or commanding. He was just... friendly. Were all heroes like this? It was actually kind of refreshing. Underneath that red leotard, this guy was supercharged - but still a sweet, funny, and regular guy. It's makes so much sense when you stop and think about it, but at that moment in time, the idea was so far from what I thought I knew about superheroes. I didn't see the people, I just saw the names and the masks.

I was silent for too long. I let out a laugh, "Haha, no. Not at all. It's just you never hear heroes admit to being scared."

"Oh..." I could hear a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

"It's a nice change of pace." I smiled

"O-oh!" He perked up, "Well, I'm glad!" Despite not being able to see his expression, I could tell he was smiling back at me.

Once again there was silence. Only the soothing sounds of the city around us. Spider-Man looked down at my scraped wrist.

"Uh... Hey! Let me take a look at that cut." He held his gloved hand out to me.

"It's not that bad." I tried to hide my arm behind my back. I didn't want to take up any more of his valuable time.

He persisted, "Give it here."

I complied. He trailed fingers across the cut. He was so gentle, I barely felt a thing. Granted, I was a little preoccupied tried to decern what was going on inside that concealed head of his.

"Might want to give it a proper cleaning, but you'll be alright." He lightly cupped his hand to my wrist, covering the wound.

"Thank you." I nodded, thinking he'd let go. He didn't.

"Does it hurt at all?"

"Not so much anymore. I really felt it when my--" I finally noticed the faint tan line on my arm was now exposed, "My bracelet!" I felt a sinking dread overcome me when I saw the empty space where my bracelet once was. I didn't want to let Spider-Man see, he saved my life after all. I was incredibly grateful. But still...

"Your brace--?" He began. Suddenly, he reached for his belt, "Oh! This?."

There it was, glimmering in his hand off the New York City street lights. I could barely contain my excitement, "You got it back?! Oh--" I began to stutter. I calmed myself and placed my hand on the bracelet, "Thank you, Spider-Man. You don't know how much this means to me.”

"Oh..." I could just make out what he said as I slid the bracelet out of his hand - in two pieces, "It's broken. I-I'm sorry." He was upset. I could hear it.

"It's alright." I clutched the bracelet to my chest. I smiled back at him once more, "I'd rather have it back broken then not have it back at all."

"That important, eh?" he inquired.

"Yeah," I said shortly, I didn't want to overshare. Heroes probably don't want to hear sob stories, I thought. "It's a long story."

"I've got nowhere to be."

I guess I was wrong, "Well..." I began, "It was a gift from someone important to me who's not around anymore."

"Who?" He asked. I must've unknowingly gave him a funny look, because he immediately tried to back-peddle, "I... I'm sorry, that's none of my business." I could tell he was trying to be compassionate, the least I could do was reciprocate.

So I told him, "An old boyfriend." 

"Oh." I could tell he didn't know whether or not to continue to discuss the matter, but I guess he inevitably decided to proceed, "And are you two still...?"

"No, he... he passed away last year." I might as well tell the truth, I thought. We've gotten this far.

"Oh, I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry." I think it finally hit him that maybe this topic was a little too deep for a post-rescue conversation. He was sweet, and he was trying. How could I be upset about that?

"Don't worry about it," I tried to change the subject, "Thank you for saving my life... and bringing this back to me."

He perked up once again, I wasn't sure why. "Hey... can I take a closer look at your bracelet?" he said with his gloved hand outstretched once more.

"Oh, sure." I allowed, placing the damaged chain in his palm.

"Hold out your arm."

"O...kay?" I was confused, but I did as he asked, "But what are you--?"

He wrapped the two chains around my arm, holding them in place. With his other hand, he aimed precariously over my wrist. Suddenly, a small web shot out of the mechanism from his suit. The web was so little. It looked like that of a real spider - maybe even tinier. It slid around the broken piece of gold chain and connected the two halves. A second web shot out, joining the other side. It wasn't perfect by any means, but my bracelet was once again resting firmly where its been for the past year.

"This should at least hold it together again," he said as he ran his fingers across the newest addition to the chain.

"You...! How did you...?" I couldn't find the words.

"Uh... it's the web slingers." He answered the question I already knew the answer to.

