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rokutouxei · 4 years ago

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in future tense

part 3 of: atelier heart

ikemen vampire: temptation in the dark theodorus van gogh / mc | gen | 2565 | [ao3 in bio]

She and Theo were born and lived in times a hundred years apart. In the weeks they're together, she and Theo attempt to understand their time-separated worlds through a back and forth of trivia. But Theo learns much more than just what it's like to be in the 21st century.

spoiler warning: a conversation between MC and Theo in chapter 4 of his route is referenced.

What does it mean to be born in the 21st century?

Theo tries his best to imagine what it would be like, in a world more than a hundred years from his now; his “now” which is already ten years ahead of his “then”, before vampires, before Comte. And yet even in his wildest imaginations he can’t seem to grasp what it would mean to live in the future; time is instead a looping spiral instead of straight arrow, the kind he used to imagine it was.

When he takes her out into the city the day after she arrived, it’s her first time out of the mansion, into the world that is late 19th century Paris, France. To Theo, nothing really strikes him as different or interesting in this time period; sure, the fashion has changed a little from when before he was turned, and maybe there were a few different landmarks here and there, but nothing that was enough to warrant the look on her face, that was, in two words: entirely wonderstruck.

Eyes as wide as saucers like an excited child, an unashamed smile on her face. At the most mundane things too: the architecture, the cobblestone streets, turns her head at carriages like she had never seen one in her entire life before this point. She observes the ladies passing by, her eyes roaming over their clothes, and then turning back towards her own rather simple set—le Comte hadn’t had a chance to have clothes tailored for her yet, but soon he will. For now, she tugs at her sleeves and runs her hands over her dress like trying her best not to seem like she’s trying too hard to fit in, like these clothes aren’t hers to begin with, like this isn’t the world she belongs to.

And yet, instead, she does the opposite: carries the aura of being someone otherworldly, not entirely alien but at the same time—so strikingly unfamiliar.

At that moment, the image of a recognizable painting fills Theo’s mind, one he’d seen at an auction once, and he wonders if it is rather too on-brand of him as an art dealer to think of such a parallel like that.

Meisje met tulband, painted in the 17th century by Johannes Vermeer, during the Dutch Golden Age. An obviously European woman in what seems like clothes borrowed from worldly trips far from the embrace of home. During this time, what was exotic was valuable. It illuminated experience, knowledge of a bigger world beyond the borders of the mountains and seas. On her head, a turban from an Eastern country, on her frame, clothes that do not suit the style of European garb. But most importantly: a pearl earring, large and glimmering, treasure of the faraway seas, hovering just underneath her ear like hesitating if it actually hangs from it or if it is only an illusion of grandiosity.

So attractive, in all her exoticism, pulled back from the gray of European normal, that is known and familiar and comfortable, standing above all others.

And yet so remarkably out of place.

So on the first week, she and Theo make a deal.

For every thing about the 19th century that Theo explains to her, she would tell him something about the 21st century in exchange. A fair deal, Theo thinks. This is what he can give her. Just a trade of information: nothing too personal to be shared, nothing too involved. This guarantees that both of their curiosities are satisfied, and—well, Theo will never say it out loud, but—this is also his way of getting to know each other in tiny, unobtrusive ways.

Not enough to make a difference, of course, he thinks. He doesn’t want there to be a difference. If he’s keeping her by his side at all times to monitor her, he’ll just have to do his fair share of understanding who he’s working with. That’s about it.

Except there was one thing Theo did not get to add onto his assumptions: that the woman never runs out of questions.

Sure, she has the hindsight of having been born in the time when this has all technically already happened, already a time long past her—time is a spiral, or something, Theo reminds himself—but the reality of having to live all this is still way beyond her. So she doesn’t stop asking. Even about the most trivial of things.

It drives Theo insane.

Like what kinds of clothes people find fashionable. (“You could see it on the street.” “Well, yeah, but I wanted to know what you found fashionable.” “I don’t really care.” “You’re boring.”)

Or if ankles are still scandalous things. (A squint of eyebrows. “Dresses are often supposed to touch the floor.” “Not where I’m from. You’ll see much more than just ankles.” “…Knees?” “…Thighs. Or more.” “…Why.” “Why not?”)

And what kind of things people enjoy. (“Séances? Sounds scary.” “Others talk in flower codes.” “Oh! We still have that in the future! Kinda.”)

Also, if Kings and Queens are still “a thing” (her words)—and she can’t seem to believe him when he says they do, still, in fact, exist, and reign over nations. (“So instead, you have, democracy, you call it?” “Well, we’re trying.”)

But even if she always seems so awed by the workings of this era, somehow it is Theo who is left much more bewildered with the stories she tells. While she listens to him with this kind of avid wonder, the kind a child would have to a storytelling adult, Theo sits next to her like a skeptic, incredulous, mind unable to process what she is saying.

Like, what is an internet? The inter-, he figures out, but a net? Of what?

“It’s a network! That’s what the net stands for. So it’s kind of like a group of people, who get to talk, but digital.”

“Digital? What do fingers have to do with his?”

“Fingers? …oh, because digits. Um. No, it’s kind of like… a space that… you can’t touch? It’s sort of… mental?”

Theo doesn’t have a follow-up question because he doesn’t know how to follow-up to that. He just kind of looks like her like she grew a second head. Can this much change really happen in a hundred years or so? Why is her world so foreign from his?

But it doesn’t deter him. He listens intently to her stories about art in a hundred years. Cameras so small, they can fit in your pocket, so fast they can take a photo in a second. Artworks made not of canvas and paint, but of, again, this “digital” medium, which is accessible to nearly the entire world. And because of this “internet”, everyone who has it can both make and see art so easily—and they can fit these in their “cell phones”, hand-held telephones that can connect to nearly anyone… without wires!

And with each and every one of her attempts to explain the overwhelming time she used to come from, something inside Theo grows, a feeling he does not understand yet. It’s dizzying—but he cannot stop listening.

So he doesn’t stop answering either.

By the second week, whenever their schedule allows, he takes her to museums, introduces her to art movements that have flourished, are only beginning to flourish. Occasionally, she will point at one and say, “Oh, that one’s pretty famous in the future!” and Theo feels a sense of pride. The appreciation for art and beauty is one of the many things that transcends time—if the world allows it to.

He’s far from Comte’s level of elite, but he takes her to shops anyway, to see what things are in stores. The feeling that sits in Theo’s chest only grows as she points at things and says, “That’s a classic vintage piece. I’ve seen those a lot in museums,” and sooner than Theo would like, every mention of time gives him that feeling of distance, pulls her away from him.

So far away.

The fact keeps pressing itself into Theo’s brain, that she doesn’t belong here, she is only a tourist, she is only here for a short while.

The world is a gentler place in that time she is from. He doesn’t want to selfishly keep her here.

(But if he could, if she would, maybe, he wouldn’t be opposed to it.)

Shortly after a conversation about traveling from her home country to Paris in the 21st century—“You can get halfway across the world in half a day?” “Yeah, non-stop flights do that. 900 people in a single ride.” “…I find it hard to believe you.” “You don’t have to, it won’t change the fact.”—that last remark pushes Theo to finally, finally ask the question that he has held hesitantly in his mouth for the longest time.

“What’s it like, sitting here in the 19th century, knowing the future?”

She doesn’t answer for a moment, her eyes shifting off to one side, away from Theo, as she ponders on his question. Theo takes this time to observe her instead—the way she holds herself up now, so comfortable, rather confident in her 19th century clothing, the little ways she’s learned the mannerisms apt for the time. She’s so different from the girl he’d seen that first night, trembling, afraid of a (well-meaning) nightmare.

Ah, yes, yet another reminder that she does not belong here.

Not with him. Not like this.

Theo snaps back into focus once she speaks. “It’s a little conflicting to me,” she begins. “I don’t know how time works, so somehow it both feels like much of it is already set in stone, but also there are so many more things that can change.” She turns to him, meeting his gaze. “But what I’m sure of is that everything you’re doing now is going to have an impact on the future—I guess I’ll see it when I get back.”

(Theo withers ever so slightly, but not enough for her to notice.)

She continues. “It’s a little scary too, because historically—well, I guess it’s not history yet, but, there are still a lot of bad things that will happen, in the next hundred years. So many.” She cringes. “But after that? There are also so many good things that will happen. Things that—well, I haven’t stayed long enough here to say for sure, but—I think many of the good things that will happen by then still seem unthinkable now. The same way you don’t believe me sometimes. But they will happen.”

And she’s so sure of it: tells him that millions of people of all ages, classes, and nationalities go to museums to enjoy art—even Vincent’s!—in the future. That some of them even get to go for free, that the world’s governments actually want people to be in any degree appreciative of art. She tells him how she could just look up a painting on her “cell phone” and she would already be able to experience it, in a way. She tells him that so much of the world revolves around art being accessible, that people don’t even think about it too much anymore. It’s just normal.

“You won’t believe it, Theo,” she says. “Art is everywhere.”

She reminds him of the sunrise.

The sunrise he’s long dreamt of—the dawn of the new era of Art, in a better world where artists are free to make what they want to make, to showcase their work, to continuously push the barriers of the human understanding of beauty and creation. The fact that she’s come from that time doesn’t only make her a reminder of it—but also an assurance, that all of this will pay off, that he is making a difference.

He may not have been one of the chosen ones, the gifted ones, who had extraordinary talents, who could, with a wave of their hand, change the turning of the world, influence society, but—he has something he can do.

And she believes in him.

Why does it make him feel so much steadier just knowing she believes in him?

He is no one. He is nobody important. They can give him names now, call him the Phantom of Goupil, but in the long stretch of time after this, in a hundred years, in a thousand—he will be no one. History will eventually forget his name—and Theo has long accepted this truth. And if he doesn’t have much to offer to time, he has much less for her. The 19th century is no match to the 21st century’s innovations and astonishing development. He is just a plain man from a backwards time.

But at some point in the past few weeks with her, that feeling he’s once again started to ask if he could reclaim has grown in him. The desire to be remembered.

Not by the world, not by history—just by her.

Even a hundred years into the future.

There are a lot of things Theo doesn’t know yet about what’s to come. But if there is one thing about art that he knows is consistent across time, it’s that a single piece of art has the power to change something fundamental in people: the way they see life, the way they see art, the way they think about the world, the way they feel. A fateful encounter not only with the piece of art itself, but with the moment in which one meets it. The feeling that rushes, that consumes, the recognition: that one’s life has now been altered, irrevocably, by that one piece of art.

It is falling in love, but greater.

Theo really thought he would never find the capacity to ever feel that way again. That that moment, with that painting, is the pinnacle of what his heart can take.

But now he knows he isn’t.

Now he knows it isn’t, so he prays.

He doesn’t have much to give, but he prays.

That maybe she will give him the taste of it. Carve the shape of it in his mouth.

Down his throat. Chase it down into the pit of his belly where the acid of his self-resentment remains. Let it echo in his veins.

And if she does��his voice will scramble will to make sense of the sound, and he will settle for other ways to let himself be heard, the strained vocal cords of his heart, calling her hondje, knabbeltje, the only way he knows how. To say “this is for you.” To tell her how good she’s been to him, so obedient. To scoff at her rebuttals. To join in her laughter. To tell her things only the hollow in the center of his chest he’d long shouted at have ever heard.

Oh, she doesn’t even need to ask.

The fact dissolves like something bitter turning sweet, sweet, impossibly sweet on his tongue.

She doesn’t need to do much of anything: she just needs to stay.

To forgive his grumbling, his shaking footsteps, his frequent step-backs into a past that has long left him behind. To look back over her shoulder, call out his name in the star-like lilt of her voice, Theo?

And he will give her everything.

---

in the atelier: The Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeer, 1665.

this is just a fun trivia thing, but the title "the Girl with the Pearl Earring" (Meisje met de parel in Dutch) was apparently only given to the painting in 1995. i didn't find what it was called much earlier (it was auctioned somewhere in the Hague in 1881, bought by a private collector), but after it was transferred to the Mauritshuis (also in the Hague) in 1902, it was called "Girl with a Turban" (Meisje met tulband). that's kind of why i decided to go for the more obscure / older name.

#ikevamp theo #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikemen vampire theo #ikevam #ikevam theo #fic #atelier heart #in future tense

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legolaslovely · 4 years ago

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Helios and Morpheus

A/N: Here is my part of our collaboration for the Durin’s Day Gift Exchange for @linane-art ! Thank you for brainstorming with me and being so supportive and patient. You made this even more exciting than I thought it would be, and let me tell YOU, I was thrilled about it all in the first place. I hope you enjoy it. I am so excited to share it! :)

This is somewhat loosely based on Greek Mythology, AKA it’s an Alternate Universe! Rated Gen. Get ready for some LONGING and some FLUFF.

LOOOOOKKKKKKKK AT @linane-art ‘s ARTTTT LOOOOOK AT THE PERFECT BOYSSS!!!! Thank you for giving us SUCH gorgeous works.

The link for Fili is HERE!! And Kili is HERE!! Please go give @linane-art some love!!!!!!

Helios and Morpheus

Tell us of the impossible lovers, O Muse. Those who defied Fates, Furies, and Almighty Zeus, Who found forever hidden in distance between, Paradise more perfect than Elysian serene.

Tell us of Helios, the God of Golden Sun Who rides in his chariot before night’s begun. His radiance shines as he watches and he waits For God of Dreams, Morpheus, to fly from his gates.

Perfumed with his poppies and directives to spare, Roused only by his One with the rays in his hair, Morpheus stars in dreams prophetic and divine, Telling his love in sleep, “You are mine, you’re all mine.”

One alone rules the day as sky’s singular light. Another’s domain lies in the darkness of night. As stubborn as star-crossed, fierce as Cronus, they were, Bridging the cosmos for a love that was most sure.

Book I

To those below and above, he was known as Morpheus. To those around him, however- to his parents and his brothers, the Oneiroi- he was Kíli. To himself, he was a dreamer.

One could suppose that’s how it all began.

From very early on in his eternal life, he was known around the cosmos for his talent of deceit. But the true-hearted Kíli only deluded with his physical appearance. With a bit of concentration and a blink of time, he could shift from his godlike form into any other imaginable. Those below often said that no other was more skilled than he in representing the gait, the features and the speech of men, but little did they realize, Kíli could manifest as much more. Truthfully, he just thought the world of men had very tiny imaginations, even in their dreams.

And so, his talents were put to use. Zeus commended him and dubbed him the leader of the dream makers, called the Oneiroi. He was to spend his nights flying through the world of men, delivering messages from the gods to their pupils through their dreams. Instead of using his skills for amusement, for playing pretend and hiding from his brothers, Kíli- Morpheus- would exhaust himself and his power by playing messenger boy for the King of the Gods.

Still, Kíli learned to have his fun.

You see, though Kíli was explicitly told what message to send to whom, the how was entirely up to him. He could morph into a towering cyclops and poke the belly of his recipient until he listened. He could make a pit stop in the sweetest dream of the prettiest semi-divine woman and make her fall in love with him just before night’s end. He could even visit Hades to make ghost children into brave soldiers, or Hephestus to take a lesson in sword forging. As long as he delivered his messages on time, he had the power to do whatever he wanted.

But it all ended with the rosy-fingered dawn.

Every night had its end. For others, that was a hopeful thought, even a prophetic one, but for Kíli, it just meant he’s run out of time. His freedom was stripped away by the clouds painted orange. For a long while, some thousands of years, he stomped back through his gates like a tantrum struck child, furious at his forced time-out. He’d grunt at the guards and leap over the Rivers of Forgetfulness and Oblivion, and lock himself in his cave to sleep among the poppy seeds until he received the orders for his next outing.

In the recent millennia, however, he’d been risking everything to hide behind the lock of his ivory gate and watch the black night sky lift and glow indigo, then violet. He’d wait to see the golden chariot cross the cosmos, pulling aside the curtain of night to reveal the bright blue day behind it. He’d heard the stories all his life. He knew what happened in the universe that took his time away from him and turned it into day. But he only recently saw the phenomenon for himself and since then, he never wanted to miss the show.

It wasn’t the glittering coat or glistening mane of the thundering horse that he was interested in. It was the one inside the solid gold chariot that first caught his eye. It was Helios, God of Sun, he wanted to watch because, though he was almost blinded by the sunny halo every morning, Kíli was sure Helios was smiling at him.

Book II

Helios was happy. Though others often wondered how he could be.

Those above pitied him for his status. It was unjust for the God of Sun- the deity of something as important as creation, light, and life- to be considered a minor god. He would never see the world below from the peak of Mount Olympus. He couldn’t watch the measly humans through the silver, puffy clouds. Sure, he had his own clouds to peer through way up there on his own throne, but they weren’t as pretty as the ones that surrounded Mount Olympus. Not at all. Helios only had regular clouds. What a shame.

It may have been that those below pitied him even more than the Olympians. Helios was alone. Yes, he had power, eternal youth and breathtaking beauty, but he’d never share any of it with anyone. How sad! To spend the light of day watching the world below, only to be so distant from it. Poor, lonely Helios.

Solitary and depressed, but never forgotten. For who could forget the sun?

In return for his service and out of their pity, the gods above gave him the most beautiful land to shine on and watch over. Artemis kept her trees tall and her meadows vast so long as Helios kept them green. Demeter graced the farmlands, encouraging crops to grow up to the light of his rays. Even Poseidon, grateful for the glimmer of warmth Helios left on his sea, returned the favor and controlled his waves whenever the halo of sun crossed the sky at day’s end. And sometimes, Zeus would throw some thunderbolts and give Helios a day of rest when he especially deserved it after weeks and weeks of impeccable radiation.

