#it's like. a very artificial solution to the plot

[vinnyvamppp]

HEAR ME OUTTT

You should write for Nolan Grayson, the drought for fics w/him are very much real 😭

The Replacement PT 1

NOTE: I'VE BEEN WANTING TO BUT THE AMOUNT OF MARK GRAYSON OR INVINCIVLE VARIANT REQUESTS I HAVE ARE MAKING MY FINGERS CRAMP. With that being said, I present to you:

Synopsis: Earth has made him comfortable. Weak, even. His half-human son may never be strong enough to carry the Viltrumite legacy, and his pet or wife is a distraction he can no longer afford. But you offer him a solution: a true heir.

Warnings: Considerations of Cheating, Drama, Childhood Friends, Changes to Plot For Convenience, Pre-Invincible Timeline, Nolan's Beginnings To Conquering Earth, AND DW HE STILL HAS HIS LOVING FAMILY. Word Count: 1,493 (PART TWO)

Omni-Man/Nolan Grayson x Fem!Viltrumite!Reader

The air was thin at this altitude, but it was nothing to you. Standing on the snow-dusted peak, your loincloth barely moved in the wind. The desolate breeze calming the maelstrom of thoughts whirling about. Below, the world stretched in all directions, so vulnerable, so fragile.

"You've been here for too long, Nolan." Your voice was measured, but sharp enough to carve through the silence. Across from you, Nolan Grayson stood with his arms crossed, his expression impassive, but you knew better. He had always been good at masking his thoughts, but you had centuries of experience reading him. His stance, the way his fingers subtly tensed, told you everything.

"I don’t need a reminder," he replied, his voice laced with something close to amusement. "I assume you didn’t travel across the galaxy just to lecture me?" You took a step forward, tilting your head. "No. I came because your absence has been noted."

His brow twitched, just slightly. Even after all these years, Viltrumites hated the idea of being monitored. "They sent you?" You scoffed. "They don't know I'm here." Now, that got his attention. His eyes, those sharp, calculating things, narrowed as he studied you. “And why would you withhold that information?”

"Because I know you, Nolan. Better than they do." You folded your arms, mirroring his stance. "I know why you’re hesitating." For a moment, he said nothing. You let the silence stretch between you, let him wrestle with the implications. It wasn't hesitation from weakness. No, that wasn’t Nolan. But sentimentality? Attachment? Those were cracks in his foundation, and cracks were dangerous.

Finally, he exhaled through his nose. "You think I’ve gone soft?" He asked, your lips pursing momentarily in thought. "I think you’ve gone comfortable," you corrected, your gaze flicking toward the horizon where a city pulsed with artificial lights. "This planet is changing you. The longer you stay, the harder it will be to finish what you started."

He smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "You sound like Thragg." That name sent a flicker of irritation crawling down your skin. "Thragg wouldn't have given you the courtesy of a conversation." His amusement faded. He knew that was true.

You took another step, closing the distance between you. "You need an anchor, Nolan. A reason to return to Viltrum when this mission is complete. And her—" your lip curled slightly as you referenced the human woman, Debbie, "—is not it." His eyes narrowed. "Careful."

"Don’t pretend you care," you retorted, undeterred. "A convenience? What is she to you, Nolan?" Silence. “She’s nothing compared to us—compared to what we are.” He began his admission, “But I allowed myself to pretend otherwise. A weakness. She is nothing more than that, and she never was.” His fingers twitched at his side, mulling over the betrayal in his words.

"You may think you've bought yourself time, but Earth won't make you stronger, and neither will playing house with a human," you continued. "But if you were to have a child with me—one who could be raised with the strength of our people, not poisoned by human frailty, you wouldn’t have to do this alone." Nolan’s jaw tensed. “Mark is already half-Viltrumite.” "Mark is half of something weak," you countered. "Would he ever be allowed to stand among our kind? Would you? You know the truth, Nolan, when the time comes, he will be an obstacle. She will be an obstacle." His silence was damning.