"You... you really fixed it."

"So it's okay?"

"Okay? Are you kidding?" I was so happy to know that this silly piece of jewelry was still in my life, "It's more than okay. It's..." I looked at him. There it was again, I could tell he was making the most focused eye contact, waiting for validation, "...incredible." He sighed with relief. I stepped forward.

"Thank you, Spider-Man." I took his hand in mine, "This is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"N-no problem," His own grip tightened, "I'm just glad I could help."

We stood like that for what seemed like hours, but I'm sure it was just a few fleeting seconds. It was the howl from the wind billowing across the bridge that snapped me out of the moment.

"I... should be getting home," I said as I let go.

"You gonna be okay?”

"Yeah. I'm gonna wait at that restaurant over there," I pointed at the small diner that sat at the end of the street, "I'll call my friend to see if they can pick me up."

"You sure? I can take you home if you'd like," he said, pointing to the sky. God, I wanted to say yes more than anything. But I felt bad. It felt like I was misusing the police force or fire department. He has places to be.

"Yeah," I said softly, "I've taken up enough of your time. Besides, you've got a city to take care of." 

"Haha... yeah." he chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Be safe out there, okay?"

"You too. Thank you, again." I wanted him to stay.

"It's all in the job." and just like that, he was gone.

There was silence once again. I was alone, but I didn't feel it. Part of me thought that he was still there, secretly watching me from the darkness above. It might've just been wishful thinking on my part, but it made me feel better. I pulled my phone from my pocket (whoops, I guess I was holding out on that mugger...) as I made my way to the diner. I had my signal back so I could've called an Uber, but I hoped Peter would be able to borrow his Aunt May's truck. I had a story I just couldn't wait to tell him.

『 Previous | Part 01 』 『 Next | Part 03 』

[ruginite]

100 + Follower Appreciation & Giveaway

HOLY ODIN’S CROWS....where the fuckity fuck did all of you fucking come from?! This blog’s not even a year old and not canon and what. Feeling all kinds of loved right now. Like holyshitballs.-cough- sorry uh....let me just.....

To ALL my followers: Thank you so much! Like I feel like that’s not really an adequate statement but words can’t possibly capture how much I appriciate each and every damn one of you. You are all beautiful and I can not stress enough how much it means to me that you followed this blog. And the fact you stayed after you clearly realized how trash the mun is lol. -HUGS TOO ALL OF YOU-

GIVEAWAY:

Giveaway Begins : Now  03/03/17 Giveaway Ends : 6:00ρм EST - 03/10/17

1. One like/re-blog per blog.    

I get really turned around and easily confused so please make this easier on me and only either re-blog the post or like the post.But only do either one once.

2. Must be following Baz and be an RP blog in order to participate.  

Please don’t just follow to participate in the giveaway. I mean I can’t control you following and then un-following but its super rude and just karma’s a bitch.

3. I need a week or so to get the prizes out after the giveaway ends.

Bare with me. I keep my promises it just takes me time.

4. Winners will be chosen using the random number generator. Keeps everything nice and fair :)

PRIZES:

1st Place Winner: 1 promo banner, 1 set of Online/Offline/Lurking/Drafts banners, 1 avatar icon.

2nd Place Winner: 1 promo banner, 1 avatar icon.

3rd Place Winner: 1 promo banner

PERSONAL MESSAGES AND MY FOLLOW FOREVER LIST UNDER THE CUT

People I’ve Licked And Therefore Are Mine:

@hitslikeatruck aka @vesallkyn​ aka @tasedagod​ aka @doctahquinn​ aka @thebloodisthicker​ aka @macians​ aka the reason this blog even fucking exists to be fucking honest. 

Did i miss one? I don’t think i did... You are literally one of my best friends. We talk almost every day and when we don’t there’s a severe lack of THINGS, a hole in my life. Shut up it makes sense to me, don’t judge. You are the whole reason this blog even like became a thing. You push me to step outside my comfort zone and encourage me when I wanna run and hide because I don’t think I’m good enough. You also talk me down from doing really bad things like going off on people I shouldn’t. So yea thanks for that. I love all your muses and just never go away ever period. I will die. Also rat bbys and i want them all. I wish we didn’t live so far apart. Because I dont really hang out physically with people but i would totally hang out with you. 