Helios was the only being who couldn’t understand the world’s view of him. Between those generous gifts from the higher gods and the worship and prayers from the humans below, how could Helios ever be unhappy? In his opinion, he had it made.

Because he was a minor god, he didn’t have to deal with the problems of Olympus. He was glad the fabricated kidnappings, adulterous adventures, and cannibal snacking rituals were kept way over there on that mountain and his warm, serene hours were spent way over here on his very own throne. He shined his brightest on his own.

Still, that didn’t mean he disliked watching the humans from afar. On the contrary, he adored them.

He smiled down on them as they wept in his name. He peeked through the dreary, grey clouds and gave them warmth as they built his temples stone by stone. Attentively, he watched as they danced and sang for him, begged him for his blessings and thanked him for his creation. In their words, he was gracious. He brought joy to mortals. Again, their words, not his.

He was given all this simply for being beautiful. He was pure light. He ruled the sky for thousands of years and was grateful, never wanting any change.

Then, as randomly as an autumn leaf falls to the ground, his lands brought him something new. Or rather, someone. As Helios crossed the sky and brought the dawn, he looked down on his endless estate and spotted this someone watching him. It was not a farmer, nor a thief or human forced to wake before the day.

Instead, it was clear this Dark One enjoyed the night. He stood unshrinking from the black sky and smiled at Helios, clearing any blame for his bringing the sun. This someone, this Dark One was happy to make his sacrifice to Helios- a ritual the Sun God had never enjoyed until now. Now, it was a gift.

Never in his eternal life had Helios pulled on his steed’s reins to slow the sunrise. It wouldn’t work. His chariot would plow on with its duty with time warping speed, never paying a hair’s attention to the Dark One in the shadows. There was no time. Dawn must come.

With that, Helios crossed the sky, eventually losing sight of his someone below. When he leapt from the gold to gold, from the chariot to his throne, he searched for the Dark One, but his own light stole the shadows and his someone was nowhere to be found. His passing eras slowed to hours. During the time of his reign, he watched the humans find Aphrodite, Hestia, and Hera and when the night came, he himself found his Dark One waiting for him every morning.

Book III

Morpheus had the ability to enter the dreams of any and all. He could punish the dastardly with nightmares so garish and haunting, his victims would change their ways in the morning. Or he could gift the selfless with visions of peace and profit, the lonely with companionship, or the sick with health. Over the span of his existence, he’d delivered messages and prophecies to billions- humans and gods alike.

Tartarus, he could even sneak into Zues’ dreams and feel the power of the King’s Thunder if he felt like it. But Kíli valued his immortality too much for such a thing.

Bottom line: Kíli could visit all who dreamed. Which was everyone. Or so he thought.

It was really just his luck that the one he so wanted to meet- and even eavesdrop on if Kíli was honest- was out of his reach. Contrary to popular belief, the sun never slept and neither did the god who powered it.

He didn’t understand why. What did Helios have to do during the night? Where did the Sun God even go when darkness came? Wasn’t there time for the Golden One to rest?

Kíli was determined to find out.

When darkness came on the Winter Solstice, the longest night, Kíli flew as fast as he could to the dreamers through the lower lands. He delivered a curse here, and a revelation there. Then, dressed in his best disguises, he climbed up to Mount Olympus to greet the two gods he was meant to visit. His foretellings were clear and concise. There was no time for any mix ups or confusions which, despite Kíli’s best intentions, were a common occurrence with drowsy recipients.

After all his duties were finished, he tumbled down to his gate with time to spare. There, hanging onto the delicately etched ivory pillars, he waited alone. The night hours he so treasured ticked slowly past- slower than ever before. More than once he leapt from the ground, wings waving and flapping when he was sure he saw a speck of light coming from the east. But he realized his eyes were only playing tricks on him in his anticipation, and eventual boredom.

Still, he didn’t leave his post.

The sky remained dark for so long, Kíli was sure he’d gone blind trying to make the smallest stars into the golden halo he longed to see. He wondered why nothing was happening, why the blanket above wasn’t lifting to indigo, then violet in preparation for Helios. Had something happened to the Golden One?

He panicked.

It was unbelievable.

For ages, Kíli wished for eternal night and cursed the morning Sun, and now all he wished for was the scalding rays to burn his skin. He’d welcome such a painful end if he could see the Sun God one last time.

Then, there was light.

Real light, nothing Kíli’s eyes or drowsy mind could create. This was it.

His waving wings let him hover just above the ground, his bare toes dipping into the tall grass. He had to be careful, he had to time it right if he wanted a chance to speak to Helios as he crossed the sky and brought the dawn. If his actions weren’t perfect, his flesh would sizzle and leave his bones unsheltered to melt in a matter of seconds. Helios’ light was his end. So he must stay in the shadows.

After such darkness, Kíli could only see a white blur crossing the sky, but after years and years of watching the sunrise, he knew well how Helios’ shining steed cut through the night like a rapier. He raced up to meet it, his every muscle jolting in tandem to flap his wings with enough speed and precision to shoot him to a height that took his breath from his body. There, on the level, he waited.

That was his mistake.

The chariot barreled toward him with such graceful speed, its very own wind left Kíli reeling through the air.

“What are you doing?” He heard.

He found his balance and his rhythm and darted from the heat on his back. It singed the very tip of his wing, but with the breeze of his flight, the fire and pain didn’t travel upwards. So he flew on, grabbing hold of the chariot’s edge.

“No!”

Kíli realized, but it was too late. Of course the gold of the chariot would be as blazing as an open flame. He hissed in pain, but flew on until he matched Helios in his flight.

He called the Sun God’s name, letting it grace his lips for the first time. “Helios!”

“Are you daft?” Helios cried, yanking on his reins with a force that turned his knuckles white, but the horse didn’t slow.

“I’m Morpheus!”

Helios laughed. His eyes sparkled, glittering like the brightest stars in the sky, like the loudest, most dazzling thunderbolt Zues ever threw had been captured inside the golden head of this god.

Kíli knew Helios was beautiful. He knew of the creamy skin, the aureate halo, and the smile as curved and irresistible as cumulus clouds. But he didn’t know of the blue eyes. They struck him and slowed him down.

Still, before he burned, before he circled back and raced to his gates, flying through without a look back, he heard Helios yell something to him. He saw Helios smile at him, as he’d seen every morning for hundreds of years. But this time, his Sun was close enough to touch.

Book IV

Helios’ days were all the same. It was clockwork and routine- the paths he took to and from the farthest corners of Poseidon's ocean, how long the trek took, when and where he’d begin and end. He knew what he’d see along the way. There were never any surprises because nothing was ever different.

At least that was the case until Morpheus loomed by his gate for the first time. His first appearance had been unusual and indeed gave Helios pause at first, but even that had become something expected after thousands of years of his Dark One’s presence.

Morpheus flying to his chariot before dawn, however, that was unexpected. A surprise. Even a fright to Helios that jarred him like nothing else he’d ever experienced. It left him with so many questions. Helios wasn’t used to having any such thing. He was the Sun. He had all the answers. He was the steadiest thing in the cosmos. He was arguably the most dependable god.

But now that Morpheus had flown to him, Helios was unsure. He sat in his throne and glowed dimly over the day, diverting most of his energy to all the questions now crowding his headspace.

Why, he asked.

He’d spent his eternity thus far watching all beings under his light. They were predictable. He was never surprised by their actions. And yet, Morpheus, God of Dreams, left him flabbergasted without a single answer as to why he’d risk his life to speak to a god in the opposite domain. What was the point? What did he want to say? Wasn’t he terrified?

But Helios’ most important question was: Had Morpheus heard him?

He hoped so. For when he wasn’t wondering and pondering, Helios was dreaming. Well, he guessed he was dreaming. He’d heard his humans talk about it in his temples, running to his altar after a night of his blessing their sleep and revealing himself to them in a vision. It was as if they’d truly seen the god, Helios, and had even spoken to him, though it was obvious such a thing was impossible. Helios never strayed from his post.

But he dreamed on with his eyes open and his rays shining. Just before his mind’s eyes were wings twice the size of Morpheus’ body and black as the fur of Cerberus. He even went inside his fantasy and touched the wings with his fingertips, leaving them with what he hoped was a pleasant warmth. As his dream Morpheus leaned into his touch, even closed his eyes to it, Helios’ halo shone ever brighter to the lands below.

Then, as if clouds filled the sky, more questions would clog Helios’ mind and his rays would dim as he asked himself why.

So the day went on, sunlight ebbing and flowing until his steed grew agitated. Sparkling hooves stomped into the ground, the glistening tail swished and the impatient head bobbed, strong neck arching tight in anticipation. Dusk was approaching, as was Helios’ long ride. But even after his exhausting day, he leapt into his chariot, ready to work through until dawn when he’d see his Dark One again.

“Come to me tomorrow,” he’d said.

He hoped it with every glittering speck of himself.

The reflection of his chariot shimmered in the ocean below as he passed through the sky. His steed took him past mount Olympus and over the thatched roofs of Corinth, then Larissa. He passed wide meadows and gentle creeks, waiting patiently for the chance to fly over Morpheus’ gates. Though the Dream World spanned much of the Underworld, Helios knew exactly where the horn entrance would appear at the break of dawn. He knew where Morpheus would be.

Morpheus.

It left the great Sun God trembling, for he was aware of the danger his Dark One faced. If all didn’t unfold perfectly, Morpheus would be no more. And it would be Helios’ fault. Even in all his uncertainty, he was sure of that.

Leaning over the side of his chariot, Helios kept his eyes glued to the ground. He stayed low, remained as dim and cool as he could without giving himself a mortal chill. He waited. All things familiar glowed underneath him until the horn gates of Morpheus’ Dream World glittered in his rays. But Morpheus wasn’t leaning on the post. Instead, he was already flying through the air to meet the chariot. Helios’ gut sunk. His Dark One was wasting his energy. He should have waited!

It was too late now.

As Helios’ golden horse loped on, quickly surpassing Morpheus’ own swift speed, Helios reached out with a cool hand and dragged his Dark One safely into the seat of his chariot. Then he slid to the opposite side, pulling his limbs as far from Morpheus as the chariot allowed.

The two gods stared at each other. Morpheus was squinting at him, even in Helios’ dim light.

“You told me to come back to you,” Morpheus said. “You told me to return at dawn.”

“Yes,” Helios said.

Morpheus scooted closer to him, moving his hand to the back ledge of the chariot to pull himself along. “Why-”

“Don’t!” Helios cried, dragging his Dark One’s hands into his own. “Don’t touch the chariot. It will burn you.”

Morpheus latched onto him. “But you’re not burning me. How is that?”

“It’s only dawn. My rays aren’t as powerful now.”

Morpheus was watching him through narrowed eyes, taking in his every feature as if he’d never seen another being before. Like he’d only ever dreamed them, and never actually saw or touched. It took every bit of Helios’ power not to shrink from his gaze. No one had ever looked so closely at the sun.

Morpheus reached for him and ran his icy fingers around Helios’ ear, tucking his shining hair around it. “You’re so warm.”

“Sorry.”

“No,” Morpheus was quick to say. “It’s pleasant. You feel wonderful.”

Just below them was the shore of the western ocean. Dawn would soon pass into full morning. They didn’t have much time.

“Why did you come? It was dangerous for you,” Helios said. He shifted in his seat to shelter Morpheus from the light creeping up to his back. They were close now, closer than any two opposing gods had ever been.

“I’ve spent so long in the shadows,” Morpheus said. “I wanted to feel your light.”

Helios grinned. Everyone in the cosmos wanted to feel the light of the sun. But he’d keep himself from all the world, he’d let it all freeze over if it meant he could safely shine on his Dark One for the rest of his eternity. Just for a moment, he leaned closer to imagine what it would feel like.

“I wanted to see you, but you don’t sleep!” Morpheus said, bumping the tip of his nose to Helios’ cheek. He jerked away and hissed, rubbing his sizzling face. “You heat up quick,” he laughed.

“You must leave,” Helios said with a wince. “I can’t slow the dawn.”

“I know. But here, take this.” Morpheus reached to the nape of his neck and untied the sticky stem of a single poppy from his hair. He placed it in Helios’ hand and folded his fingers around it. “Tomorrow when the moon rises, I want you to smell this. It’s one of mine. Bring it up to your nose and take a deep breath. Think of me and I will come to you in your dreams.”

“I’ve never dreamt anything before. I’ve never even slept.”

Morpheus reached for him, but stopped himself before he could touch Helios’ scalding skin. He closed his eyes to the blinding shine. “Then I’ll fly to your chariot every day at dawn.”

“No. It’s not safe for you.” The poppy was wilting in Helios’ hand without its maker. “I’ll do as you said. As long as you will come to me.”

“I swear it. There’s no place else I’d rather be.” One eye creaked open and Morpheus smiled before it clamped shut again. “You sure are bright.”

“You must go.”

His black wings rose above the chariot and opened like wide wooden doors before Morpheus blindly leapt from Helios’ side and dove to his gates. There, he disappeared before Helios’ own rays could burn his flesh.

As the Sun God was delivered to his throne, he held tight to his poppy and dreamed with his eyes open about what the night would bring.

Book V

It was rumored Morpheus’ wings had the strength of a thousand soldiers. Though the feathers were lush and silky, the arching bones crowning the tops- extensions of his own spine- were not to be trifled with. How else would he fly through the cosmos from city to city and even to Mount Olympus to deliver himself to the dreams of his recipients? The wings were so robust, so legendary, and yet his flight was as silent as an owl’s, for what good were they if they woke his dreamers?

Tonight, however, his wings were still. He had his scroll, his list of messages to deliver and beings to visit, but instead of rushing out of his gates to tend to his duties, he stood just past the lock to his Dream World. For the first time in his endless existence, he didn’t know where to go.

His most important dreamer didn’t have a regular resting place. As far as Kíli knew, Helios traveled in his chariot all through the night, distributing his light around the universe. It would be impossible to pinpoint his exact location, never mind catch up with the soaring chariot. The only thing Kíli could do was wait to be summoned.

Still, Kíli couldn’t even be sure Helios would be able to dream, or even sleep for that matter. His poppies worked wonders on ailing humans, but he’d never offered one to a god before. It was forbidden by Zues. As was his and Helios’ affair. He knew they were treading a very dangerous path.

Usually, Kíli would be terrified of Zues. He would hide in the shadows of his Dream World, only emerging from it to take orders from the King of the Gods. He’d take his notes with his head down and wings wilted, never quite looking the Maker of Thunder in the eye. Every interaction made him quiver down to his soles.

Now, however, with Helios in his sights, he wasn’t scared. It was as if he had a secret weapon that left him powerful and fearless against anyone who stood in the way of him finding his very own Sun. Nothing mattered beyond his One who glowed and lit up the sky, bringing hope to all in his domain. Kíli felt that now.

So he stood at his gates, daring Zues to threaten him or his love and hoping with every inch of himself that his poppy would work. He waited for Helios’ call.

He closed his eyes to listen.

The wind rustled in the grass and tickled his feet. A cat yowled in the dark. The warm stuffy silence of night muddled his mind.

Then all was clear. When he opened his eyes, Helios was in his arms, asleep.

His plan had worked.

As expected, the Sun God was warm. Kíli had felt this kind of residual heat before when he entered the dreams of sleeping humans who were wrapped up in too many quilts during the night. However, this kind of warmth wasn’t so oppressive. Instead, it was a balmy comfort that washed over his lap and up his arms. Kíli, the God of Dreams who only came out at night, was feeling the Sun for the first time.

Meanwhile, Helios, who never slept and never left his post, conquered his fears and did so for Kíli. He was peaceful. The poppy had worked and it had given him rest. That knowledge only added to the rush Kíli was feeling in his chest as he pulled Helios closer, protecting him, lest he regret placing his trust in his Dark One.

Though Helios was not shining, not even glowing, Kíli was still stunned by his beauty. It wasn’t dull or dimmed in the night, but magnified. This close and without his rays, Kíli could see his true beauty- the lines in his lips from his own heat and those around his eyes left by his gleaming grin. Even now, in sleep, Helios smiled and Kíli didn’t miss the dimples in his cheeks and how the left one was deep enough to cradle the tip of his forefinger.

Kíli took this chance to touch the god, not to take advantage of him, but to appreciate him while there was time to be had, while he was unwatched. He ran his fingers through the silky golden hair, down the strong neck and over the proud, smooth shoulders. It electrified him like the night air never could. Then, after what felt like hours of staring and contemplation, Kíli even dared to kiss his Sun’s head. His lips lingered over the warm skin as he held Helios tight to his chest.

With that, Helios sighed. “Where am I?” he asked, working to focus his gaze on the one above him.

“You are in the arms of Morpheus,” Kíli said, smiling down on him. “Which is to say, you are asleep.”

“Morpheus.” Helios wriggled closer, wrapping his arms around any part of Kíli he could reach. “If this is a dream, then let it never end. There’s nowhere else I wish to be.”

Kíli hummed. “You’ve come over to the dark side then, hm?”

“If that’s where you are, yes. I’ll follow you there.”

Like most things in the world of the gods, Kíli’s flowers affected all beings differently. He was happy enough that Helios had fallen asleep at all, so he couldn’t blame the virgin dreamer for his honeyed state. If Kíli was honest with himself, he didn’t at all mind his Sun’s sweet words, though he knew they were coaxed out by the power of his poppy.

Helios sighed again. “I’d follow you anywhere.”

“You’re quite the romantic in your dreams,” Kíli said.

Helios grinned. It was bright enough to make Kíli’s heart soar, but not to blind him as it had when they shared the sky.

“Have I won you over, then?” Helios asked.

“Do you think I’d risk my life just to speak with you if you hadn’t already?”

“Twice!” Helios said with a wagging finger. “You did it twice.”