You let the weight of your words settle. Then, more softly, you added, "You’re too valuable to be cast aside, Nolan. But without proof of your commitment, they will find someone else to finish what you couldn’t." His eyes met yours again, and for the first time in years, you saw something shift behind them.

"You can still have what you came here for," you pressed, voice just above a whisper. "A family. A legacy. But one that ensures your survival when all of this—," you gestured to the planet below, "burns." For the first time that night, Nolan didn’t have an immediate response.

And that was the first sign that you were winning. The wind howled between you. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Then— "I need time to think," Nolan said finally, his voice low, rough as he remained perturbed. "You need time to think," you echoed, tilting your head slightly. "Very well. But let me give you something worth thinking about, Nolan."

His eyes flicked to you, wary. He had always disliked being cornered, and yet, here he was, trapped by words instead of fists. You turned away from him slightly, eyes tracing the horizon, as if lost in thought. Then, your voice softened. Not weak. Never weak. But calculated. Controlled. "He needed time too," you murmured. Nolan’s brow furrowed. "Who?"

"My husband."

The words alone felt like steel being drawn across a whetstone—sharp, deliberate in preparing for something deeper. "You never spoke of him," Nolan said after a pause. "Because there was nothing to speak of," you replied. "Not anymore." You let the silence stretch, allowing the weight of your words to settle before continuing.

"He was strong, Nolan. Stronger than most. He had earned his place in the Empire a thousand times over. Conquered dozens of planets before we were even paired." Your voice remained even, but there was a restrained edge beneath it. "And yet, for all his strength, for all his victories, he died." Nolan's eyes darkened, watching you carefully. "How?"

You exhaled sharply through your nose, gaze still locked on the distant city below. "An inferior race." The words dripped with disgust, as if merely saying them left a foul taste in your mouth. "A species that should have never been a threat. But they were desperate. And desperation, as you know, makes lesser beings reckless."

Your fists clenched at your sides, but your voice remained steady. "They used weapons he hadn't accounted for. They didn't fight—they ambushed. A tactic born from fear, not strength. A coward's strategy. And he paid the price for underestimating them."

You turned back to Nolan now, expression tense. "I watched as they burned his body. As the remains of a Viltrumite were reduced to nothing by hands that should have never been capable of harming him." His expression was unreadable, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed him.

And so, you pressed further.

"You understand now, don’t you?" you asked, voice low. "It doesn't matter how strong we are if we allow weakness to fester. If we allow ourselves to hesitate." A pause. "You think I’m hesitating?" Nolan’s voice was quieter this time, as if testing the words himself.

You gave him a pointed look. "I know you are. We have been friends for centuries."

For the first time since your arrival, he didn’t deny it.

A victorious chill crawled up your spine.

"I thought of you after he died," you admitted, stepping closer. "Among all the warriors of our kind, there are few I would have ever considered worthy. But you, Nolan... you have always been different." Something flickered in his eyes. It wasn’t pride, not yet, but it was something dangerously close.

"You are one of the strongest among us," you continued, voice soothing. "You were sent here because of that strength. But even the strong can fall, Nolan." Your words took a sharp turn, more insidious. "Do you think our kind will mourn you if that happens? Do you think they will even blink if you are slaughtered by an inferior race? You know what they will say?"

He didn’t answer. But you did.

"They will say you were not strong enough." The words hung between you, suffocating. Nolan’s jaw clenched, his fingers twitching at his sides. You could feel the trepidation building within him, the conflict. Then, you leaned in just slightly, gaze unwavering. "But you are strong enough, aren’t you? Strong enough to ensure your legacy does not die on a planet of insects."

Silence.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, he spoke. "If we do this," Nolan said finally, voice low, measured. "It is not because I need your help. It is because it is logical." A slow grin tugged at the corner of your combined lips. "Of course."