@the-blackest-spider​

Man like how long have we been friends? Gotta be well over a year now. Anyway. You are mine. I licked you. I know we dont RP as much here anymore as we used too. But we still talk often and you defs a friend I wanna keep 10ever. I love your humor. I love your hair :D You’ve got such a comprehensive understanding of your muse it’s fucking mind blowing and you are always one of the first blogs i recommend to people when they ask for marvel canons to follow. And by one of the first i mean that like you and hits are battling for first mention there. Like maybe battling isn’t the right word just if i could say both urls at the same time i totally would but I am not that talented lol.

@brooklynislandgirl​ aka @tarnishedhalo​

hahhaahahahahahaha i could write a fucking novel. But I’ll do my best to keep it short. Another beautiful person i talk to every day, even if it’s just a couple sentence checking in with each other. And then other days it’s walls and walls and WALLS of skype texts and pictures and plot bunnies and OKAY BUT LISTENS. You put up with so much jumping around on my part and I can’t thank you enough for it. You are an amazing writer, and a fantastic person. Your muses speak for themselves and that speaks volumes. Our RP’s always challenge me to advance my writing and try new things. Beyond the fact I’m constantly learning from you, and that’s just the coolest thing okay? I love to learn.

@morgansmornings​

The mun with the muse that just seems to almost be Baz’s female counterpart. In just the right amount of ways to irk him to know in, and him her. LOL. I love their banter and I love how they both give a shit about the other one but like they’re both to cool to say it. To each other’s faces anyway. You are a gem of a human I want you to know that. We don’t talk as much as I wish we did, but i think that’s kinda cool too. Because we seem to be on the same page even when we don’t constantly speak. And to me that’s a rare of fucking thing, and personally I cherish it and you.

@hittcr​

Oh boy where to start here. Ok I found your blog by like accident?! And for the longest time it sat on my bookmark bar because i didn’t wanna be THAT PERSON by following. Read through your blog, read your threads and your hc’s and drabbles and just thought man this person really fucking understands Eliot. They’re fantastic. But being the chicken turtle that i am that was as far as it went. Then one day I get an ask from an anon making the assumption my blog was an Eliot Spencer RP and I just couldn’t not recommend you to them. Granted it was only later that it dawned on me I’d @’d you which means it showed up in your activity and then proceeded to panic for two days because ohgodwhatdididothatforthey’regonnathinkimacreepstalker.  But then you followed me and I followed you back and then spent a week spazzing about ‘do i ask to plot for a twin thing because funny? or do i just sit here??’ and oddly enough that ask I sent? yea i didn’t actually mean to send it. I’d spent three hours with your ask box open with that typed up and went to close it because again chicken turtle and inadvertently hit the hot key to send not close. And the rest is history lol. So basically ALL OF THAT RAMBLING TO SAY : You’re gold sweets. You’re talented. You’ve got your muse down to an art. And I feel so blessed to be apart of your rp life here on tumblr, as well as getting to be a sounding board about some of your thoughts regarding hc’s and what not for your muse.

@canadianclaws​

okay by listen like there are people you hit it off with instantly in life and you are definitely one of them. I love watching you art. I love listening to you talk while you art. I love talking to you period. I love your muse. I love you too tbh. Your puppies are adorable. And I love that we have our own little club of never leave the house. And if you dont think im gonna find a way to make us tshirts you got another thing coming :P lol. Never go away please. I’ll die.

@offorgottenbooks​ aka @travelerlainewalker​

Holy crap HOW many blogs have you followed me across at this point? It’s probably a rediculously high number and I love you for it. lol. You’re always so happy and willing to RP with the next muse that hits me and I just can not say enough how much that means to me. I love you. I’m keeping you. If that wasn’t clear by now...like what....2...3 years later??? LOL

@thor-theavengergod​

I was so nervous to RP with you I can’t lie. But I’m glad @offorgottenbooks​ recommended you too me because that helped me come out of my shell a little faster. And I’m really glad I did. We talk every day and like that’s something a homebody like me really REALLY treasures okay? Like the fact you care enough to check in with me and then not get mad when i dont respond until hours later because Im either asleep or tumblr’s a bitch and doesn’t tell me you spoke or I just get hella distracted. Your muse is fabs and so are you. And im keeping you. yes good.