“Yes, I did. And I’ll do it again every morning hence if it will allow me the privilege of holding you again.”

The Sun God let his head flop on Kíli’s arm. “Now who’s playing the romantic?”

Kíli would do anything to see those blue eyes more clearly, but as Helios talked on, his lids fluttered shut, lashes feathering against his cheeks.

“I must have- had too much of the poppy. I did as you said, but the first… it didn’t do anything. I needed to see you, so I...” He laughed. “And now I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

Kíli caressed his cheek. “It’s all right. You can relax, I’ll be here.”

Immediately, the Sun turned to sand in Kíli’s arms, burying his forehead in his Dark One’s chest. Again, Kíli felt immeasurable pride. One of the most important beings in the cosmos allowed himself to be cradled and cared for by him. It made him return to his earlier wishes of wanting the night to last forever.

“Morpheus-”

“Call me Kíli.” He smoothed the line between Helios’ brows with his thumb as he explained, “It’s the name my mother gave me. Only when Zues gave me the Oneiroi, did he give me the name Morpheus as well.”

“But that’s not who you are.”

“No.”

Helios said his name. His real name. A lazy tongue flicked its way through the consonants and soft lips curled around the sounds with a smile. Then Helios said it again. “Kíli.” He leaned into Kíli’s night-cool touch that grazed the rounds of his golden cheeks and the cliffs of his thick brow. It rumpled as he said, “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t empower the sun. I’ve always been in the sky. Alone.”

“Not anymore,” Kíli said.

Helios hummed and sighed and sank further into Kíli’s arms as if the disease of his loneliness- an ailment he never knew he had- was cured irrevocably. “Kíli. If you are Kíli, then I must be someone as well. Give me a name, Kíli.”

“Your name is perfect just the way it is.”

He opened his eyes. “But it wasn’t given to me by anyone who matters.” For the first time, Helios reached up to Kíli and stroked his cheek. The touch was long overdue, but Kíli could forgive it because of the tenderness it evoked. He leaned into it, distantly listening as Helios continued. “Call me Fíli. Similar and yet opposite, just as we ourselves are. I’ll be your Fíli.”

Kíli snorted. “I should call you ‘Silly’ instead-”

He squeezed Kíli’s arm and chuckled. “Just give me this.”

Kíli wasn’t in a state to deny him anything. He’d fallen too far too quickly for such things. So he nodded.

“Will you give me something else?”

“Anything.”

Ever so gently, Helios- Fíli- led Kíli’s lips down to his own. Kíli gave him his kiss. In one moment everything between them changed. The cosmos parted and opened the way to a new universe of their own, one in which they could live in harmony and without fear, pain, or isolation. After millenia of giving- Fíli giving life and Kíli giving fantasy- they together stole it all for themselves. They gave each other the impossible.

But Kíli felt himself begin to fade.

Fíli held onto him like a stubborn serpent.

“Don’t leave me,” Fíli said against his lips.

“I won’t. It’s you who are leaving me.”

“No.”

Kíli chuckled and his cool air blew over Fíli’s face, making him shiver. “It’s not your fault. You’re waking up.”

“Stop me.”

“I can’t. Not even you can slow the dawn. But we have forever now, Fíli.”

Fíli kissed him again. Even on the edge of his dream, the sun inside him was rising, leaving his flesh hot in Kíli’s arms. He would be untouchable in a matter of minutes.

“Will you come to me again?”

“Every night,” Kíli assured, risking his fingers to feel Fíli’s smoldering cheek once more. “And I will wait at my gates for you every morning.”

“Not for too long, Kíli. I won’t have you scorching your wings again.”

“You’re starting to sound more like yourself,” Kíli said with a scoff.

Fíli smiled. “I’m still your Fíli. And there’s still nowhere else I’d rather be than here in your arms. But you’re right, we both must go.”

Yet Fíli’s only movement was to kiss his Dark One again. Then he watched until Kíli was a blur in the darkness.

Book VI

When Fíli opened his eyes, he was in his chariot. From the look of the waving blue mountains ahead, he could tell his nightly quest was about halfway through, meaning his trusted steed hadn’t even noticed his mind’s absence. After all, the horse knew the route as well as he did. It was an encouraging display that simultaneously left him bitter with disappointment. While it was made clear he’d be able to remain in Kíli’s Dream World for longer nights in the future, it only reminded him how short tonight’s visit had been.

He didn’t want to wait- not for the day to pass or even the night hours to fade before he could see his Dark One again from high above. But alas, even Zues himself suffered from such impatience for not even the King of the Gods could accelerate time.

What did comfort Fíli, however, was Kíli’s love of the night. Though Fíli was bored by its boring darkness, his love- yes, his love- relished his freedom under the starry sky. It was his time to thrive. Fíli could imagine him, dream of him flying through the cosmos as he leaned back in the seat of his chariot. Maybe one night, the two would cross paths, he thought.

But when he wriggled down into his seat, something crunched. It set off a familiar smell. He reached up, startled to feel something in his own hair, and gently pulled at not one, but three poppies that were neatly tied and tangled together. Kíli must have left them in his golden waves just before he faded away from the dream. Rolling the stems in his fingers, Fíli smiled, bringing too high a dawn for the middle of the night. But he couldn’t help it. These were a promise from Kíli for more nights like this one in a universe of their own.

They’d make a life for themselves in the short hours before dawn. Helios and Morpheus, known to only themselves as Fíli and Kíli, would love for eternity.

#fiki #Durin's Day Gift Exchange #durin's day 2020 #DDGE 2020 #greek mythology

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fnlrndcllctv · 4 years ago

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THE YEAR IN FIGHTING GAMES: 1994

As the original release of Street Fighter II turns 30 this year, we are taking a look at the landscape of fighting games between 1991 and 2021 on a year by year basis!

This week, Shaun Eddleston takes a look at 1994…

1994 was an eventful year for video games.

Nintendo was starting to wind down on its production of NES games, while celebrating the success of games such as Super Metroid and Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo. SEGA’s Sonic The Hedgehog series was going strong with Sonic The Hedgehog 3, and games such as DOOM II and Warcraft were making their way onto computers all across the world.

It was also a year where Germany placed Mortal Kombat II on its index of media works deemed harmful to young people by Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons effectively banning the game from sale in the country (and remained that way all the way up to 2005!).

Let’s take a look at 1994 in fighting games...

One of the more obscure Neo Geo titles, Aggressors Of Dark Kombat (known as Tsuukai GANGAN Koushinkyoku in Japan) was an interesting title that felt like a bit of an experiment in the genre. The game’s movement feels more like it would fit into your standard beat ‘em up game such as Final Fight and Streets Of Rage, and even drops weapons into the stage for fighters to use.

The game also includes a fun comeback mechanic, the “GAN GAN attack”, which kicks in once a player’s health bar drops below a certain point, and their power bar is full. Once one of these mega attacks connects with an opponent, the player automatically wins the round.

Art of Fighting 2 continues the story that kicked off in the previous year’s entry, as we immediately learn that the identity of Yuri’s kidnapper, the tengu masked Mr Karate, is none other than Takuma Sakazaki, Yuri and Ryo’s father. This is all part of a much bigger criminal plot that ends up being spearheaded by a certain young crime lord from another popular SNK fighting title…

As for the game itself, almost every aspect of the Art Of Fighting experience was rebuilt and polished. The character sprites and stage art looked better, and a new “Rage” gauge mechanic was introduced into the mix. All of the game’s characters are immediately playable in arcade mode, and each have their own specific dialogue when interacting with other fighters.

The first 3D weapons-based fighting game was also one of the earlier releases on the Sony PlayStation, and was poised to be the game that would “outshine” the impressiveness of Virtua Fighter’s groundbreaking graphics.

While it didn’t quite beat out SEGA’s franchise, Battle Arena Toshinden still had a couple of interesting aspects to it that are still worth mentioning today.

First of all, it is arguably the first “true” 3D fighting game, as it included the ability to side-step or dodge roll during a fight. This meant that the act of avoiding projectiles now had more options outside of blocking the hit or jumping over it, giving the game a little more depth (both mechanically and visually).

Thanks to the newly opened up 3D movement, ring outs are also possible in the game, where players can lose a round by simply falling off the side of the stage. This is an element that many gamers see as a bit of a cop out during a fight, but I personally see it as a fun way to humiliate opponents and even bring overly confident fighters back down to earth.

Capcom’s massive success with Street Fighter II was one of the most important moments in video game history, and the game was still going incredibly strong since its release 3 years prior (including this year, which we’ll touch on later in the article). There was a big question that lingered though; what non-Street Fighter fighting game would Capcom bring to the table next?

That game was Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors.

Darkstalkers wasn’t a million miles away from Street Fighter II in terms of gameplay. It utilised the same six-button L/M/H attack layout, and even used a Super Gauge that would be shared with the series.

The main strength of Darkstalkers that set it apart from its more famous older cousin, and that was its characters and theme. Instead of a tournament of worldwide fighters that many 2D fighting games utilised, Darkstalkers took inspiration from classic horror movies from the Universal era and offered a cast of 10 fighters that range from werewolves, sasquatches and vampires to Egyptian mummies, zombies and a Frankenstein’s monster for good measure.

A spooky cult favourite!

1993’s Fighters History was a controversial entry in the fighting game genre. Not necessarily because of any violent content or especially iffy storyline, but for just how similar the game was to Street Fighter II. It was so similar, in fact, that Capcom attempted to sue Data East for just how much of a shameless ripoff the game was.

Capcom wasn’t successful with the lawsuit, and Data East went forward with a sequel, Fighters History Dynamite.

The game, perhaps more commonly known in some places as “Karnov’s Revenge”, added more characters (including the game’s boss fighters, Karnov and Clown) to the playable roster and spruced up the game's stage backgrounds.

Other than the slightly expanded range of fighters, and a hilarious hidden character to discover, not a lot else has changed from the first title, and still feels like it can’t shake off the original comparison that it got into trouble for.

Many 2D games up to this point were trying to mimic Street Fighter and Fatal Fury’s cartoonish graphics, there wasn’t really anything outside of Mortal Kombat’s digitised graphics that truly felt “next-gen” going into the middle of the decade.

Enter Killer Instinct.

While Rare as a developer was having a fantastic year already, with the success of Battletoads and Donkey Kong Country leaving long lasting impressions on the industry, their fighting game was a revelation in arcades, bringing a mix of 2D gameplay on 3D stages, strong bloody violence and a ridiculous new combo system to the table.

The characters were memorable, the animated FMV sequences were jawdropping to watch, and witnessing the game announce blare out “ULTRA COMBO!” whenever someone nailed a particularly savage sequence of hits just felt right.

Why not check out our thoughts on the game’s “killer” soundtrack?

Inspired by the popularity of Ryo Sakazaki (Art Of Fighting’s main protagonist) and his appearance as a guest character in Fatal Fury Special in 1993, SNK decided to go all out and start a crossover fighting series that brought together characters from their library of past games.

The game, named after the fighting tournament in Art Of Fighting and Fatal Fury, allows players to choose from a selection of 3-member teams that have been designated to different countries of the world, and matches revolve around an elimination system. In addition to a selection of original new characters, KOF ‘94 mixed together the Ikari Warriors, Psycho Soldier, Art Of Fighting and Fatal Fury franchises to fill out one of the largest fighting game rosters around at this point.

The game’s music is the subject of our very first entry in the Soundtrack Sunday series, so check it out!

Of the slew of games that took direct inspiration from Mortal Kombat, very few actually left a lasting impression.

One of the exceptions to this was Primal Rage, which saw stop motion dinosaurs and prehistoric apes duke it out for supremacy in the new “Urth”.

The game, which also took inspiration from Taito’s Dino Rex from 1992, caused its own controversy with one of its fatalities. In 1996, a woman from Arizona said that her 11 year old son had bought the game, and used a strategy guide to execute the “Golden Shower” fatality (in which, as the title suggests, the character Chaos urinates all over the corpse of an opponent). She flipped out and started a grass-roots campaign against Primal Rage, which resulted in some US stores withdrawing copies of the game, including the already-censored SNES version, which didn’t even contain the offending move.

The game was also successful with its merchandise, and saw a line of toys and a board game to accompany it.

The first Samurai Shodown game was, and still is, one of the finest fighting games of the early 90’s, so SNK had a huge task on their hands when it came to creating a sequel.

With Samurai Shodown 2, they absolutely knocked it out of the park in pretty much every aspect. All of the sprites of the characters who reappeared from the first game had been completely remade, a bunch of new characters had been added in, everyone got amazing new moves and a number of new game mechanics were also introduced to make the game feel much more balanced and fun to play.

One of these new mechanics was the “Weapon break” system, which meant that if a player got hit with a particularly powerful attack, there was now a chance that it would knock their weapon clean out of their hands, leaving them unarmed until it was recovered. The sheer panic of scrambling to pick up your sword while the opponent is slashing away at you is a thrill that still feels as effective today as it did back then.

Street Fighter II’s reign as king of the arcade fighting games was starting to wind down by 1994, so the game saw a final upgrade in the form of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which added more game speeds, new animations and moves for all of the characters, a new “SUPER” gauge system and the introduction of a hidden character that would quickly become one of the franchise’s most recognisable fighters; Akuma!

While many more casual players may not have felt the real impact of these changes (this was the third update in as many years since the original release), it remains as the “definitive” version of Street Fighter II, and is still used in tournaments to this day.

Developed by Namco (and ported to PlayStation in 1995), Tekken took the 3D fighting style that was pioneered by 1993’s Virtua Fighter, and added its own spin on things in regards to the control system.

Instead of using the traditional fighting game inputs that corresponded to the strength of the attacks, Tekken utilised a system that dedicates a button to each individual limb of the fighter. In doing this, the game became more of a learning process for players that wanted to do special moves and combos. This departure was so innovative, that experienced players could now figure out special moves by studying the fighters limb movements during their animations.

Known briefly as “RAVE WAR” during its beta test stage, Tekken quickly found itself as one of the most popular PlayStation games in history, and became the first game to sell over a million copies for the console.

Take a look at our thoughts about the game’s soundtrack!

Virtua Fighter was an incredibly important moment in gaming, so following up with a sequel that lived up to its predecessor was absolutely vital for SEGA.

Luckily, with Virtua Fighter 2, they managed to not only surpass the first game in the way it looked, but how it played too. Improved movesets ramped up how authentic each individual martial arts/fighting style felt, and with things running at 60FPS in the arcade version, the game felt like it was miles ahead of its competition.

The third entry in the World Heroes series was yet another improvement on the games that preceded it, but considering the sheer amount of solid competition it was facing in 1994, it still fell to the wayside.

The game added two new fighters and added a brand new boss to face off against, but things were starting to feel somewhat dated with the series now, and it suffered as a result.

While there were many action-adventure and side-scrolling beat-’em-ups based on characters from the Marvel universe, it wasn’t until the early 90’s until we got a fully fledged fighting game. It only made sense that Capcom, one of the heaviest hitters in the genre at the time stepped forward to fix this.

Released in arcades in late 1994, X-Men: Children of the Atom established what would become a beloved and fruitful relationship between Capcom and Marvel, and laid the foundations for the successful “Vs.” series that fighting game fans have played for nearly 25 years now.

The game is loosely based on 1993’s “Fatal Attractions” storyline, in which Magneto and his Acolytes return to confront the X-Men, tempting Professor Xavier to cross a moral line to stop them. It’s a pretty insane storyline with some fairly gnarly imagery (one such example sees Wolverine getting the adamantium ripped out of his skeleton!), and the good vs. evil dynamic lends itself perfectly to the setting of an arcade fighting game.

1994’s entries in the genre saw developers starting to take full advantage of the new 3D graphics that SEGA introduced with Virtua Fighter in the wake of a new console generation, while 2D fighting games kept on coming hard and fast to try and best Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat’s popularity.

Join us next week as we take a look at the games of 1995!

Did we miss anything from 1994 that’s worth mentioning?

Let us know in the comments below!

#Aggressors Of Dark Kombat #Art Of Fighting 2 #Battle Arena Toshinden #Darkstalkers #Fighter's History Dynamite #Killer Instinct #The King Of Fighters '94 #Primal Rage #Samurai Shodown 2 #Super Street Fighter II Turbo #Tekken #Virtua Fighter 2 #World Heroes 2 Jet #X-Men: Children Of The Atom #Capcom #Namco #SNK #1994

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toku-explained · 4 years ago

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The Sword's Shadow

Heroes Odyssey: Not likely to cover every episode, but will cover this episode a little. Zero is talking about people, villains and defenders across the universes. All the heroes I saw listed below, but on with the episode. Zero still not admitting Zero is his apprentice, come on dude. Okay, Zero is talking like the events of Z are still ongoing here. I might not talk about this much until nearer the end, we'll see.