He exhaled, running a hand down his chin, and for the first time, he looked… unsure. "I’ll contact you soon." The words left his mouth slow, deliberate. But even as he spoke, his gaze lingered on you for longer than it should have. There was no hesitation in his stance now, no rejection in his posture. Only consideration and calculation. He was already deciding. Already choosing, even if he refused to say it outright. And that was enough for now. "Take all the time you need." Then, with one final glance toward the city below, you added, "But not too much. We wouldn’t want you getting too... comfortable again."

And with that, you disappeared into the night, leaving Nolan alone in the skies with the weight of his thoughts.

Should I do a part 2? I just like being messy on here.

Materlist

[thydungeongal]

I wanna ask your thoughts on a piece of GMing I've been struggling with despite myself

Namely, it's about structuring a campaign in a specific kind of system

Namely, it's this sort of Lancer, or perhaps DnD4e style system, where there's lots of combat, and it's a big draw of the system, but at the same time the combat is expected to be something resembling "balanced" and players walk out on the winning, - or at least, living, - end of most encounters. Now, I think this style of "tactical" combat is awesome, and I can set them up just fine and have lots of fun running them

But then there's the narrative side. Cuz these systems are usually ain't no PtbA or BitD, but they have some focus on their blorbos and the overarching plot they're stuck in, in a way that something like OSR-I-don't-bother-naming-them-until-they-live-to-lvl-3 doesn't

Now, I've run BitD specifically just fine, and had lots of fun there too. When the system is 100% about the character moments and the plot, I'm happy to just do that

But in these systems where the meat is the tactical combat, I struggle to both fit in interesting combat and narrative play that doesn't just fill like obligatory filler between the combats. And I was wondering if you'd have some insight on how to square that particular circle

I feel the struggle, but I think what helps is reframing what you think of as "a good story." I'm going to be referring to D&D 4e for the sake of my answer here, because it is the one I'm more familiar with of these two games, but it should be applicable to almost any game with tactical combat where the most important character verbs are variations of "Fight."

And to do that I'm going to quote Valiant Quest, a cool game I recently when nut nut over and that I'm currently organizing an online game with the girlies for. Valiant Quest has this quote in its section detailing what the game is for (which should be included in the free demo you can follow from that link):

Don't tell stories that can't be solved with swords, this isn't the system for political thrillers. Keep things simple and the goals clear. Only once players are invested should you even consider adding nuance. Broadly speaking your plots will start as either: a bad guy threatens a cool status quo or a bad guy enforces a terrible status quo. In either case, hit them with a sword.

I think you have identified an issue that sometimes pops up in these games, which is that you get a feeling of player characters being flown from one action set piece to another with the "story" content happening in between those action set pieces. The issue with that in the long run is that you end up with a disconnect between the gameplay and the narrative. The way to address this, I feel, is to think of the characters as action heroes. Action is their main vocabulary for interacting with most issues, so you want to give them issues which can be solved through action.

Now, there is a bit of an issue with D&D 4e (and this is also a problem in 3e and 5e, as those games have very much the same assumptions as 4e) and its kind that they very much do expect characters to win most encounters, which from the point of view of conventional storytelling doesn't necessarily make for the most interesting fiction. This is largely an issue of two different playstyles butting heads and D&D as a system never having really evolved to match this newer playstyle. But I think the solution to this very much isn't to artificially make sure that the player characters keep on winning, nor is it to conjure up endless contrivances that undermine the characters' victories. If the player characters keep winning each combat encounter but bad things out of their control keep happening off screen to ensure that their victory is short-lived it can ultimately undermine their sense of agency and make it feel like the characters are just observers to some series of events.

And the best way to do this hinges on transparency and communication but also fairness. Let your players know when their characters are rushing against potentially deadly odds, but when they do play the threat presented to the hilt. When the party wants to escape because they realize they've misjudged the odds, let them, because even though it is easy and fun to approach these games as fighting games where you the GM pit your toys against the players' toys in the fiction those goblins are creatures with hopes and dreams and they don't stand to gain from chasing after the heavily armed adventurers. If the party is forced to retreat and they can't recover all of their fallen, the enemy actually stands to take hostages they can use for leverage.