People I Would Lick But It Might Be Awkward aka People I Admire (some of who, I even get to RP with, others I just stalk 10 ever):

@prettygenius / @noteliot / @cochetsharpshooter / @exubiytsa / @multi-mused / @amazingspiderling / @xyourxgodx /  @aclevelblue / @bxldmountain / @fashicniista / @bcnquet / @skyrat / @motherofasgard / @mckaytriarchy / @mutantmasterofmagnetism / @teethxbared / @agentharrisonofshield / @thexanderzone / @mayiisms / @agcntwells / @pyromaniism / @gangsterconsultant / @asgardianhammer / @melinda-q-may / @xcuratiox / @erroretscientia / @kingxfmischief

[acaseofthehiccups]

The Amazing Adventures of Hic v. The Roaches

So I’d been thinking of writing a blog post about my struggles with roaches, and then as I began writing discovered I couldn’t actually write about roaches without swearing at least every other sentence, and decided that maybe this wasn’t one for my official blog. But I still had lots of fun writing it (even if I didn’t have lots of fun living out this experience) so we’re gonna post it on tumblr instead.

Ok right folks, buckle in and prepare yourselves for the epic adventures of HICCUP AND THE COCKROACHES. This bedtime story is going to be mostly pretty gross and inconsistent and laden with expletives so LET’S DO THIS

So I know all you Texans and New Yorkers and People-Who-Live-In-Humid-Climate-ers are going “bro everyone gets cockroaches you just hate them and deal with it” and while I grew up in New York, I have spent a lot of my life in Utah, where it is too dry and too cold and too high for anything other than box elder bugs, so I am NOT ACCUSTOMED TO ROACHES. When I first came to Cameroon, I found roaches kind of interesting. Like, hey, check out this fucking huge beetle thing, that’s kind of nifty. And then I moved into my own home and watched them scatter every time I went to the latrine in the middle of the night, and I was like ok maybe these aren’t so great, I kind of don’t like roaches. And then they invaded my kitchen and living room at my first house and I was like ok so I kind of REALLY HATE ROACHES more than pretty much every living thing in my house, and I have seen some shit in this house so that is saying a lot. And then there was that time where I sprayed bug spray at a scorpion and roaches started DESCENDING FROM THE CEILING LIKE A BIBLICAL PLAGUE and as I stood in the middle of my kitchen clutching my can of illegal-in-the-States bug spray in one hand and a shoe in the other, jumping at every sound, I accepted that I am probably, definitely irrationally afraid of roaches. And before you say, “But Hic! You’ve had spiders and scorpions and snakes and lizards and acid spitting beetles and mice and every other manner of creepy crawly in your house, why the fuck are you afraid of roaches, that do literally nothing to harm you?” To which my response is, look I never said this was a RATIONAL fear man there is a reason I put the word IRRATIONALLY in front of the word afraid up there.

For all you Texans and New Yorkers and People-Who-Live-In-Humid-Climate-ers, I don’t actually have any idea how many roaches you might find in your apartments on any given day. Like, two? Is that high? Is it like five a week? 12 a week? I don’t know man I am completely guessing, somebody give me these statistics. ANYWAY I live in a house with a latrine. Do you know what you find in latrines, other than poop and spiderwebs? If you guessed roaches, you are COMPLETELY CORRECT. So my latrine is connected to my house, which means that my house is a horror show most of the time. As far as I can tell, they also live in my ceiling, and possibly in or near a wall in my kitchen so my house is like Roach City. This is NOT AN IDEAL SITUATION if you have an irrational roach phobia.

I went home to visit my family over the hols this year, and while I was home I paid a visit to this farm supply store, on the lookout for cat supplies for my obnoxiously fertile and flea-prone cat. While I was there, I came across an aisle of — you guessed it, you smarty you — farm grade pesticides. I never thought I could fall in love with what amounts to 32 ounces of chemicals in a bottle but here we are. So I snuck this stuff into the country wrapped in like 12 layers of plastic bags and made it all the way to my house with no incident. In case I was having second thoughts, I was greeted at my home by a LITERAL BUCKET FULL OF ROACHES in my latrine — like, awesome, it’s a good thing I don’t have to pee right now because I am NEVER ENTERING THIS LATRINE AGAIN. That was a lie, actually, I did have to pee but fuck it if I was going to enter that latrine in the dark so I held it til the next morning and had one of the most terrifying pees of my entire life. But it hardened my resolve and so that morning, Operation: EXTERMINATE began.