Hayata, Dan, Go, Seiji, Misuzu, Gen, Choichiro, Yamato-sensei, Ryoko, Scott, Chuck and Beth, Jack, Kai, Spark Lens, Reflasher, Gamu, Fujimiya, Katsuto, Genki, Seven 21's girl disguise, Ginga, Musashi, Julie, Maki, Himeya, Komon, Kaito, Serizawa, Sakomizu, Mirai, Jin, Rei, Ran, Nao, Taiga, Hikaru, Shou, Daichi, Gai, Riku, Leito, Asahi, Isamu, Kataumi, Hiroyuki, STORAGE, Haruki. So a couple of oddities, specifically the use of Misuzu instead of Kotaro, the not using Asuka even though Tsuruno Takeshi is definitely not a problem like Nagano Hiroshi's agency is, never mind I have learnt some stuff, and using all 3 of Zero's hosts and only one of Nexus' (counting The Next and Noa as separate). There's also stuff like not using Tsubasa, Amui or Yuuto or Tomoya, or not using Kazamori even though they used Jim, but that's less weird really. Okay

The Absolute Conspiracy: We're now set between Zero & Z Voice Drama and Z itself. In Tartarus' relative past he brought Reibatos to Future Earth, where he revives Bat Seijin. Bat Seijin concluded that with a heart Zetton could defeat the Ultra heroes, creating Uchu Kyoju Majin Zett. Later, the Tri Squad train on Planet Maijii, a high gravity world where Taiga and Titas had trained before meeting Fuma, when Zett appears. Taiga and Titas recognised him from when they faced another version on U40 and sealed him, probably referencing a Voice Drama scenario. Zett summons the Zetton Army, two regular Zettons, 2 Hyper Zetton, EX Zetton and, a modification of a Baltan Zetton fusion from around the same time as Zett on stage, Zetton Falx. The team struggles against them. At Ayaka City Ultrawoman Grigio is still fighting on behalf of her brother's against Zandrias and Noiseler, managing to drive them off. Zero arrives to recruit her, Grigio mentioning her brothers are helping in the hunt to stop Devil Splinters. Tartarus arrives on U40, noting it will be a problem for him one day. Joneus' quickly appears and Tartarus challenges him. After determining he will be a threat, Tartarus leaves, Zero arriving right after to ask for his help. The Tri-Squad continue to struggle against the Zetton Army until the sudden arrival of Galaxy Rescue Force members Andro Melos and Ultraman Ribut.

Saber: Is the rooftop near Fantastic Bookstore Kamiyama? I thought of it as being like, Kento's place, but we're still using it so I don't know. Mei's editor is now a Yeti Megiddo. Yuri has been in Avalon for a thousand years it seems, doesn't like the comic SwordXMan, which seems like he might be making a comment on the show itself? Anyway, we're finally going to Southern Base. A reminder to the fandom that the fact to us Reika is clearly evil, or at least lying, doesn't make the fact the Northern Base members took her statements at face value contrived. Rintaro is incapable of seeing flaws within Sword of Logos due to his past, but at the same time wants to believe in Touma, while Ren is against Touma for believing Kamijo about the traitor given Kamijo killed Kento. Ogami and Daishinji don't really know what's true, but will follow Reika's instructions for now. Yuri seems... intrigued? Confused? By Legeiel...have they met, or does he know Legeiel as someone else? Okay, defeating Yuki-san's Megiddo form seems to part complete the new Alter Book she's using, or rather it's just time spent, if it completes she'll be gone. In the next battle Yuri demonstrates his next ability as Saikou, producing Shadow to fight with.

Kiramager: More focus in finding the last Kanaema Stone, and what is up with Takamichi and Garza? Oh, Illusia, that's what. I knew the mention of a crescent would tie into Garza somehow. Takamichi has unresolved issues with Garza, brought about by Oradin interrupting the last Graduel, in a way Mabusheena doesn't. And yeah, that Garza was trying to kill him I suspected. Garza symbolically destroys the image Takamichi has of him ever being a loving uncle. Yodonna gets away with Illusia.

Dogengers: Yabai Kamen declares to the assembled members of AHK that with the treasure he has acquired, a Golden Seal, they will end the era of the heroes. In Fukuoka City Tanaka Jiro watches the news, which is interrupted by Shaberryman, who announces he is on the run from heroes, specifically Fukuokaken Fukuokaliber, a wielder of two swords and the politest hero in Fukuoka. Fukuokaliber had been active for 8 years, and Dogengers is the debut of his new costume, indeed the promo images all use the original. The hero asks Kitaqman for help, but he's too busy showing off a drink on his blog, Shaberryman then runs into workers for Yahata Construction, including the boss, along with their hero, Tengen no Yusha El Brave, a masked wrestler who now fights as a hero, El Brave is completely resistant to the attacks, and is aided by the workers in fighting off Shaberryman, who bemoans the company finances going down the drain when he's interrupted by the Yamashiro Gas Co. Sales Department Hero Division, Redron, Aoiron and Daidairon. Redron is polite and a little naive, Aoiron has something of a cool image and Daidairon is the curry lover. Yamashiro Gas Co. is actually based in Saga Prefecture, but has offices in Fukuoka. With permission from the company, the three are able to combine into Yamashiron, and defeat Shaberryman, and the crowds celebrate the heroes. Tanaka admires the heroes' strength. He's talking with his childhood friend, Yuki, who he last saw 17 years ago when he moved to Tokyo, they're making plans to meet soon. Both make use of Hero related stickers. On Nokonoshima Island the heroes are filming Hero House, during which we see Kitaqman's Kitaq Machine. The girls seem to be having fun. On the ferry back to the mainland to get lunch, as they arrive the city is attacked, and they're soon confronted by Yabai Kamen, some Karami, as well as the Arakuremono thugs who support the two members of Marou Project, Marou Kaijin Gulf and Marou Kaijin Gallia. Marou just means Evil Wolf, Gulf is the elder brother with an Osaka accent who loves to fight, Gallia is the cuter younger brother with a Tokyo accent. As Yabai Kamen demonstrates his power, explaining he took the chance to invade while they were on Nokonoshima, the heroes evacuate those nearby to the island before confronting the villains, but Yabai Kamen demonstrates his power further. Tanaka finds himself at the scene of the battle, watching. The heroes are able to defeat the Karamis, but Gulf and Gallia demonstrate they're also stronger, wiping the heroes out. Tanaka, remembering his childhood, tries to stand up against the villains, but his heroic speech never makes it out if his imagination, Yabai Kamen does offer him membership as an Arakuremono. Sending the Marou's off, he tells Tanaka he's Fukuoka's last hero, and gloats, before the arrival of Ohgaman, who swiftly defeats the Karami with his thermometer projectiles, leaving him ready to challenge Yabai Kamen one on one.

#toku explained #kiramager #ultra galaxy fight #kamen rider saber #dogengers

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peaches-of-1 · 6 years ago

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Training: Golden Dicks Award (pt 2)

And we’re back. My mstrlst is in my bio, so you can catch up there. Also I reblogged it before posting this, so you can just scroll down a bit. This is shorter than the first part.

All the usual warnings apply: Voyerism, orgy, lesbian sex, blood mention, chastity, hypnotism.

If you want something specific tagged, lemme know!

After eating what could be categorized as dinner, you put yourself together again. There’d be a rush at intermission, but you were ready as your hypnosis went deeper. Apparently, you had called out some of your owners’ names instead of the one given to you to say. So you were given more layers a sleep. A fog would permanently be in your mind.

“Alligator”

“Crocodile”

Intermission. First was half of one of the larger groups. Then the second half. No time for clean up. You weren’t sure if they had used your ass or not. They liked your lap dances more and parading you around than actual sex.

Third group during intermission wanted you clean, so a quick shower with lots of help. Then you were dried off. They wanted a fashion show first.

Blue see through pants with a bikini top. Then a slutty schoolgirl outfit featuring a micro skirt that showed off your ass. You felt the semen shifting inside. Nothing but pearls were your next outfit. They were cascading off of every body part.

“Sit on my lap, beautiful.”

“Yes, sir.” I was to call them sir.

This blonde haired one was all muscle, his thighs were strong and firm. He hugged you around the waist. The other gave lust filled grins.

“[Redacted] was right about you, cutie. You look good in everything, so fuckable.” The smaller one was to your left and he scratched your chin.

Their tall and pale member kissed up your legs as the one hugging your waist kissed your neck. The one on your right was also quite muscular, and his lips were very adorable. The three others were looking for your next outfit. The one they would fuck you in.

“They said you can take anything.” Baby lips said.

“I can, sir.” You replied. “I’ll do anything you want me to.”

Dimples came out with Smiley and Legs. Your brain had given them secondary names to make sure you could tell one from the other. Legs was the only rapper wearing shorts. IT seems they went for more of a school boy uniform this era.

It was Smiley who held up the pink latex dress up and said to get ready quickly. How much time had passed? Had they already performed? Was that why they were taking their time?

Either way, you changed into the tight and bright outfit, and went back out to see them.

“Fuck…” Dimples said and licked his lips. “Nice choice [redacted].”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

They all turned to the smaller one, saying he got to give the first orders. He wanted a tit job, so you got on your knees in front of him. Sir pulled out his cock, and you began rubbing it with your latex covered tits.

“Oh god, [redacted] was right!” His voice shot up to his higher octaves. “Holy shit.”

“Wow, hyung” said the lanky and pale member. “She’s that good, huh?”

He grinned, “Oh, yeah. It feels good.”

The other men started rubbing themselves. You focused on your breasts and the dick between them. You stuck your tongue out and touched the tip to it.

Legs asked, “Cutie, how many times has cum gone in your ass?”

“I...I don’t know.” It upset you a bit. “I was supposed to get 7, but so many, and I’m not sure. At least 5?”

He scratched your scalp, “It’s ok if you don’t remember. It sorta got messy, huh?”

You nodded and thought to yourself how much of an understatement that was.

“I think you should get this thing off. You’ve worked so hard. [Redacted] himself even tried to break you.”

“He’s got a harem, I’m pretty sure.” Smiley said.

You spoke, “I have to be sure, though.”

“Don’t worry.” The oldest said. “You will be.”

The muscly one from earlier added, “We’ll top you off.” His voice came from behind you.

You dress had rolled up to your waist and he unplugged you. It came out like a waterfall. It made your cheeks warm for such a thing to have occurred.

“Well…” He said. “More than 7.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

He shook his hand, “I guess we don’t need lube, then.”

Strong hands grabbed your waist and he lined his cock up to plunge inside you. You moaned and wanted to giggled because he rolled your dress back down. Why? It didn’t matter.

“Oh, I’m gonna cum~” the man in front said. “Open up.”

You parted your lips and stuck out you tongue even further. Sir slid inside and thrust his hips. You were being spit roasted by physical opposites, and it was quite entertaining. As he came in your mouth, two more replace it. The lanky one and Smiley’s.

How many cocks had been shoved down your throat tonight? Even more had been simply sucked on by your golden lips. Was it because it couldn’t reach your throat? Maybe. Maybe it’s just cuz they liked head better. You’d never tell mostly because they’d be nonexistent memories by this time tomorrow.

“Having fun, pup?” A familiar voice asked.

“O…oppa?” Command 16.3a.

“That’s right, pup.”

You heard his footsteps come closer, and you were made to stand up. His face was the only one you saw clearly. Yoongi. Your heart leapt, but you also felt embarrassed. You were so dirty.

He smiled, “Did you miss me?”

Your whole body reached out to hug him. He laughed a bit and kissed your lips. You were so hungry for his kiss, his touch, his everything.

Yoongi smiled, “Calm down, pup.” He looked into your eyes and then sunk to his knees. “Since you’ve been such a good little puppy, your belt is coming off.”

He unlocked it and chuckled at how wet you were, and then he placed it on the side. Your oppa kissed you again.

“I’m about to perform, so I gotta go. Have fun, darling.”

As he turned around, everything went foggy again.

Sir Legs grabbed you and threw you on the bed, “Sorry for being so rough, cutie, but I am gonna be the first to claim that pussy tonight.”

You spread your legs wide open, “Hurry~Sir~”

He growled and began fucking your dripping we pussy. You whole body shivered and you moaned so loudly. It was more like a scream to be honest.

“Fuck~yesssss~”

“And I’ll be the second.” Baby lips said as he slipped into you as well.

It felt like you would foam at the mouth with how good your body felt. A vibrating egg was shoved into your ass. Tears filled your eyes as cock was jammed down your throat as well. You couldn’t tell what was happening beyond the ballsack dangling in front of your face and hitting your nose with every thrust.

Bedsheet was balled up in your hands. You felt like you were gonna die like this. You clawed at the body on top of your own, begging Sir to go deeper. Probably drawing blood as fireworks went off behind your eyes. You clamped down on every cock inside of you as your back arched as much as it could.

Cock slid out of your mouth just to be pounded back in. You gagged as you climaxed, making it feel as though you were floating. They came as yours was just starting to end. You were slathered in their cum. Buckets was an understatement. The others had been rubbing themselves with their hands and quickly replaced all the cocks in your holes. They came so soon after.

The waves of pleasure was still being ridden. Heavy panting surrounded your spasming body. Their cum flowed out of all your holes. You couldn’t tell who hugged you and comforted you until you heard a sound like the crumpling of paper. Condom wrapper? Command 1.2 Soft Reset. All of your muscles began to relax and your consciousness began to slip.

“I’ll take care of her.” Jihye said. “You’re needed in the green room.”

You served a group of Gen 1 idols and then more girls. More outfits. Korean school girl uniform and riding the tip of a super expensive dress shoe. She was so pretty and so sexy dressed in a tight black skirt and white dress shirt with the top three unbuttoned to show off her lacy black bra.

“I changed out of my heels for this, so do better.”

“Yes, ma’am!” you moaned and started working harder.

She had said you weren’t allowed to cum until she gave you permission. Even though this was her show costume, she used it for immersion. You were going crazy trying to hold on since you hadn’t cum since eight people ago.

Your teacher sighed, “I just wanna make a cute girl squirt over my shoes. Is that too much to ask?” Then she held your face to look at her tanned and dark lipped face. “Beg for me.”

“Please, ma’am. Please let me cum! I can’t hold--ahhh. I’ll do anything. Just let me cum. Please. Please. Please. Please ma’am. Please.”

She smirked, “Cum for me.”

You gripped the chair and squirted hardcore. It became even more intense when she said a cue word. You were yourself with your eyes shut tight. It felt as though you were on fire even though you were soooo wet. You rested your head on her thigh. What just happened?

She made you look at her face and your eyes widened, “Hw--”

“See you later alligator!” the voice screamed from their booth.

You blanked on her name. When you came back to your consciousness, you were sitting where Ma’am had been. She was being escorted out by two guards.

She giggled, “I’ll bring the others next time.”

The voice explained, “Everything’s ok, (Y/N). Guests usually don’t know cue words. Even if they do, they’re not supposed to use them. I’m sure she meant no harm, but it’s a liability.”

“I understand. Am I in trouble?”

“No. No. Not you, darling. You were perfect. You’ve got a super special guest. Treat him well.” The voice made you go deeper.

A large man entered, “I’ve never done this before.”

I doubt that. You thought.

“That’s ok. What would you like me to call you? Any name other than your birth name or stage name will work.”

“Um, D-Daddy?” that tattooed man said.

You made sure to smile since he was nervous, “Ok, Daddy. What would you like to call me? I cannot give you my real name.”

He looked at you, “Will Kitten be ok?” his husky voice asked.

“Of course! I’m now your kitten, Daddy. Would you like me to change?” You looked at yourself now only in your white not so covering cover up. They must’ve...you looked at Daddy. “I have many outfits, Daddy. Oh. Please sit, Daddy.”

You were turned eager to please and were more chipper to fit your given role.

“Yes. Of course.” The large man sat on the bed after taking off his shoes.

You looked at him eagerly, “If you wanna pick an outfit for me--”

“No. Just...sit on my lap?” He pat his meaty thighs.

With a nod, you made yourself comfortable. He held you close to him and got you to lay with him. Daddy seemed tense.

“I just had a rough day, so we can just cuddle. Is that ok, or do I have to fuck you?”

“I’ll do whatever you want, Daddy.”

He sighed with relief, “Good. Cuddling it is.”

Daddy rubbed your back and talked about his difficult and high stress day. Although he was a large and rough looking man who was 1000% Daddy, it was like he was the kitten. He was pretty sure he hurt his ankle while dancing on stage.

“You need to be more careful, Daddy.” You pouted.

“Is that so, Kitten?” He chuckled.

You nodded.

“Then I’ll be more careful.” Daddy kissed your forehead.

You smiled, “Good. Are you feeling better, Daddy?”

He nodded, “I am actually.” Then something caught his eye as he smiled at you. “Lift your neck, Kitten?”

You did and he felt your collar.

“Those boys...your owners. They take good care of you?”

“They do.” You said to the man who wasn’t actually an idol but had gained lots of popularity through social media.

“Good.” He purred. “If they ever hurt you, come to me, and I’ll deal with ‘em.”

You spoke honestly, “They never would. They love me. I love them.”

He smiled suddenly. It seemed to surprise himself as well, “They better.” Then he sat up. “Ok. I should go before I mess around and fall in love.”

The man stood up and fixed his shirt.

“Did you have a good time, Daddy?”

“The best, Kitten.” He kissed your cheek. “Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your night and remember what I said.”

You grinned, “I will!” unsure if you actually would or not.

He closed the door behind him. Well, that was a nice time before it was three groups of 8+ members back to back. The girl group loved to use their nails and knew how to use toys you have never seen before. They also really liked kissing. So softly leaving trails of pink and red all over your body.

An extremely famous couple was the last to come in and had you play with the man while his wife masturbated and watched. She shouted commands to him, and he was all too happy to follow them. He had been taken out of chastity today and this was his reward. The freckles on his face made his eyes stand out more. He was dressed up like a puppy, collar and all. It was ok since they were both initiating it with you, right? The man had a bone shaped gag and beautiful whines.

It was almost hilarious the amount of times she told you to look at him instead of her. She ended up collaring you to him to make sure you obeyed. Then she slid in between both of your faces as you ate out both of her ends. He seemed like the type that liked to eat ass. They kissed your lips and left you to the officials to clean up.

Then it was time to go home. You hadn’t even done much today, but your body was tired. Your eyes opened and Jin walked in.

“How’s our girl?” He asked.

You began to run to him, but your legs gave out. Right you had legs.

Jungkook and Jin rushed to help you back onto the bed. They said you had gon in really deep and it’d take you twenty more minutes for you to have control over your body again. Right. This was your body. It didn’t belong to anyone else but you.