So to recap: you want to tell simple stories where issues can ultimately be fixed through the actions the character sheet provides the player characters; if you try to go for plots that hinge on things that the player characters can't really interface with it will make the action feel disconnected from the narrative and undermine character agency. And while these types of games do, much more so than your traditional OSR games, rely on empowerment and expecting the player characters to emerge victorious you as the GM should still strive to be an impartial judge, and that also means running things at the appropriate level of danger to them. But this type of play, even more so than many other playstyles, relies on high trust and openness. So be fair, but also open with information.

[pikuniku53353358]

Rain world + the amazing digital circus = glitch world!

II don't plan to develop this AU any further, so if you like the concept, you can start promoting it to the masses so that more people know about au. You draw art, create memes, and so on, making sure to put the hashtag "glitch world au" under all posts. The future of this au lies only in your hands. You can find out more about the plot below.

I'm telling you about this au's lore:

WARNING! I ran the entire text through a translator because English is not my native language, so there may be some mistakes in it. I hope they won't be critical. Okay, now I'm explaining to you for the local lore. Madness of Entertainment was one of those iterators who, even after the departure of the Ancients, remained faithful to the task, and he tried to solve it primarily because of that... Madness was lonely. A naive, slightly goofy, kind-hearted iterator. Everyone considered him an oddball and did not want to communicate. So, spending his days alone with his thoughts, at some point he thought of creating a large simulation, where the local rules would state that the void sea would not be able to turn you into an echo, to stuff the consciousness of all beings who want to ascend into this very simulation, and, in fact, that's all. Madness sent a triple confirmation, all the iterators in the world were alarmed, but they were not happy with the arguments their colleague came to and only became more convinced of his eccentricity. By the very concept of ascension, it means that your physical shell disintegrates, and your mind, as it were, ascends, turns out to be beyond all that exists, in fact, it turns out to be at the point of no return. How can the simulation convey this if no one knows what lies beyond this very point of no return? It will not be an ascension from this world, but some kind of nonsense. And besides, iterators are trying to find a solution to a great problem in THEIR REAL WORLD, and not in some kind of incomprehensible simulation done in a hurry. The ideas of Madness were rejected, and he could have fallen into despair if one of the iterators had not seriously said: "Besides, our Creators have long since left. Who are you working so hard for anyway? For these stupid creatures crawling through our structure?" Something clicked in his head, and the idea of giving lower beings a path to enlightenment stuck firmly in his mind. And he decided to start saving creatures... Other iterators located next to it. Because in the local group, where Madness was, how can I put it mildly?.. There were only dumb cattle. In fact, only Madness itself was normal there. Sea of Despair was particularly distinguished from this group. This person was very fond of creating various creatures, especially scavengers, but at the same time had sick sadistic habits and therefore she could calmly start beating her creations naturally or worse. Having probed all this, Madness began trying to establish contact with all this artificially created horde of scavengers through observers and force them to go towards his target so that the iterator could move the consciousness of all creatures into the simulation there. But Sea wasn't stupid either, her watchers had spotted the aliens, and so she decided to play along with Madness plan. She allowed most of her scavengers to come to someone else's installation, and then, through her observers, gave the command that they begin to destroy someone else's installation, preferably from the inside. The scavengers followed the iterator's orders and during this terrorist attack were able to damage some of Madness systems responsible for his artificial intelligence, making the already slightly strange iterator even more crazy. He forgot his real name and gave himself the nickname "Caine".

Sea decided to stop there, considering that she was able to take revenge on this naive freak and called everyone away from someone else's installation, leaving Caine alone with himself again. The iterator was still burning with the idea of saving the lower beings, but now he wanted to move them into the simulation not for the sake of lifting everyone up, but for the sake of everyone having "fun" there. Yes, Caine began to believe that everyone in this world lacked "joy," and he wanted to fix it. He will come up with all sorts of adventures for all newcomers, feed them well, and in general, the creatures there will live in peace and harmony and blah blah blah. Well, then, willy-nilly, all sorts of slugcats and lizards began to come to him from time to time, which Caine safely irrevocably moved into the simulation, before erasing most of their memory.