11: 57am. Operation: EXTERMINATE begins with me mixing up POISONOUS TOXINS next to the horror bucket in the latrine. It’s like one of those scenes in the movies where the people are trying to steal shit or whatever without waking up the dragon. The dragon, in this case, is a bucket of roaches.

Of course as I’m mixing this shit up a kitten just HAPPENS TO WANDER IN. Like fuck kitten you have no sense of self-preservation THIS SHIT COULD KILL YOU

Anyways I realise that I should actually clean out the latrine before I go spraying this magical death sauce on top of three inches of dust but in order to do that I have to ELIMINATE THE HORROR BUCKET. So I go into bugspray the shit out of it only to find that my first canister of moon tiger (this bug spray that definitely does not meet FDA approval and will probably give me 12 kinds of cancer) is basically empty, so now not only are they not dead but all MAD AS HELL (and by mad I mean that probably they’re just really panicked but EITHER WAY they’re trying to escape this bucket). I locked the door behind me so I could go get my other almost-empty canister and then returned to the roaches just milling about the bucket so I SPRAY THE SHIT OUT OF THEM and now I’m letting them stew in bug spray for a while and hoping they’ll die or eat each other sometime in the next ten minutes.

12:39pm. I HAVE SPRAYED THE DEATHSAUCE. I poked a hole in the lid of a Top bottle which sounds like an adequate substitute for a professional sprayer if you ask me. So I squirted this stuff around the walls and the floor of my latrine because there is a LOT OF IT and I just realised that that’s probably because it’s meant for a much larger house and not necessarily because you’re supposed to lay it on really thick but uh I guess my latrine really will be a death trap. I couldn’t get it very high on the walls because 1. I am very short 2. holes in the lids of water bottles aren’t actually QUITE as easy to aim as one of those fancy pesticide sprayers and 3. as much as I want to get rid of roaches I don’t really want a face full of pesticide. Like I’ve accepted that it’ll get on my hands and feet because HOW COULD IT NOT but face? eehhh…

Anyway now we wait to see what happens I guess? I’m gonna spray my kitchen later tonight when the kittens are nice and locked outside. I’m a little hesitant to do my room, because I don’t really want roaches falling and dying on my mosquito net? I might hit under the beds and stuff and just skip the walls.

So basically all that’s left to do is watch them DIE TERRIBLE DEATHS.

I don’t know if they’re actually terrible deaths, they might just die normal deaths.

But die nonetheless.

And also hope that my cats don’t die too.

1:30pm. Like, I rinsed my foot off but it’s still kind of itch and tingly, that’s fine right? It’s either pesticide or residual itchiness from my cat attacking it, unclear.

But if I have to sacrifice my foot for the greater goal of getting rid of roaches, then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

2:48pm. Operation: EXTERMINATE update: So when I bought this stuff I specifically asked if it was a repellent, aka if I spray this shit on my walls with I have an army of roaches exploding from the walls seeking vengeance like the last two times I sprayed my walls/latrine, and he was like nope definitely not! Which means that there are three possible explanations for the 10+ roaches I’ve seen in the past hour: 1., he was lying out of his ass to get me to buy this stuff; 2., he has a very small roach population so whenever he uses it they al come out but he doesn’t notice it, and therefore doesn’t know any better; or 3., my roaches have decided that being nocturnal really just isn’t for them and they’d rather just chill with me in the daytime.

Basically what I’m saying is that I just sprayed my bedroom because fuck it if I’m going to risk bringing them all out at night, and that this shit had better kill them really fucking fast or I’m going to be partying it up with a shit ton of roaches tonight because the universe apparently hates me.

8:59am. Well, after an only MILDLY HORRIFYING night, I found a total of 32 dead roaches littered throughout my house. Good job, pesticide! 32 down, probably 999,468 to go!