“No matter how many times we lay claim to you, it’s still your body.” Taehyung said, reading your expressions easily.

Namjoon added, “No one can take that away from you.”

You cried despite how happy you were. Had it really been scary at all? No. Not really. Just overwhelming. There were so many people you had made love to, but you couldn’t recall their faces or names. Someone hugged you.

“It’s ok, (Y/N).” Jimin cooed. “You did so well. We’re so proud of you.”

They all gave you space along with comforting words. Then you put on your dress and kept the collar on. It felt like a security blanket right now. Yoongi held your hand as the eight of you were ushered into a room to wait for you carts to pull up.

Heechul approached the group and you all bowed.

“You did such a wonderful job tonight!” He met your eyes. “All of you. His gaze met Namjoon’s.

He whispered something to BTS’s leader as Yoongi couldn’t hide his scowl. Did he not like Heechul? How can you not like Heechul? He’s annoying but also endearing.

“I hope there are no hard feelings. I always like to check in with the own...lovers afterwards and make sure I didn’t cross any boundaries with my performance.” He was being very honest.

What did he do? Did he parody BTS on stage?

Yoongi softened and held out his hand, “No hard feelings.”

The two men shook hands.

You snuggled your oppa’s arm. Heechul bowed to all of you and went on his way. He “accidentally” dropped something and asked his manager to pick it up. She leaned over and her pussy was glistening. So that was his pet? He grabbed the butt of another and a third leaned in close to him, giggling. A harem?

~~~~~~~

Now all eight of you were in the living room falling asleep after eating a filling takeout meal. Your pajamas were super cozy.

“(Y/N)?” Hobi whispered. “We love you. More than anything.”

“I love you too.” You replied, slightly confused but glad he said so.

He smirked, “We know. Even if you never said it again, we’d know.”

Jimin pulled you closer in his kitty lingerie that he had been wearing under his clothing all night. He must’ve been done with his dom mood. Namjoon made sure to cuddle the both of you on his chest. Jungkook was letting his leader sleep on his stomach while his head was on Jin’s. Tae’s hand was holding yours even while he slept. Yoongi was curled up behind Jimin. All your boys were there. You felt like your heart would explode from pure bliss.

As you fell asleep, you wondered why Hwasa’s smiling face popped up in your mind.

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kxkuko · 6 years ago

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Allhallows2k18theme - Costume design

Pokemon used:

Isolde - Arbok ♀

Height 11'06" (3,5 meters)

Attacks:

▸Acid ▸Screech ▸Glare ▸Bite

Tut - Golbat ♂

Height 5'03" (1,6 meters)

Attacks:

▸Whirlwind ▸Toxic ▸Haze ▸Bite

Author’s note: Agatha’s height is somewhere around 4’8 ft tall (1,42 meters). The attacks were taken out of their Gen 1 games movepools.

Outfit reference

Stage music: Pre-determined

Agatha felt so reinvigorated knowing exactly what she would be working on- truth be said she was ecstatic to put those on herself.

The entire thing could be summed up in one word: vintage.

Despite this being her very first time in anything like it, Agatha doesn’t show any signs of or even hints of nervousness. She has a very clear mind, and a goal to achieve.

The way people looked at her. From the everyday people around her, the colleagues of her college to even her opponents at the pokemon League- they all made the same exact face of pure horror. That is exactly what she is going for; bring those faces back in the audience one more time.

Agatha strutted her way towards the designated table at her slow pace, while one hand held onto her cane the other seemed to be carrying a sketchbook of sorts, alongside with a small purse. The elderly woman is more than confident in her work; she can see all the materials just waiting for her- the promised Ditto alongside with the unknown creature by its side.

That insect looking creature standing by the pink shapeshifting pokemon’s side, it must be the creature called Leavanny. They were a surprise to her- not by itself, (seeing how she had been explained how things were meant to go); rather she wasn’t quite sure what that pokemon truly looked like.

They were a lot taller than she imagined it to be. It isn’t like that bug looking pokemon would spark any interest on the ones she had brought alongside herself on stage, meaning no one is getting hurt this time around. Once the table was in her reach Agatha placed her belongings on the table.

The elderly woman gave a nod at her pokemon, which stood by her side and whistles at them to stand still in order to wait for their next orders. Tut was wrapped up by his wings Isolde stood by their side motionless, both poison types had their blank empty eyes on the woman and only her. Agatha faced away from them, now her attention was on her table- there seemed to have just about everything she needed for her work. Well- almost everything really, as expected she wouldn’t be getting the real Ninetales fur.

A shame really. Instead, she will have to use that synthetic generic fur, times like these made the former elite member to wish she were back in her youth’s era.

No time to mope about it, the first pokemon she will be working on is Isolde. She pulled up close to herself the notebook, and went straight to the page that had the rough sketch of the serpent creature. The elderly woman already knew precisely her pokemons’ measurements, Ditto will simply be her mannequin as such Agatha casted a glare at the pink blob creature. “Ditto would you be so kind to take the appearance of a short Arbok for me?” she asked the creature while picking it up and placing it on the floor. The pokemon firstly took a good look at Isolde, then TRANSFORMED into one of its kind however it was just about Agatha’s height much smaller in comparison to the real deal.

Isolde didn’t react to the other pokemon- in fact they seemed to be completely out of itself, as if they were completely unaware of its surroundings. “Leavanny get me the fur please.” She ordered and the bug type quickly walked up to her, while holding the roll with its leaf blades out for her. The elderly woman would pull on the fur, the first thing to be created would be the Arbok’s abbe as such she circled the transformed Ditto- holding one end in its front and meeting it on the other side. Isolde’s hood was a lot larger; with a simple mathematical equation done in the back of her mind, she took a pin from the small cushion on the table and precisely pinpointed the amount needed for that clothing article. Time to move on to the next step on the abbe’s creation, a chain will be holding the piece together- after all she wants the creepy mark in its hood to stay as visible as possible. “That will do Ditto.” Agatha said, allowing the pokemon to morph back to its original form “Now cut this right here Leavanny, and put the roll back on the table.” She pointed the exact place for the bug, while the insect SLASHED the piece out of the roll and followed the woman’s orders; Agatha started to rummage through the materials provided to her. It didn’t take long for her to find what she looked for, the golden single chain- its length was the exact one she needed as well. Lastly, she picked up two golden buttons, alongside with the sewing kit provided to her. Before the elderly woman could start assembling the abbe, she reached out for her purse- as expected for someone of her age her sight no longer was the greatest especially for things so close to her face. First, she got the line through the needle, sewed the buttons on the fur- and connected both ends with the golden chain. The piece in itself still was too long to be seen as a proper abbe.

That is when she faced Isolde with what seemed to be of sorts- a friendly smile; it wasn’t in anyway less creepier simply because it was on her. Agatha spread the whole thing apart, holding it out in front of the motionless Arbok. “My darling, would you be as kindly as to lend me a hand here?” While the way shorter woman referred to the Arbok, she would spring back to life in order to listen to her command. Isolde’s mouth opened widely- at first it seemed like she hadn’t listened to her mistress, but look and behold- ACID started to leak from its mouth, every droplet would land on the fabric. Holes would start to form on it; she stayed like that for what felt like 2 minutes or so- then all of the sudden Isolde landed a BITE onto it ripping the unnecessary length out of the abbe. Whatever she had in her mouth had been torn about into nothing but shreds, the venom was still leaking out of her and some of it had landed on the floor. The abbe was done, thanks to the corrosive venom and the fangs- it didn’t have a straight line to its back. Agatha placed the clothing article aside, the final touch on the Arbok would come in the form of a pearls collar- which would be placed around its tail. They were obviously fake, the ideal kind for something that would be put on a pokemon. The woman reached out for Isolde’s tail and placed it on the table, she made sure to shoo both Leavanny and Ditto- the last thing Agatha would want is for the serpent to be startled. She quickly reached out for the reel of pearls chain (she just needed to cincture the beast’s rear), and in a matter of a minute Agatha assembled the prop- releasing Isolde’s tail right afterwards.

“Grab me a chair and bring it over there Leavanny, quick!” Agatha ordered while pointing a finger at a spot by the Arbok’s side. The bug type seemed confused at first- they even let out a nervous chirpping, but soon enough they found the chair sitting by the table’s side- they quickly ran towards the woman who had the abbe in her hands. The chair was placed in the correct spot “Stand still” the former elite member said, as she had to put aside her walking cane in order to hold onto the pokemon and get onto the chair. Now she could easily place the abbe on the back of Isolde’s hood, which had perfectly fitted- it may look a bit tight on the pokemon but it was clear that they could move, and didn’t show any sign of discomfort.

Agatha now had to work on Tut. “Hopefully my arthritis will be nice to me tonight.” She joked now looking at her Golbat, who still was hugging himself with the wings- having barely moved besides the breathing motion. The woman walked towards the table now looking for the body paint provided to her, the white color is all that she needs for him (by then Isolde had slithered back to the table- returning to her stationary form). Her gaze now fell upon the Ditto, while she took the paintbrush “Ditto stand still in front of Tut, and transform into them!” the former elite member ordered, as she watched the pink blob creature make its way towards the bat pokemon. Upon shapeshifting into him, Tut’s wings spread open widely revealing the mouth with the four fangs in full display- they also shared the Arbok’s empty gaze. The woman signaled for the Leavanny to bring the chair over, now on top of it Agatha started the drawing on the left- wing. At first they may seem like random white lines, some are straight others come off curly- or even crooked eventually the drawing became clear.

Obviously, she still had to do the same thing on the other side’s wing, but the outcome would clearly be a pair of eyes with lines that simulated spiders’ webs. The dark purple was the perfect shade, so the lines stood out the most on the pokemon. Slowly but surely Agatha would work on the Golbat, using the Leavanny as a support for herself every time her legs felt weak. She was very close to run out of the color, thankfully she managed to get the whole thing. While getting off the chair with Leavanny’s help, Agatha took a quick look over at the timer. “Ditto stay like that, don’t transform back we must keep Tut’s wings like that so the paint will dry up a lot faster.” Agatha said to the disguised pokemon.

It appears she will have to hurry up and get her dress done- she can even see a few empty tables from the corner of her eye. The paint was thrown aside, a napkin had been pulled out from her purse in order to clean her hands off. The elite member walked over to her sketchbook, and flipped a few pages until getting to her outfit’s design. The woman stretched her arms and snapping her fists’ joints in the process. “Leavanny, with me.” She said- the first dress her hands landed on was quickly grabbed and thrown onto the mannequin, it was a long dinner in the wine color. Agatha reached out for the pins and needles; there was no time to waste- the measurements were no brainer to her. As such she immediately started to pinpoint exactly where Leavanny would first work on. “Isolde. Get the velvet for me, give it to Leavanny.” The Arbok sprung back to life, as it slithered away to look for what her mistress had asked for “I need you to cut this much for me of the velvet fabric, as well as to get rid of the sleeves.” The former elite member shot a gaze upon the insect, while indicating it on her arms and pointing it exactly where the bug type is meant to do its magic. Agatha quickly faced away from the dress so she could work on the props.

The first one was a black fascinator, the hat’s base had been provided to her. All that she needed to add to it was the fake red Pidgeot’s feather by sewing it there, once the feather seemed firm enough on the piece- it was time to move onto the next one. It was time to work on an abbe for herself, she reached out for the roll of fur- despite it seemed like she was being careless by the way she handled the fabric, it was evident how much experience the woman carried under her belt. The abbe was quite huge- especially for Agatha’s body, it was meant to cover her majority of her torso- at last Leavanny was done with its previous task “Now sew all of these together!” The former elite member ordered, as she whistled at her Arbok to come over “Now darling, use your fangs on the skirt. Don’t you dare to go anyway upwards.” Isolde nodded, her mouth opened widely before her countless rounds of BITES on the dress started. Agatha didn’t look away from her pokemon not even for a second, once she was satisfied with the torn out result there was a snap of her fingers- prompting the serpent to cease and slither away. By then Leavanny had finished sewing the abbe and gloves together.

“Perfect.” The woman muttered- she was getting close to the end. Obviously she doesn’t have the time to get all fancy with her make up, as such a foundation alongside with an eyeshadow and a lipstick are more than enough for her. It was time to get dressed up and head straight to the stage.

As Agatha moved around her dress’ skirt would be dragged on the floor, the walking pace was quite slow making sure she wouldn’t end up tripping on her own masterpiece. The woman was all by herself when she made it to the center of the stage, at least for now. Her left hand held one of the pokeballs, the second one was located right on the cane’s handle. It seemed as though her cane hadn’t been altered in the slightest, after all the whole piece resembled a twisted branch of a dead tree.

The former elite member waited for the music to start playing with an unfazed expression, her gaze was glued to the crowd. She was back at being people’s attentions – how much she had missed that sensation, as soon as the music started to be played a wide grin had formed on her face- it was one that displayed her teeth. The pokeball in her hand was tossed up in the air, while the one in her cane’s handle had its button pressed releasing both beasts onto the stage.

Tut still was wrapped up in his wings and in the air when he was completely free of the ball’s restrains, before the Golbat landed on the floor its wings spread open widely allowing them to land on the floor gracefully all the while showcasing the painting in his wings. Isolde on the other hand had essentially slithered out of the pokeball, heading towards the other pokemon. “Good night everybody!” Agatha directed her word at the people watching her, one arm waved at them before she spinned in place “We hope you are all having a lovely night! Isolde darling, why don’t you give them a taste?”

The serpent creature remained motionless for a moment, as if they hadn’t heard her mistress- her white soulless eyes only contributed to that idea. Only to jolt towards the crowd at a very high, she was SCREECHING at the humans- in a very high pitched tone as well. The jaw opened as much as it could, revealing the fangs and the ACID that already was inside of the creature’s mouth. Just when she was about to leap off at the people, Agatha snapped her fingers- making the creature to stop dead in place. ACID was visibly leaking from her mouth, some of it even falling on the floor just beneath her. They were so close to the people, this way they could not only see the outfit they had on themselves- but the infamous face found on her hood.

A chortle left the elderly woman, as she snapped once again her fingers. The Arbok’s mouth loudly shut itself, before slithering her way back to the elderly woman. “I hope everyone is still here with us tonight.” Agatha said, still chuckling loudly.

There was a clap of her hands, followed by Tut taking off from the land and started to shroud the stage with HAZE, a dark fog had formed- making visibility near impossible. One that the former elite member and the Arbok had walked into, the music was approaching its end- so did the stage’s presentation. Inside of the dark cloud, Isolde coiled herself around the woman keeping her underneath her hood. The Golbat then flew out of the dark cloud, and proceeded to flap his wings in a very high pace- creating a WHIRLWIND. A gust of wind so powerful, that the HAZE had been spread over the floor- dissipating it in the process and revealing his mistress standing in its very center, while being protected from the wind by Isolde.

The flying type quickly descended- not landing on the floor, instead they were at the perfect height for Agatha to take one of his paws and shoot one final glare at the crowd as the music came to its end. Surprisingly the hood did effectively serve as some kind of umbrella to her, meaning Agatha’s hair still seemed to be in place- in fact the outfit was intact. The former elite member then bowed forward in response to the applauses, whereas her pokemon kept staring at the others around them with their blank gaze.

Now, it was all up to the judges.

#allhallows2k18 #allhallows2k18theme #long post #here we goooo hopefully I didn't screw it up lmao

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lizortecho · 7 years ago

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I haven't done a wishlist in forever but I'm having a little bit of more free time now and there are some plots I would love to have. Everything is up for discussion, even canon FCs, so ask because I won't say no unless it's a problematic FC or I'm not comfortable playing them/playing against them.

Historical/Period drama plots like please. I would love a plot based on Medici: Masters of Florence, The White Princess, The White Queen or OCs. I'm a huge nerd so you can shoot me a message with something you would like to do and I'll probably say yes.

Stranger Things!! The whole 80s aesthetic is just wonderful, especially with all the upside down mess. I'm not looking for canon ships, but OCs would be awesome.

Riverdale plots. Look I'm trash and you all know that so I really want a Cheryl/Archie, that said I'd be glad if we used another fc for Archie. I haven't watched the new season, so season one based would be great.

My to go fandom, Harry Potter. I'm here for all the HP plots. Marauders era, Golden Trio or Next Gen, I want them all. I really want to play Frank Longbottom again, but I'm not looking for fralice ships.

My other to go fandom, Star Wars. Canon or OCs, Original, prequel or sequel, all of them.

I'm not caught up with Agents of Shield but I want a Fitzsimmons ship. I have a few ideas, but they're adorable and always deserve better.

I haven't watched Grey's Anatomy in years, at least not the new seasons, but Lexie and Mark are OTP and they deserved way better than their shitty writing.

Smallville will always be my childhood and Lois and Clark were everything.

Iris and Barry from The Flash always. I'm so done with the writing ruining their happiness, it's not fair.

Game of Thrones because I'm that person. Gendry and Arya always, because they're wonderful. But I'm trash and I want an AU where Ned marries Cersei instead.

Gossip Girl was the trashiest show ever and I loved it so Dan and Blair please.

Outlander tbh I don't want to play any canon character, but the idea of a person traveling back in time and ending up falling in love with someone who isn't even part of their time is just too glorious. We can pick any time and just have fun. Or just bullshit our way through it because yolo

I decided to rewatch the first season of Quantico and Shelby/Caleb deserved better than what happened to them.

I will give you all the feels for Katniss/Peeta, even better if we get to use other FCs and change our way around the canon, because I'm not interested in anything Mockingjay based or post Mockingjay

This plot

Or this one

I'm trash yes

But what about this one?

#1x1 rp #1x1 #1x1 roleplay

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pochapal · 5 years ago

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Now that you've played swsh, what are ur thots