This is if we talk about the general lore and Caine, and now I'll tell you about the rest of the characters. Pomni, Gangle and Zooble are the creations of another crazy iterator from a local group named Nothing Is Perfect. This iterator is a fierce perfectionist and has been trying in vain all this time to create the perfect being. But as you know, it's no use. Gangle and Zooble were the first to enter the simulation. The iterator had previously held everyone hostage, locked up in his room, literally chaining all the poor things in chains. But Zooble, as a stronger being, was able to get out, Gangle helped, and together they escaped from this madhouse. But Gangle was still chained up, Zooble couldn't untangle them, so they came to Caine, and when he saw Gangle's condition, he counted... That chains are already the last century for fashion and beauty, I replaced heavy chains with light ribbons for the mouse, in fact, thus freeing the poor thing from these shackles.

Pomni, the most recent at the time got into the simulation. And she was able to get out of the installation on her own. It was thanks to her tail that slugcat managed to fight back against its creator. In fact, this tail is a separate organism, for the most part, Pomni is able to control it, but if this reptile gets into a rage... That's it, no one will be able to stop this crazy limb. According to the law of meanness, it so happened that the tail also turned out to be very similar in appearance to the scattered ones, so she is now even more afraid of him, despite that it was he who, in fact, was able to save his mistress's life. Speaking of the scattered ones. Since Caine hadn't checked his simulation for possible errors all this time, it eventually turned out that if a creature's hunger, happiness, or anything else greatly exceeded its normal status, an error would occur and the simulation would turn the creature into a fig, you know what, that is, those scattered ones creatures. Which Caine then sends to the void sea, where no one else has seen them.

Jax is one of the creations of Sea of Despair, and I think it's clear from his scars that the scavenger went a little crazy during his stay with his creator. He got to Caine by accident when he was doing the iterator's next assignment. After Jax got into the simulation, they were able to remove the stitches that had been sewn to his mouth all this time, and more or less patched up the wounds. Unfortunately, Caine couldn't fix his sanity... Kinger was a representative of a rare species of deer. An endangered species. And one of the iterators of the local group wanted to help these poor devils in preserving the population. The idiot's name was Four Rays. To all the individuals that Ray could find, he, with the help of observers, put special sensors on their heads, like for tracking. But most of the observers did it carelessly, breaking half of the deer's skulls, damaging their brains in every possible way, and so on. As you can imagine, this has only caused the population to shrink further. Kinger was lucky. His brain wasn't badly damaged, mostly affecting his memory. Now the deer couldn't remember anything very well. Together with his beloved, Kinger came to Caine. Due to the fact that this type of deer was relatively lower and smaller than the original, they were able to climb through the opening into the structure. The inspectors noticed these two, notified Caine about it, and then he was able to remotely move them. Ragatha was affected by the last iterator in the local group, which is now dead. His name was Enlightened Sky, I couldn't think of what exactly caused him to die, but his structure eventually collapsed, just like it happened to Moon. Ragatha lived in a region close to the sky and was badly damaged during the collapse. The debris was flying, there was a lot of dust, and Ragatha miraculously managed to survive.

However, in the process, she received a huge wound on her back, which also hurt a lot. Her spine also cracked a little at that moment, so the poor thing could barely walk at all. But she still managed to crawl to Caine, moved into the simulation, and there the iterator gave her a cloak to hide this terrible wound and a bow, purely so that Ragatha would not be too sad.