Update: Well, three weeks later, I’ve completely forgotten that I wrote this, BUT I’ve probably swept about 100 roaches out of my house and only two roaches have climbed up my mosquito net in the past two weeks, so we’re calling Operation: EXTERMINATE a success! Go team!

[theinvinciblenoob]

It’s hard to imagine a better demonstration of the state of AAA gaming today than Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, a game where the whole of the wine-dark Classical Aegean is available for you to ply with your oars — but which operates according to a risible, cartoonish video game logic that seems, if possible even more anachronistic. Should you play it? Absolutely.

(Very minor spoilers ahead.)

In case you haven’t been following the Assassin’s Creed… well, odyssey, the last few years, the game took some time off following the lavishly produced but ambivalently received Unity and Syndicate games, set in revolutionary Paris and Victorian London respectively. The series, critics said, was wearing itself a bit thin despite the fabulous set dressing.

You can imagine everyone’s surprise when AC returned in Origins, set in an enormous swathe of ancient Egypt. New systems nudged the game from the stealth action of its roots towards the expansive, open-world RPG currently in vogue. It was a little rough around the edges but the scale was welcome, as was the shift away from the increasingly turgid Assassins vs Templars secret society scramble.

The news that the next game would take place in Ancient Greece at the time of the Peloponnesian War thrilled me to no end. I’ve always been a fan of the Classical era, Homer and Herodotus and Periclean Athens and all that. I’ll also admit to an unironic love of 300 and the story of Leonidas’s last stand — the graphic novel, not the movie, which was awful.

Are you kidding me? Look at this.

Here, then was that world brought to life with all the fidelity that Ubisofts hundreds of artists and modelers could bring, with a narrative combining secret societies with classical warfare, historical figures, and high-seas adventure (I loved the pirate-themed AC Black Flag). On paper this is the greatest game ever to grace the screen.

And in a way, it is. Ubisoft’s rendering of the Classical world is so beautiful, so massive, so obviously a labor of love and skill and intensive research that I have spent much of my time in the game simply gawking.

The costumes! The statues! The landscapes! The light! It’s a feast of details at every location, from the idyllic backwater of Kephallonia, where your hero begins their story to the sprawling, bustling Athens just approaching the zenith of its glory. I (that is to say, my character) walked past the Theatre of Dionysus in its construction, which I have visited in person (now ruined and restored, of course), and on up to the Acropolis, where I scaled the Parthenon and looked out over the tiled roofs under one of which, for all I know, I may find Plato sitting and writing the Symposium.

Seriously.

Then I meander to the harbor, board my black ship, and split the seas to explore any of the islands in the entire Aegean — any of them. The whole Aegean! Well, most of it, anyway. Enough that you won’t ask for more. Here be mythical creatures, political machinations, stormy seas and sunny shanties.

The world that Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey in habits, I feel confident in saying, is the largest and most impressive that I have encountered, with special credit given for having to reflect reality to a certain extent, which is not a limitation shared by its eminent competition in the open-world genre, like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild.

In my opinion, both as a gamer and a lover of antiquity, it is worth the price of admission to experience this world, to see and hear Ancient Greece in a way that was heretofore impossible, and simply to revel in the almost inconceivable level craft that was so obviously put into this mind-boggling world.

And now, having made that judgment, I will proceed to trash the game I just recommended for about two thousand words.

The game itself

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, the game itself, is embarrassing to play. The characters you interact with and the minute-by-minute gameplay are so uneven that I truly believe that Ubisoft simply didn’t have time to adequately play-test it. It feels like the game was just too big to run through once they’d made it so they just shipped. If someone from Ubisoft were sitting next to me as I played, I would expect them to be cringing constantly.

It’s an incredibly lopsided collection of old and new ideas, balanced and unbalanced systems, good and bad UI, intuitive and baffling combat, beautiful and repulsive graphics, and excellent and laughable voice acting. I haven’t finished the game, let alone all the side quests, but although I expect to encounter more good things as I go, the bad things were apparently pretty much from the first few minutes and haven’t abated.

The AI of the people in this game seems to have regressed ten years to a simpler age. They are truly idiots all, from people on the street to elite soldiers.