i honestly enjoyed it!! not sure how the dlc will influence my opinion but currently my ranking of “new gen” pokemon games goes sumo>swsh>xy (i’m not including pre-gen 6 as a point of comparison because it wouldn’t be fair on swsh). the gameplay still doesn’t quite capture that golden era pokemon (gens 3-5) vibe imo - it feels like they streamlined the game a little too much. i didn’t feel like i was going through galar on my own terms since like xy there are literally two optional side areas and both are locked behind surf but unlike xy the locations all felt transient and kinda samey. for instance there are technically four unique snow routes but it feels like 2 (that whole slog around the sixth gym then the mountain pass before wyndon) when actually going through it.

that said, the major characters are far better than in xy - swsh’s gym leaders are more fun to battle against and dynamax is surprisingly enjoyable. my only critique there is that i wish the signature gym mons still posed a challenge after their dynamax ended instead of the whole strategy being smack you with g-max stab move. i want to see gen 5-level trickiness again!! is that too much to ask! i am disappointed that the “elite 4″ thing feels so similar to gen 7′s “the kahunas/captains are also the elite 4″ deal. at its best swsh is really cool but at its bad points it kinda feels like someone slapped the alola formula onto kalos without any consideration of individuality.

the new gen 8 pokemon are…hm. it just be because they’re so new, but i’m honestly not a fan of a lot of designs??? they all feel pretty samey (humanoid with a dark colour scheme) but samey with a pokemon design type that i’m not fond of anyway. i don’t think there are enough new pokemon to justify that kind of repetition - gen 6, for its tiny pool, managed to be incredibly diverse, and gen 7 really only had a couple overlapping-feeling designs. looking back, gen 5 had a lot of that kind of design too, but also gen 5 had such a massive amount of pokemon that it didn’t feel egregious. my fav gen 8 mons are probably alcremie, cursola, eiscue, the snom line, falinks, and polteageist. grapploct has an honourable mention for being fun to use but its design is neutral to me. overall i prefer the design of alolan forms to galarian forms even if galarian forms had more unique things going for them like new evos and stuff. idk all the new pokemon lean too heavily on that black/grey humanoid blueprint and i would have preferred to see some variety.

the soundtrack slaps because when doesn’t it. i’d say it reaches higher highs than gen 7 but much lower lows. fav themes are hop’s battle theme, the gym leader theme (we stan a danganronpa scrum debate theme), stow-on-side’s theme, turffield’s theme, and marnie’s battle theme. side note but marnie’s theme absolutely sounds like a homestuck strife track and you can’t deny it (to be precise, like a mashup of the first part of cascade and atomic bonsai).

i already discussed the story in terms of themes but i will say this game suffers from kalos syndrome but worse - where xy’s midgame was horribly rushed (gyms 3 through 6 are such a blur in a regular playthrough) swsh instead saves all the plot moments until the end and then rushes through it at a breakneck pace. you get no time to digest a single thing that happens. it’s just: here’s an event, now the next one, now the next one, now we’re escalating, now we’re done. i get they were going for that Big Reveal Moment where rose blows up the championship stadium’s dynamax spot just before the final battle against leon, but we needed more investment in the lore. like we already knew team yell wasn’t evil (yet another sumo copypaste oof) so they should have reworked the plot to have sonia ask the player to help her check out some historical sites/archives in a couple side towns (kinda like celestic town in dppt) where she’s threatened by a mystery group of steel type users who then turn out at the end of the game to be rose’s corporate lackeys. the finale still plays out kind of the same except we know more about the lore and eternatus is actually built up to instead of…that mess. other than that i do think the whole gym circuit is as well paced as you can get in a truncated region like galar. just wish the lore side had been given a crumb more attention. like, they could’ve just worked in zacian/zamazenta without the whole darkest day thing and had a tightly focused game on striving to be champion (a la classic kanto) and fleshed out the rivals a little more to make up for it but you really get the sense tpc/game freak wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

overall i’ll give swsh a 7/10. very good, but if they’d taken their time a little more with the pacing and committed to the type of story they wanted to tell instead of cramming everything in haphazardly to appeal to both classic Catch Em All Be The Best fans and golden-era Mythical God Pokemon Threatens To Destroy The World fans, i think it could become really good. if they nail the dlc i can see swsh being on par with usum in the end - not quite as well written as the original sumo, but really fun games you’d actually want to sit through and 100% complete.

#Anonymous #long post #pokemon swsh #i didn't mention it but the dex thing really doesn't bother me. my main game as a kid was diamond version lmao #if i can get years of enjoyment out of a game that only featured 25% of all known pokemon in its regional dex then i can enjoy swsh

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crystalnet · 7 years ago

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The Awkward 7th Gen of JRPGs and Mistwalker Games

Ah the seventh generation. The era in which, partly because of the actual state of gaming and partly because of unrelated circumstances, I fell out of love with games. It wasn't until the dust had cleared on the gen that I got back into this past-time and was able to appreciate and re-evaluate the generation by doing a bit of an autopsy on it once this long, strange gen had finally come to a close. The 7th gen seems troubled and problematic from the outset for a variety of reasons, but being a JRPG-centric blog, I'm going to specifically discuss the state of the JRPG during this gen.

To very briefly summarize in a likely unacceptably reductive sense the prior generations in order to contextualize the seventh gen, the prior gen, (gen 6: dreamcast, ps2, gamecube, og xbox in that order) was what I would refer to as the bronze age of JRPGs if we are going to go by a condensed version of the generations of American comic books as a model. JRPGS had fully made the jump to full 3D graphics, began integrating voice-acting and had even feauted some titles that made the first major moves away from traditional turn-based or active-time-battle-esque combat systems, whether that meant leaning closer to the action-RPG genre or using MMO-esque semi-automated combat devoid of random encounters.

That was a slightly awkward, growing-pains-ridden period that had, despite the odds, having some pretty strong titles. Still riding the hype and massive popularity/sales of games like FFVII, this specific genre was still a big deal at that point and hadn't quite begun its quick fade into obscurity which happened later in the first decade of the 21st century. The best JRPGs of this gen built on the success of their prior gen and examples include the solid to great FFX and universally hailed Persona 3 and 4, as well as Dragon Quest 8, just to name a few of the most well known of several strong candidates. These games were about as strong as the best of the previous gen, while enjoying the advantage of much stronger graphical presentation, and potentially deeper systems. The PS1/Saturn generation had some really strong titles in this genre and for some this is easily the peak of the genre, but even if you’re partial to this one the most (which includes the run of FF7-9), you have to admit the graphical limitations led to these games being visually trapped between the more detailed graphics of the next gen and the clean-cut if limited pixel art of the SNES/genesis games (which are the golden age to PS1's silver). Indeed, the Cthonic era of JRPGS (NES/Master Drive and earlier) culminated in an explosion of inventiveness and refinement in games like Final Fantasy 4-6, Phantasy Star 4 and Chronos Trigger, all games that would become the actual gold standard of the genre.

And so without derailing much further, we thus have three straight generations of impressive and semi-consistent JRPGs and development of the genre. This would peter out significantly though, even before the 7th generation began, and the muted reaction to Final Fantasy XII, towards the end of the PS2's life-cycle may have marked a bit of a sea-change. As big, mainstream games like Halo and Call of Duty gained more and more momentum, I think more specialized and more-- for lack of a better term-- Japanese genres and institutions took a bit of a hit around this time. Developers wanted to cater the American and Global market and so big shooters and neu-platform open-worlds like Assassin's Creed had a lot more cache at the beginning of the 7th Gen. I also think that part of the problem was the question of what to do about turn-based combat. As technical possibilities opened up in gaming, the back-and-fourth of true turn-based combat that was previously expected from the genre began to feel more and more archaic. This was partly due to titles like Ocarina of Time or the several strong Action-JRPGs around the time making real-time combat seem like a viable option for deeper role-playing experiences. Alas, there was still a feeling, and for some there still is, that turn-based combat will always be the central tenet of the genre, and that real-time games just don't count.

In fact, JRPG's themselves reflected the feeling that turn-based systems were passe by openly experimenting with it in the 6th gen. Games like FFXII and the Tales game, as well as Level 5's string of Action-RPGs all feature the depth of systems that RPGs of olden always offerered, while also featuring real-time combat or something close to it (Indeed FFXII featured the pseudo real-time of MMO-style combat, which would be the way forward for other franchises going forward. And so in a way the genre could be seen as undoing what it once was in order to adapt.

But where did that leave it by the time the 7th gen was underway? Well, it practically left it in absentia. This was about a decade after the massive and fortuitous success and sales figures of FFVII (which, considering, it was always strange to me that it sold so well in US. Was that evocative cover with the buster sword, and Cloud looking toward Midgar amidst a clean-white backdrop the sole marketing for that game?). Alas the landscape had thoroughly chanced, and this was before Skyrim would drop. There were over 3 years of 7th gen games before that mini game-changer was unleashed on the world, helping to shift any attention on the RPG that existed at that point in a westward direction. But certain sign-of-the-times moments were abound before this even, like the release of FFXIII to initially positive critic reception which quickly faded to very very scathing reception more generally, almost instantly after initial buzz wore off. What used to be the paragon of the genre had reduced said genre to a largely automated, overly-slick walking-and-fighting simulator, sending the reception of the genre down one long, linear hallway of death and despair. Now this specific gamer actually appreciated a lot of what that game did despite the hate, but I can't deny that the game sucked out a lot of the life of the genre in the way exploration, free-will and customization was either limited or entirely absent. The games a giant anime movie with tons and tons of successive fights. If you like the combat system, which imo was a valiant if slightly superficial riff on the active-turn-based systems of old, this might have been okay, but if you didn't-- and many don't-- then the game was nothing but endless cut-scenes and confusing lore. But hey it was gorgeous, and that's what this generation was all about right? Right...

The very Western focus on graphical prowess and polish was something Square Enix seemed to believe was an essential part of Final Fantasy, and so put more focus on that than, oh I don't know, having anything in the way of a single town or basically any exploration in that game. And this focus on graphics was kind of the story of the gen, save for Nintendo who defiantly snubbed their nose to processing power and went the way of innovation instead (innovation that largely did not include all that many JRPGs...). Speaking of Final Fantasy though, the once titan of the genre took another hit around the time this gen was about to begin when Sakaguchi, the OG creator, left Square to form Mistwalker Studios. This would be a hit for Square as far as many fans were concerned, and even a nail-in-the-coffin for some, but it also meant good things for the genre as a whole. Sakaguchi ostensibly left Square Enix in part due to the increased pressure that management was putting on the creatives there during the fall-out from Spirits Within’s financial failure-- their dalliance in Feautre Film- headed by Sakaguchi himself and the project which caused the company to briefly experience financial free-fall as they hemorrhaged money right up until FFX and Kingdom Hearts turned things around for them in a major way. But the damage was done, and projects at the company would be handled differently going forward. It is a bit ironic then, that Sakaguchi would go on to struggle with management at Nintendo while working on Last Story after returning to the company he previously had left along with Square when they refused to adopt CD-technology a decade prior. Last Story-- the game he made for the Wii-- would still come out as a brilliant answer to the dearth of the genre at the time, featuring inventive real-time combat that put a focus on positioning-based strategy.

Indeed some of the more promising games of this genre during the gen were developed by Mistwalker. Not all are perfect, but their third big effort in Last Story is quite good, and is still a unique and novel example of what combat could be in JRPG's going forward. Their first two games, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, both had tried-and-true turn-based style combat, and felt a bit uninspired, if not unwelcome in a very dry stretch of time for the genre, the former's Toriyama-led art-style giving it the feeling of Dragon Quest 8 and Chrono Trigger. It didn't quite live up to those games, but Lost Odyssey is an interesting entry considering it gives us a glimpse into what FFXIII could have been in some alternate universe where Square stayed Square-Soft forever maybe.

And so, weirdly, Sony takes a huge hit from Mistwalker's sheer existence, since all three of these games were released on 360 and Wii--consoles that basically had no JRPGs otherwise-- and to top it off, another one-time Sony loyalist Tetsuya Takahashi, who also having left Square earlier in the decade, went on to work on Xenoblade for the Wii, after previously doing the terrific Xenosaga trilogy on PS2. Alas, Sakaguchi and Takahashi may have singe-handedly kept the genre alive with their games, keeping the promise and magic of the golden age of JRPGs alive, if just barely (indeed, both of these men cut their teeth on classics like Final Fantasy 4 and Chrono Trigger). Meanwhile, Sony holds things down with only a couple big JRPGs, among which is Ni No Kuni, an excellent offering from Level-5 and Ghibli which is super solid and yet skews a bit young (as any Ghibli-related project reasonably should), alongside Nier, from the whacky Yoko Taro who had previously released uneven if cult-status-y JRPGs on previous Sony consoles in the form of the Drakengard games. And while Nier, Ni No Kuni, the Mistwalker games and Xenoblade are all solid to great JRPGs, they’re pretty much the extent of the genre this gen-- five measly games, all of which are spread across the three systems unevenly. Indeed, no single console this gen could stand on its own this gen when it came to this genre, with Sony being the old stand-by failing to deliver on that unless you just happened to really love the entire FFXIII trilogy.

Things we could formerly rely on like Persona, SMT or Dragon Quest were either just straight up no-shows this gen, or were relegated to handhelds. There was Last Remnant on PS3 as well, and I haven't played it, but reception is mixed to negative. All of the other aforementioned games though offer solid experiences, with some sticking to their guns by way of old-school turn-based combat and a few others pushing ahead with new iterations of Active/Semi-Real Time systems (Last Story, Ni No Kuni, Xenoblade), and yet, they are simply too few and far between in number compared to the previous gen. This problem really dogged the entire gen, and was merely symptomatic of the darker turn gaming took around the time, and I'm glad to see things feel like they're headed in a better direction as of late. JRPGs are always the deepest games I play out of the various genres that I fuck with, so my estimation of a console's library is directly related to how many solid JRPGs there are. And while I love the Wii and PS3 overall for what the do offer, they come close to not having enough to offer based solely off their relatively skimpy JRPG offerings. Wii comes out on top for me based only on Xenoblade and Last Story, and sort of Muramasa and Zelda insofar as Vanilla Ware and Zelda games count, but even the freakin 360 might have a stronger offering than PS3, which is a serious problem.

Luckily, I really do think things are on the up-and-up lately though, with smaller, retro-style JRPGs coming into vogue among other things, giving smaller developers wiggle room in terms of acceptable budget, and big franchises like Persona are finally thawing out of deep-freeze after being a no-count dring the previous gen (save for Catherine), while Final Fantasy and Square in general are enjoying a bit of a comeback (Nier Automata, Nioh and I Am Setsuna all in one year). Alas, Persona 5 showed up finally and just in time to universal acclaim, and the fact that it's a successful and truly turn-based JRPG with a decent budget and progressive, forward-thinking mechanics is very impressive in itself. I think Dark Souls was a bit of a beacon of light last gen, in the way that it showed how a Japanese dev could make a deep RPG in a style that was markedly different from more traditional action-JRPG style, while also drawing on western games like Skyrim in its approach. It seemed to bridge the gap between western and eastern-style RPGs and gave people a reason to hype Japanese RPG developers once again at a time when there were less reasons than ever before. I'm not a big Souls guy, but I really appreciate that it brought attention back to a dying genre at a crucial time. So despite this awkward generation's slightly lacking and inconclusive answer to the question: "what should JRPG's this gen be like?", things may finally be settling back into what just might be described as progress for a genre that some may have thought was down for the count. Perhaps it was a necessary awkward period that has allowed developers working in the genre some time to re-calibrate and reassess the landscape,

Now if only devs could figure out how to resuscitate the 3D platformer--Indeed, If JRPGs experienced a drought during last gen, then the 3D platformer went into a near permanent coma and was basically pronounced dead save for the big, mainline console Mario games that come out every 5-10 years. But that's a story for another day, for now, I still need to beat Persona 5 before Xenoblade 2 drops...

#7th generation #gaming #jrpg #last story #mist walker #blue dragon #ps3 #wii #360 #sakaguchi

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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The next era of star NFL QBs is way more fun than the last

The NFL is in good hands with young quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, and Deshaun Watson.

So long, era of homogenous quarterbacks.

The NFL of the 21st century had been getting pretty stale, especially at the quarterback position. In 15 of the last 16 Super Bowls, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, or Ben Roethlisberger was one of the starters.

Those three quarterbacks, along with Drew Brees, Eli Manning, and Philip Rivers, were all drafted between 1998 and 2004. And all six of them are in the top eight on the all-time passing yards list. Five of those six are still in the NFL.

They represent a golden age of passing that will have a lasting impact on the record books — and one led by a rather homogenous group of quarterbacks. They mostly looked the same, talked the same, and largely played football the same way.

They’re all traditional pocket passers who — for the most part — played, or still play, the position by the book.

That era is ending now. Luckily for the football watching world, the next generation of stars is here and it’s something entirely different. The young group of quarterbacks drafted in the last four years is brimming with personality and rewriting the way we think about how the position can be played.

Lamar Jackson, the dual threat

The closest thing we’ve ever seen to Jackson was Michael Vick in the early 2000s. Vick never played as well as Jackson is playing for the Ravens in 2019, though.