Good old Adrastos the Logician, engaging in hand to hand combat.

One of the first things that happened when I got my horse and learned to have it follow a road was that it mowed down a few laborers. This, I found, would happen everywhere I went: every character in the game walks right in the center of the road and dives madly out of your way as you canter down it, screaming and cursing. Wild animals cluttered the road, and reacting confusedly as I approached and throwing themselves under the hooves of my steed, Phobos.

This was my first taste of what would become a theme. Why, I asked myself, wouldn’t these people just walk on the side of the road? The developers clearly accounted for horses riding down it, and have behaviors and barks for when that happens. But it’s so weird, so unrealistic, so video gamey. Surely in this lovingly rendered world it is not unusual for a horse to run down a mountain road? Why then do they behave in this way? Because the people were not created intelligently — it’s as simple as that. None of them.

I once emptied a military camp of guards and then set about looting the place. A woman was being held captive in a cage — not an uncommon thing to find — so I let her out. As she escaped, thanking me, I turned to take the items out of a nearby chest. The woman, mid-escape, screamed with rage at me for this theft, snatching a nearby spear and rushing me in righteous anger. What?

Perhaps I can’t expect every peasant to be a genius, but guards too (of all ranks) are unbelievably dense. They will step over the corpses of their fellow men to get to their post and not say a word. They will fail to hear the clashing of swords, or not notice a guy being violently flipped over and disemboweled, a matter of feet away. They will follow you one by one around corners where you can dispatch them individually and fail to see or care about the ever-widening pool of blood. They are as dumb as the dumbest guards from games that came out 10 years ago.

“Mother of Spiders”

Not much better are the much-ballyhooed mercenaries, who come after you if you do too many bad things. It’s not really clear what the bad things are, but eventually you’ll see a red helmet icon on your map and know you’ve been naughty. They’re basically guards with special weapons and a few characteristics like “weak to fire” or “takes 20 percent less ranged damage.” Technically they have backstories but you have to drill down to their description to find them, and by the time you’re doing that you’ve probably already killed them. You can recruit them for your ship, like you can recruit anyone, but they generally amount to stat bonuses with funny names like Demos the Drunk. He didn’t act drunk — just had a spear I wanted, so I took him out. I mean, the variation is welcome, but it’s nothing like, for example, the nemesis system in the Mordor series.

Combat is a real mix. You are no longer a fragile assassin who can be killed from a few good hits, but a powerful warrior with supernatural skills like instant mid-battle heals and teleportation. This is combat between equals, but your equals are generally stiff types with two or three attacks they repeat over and over, glowing a bright red or gold before doing so.

A slippery-feeling dodge system zips you through these attacks, or you can parry some of them, then slash away at your attacker. Some guards or targets, especially if they’re a level or two above you, will take minutes of patient slashing before they drop. I was sent on a hunt to kill a legendary boar that I gave up on after a couple minutes because I had only taken its health down by a quarter while not being hit myself.

Compared with other action RPGs it’s pretty listless stuff. More appealing is the stealth, which the fools of guards are obviously there to encourage, since you can empty a camp or fort of its occupants systematically and it can be quite satisfying. But with the perfect knowledge effected by scouting such a place with your eagle’s x-ray vision, it feels more like bullying than anything.

The Peloponnesian War is going on around you, though you’d be hard-pressed to notice most of the time. You don’t exactly take sides, since whatever area you’re in, your enemies are the ones in control. You can weaken the faction in power by various means and force a battle (a melee in which the combat, now against dozens, feels frustratingly sloppy), but ultimately the guards and camps feel much the same as one another — Spartans have different helmets from Athenians.

I thought at first this would be deeper than it is. I had looted a variety of armor pieces, several of which suggested I could use them to blend in among the Athenians whom I was at that moment working to undermine. So I donned them and headed to the nearest camp, hoping to walk about unsuspected, Hitman-style, sowing chaos by releasing caged animals and setting fire to supplies. Nope: I was immediately attacked on approaching the gate, before I’d even come in or done anything suspicious. The guard that had never seen me before apparently recognized me as the bloodthirsty mercenary who’d wiped out a camp a mile or so away, minutes earlier. No espionage for me.