Jackson’s an MVP frontrunner in only his second season. He has a passer rating in the triple digits and rushing stats that rival some of the best running backs in the league. He’s certainly the only quarterback in the NFL who could pull off the spin move that vaporized two Bengals defenders on a 47-yard rushing touchdown in Week 10.

LAMAR. JACKSON. @Lj_Era8 TO THE HOUSE ‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/DcR8A7S2Vy

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) November 10, 2019

There’s a long list of quarterbacks with enough athleticism to rush for a first down, if necessary. Jackson’s one of the few quarterbacks in the history of the NFL who’s just as terrifying throwing the ball as he is keeping it for himself.

And his uniquely electric play on the field is paired with a personality dripping with swag.

Victory Monday Mood @Lj_era8 pic.twitter.com/hbbmcsTGP0

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) November 11, 2019

He’s not lacking in self-confidence at all, but Jackson’s also quick to heap praise on his teammates instead of reveling in it himself. Given how many doubters he’s already had to face in his young career, it’d make sense if Jackson wanted to rub his success in the noses of haters. But revenge isn’t his motivation, even if Jackson does like to take playful jabs at the critics.

"NOT BAD FOR A RUNNING BACK." - @lj_era8 pic.twitter.com/GjdOeR5xWa

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 8, 2019

Jackson’s a dynamo with a skillset unlike any other in the NFL right now, and fortunately he has a coach who encourages that individualism instead of working to rein it in. The result is the same kind of scoring machine who racked up touchdowns nonstop at Louisville.

The long-term viability of a quarterback running 15-20 times per game is a worthwhile debate. For now, though, Jackson is a weapon with a style all his own.

Patrick Mahomes, the cannon

The Chiefs quarterback has a 50-touchdown season and an MVP award under his belt and he just turned 24. He’s a no-look-pass-throwing, ketchup-loving quarterback with an outrageously strong arm that’s capable of making any throw.

It’s not only the deep bombs — although there have been plenty of those. Mahomes can also do things like throw a jump pass across the middle of the field that turns into a touchdown.

Mahomes hit em with the jump pass and Mecole Hardman did the rest @PatrickMahomes @MecoleHardman4 pic.twitter.com/FKlTWQ97bq

— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) November 10, 2019

He’s athletic and fast, but it’s the cannon attached to his shoulder that makes him dangerous whether he’s rolling out or sitting in the pocket. Either way, a flick of his wrist can turn into a touchdown at any given moment.

#SomethingSpecial The broadcast view did not do this play justice. There's no one else with the creativity, athleticism, and arm talent to execute this play. 35 yard flick of the wrist, off platform, across his body with velocity that he needed to get it there. Mercy. pic.twitter.com/KQJYYeougk

— Kent Swanson (@kent_swanson) October 8, 2019

That his absurd ability comes with a goofy voice and, occasionally, a pair of jorts is a bonus.

Mahomes missed a couple games in 2019 after dislocating his kneecap, and yet another MVP award still doesn’t look impossible. Mahomes is going to be burying teams with prolific passing assaults for many years to come.

Deshaun Watson, the warrior

There are a lot of different labels that would work as a descriptor of Watson. Ultimately, it’s his blend of skills and his “never quit” mentality that makes him special.

For his entire career, he’s had to deal with a porous Texans offensive line. His tendency to try to create big plays in the face of pressure is part of the reason the third-year starter has already been sacked over 100 times. But that same instinct to keep looking for a play downfield has evolved into a huge problem for opposing defenses.

Even kicking Watson in the face won’t stop him from finding a game-winning touchdown.

.@DeshaunWatson is unbelievable. #WeAreTexans : CBS : NFL app // Yahoo Sports app Watch free on mobile: https://t.co/a16R5wPShJ pic.twitter.com/f2Fss30161

— NFL (@NFL) October 27, 2019

When pressured in 2019, Watson has six touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating over 90. That elusiveness and relentlessness was on full display in Week 9 when the Jaguars only managed to sack him once, despite recording a pressure 12 times.

A joy to watch in LDN!@SubwayUK's Player of the Week... @deshaunwatson @HoustonTexans pic.twitter.com/3qEg2DoGxM

— NFL UK (@NFLUK) November 6, 2019

Watson has elevated his already stellar play in year three of his career. And it’s really easy to root for a player who donated his first NFL paycheck to cafeteria workers affected by Hurricane Harvey and has recently developed a reputation for elaborate breakdowns of defenses in press conferences.

A sizable extension is probably coming soon for Watson, and that’s a no-brainer for the Texans. They’ve found their franchise quarterback.

Dak Prescott, the gunslinger

Early in Prescott’s career, he was just a game manager for a team that was built around running the ball. Prescott’s job was to avoid turnovers and keep the chains moving.

Now, those days are long gone. The Cowboys’ fourth-year quarterback can put the offense on his back when Ezekiel Elliott gets shut down. Prescott has become a player more than willing to fire into tight windows.

Even in the loss, Dak Prescott consistently defied the odds against the Vikings, completing +6.5% of his attempts above expectation. 5 of Prescott's 10 most improbable completions of the season came in tonight's game, including 3 to Amari Cooper.#MINvsDAL | #DallasCowboys pic.twitter.com/AZYuQujdnm

— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) November 11, 2019

Some of those throws become turnovers, but most are turning into big plays for the Cowboys. That’s why Prescott still has a passer rating above 100, even though he’s near the top of the league in interceptions. He also leads the league in Total QBR, an ESPN formula that measures just about every aspect of quarterback play.

While Prescott doesn’t draw much attention to himself, he’s a standup guy off the field who throws away his trash correctly and isn’t a bad “dancer” to boot.

Dak dancing to Suavemente pic.twitter.com/UV0eEsc42i

— Hector Diaz (@iamHectorDiaz) November 11, 2019

Just a few months ago, “gunslinger” wouldn’t seem like the right way to describe Prescott’s spot on this list. But it’s a surprisingly fitting title for Prescott, who’s ranked in the top five in touchdowns, passing yards per game, and interceptions in 2019.

Carson Wentz, the escape artist

The Eagles haven’t given Wentz much help in 2019. Few teams have more dropped passes, and his receivers aren’t getting much separation. That’s the biggest reason why Wentz — a player who was on the doorstep of MVP honors in 2017 — is near the bottom of the NFL in completion percentage.

One of the only reasons Philadelphia is in the postseason hunt anyway is because Wentz is freakin’ Houdini.

Carson Wentz just did THAT. How?pic.twitter.com/h4YmmlaX5J

— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) September 16, 2019

Wentz is a shocking amount of slippery for a player who’s 6’5, 237 pounds. However, the key to his escapability is his ability to make tough throws, whether his feet are underneath him or not.

Really impressive throw from Carson Wentz to deliver this ball in stride outside the numbers from the far hash while getting his foot stepped on pic.twitter.com/QX4mcQ66Lj

— Brandon Thorn (@BrandonThornNFL) October 15, 2019

Off the field, Wentz supports charitable causes through his foundation and — like Prescott — doesn’t say much that garners attention. But his wheeling and dealing in the pocket makes the Eagles offense always worth watching.

There are other sensational young quarterbacks in the NFL who could soon earn a spot on this list.

Kyler Murray is quietly compiling impressive statistics for a rookie, Gardner Minshew may eventually retake his spot as the Jaguars’ starter, and it’s still too early to give up on the idea of Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff eventually returning to their 2018 selves.

Mayfield set a record for touchdown passes by a rookie last year, but his sophomore slump could easily be the fault of first-year head coach Freddie Kitchens. Goff is playing behind an offensive line that’s suddenly a disaster. They both can still have promising futures.

Even if they never get there, the NFL is in good hands. For the first time in a long time, there’s a variety of personalities and styles at the quarterback position. That’s a new phenomenon — and it’s a blast to watch.

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fyrapartnersearch · 7 years ago

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"Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have." -- A Harry Potter-Based Partner Search

Introduction & About Me

Hello! My name's Rain, and I’m a gal in my early-twenties who has been roleplaying for approximately 7 years (but only in the most recent 4 or 5 have I really been “serious”). After being dragged by the ankles (although not without a struggle) into a hellish chasm of personal issues that has kept me from writing, I’ve finally managed to work everything out and am now itching to get back into the roleplaying game! I’m hoping that I can find some good partners to satiate my cravings, and hopefully I can satiate some of yours too. If you emailed me in the past and I didn’t respond, shoot me another email! Like I said, I had some things get in the way, so I’d be up for rekindling a past roleplay or picking up planning where we left off. Right now I am specifically looking for some Harry Potter roleplays, so if you are too, then we’re both in luck!

I can write replies ranging anywhere from 500-1200 words average - I know that’s a rather big window to call my “average”, but I don’t want to make it sound like that’s my strict length. This equates to around 3-8 paragraphs, but that obviously will vary depending on the size of the paragraph. I can certainly go upwards from 1200 and have gone on to posts with 2000+, however that’s usually too much for most people. Essentially, I’ll write the same amount you write so that it’s not over or underwhelming. Let me know your range and I’ll adapt! Although, if you would be willing to write 1500+/2000+ words a post, then you’d earn quite a bit on bonus points from me.

In terms of writing style, I write third person, past tense, multi-paragraph to novella. HERE are some samples of my writing from past Harry Potter-verse roleplays so that you can see what you’re getting yourself into! Hopefully I did the characters justice.

I’m also putting this up front - my schedule’s a bit wonky. There will be some days where we can go back and forth multiple times with multiple posts each and there will be some days where I can’t reply at all. I’ll try my best to let you know in advance if there will be a period of 2+ days where I can’t reply, but things happen. My activity rate is partially dependent on interest level as well - if I’m really into and excited about our roleplay, I’ll be able to reply more often!

On a similar note, I’m on the east coast (EST) if that’s an important factor for you.

I’m open to playing multiple characters if that suits your fancy, or, if you’d rather just play one each, that’s fine by me as well. If you do want to write multiple characters, then we can do more than one pairing at once or do more than one roleplay thread at once! I love doing both of those.

For relationship pairings, I do all different kinds: romantic/sexual, platonic, familial, and antagonistic. I think it’s fun to mix and match all these different kinds because they can make for some interesting character interaction!

I’m smut friendly as well and don’t mind including it in my roleplays, but it’s really dependent on the content of the story itself. I don’t necessarily want a story that is focused solely on smut, but I wouldn’t mind having it play a part

I'm only interested in roleplaying over email at the moment. My email is [email protected].

What I’m Looking for in a Partner

Now that we’ve got those basics out of the way, there are certain things that I would like out of a partner that hopefully someone can provide!

Be 18+, please. I know I’m technically on the younger end of the adult spectrum but I still feel uncomfortable roleplaying with minors (especially because some of my plots can contain smut).

I would prefer if you were female, just because I am more comfortable roleplaying and writing with someone who is the same gender as I am, but that isn’t a requirement, as I don’t want to totally limit the partners that reach out to me and potentially miss out on a fantastic male, nonbinary, etc. partner just because they aren’t female.

I’m looking for someone who can at least mirror or match my minimum post length, so no fewer than 3-4 paragraphs or 500 or so words. Again, if you want to write longer replies that span the 1500+ word range, than that would be even better!

I would like if you wrote in the third person. Tense doesn’t matter - write present or past, that’s up to you. But I won’t roleplay with anyone who writes in the first or second person, as it is a little weird to me.

If you can get me at least one post every other day, I’d be happy! If you can get me more than that, even better! Also, let me know if you’re not going to be able to reply for a prolonged period of time so that I’m not sitting on my hands wondering where you went.

Likewise, if you want to drop the roleplay for any reason, just let me know! I won’t be mad if it’s not working out, I just don’t want to be ghosted by someone who doesn’t want to continue and instead never replies again.

If you can play multiple characters/want to do multiple pairings, that would be wonderful, but again, it’s certainly not a requirement.

When you email me, let me know which pairings listed below interest you/you would want to include! Tell me a little about yourself and the way you write as well (including whether or not you would like to include smut in the roleplay as well as your limits if it’s the latter).

Also, if you have an idea that I haven’t listed, ask/tell me! I’m very open to suggestions for pairings!

Roleplay Information & Pairings

On to the part that you’ve actually wanted to see! I have a variety of things that I would like to include in a roleplay. To set it up, my preferred role in a pairing will be italicized. I’ll also note what type of relationship I would be interested in writing for a particular pairing/plot (romantic/sexual, platonic, familial, or antagonistic); we can also combine some of the four (like a romantic/sexual and antagonistic would be fun). Additionally, we can combine pairings if you’d like that are from the same era, or we can have more than one roleplay go on at once (as I mentioned earlier).I’m up for fluff or action or anything in between, so let me know what you want!

Marauders Era

James Potter x Lily Evans (romantic/sexual and/or platonic)

Sirius Black x Marlene Mckinnon (romantic/sexual and/or platonic)

Sirius Black x Lily Evans (platonic) *

Remus Lupin x Lily Evans (platonic)

Regulus Black x Lily Evans (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Hogwarts/Golden Trio

Hermione Granger x Draco Malfoy (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Hermione Granger x Harry Potter (platonic)

Ginny Weasley x Draco Malfoy (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Hermione Granger x [Your suggestion] (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Ginny Weasley x [Your Suggestion] (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic]

Next Gen

Teddy Lupin x Victoire Weasley (romantic/sexual and/or platonic)

Teddy Lupin x Lily Luna Potter (romantic/sexual and/or platonic)

Contact

That’s all I can think of at the moment! Again, if there’s anything else not listed that you’ve been dying to try out, let me know! More likely than not, I’ll say yes and jump right on board. Shoot me an email at [email protected] with your interests and a little information about yourself (ex: average post length, activity, etc.). If you shoot me a message just saying a pairing you were interested in without telling me about yourself, then I won’t be as inclined to reply since I don’t know if our styles would match up! So please, tell me about yourself - I promise I won’t bite!

#indie rp #indie roleplay #independent roleplay #multiple paragraph #short term #long term #email #harry potter rp #marauders rp #smut rp #submission

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imagining-harrypotter · 8 years ago

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Hi again please can I have a ship for marauders,next gen and original. I'm a 5,6 straight female. With straight thick brown hair which is always frizzy and hazel eyes. I am always there for my for those who are sad and need help, making me the mum. I love any kind of music but mainly rock and I enjoy a good joke and prank. I also love reading and playing any sport possible and play and read whenever I can. I love taking photos at any given point. All I want to do is live like a badass thank youx

MASTERLIST

A/N: so I’ve already done your Marauders ship, that can be found here, and I hope you like these two!! Also you didn’t say what house you were in so I tried to keep it as neutral as possible :)

Golden Trio Era: Charlie Weasley

“Someday, I want to go to Romania to study dragons.” Charlie confessed to you late one night; you were doing your Prefect rounds with him, but instead of patrolling the corridors like you should have been doing, you were lying on the grass just beyond from the lake and staring at the sparkling stars.

You had been voted Prefects of each of your houses and was how you had become good friends. You thought he was cute - alright, more than just cute - but he was Gryffindor’s Quidditch captain, he was intelligent, brave, outgoing and just about the loveliest, kindest person you had ever met, you were sure he didn’t feel the same way as you felt about him.

But as you stared up at the dark sky covered in glittering stars, you hoped that he did.

“Why dragons?” You asked back, “why not Quidditch? You’re good enough.” You stated, your eyes not peeling away from the stars above.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Quidditch, but you can only play for so long, what happens after that? Dragons - dragons could be for life.” He said as the wind wisped through the trees.

You had been friends with him all year and you had picked up on small things he did that he himself probably didn’t even notice. Like the fact that when he talked about something he loved his speech became stronger and you could even hear the smile in voice. Or like that he crinkled his nose when he was concentrating on his school work or when reading a book.

“And why all the way in Romania? Is there not something keeping you here?” You asked hopefully.

He turned over so that he was laying on his side rather than his back, facing you. His head rested on his hand which acted like a pillow.

“Well, there is one thing, one person who I would stay for.” He said as you rolled over to face him.

“And who’s that?” You asked in a whisper that was barely audible over the rustling of the trees in the wind.

And he didn’t answer your question, or more like he didn’t need to because he had reached across the space between the two of you and his lips were now locked with yours; you were the one person he would stay for.

Next Generation Era: Hugo Weasley

“You know I have never cared about the fact that you’re a Granger-Weasley or that Harry Potter is your uncle - you aren’t even related to him by blood Hugo, but if you want to think that way, then fine!” You yelled at your pale, freckly boyfriend who had slicked his red hair back into a ponytail because it was getting so long.

You were extraordinarily mad at him. He could be very insecure, believing stories or versions of events he had made up in his mind or someone else told him. This time, one of his friends had jokingly suggested that you had only been interested in him because his mother was Minister of Magic and his family was famous for playing a large part in bringing down Voldemort.

You could see the realisation in his eyes, as you turned to walk away from him, that he had made a terrible mistake. Regret poured in his voice as he apologised and begged you not to leave, but anger took over your body and fought every instinct you had; your heart said stay but your brain was in control of your feet which walked away from him.

You had always known him to be insecure and you had been trying to help him beat it. He was all you wanted, not his bloodline, not his family, not the attention he got at school because of his family, you just wanted him, just Hugo, just the boy who could make you laugh with his awfully cheesy jokes, just the boy who knew exactly what to say when you were sad.

After spending a couple hours hidden away in a corner of the library, you decided to go find him, you could never stay mad at him for long.

And there he was, tear stained cheeks, puffy eyes and messy red hair that had fallen out of his ponytail, standing holding a small pink rose.

“I know I can’t take back what I said, but I am sorry, I’m sorry I hurt you - because that is the last thing in the world I wanted to do.” He muttered, fiddling with the rose stem in his hands.