It’s never really clear who you’re fighting or why, because the locations and people are just names. It doesn’t matter if they’re Athenian or Spartan, just that they’re the ones between you and the treasure chest. I guess that’s the life of a mercenary, but it doesn’t make you care a lot.

That was a quest?

The RPG elements, from gear to abilities, have almost no integration with the game itself. From the very beginning you can see your whole skill tree, including things involving the magic spear that you don’t yet know is magic. You gain new abilities and upgrade your ship not through interesting quests or meeting interesting people, but simply by spending points and resources.

When your ship’s captain says the hull ought to be upgraded, it’s not the start of a quest to find some cool big trees or visit his hometown where he left his ship-building tools and pals. It’s literally just a reminder to stock up on wood and iron and press the button to upgrade in the pause screen.

When you meet a talented carpenter whose brother is being held by bandits, it isn’t a quest to reunite these guys for a power team that enables a ship repair superpower. He just turns out to be a regular guy who increases your hull strength by a couple percentage points.

Quests, talked up ahead of release as being fully voiced and emergent, as though you’re receiving a request from help from a needy merchant or the like, are nothing of the sort. Every one I’ve encountered so far has been a variant of: Kill these five wolves specifically. Kill these three Spartan elite guards specifically. Kill these bandits. Sink these ships.

Each has a flimsy justification (they’re blocking the road; they stole money from me) and are often atrociously acted. In one I found the quest giver asleep; he obligingly woke me up to say he wanted to take the fight to some bandits who had been demanding money from him. As soon as I agreed, those very bandits appeared not ten feet away and instantly ran him through. Quest failed.

There are deeper side quests, to be sure. But the hundreds of quests you’ll see on quest boards or appearing randomly in the wild are like this, and rarely give more than a spritz of XP and gold. Sometimes you can recruit the quest-giver, though they might or might not be helpful on your crew.

I wish that they had taken the time and effort that went into creating 20 or 30 of these quests and made one single side quest with multiple steps, characters that mattered a bit, and provided substantial rewards like a new ability for your ship.

Even main story quests, such as the targets you’ll be taking on, can be disappointingly shallow. You’re supposed to be following threads and clues, but several are just handed to you: Here’s some lady. Here’s her exact location. Go kill her. No dialogue, no footwork, no alternatives. Stab this person and take their shiny thing. Shouldn’t I at least try to get some information out of her? Why isn’t there even a death cutscene like in so many of the other games?

The writing is hit and miss. The main story and its immediate side quests are fine — I’m perhaps 25 hours in and I’m interested to see where it’s going, even if it’s not particularly surprising. And it helps that the writing and voices for the main characters are leaps and bounds above the rest.

I chose to play as Kassandra, as opposed to Alexios, for a lot of reasons. And I love her. She’s well-acted, her writing is funny and occasionally realistic, and I like that she is indistinguishable from her male alternative in every way. Your companions, especially Herodotos and your exuberant captain Barnabas, are great.

Yet other characters are ridiculous: badly written, worse acted. Even major ones. I remember one exchange with a soon-to-be-target who was pressuring me to torture some poor sap. His voice acting was so bad, especially compared to his interlocutor Kassandra’s, that I was laughing out loud. He was far from the only example of this.

Games like The Witcher 3 have spoiled us on the quality of the writing and quests, but that should be a new bar to meet, not a high-water point. It’s sad that Ubisoft hasn’t upped its game here, so to speak; it feels like 90 percent of the game I’ve played so far is purely mechanical, and even at its best it sits like a layer of butter spread thinly across an enormous Greek piece of toast. But what toast!

It’s tantalizing to see how good a game like this could be, only to be let down again and again with elements that would feel out of date ten years ago. I’m having a great time when I’m not shaking my head at it, and enjoying the scenery when I’m not being attacked by one of the evidently 50,000 bears out for my blood in the Classical world.

As I wrote earlier, to me it is worth buying just for the good parts. But as someone who cares about games and loves the idea of this one, I can’t help but observe how dated and baffling it is at the same time. It doesn’t live up to the world it was created to inhabit, but that world is practically a complete game in itself, and one that I immediately loved.

via TechCrunch