You knew he meant it. And although words couldn’t make up for how angry and sad he had made you feel, for now it was enough, and you knew in time his actions would make up for it properly.

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lifeonashelf · 6 years ago

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CAVE IN

Confession: I don’t have any especially deep insights about Cave In. Honestly, I essentially forgot Cave In even existed until I trotted to my shelf to pull the next band in my queue and found out that band is Cave In. Though as I sit here listening to them for the first time in over a decade, their credentials are gradually coming back to me: they earned a solid reputation on the indie-label circuit, which led to them being scooped up by RCA and receiving a heavy promotional push for their first major-label offering—2003’s Antenna, the disc I am playing right now to make things about Cave In gradually come back to me.

Bereft of any nostalgic association with the band, I suppose I should craft some sort of proper critical analysis of Antenna to justify this piece’s existence. I can’t readily compare this disc to the band’s previous releases since I’ve never heard any of them, but Antenna certainly boasts some sturdy material: nuanced, slightly-proggy dropped-D rock with nice thick riffs and enough big-chorus melody to allow the songs a soaring, anthemic quality that makes each one memorable. There’s enough nifty shit going on here to make it difficult for me to comprehend how I completely disremembered that Cave In was a thing.

As I soak the music in, I’m realizing that Cave In most readily reminds me of Failure (the band, not the antonym of “success”). This is mostly because all of the tunes and tones on Antenna strongly resemble the tunes and tones on Failure’s sophomore release, Magnified, a sludgy gem of the highest order which features some of the tastiest guitar playing ever committed to disc. The similarities aren’t even subtle: I’ve heard plenty of music that sounds like Failure mixed with some other bands, but Antenna-era Cave In mostly sounds like Failure mixed with more Failure. I don’t intend that as an insult at all—Failure is fucking awesome; as far as I’m concerned, mirroring their approach is an artistically judicious course of action. Really, the only injudicious thing about Antenna is RCA’s ostensible prediction that Cave In would reach next-level success by mirroring the approach of Failure.

That reads like an insult too, so allow me to clarify. I’m sure you don’t need me to explain to you that ginormous record conglomerates don’t ultimately give a shit what the records they put out actually sound like, just as long as lots of people spend money on them. The music industry has always placed its focus squarely on the “industry” end of things; it’s mainly just a happy accident when the “music” component is supplied by talented, interesting, or even listenable, artists. So it would be fair to suppose that the primary reason RCA decided to sign Cave In is because they believed the band might prove to be a profitable acquisition. Yet in this instance, their dice-roll involved signing an outfit that sounds uncannily like Failure, a group which disbanded and subsequently withdrew into a 15-year hiatus shortly after putting out their magnum opus, 1996’s Fantastic Planet—a record that didn’t even crack the Billboard Top 200 album charts despite being an unequivocal masterpiece. Now, Failure was-and-is an amazing band, and if you’ve never heard Fantastic Planet you should absolutely stop reading this bullshit and go listen to it immediately (and then you should check out Magnified, because that one rules too… hell, their 2014 reunion disc The Heart is a Monster is also killer, and so is their first album, Comfort—truthfully, everything they ever recorded is better than anything you’ll find in these pages, so I can’t fathom why you’re wasting time with my nonsense when you could be listening to Failure instead). The thing Failure was NOT was commercially successful, which seems to indicate that RCA was grossly misguided in expecting Cave In to ignite the charts by mining strikingly comparable musical territory seven years after their muse’s own major label debut went criminally ignored by the masses.

Since Cave In didn’t get huge either, I’m assuming the RCA money-men deemed this particular procurement a failure (this time I am referring to the antonym of “success,” not the band). However, the more I listen to Antenna, the more I’m concluding it’s a pretty excellent disc that reasonably should have been heard by far more people than it evidently was. A quick read-up on the band’s history has informed me that this effort is an anomaly in their discography, which was previously characterized by far more ferocious fare, and that many of their fans received the outfit’s RCA-branded stylistic shift with cries of “sell out” (which becomes somewhat ironic when you consider that the album didn’t sell a gaggle of copies and the band quickly went back to playing shows at small gen-ad clubs for the same people who called them sell-outs). I’m certainly game to hear Cave In’s screamier stuff, but even if Antenna is the most placid entry in their canon, there’s plenty of evidence here that these dudes rock plenty hard. Though I could do without the obligatory lighter-waver “Beautiful Son” and the meekly-poppy “Penny Racer”, the opening cut “Stained Silver” is a bombastic minor-chord maelstrom, “Joy Opposites” seethes with somber beauty and lush guitar flourishes, and the absorbing “Woodwork” closes out the disc in satisfying and stridently epic fashion. There are some real choice tracks here that would have likely grabbed a lot of ears back in 2003 if those ears had been given due exposure, so it seems rather shitty that the mainstream mostly left Cave In out in the cold while that insipid “wake me up inside” song by Evanescence was being spewed from half of the goddamn radio stations on the goddamn dial every four goddamn minutes. When all was said and done, Cave In was summarily dropped by RCA when the label’s spit-polish netted the band little more than a cameo on the Billboard register at #167, while the members of Evanescence banked enough cash to fuel a lifetime of Hot Topic shopping sprees.

Of course, this begs the question: if people weren’t buying Antenna when it came out, what records were they buying (besides the Evanescence disc with that fucking “wake me up inside” song on it)?

I did a little investigative journalism (actually, I just did a Google search—I’m a terrible journalist) to get an overview of some of the hit releases from 2003 and ascertain what the multitudes were passing over Antenna for. What I learned both surprised me a lot and didn’t surprise me one bit. The part which did the first thing was discovering that the records which Soundscanned their way to #1 on the Billboard list that year suggest a fairly favorable marketplace for Cave In’s wheelhouse: of the 34 albums that topped the charts in 2003, 6 of them were by rock bands. The part that didn’t arrive as a bombshell was finding out that most of the rock albums which sold a shit-ton of units in 2003 were absolute garbage (the antonym of “quality,” not the band).

Droves of folks eschewed the more thoughtful approach of Antenna to instead listen to Aaron Lewis whimper about how his daddy didn’t hug him enough on Staind’s 14 Shades of Grey and root on Godsmack as they plodded through a dozen retreads of the same dimwitted WWE pay-per-view theme song on their appropriately-titled Faceless. Rock fans also purchased a lot of copies of the dullest entry in Marilyn Manson’s catalog, The Golden Age of Grotesque, and of Metallica’s 80% unlistenable St. Anger—an interminable series of throwaway riffs without songs whose shoddy patchwork assemblage suggested that ProTools had as much to do with the album’s construction as Metallica did. Granted, Antenna isn’t necessarily mandatory listening, but it’s undoubtedly a far more appealing record than any of those offerings, and has aged far better (an aside: I recently spun St. Anger in its entirety for the first time in over a decade to reassess it; I discovered that even with the benefit of fresh ears the record still sounds just as abysmal as it did then, and this encounter merely served to remind me that Metallica was a really awful band for a few years).

The rest of the releases that reached the top slot during Antenna’s annum were about what you’d expect: a few hip-hop sets (by 50 Cent, DMX, Outkast, and Eminem), factory-constructs from a host of mostly-disposable female pop stars (Monica, Ashanti, Hilary Duff, Britney Spears), CD-shaped product-placement trinkets from American Idol alumni (Clay Aiken, Ruben Studdard, and Kelly Clarkson), and a smattering of appearances from the requisite country icons of the era (Shania Twain, the admittedly-diggable Dixie Chicks, and Alan Jackson with his eloquently-dubbed compilation Greatest Hits Volume II and Some Other Stuff). Additional dubious notables from that year were issued by Madonna (whose American Life shot to #1 the week it came out, then subsequently plummeted progressively down the charts once people started actually listening to it), Toby Keith (whose Shock’n Y’all plagued mankind by being christened with the lamest pun of all time and by being a Toby Keith album), and R&B’s most talented lunatic, R. Kelly (whose Chocolate Factory was rendered icky in retrospect as gradually-revealed details of his personal life suggested the record’s title was probably a reference to defecating on adolescent girls—an association which could only possibly be more insalubrious if Chocolate Factory had hit the charts at number two).

Sure, there were some bonafide standouts on that year’s roster—Jay-Z got a lot of mileage out of his superb Black Album, while Alicia Keys reached the apex slot with her dynamite LP The Diary of Alicia Keys—but I can honestly say I would much rather listen to Antenna than roughly 30 of the discs which shifted enough units to reach #1 in 2003. I’m not sincerely suggesting Cave In’s tunes boast the extensive cross-demographic appeal of something like Come Away With Me by Norah Jones (released the previous year, but still going strong and occasionally wandering to the top of the charts throughout 2003) or John Mayer’s Heavier Things (a compendium of sultry bedroom-eyed blues that mesmerized legions of sorority girls, their desperate-to-be-hip cougar mothers, and men with vaginas). Nonetheless, I’ve heard Antenna a half-dozen times now and I’m not sick of it yet, which indicates to me that it’s a thoroughly respectable outing. And when compared to the material it was most directly competing with, Cave In’s neglected opus certainly stacks up well against most of the dreck that was dominating the alternative charts during a year when trifling acts like Chevelle, Dashboard Confessional, and Three Days Grace inexplicably had hit records.

I know I didn’t help matters by forgetting Cave In existed. However, I’ve resolved to at least partially make up for that now by adding them to my mental list of bands I need to seek out more work from very soon. By the time you read this, I predict that I will have augmented my Cave In library with several more of their albums, and I further predict that I will enjoy them.

And I also predict that my library will still be blessedly devoid of the Evanescence disc which features that idiotic “wake me up inside” song with the sulky Vogue-Goth piano intro and the melodramatic dear-diary lyrics about being nothing inside and the lame-ass two-note quasi-industrial juh-jun juh-jun juh-jun guitar riff that runs through the whole fucking track and the dipshit in the background who keeps fruitlessly trying to sound like a badass when he snivels his “can’t wake up” part on the chorus and then raps out a pathetic bridge where he sounds just like that other dipshit from Papa Roach.

Seriously, fuck that song.

February 4, 2016

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thesassybooskter · 7 years ago

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THE LORD MEETS HIS LADY by Gina Conkle: Spotlight, Excerpt & Giveaway

NOW AVAILABLE/SOURCEBOOKS CASABLANCA

Lord Marcus Bowles has stained his family’s reputation for the last time. Only after spending a scandal-free year restoring some far-flung property can this second son return in good graces. But Marcus isn’t one to abandon a lone damsel on a dark country lane.

One stolen kiss and Genevieve Turner’s handsome midnight savior disappears. Typical. No matter, Gen is finally on the way to her new post, and hopefully to finding her grandmother as well. Instead she finds her mischievous hero is her new employer. Surely a few more kisses won’t hurt…

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How to Enjoy London Like a Georgian

The Georgian era was a fascinating shift from pastoral to urban living. The economic boom brought scientific advances. Much of the populace elevated themselves to a better place in life—especially the merchant class. Entertainments abounded. Life’s little luxuries were affordable. People enjoyed a diversity of products pouring into London on a regular basis.

In researching the Midnight Meetings series, I came across many surprises. You could call this list 5 things for an interesting life in London:

The British Museum. Seeds for the world-renowned institution were planted in 1753 with the death of physician Hans Sloane. A naturalist with a love for all things exotic, Sloane had purchased the house next door to warehouse his unique collections. People traveled far and wide to visit the house in Bloomsbury, finding a hodgepodge of international oddities. Trustees of Sloan’s estate didn’t know what to do with Sloane’s things. They tried to give the collection King George II, but he didn’t want it. Parliament acquired the collection and by 1759 the official British Museum opened its doors to the public.

Hot air balloon-mania hit England in the 1780s. It’s been reported that 200,000 people (royalty included in that number) showed up at the Artillery Ground of Moorfields to see a demonstration by Vincenzo Lunardi. He ascended without incident (other than his cat, which he took along for the ride, getting sick). The charming Italian was quite popular. Hawkers sold Lunardi fans, garters, and bonnets.

Pets ranged from the regular to the exotic. Unusual pet ownership spread amongst all classes with animals like a mongoose, ring-tailed lemurs, and marmosets. The Tower of London had a zoo open to the public, featuring jackals, lions, monkeys, baboons, and even an Indian elephant. Great beasts from around the world were housed in the Tower as far back as the 13th.

Fine furniture became egalitarian with Chippendale’s innovations to the industry. In the past, fashionable homeowners clamored for furniture fashionable made by high-end designers. Those men signed each furniture piece they made the way painters sign a painting. Then along came Chippendale. He published his Gentleman and Cabinetmaker’s Director (a design book) which changed how the English bought and made furniture. Design books weren’t new, but Chippendale’s approach was revolutionary. He presented the furniture as part of interior design: think presenting whole sets for a drawing room rather than an individual piece on a page. Chippendale hired men to make furniture for him, but his book not only changed ensemble decorating, it fostered a Do-It-Yourself approach to fine furniture-making. Humble gentry purchased Chippendale’s books and crafted their own fine furniture (such as my character, Mr. Samuel Beckworth in The Lord Meets His Lady).

The resourceful woman created her own future. The nobility watched over their daughters lest those young women go astray, but other classes of London enjoyed a kind of bare-knuckle freedom. Life was harsh on the fair-sex. Yet, many women refused to be victims of the times. Some forged a good life in commerce. Publisher Elizabeth Nutt is one such example. She ran a cluster of shops near the Royal Exchange where she sold respectable publications. She was also listed as “Mercury Woman”, a printer of seditious and sometimes salacious material on Grubb Street. She ran the business with her daughters.

London, no matter the era, was and is a place of opportunity for those who seek adventure on its streets. ~Gina

Excerpt

Lord Bowles set one hand on the dark-stained oak and pushed, all the while watching her with gentle determination as she rose awkwardly from the floor. Iron hinges whined a lethargic turn before the door clicked shut on honking fowl. The entry dimmed but was no less luminous for the unexpected sparks between them. Lord Bowles was a dose of good French brandy at the wrong time of day, enticing but entirely unsuitable.

“Do I make you nervous?” he asked.

His lordship missed nothing. He was like a thief-taker digging for the truth. In their two meetings, he’d shown more substance than the aimless wastrel people claimed him to be. For the first time since she left London, she missed the clamor and the crowds. This quiet between her and Lord Bowles, it denuded her.

“Nervous? A little.” Her attention flittered over him. “The part of me that finds you handsome. Too handsome for your own good.”

He blinked, his lips parting. Well-shod feet shifted and another beat of stillness passed. Did she surprise him? Good. Unease melted off her back from satisfaction of his lordship being the one off center. Served him right for coming here like this.

She wiped dough-flecked hands in her apron as though she had all the time in the world. “And since I’m being forthright, milord, I wanted some time to myself. You don’t get much of that living above The Golden Goose.”

“No, I suppose not.”

With his wind-mussed queue and rumpled brown velvet coat, Lord Bowles could be any man awaiting acceptance of a social call. He was a dangerous flirt with genuine, friendly appeal, endearing qualities that played havoc with her resolve, but she would be firm.

Her head tipped at an open doorway off the entry. “The parlor is that way, milord. I’ll fetch some coffee for you.”

She headed to the kitchen, her skin prickling across her bottom and thighs. Lord Bowles watched her. Ambling footsteps sounded in the small dining room behind her. He wasn’t going to be a docile guest.

Did his lordship think he’d found a convenient light skirt?

Crossing the kitchen, she tensed, expecting footfalls to follow her on the flagstone floor. A knee to a man’s baubles sent a clear message to overzealous men at The Golden Goose. With her employer’s friend, she’d have to use different tactics.

At the hearth, she checked the roast in the cooking hastener, but no footsteps came, nor did a hand palm her bottom. One glance at the kitchen showed Lord Bowles lounging in the doorway, one hand resting in his coat pocket. The corners of his mouth curled up as if he read women all the time and knew their secrets.

“Thought I’d wait here, save you the trip to the parlor with my coffee.”

“Because I’m of delicate constitution?” She reached for the spindle jack hanging from a rafter above the hearth.

“No, because I like watching you.”

Her cheeks warmed and her nipples poked her stays. “Lord Bowles…” she began sternly.

“I know,” he said smiling shamelessly. “I’m being inappropriate with my friend’s housekeeper. Can we agree to talk freely when we’re alone? I’ll curb myself when others are around.”

“I can’t lose this position, milord.” She started winding the spindle jack, a slow and noisy effort. Her breasts jostled and the flush spread down her neck and chest. There was no denying, it was nice being the object of his improper interest.

The Beckworth kitchen was bright with limestone walls and a cheery, yellow cabinet, not a typical haunt for the likes of Lord Bowles. He’d seek amusement elsewhere. With turnips on the table and bread rising in a bowl, his boredom with this rustic kitchen was her best weapon.

“There is a point to my visit,” he said loudly. “I come bearing an offer of help.”

“Help? With what?” she asked above the cranking cogs.

Lord Bowles stepped cautiously down into the kitchen. “I’d rather have a decent conversation with you than yell across the room.” He gestured to the long pine table near the hearth. “May I have a seat? I promise to behave. We’ll have a table between us.”

Her arm burned from working against the spindle’s tension and the heavy roast by her knees. She was about to give him a set down, but she spied that silly hole in his stocking and softened.

“No flirting, milord.”

He smiled boldly. “On my honor, none. We’ll be solemn as clergymen.”

“Clergymen,” she huffed and blew a wayward wisp off her face. “A few minutes. No more.”

He crossed the kitchen and took a seat at the table. She cranked harder. The string was nearly wound around the pulley.

“What is this offer of yours?”

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About Gina Conkle

Gina Conkle writes sensual Georgian romance and lush Viking romance. Her books offer a fresh, addictive spin on the genre, with the witty banter and sexual tension that readers crave.

She grew up in southern California and despite all that sunshine, Gina loves books over beaches and stone castles over sand castles. Now she lives in Michigan with her favorite alpha male, Brian, and their two sons where she’s known to occasionally garden and cook._ Find her at www.ginaconkle.com.

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THE LORD MEETS HIS LADY by Gina Conkle: Spotlight, Excerpt & Giveaway was originally published on The Sassy Bookster

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