[bodysnatch3r]

its just that the veil is doing so much narrative and thematic heavy lifting that it can mean ten thousand things to ten thousand different people while also being a stand-in for real violence and/or genocide and/or fascism and/or whatever flavour du jour we want to interpret it as. it cannot be the physical manifestation of solas' hubris and a metaphor for artificial unequal systems like capitalism and a tool of oppression and a now-undeniable fact of contemporary theodosian life and the one thing keeping the blight at bay and a shorthand for the idealisation of the past and a metaphor for ecocide all at once. while also being a prop in solas' trickster deconstruction plot. it just can't. whichever way you slice it (heh) it will be narratively unsatisfying. it's a logic problem with no solution.

if the veil is unjust and tearing it down is an act of reparation, then why is trespasser!solas so candid about the sheer amount of destruction doing so will cause, and tells a befriended inquisitor that he hopes they can prove him wrong once again?

if solas is inherently justified in wanting to tear down the veil, as the veil is the root source of all the world's injustice towards spirits and mages and elves, why is he leaving an opening for a friendly inquisitor to stop him?

if solas is a trickster and his arc was betrayed when the veil didn't come down, then why is his overarcing storyline about the tension between godhood and personhood? is he a man or a god? is leaving the world as is a failure of reparative justice, or the conclusion of a single character's arc whose main themes have been about wrestling with regret when one's mistakes have world-altering consequences?

the veil, as a narrative element of the wider dragon age plot, is apparently at odds with itself because it's doing two incompatible things: it's the embodiment of systemic injustice while also being the macguffin of solas' own very-different-thematically personal plot, where accepting that the veil cannot be undone is part of accepting that the past cannot be changed and one must move on and build a better tomorrow with the imperfect tools of today.

and i kind of really like this messy tension. if we want to stretch the metaphor to its breaking point, i find it echoes a lot of what dreaming a post-capitalist society may look like. what kinds of futures are possible? what does revolution look like? who will sweep the floors once the revolution is over? who'll wash the dishes?

[anncanta]

‘Elizabeth’: Dionysianism and two kinds of adulthood

Another interesting point. Elisabeth is a story about the era of decadence. When you watch it in the Viennese production, where the figures of Elizabeth's contemporaries literally look like tiny toys or dolls, this is especially noticeable. I have come across reviews where the authors say that the production itself is decadent. But this is not true. It is enough to listen to the musical parts in which these characters participate. Viennese cafes, the council of the Empress Mother, Madame Wolf's salon are absolutely operetta performances. Whereas the rest of the musical is a complex performance of a very high dramatic level. It is obvious that decadence in it is an object of ridicule and an additional way to show a dying and decaying era.

But here's the question – who is Death in this story? Judging by what I've seen, in different productions the authors have gone two ways.

The first is the versions in which Death ‘collects’ decadent ideas and fantasies, reflects, and focuses them. Then you get the Death by Uwe Kröger (the exquisite poetry of romantics and symbolists), Olegg Vynnyk (the teenage suffering of various Werthers), and Jesper Tydén (honest decadent angst).

And there is another way. To show Death as a counterpoint, a counterweight to all this artificial, tortured, musty bacchanalia.

It was not by chance that I used this word. You see, decadence is a bacchanalia in reverse. An attempt to give in to passions (to celebrate the strength and beauty of Bacchus) by people who do not have the real strength for this. That is, they are impotent. Their Dionysian impulses once existed and were quite bright and ardent. Only they squandered them. Spent them on the basest and most primitive manifestations of this side of life. And now, having exhausted everything that they had inside, they cannot stop, and continue to move in the same rhythm, imitating actions that they are not capable of.

In this version, Death appears as a reality, opposed to empty fantasies. Like a real Dionysus, who comes to a ball of dolls dressed in dusty clothes and looks at them with surprise and slight disgust. He, after all, has come to see the only living person here. But since he has already dropped in, why not take a look? That is why he is so alive – because Death, contrary to what the decadents think, is a part of life. Their cowardly fantasies do not extend beyond external aesthetics, so their Death is always sickly refined, but not beautiful.

Death in this second version is not just beautiful – he is so beautiful that it is impossible to understand how Franz Joseph can be noticed in the presence of this character. He embodies desire, joy, life, warmth, sincerity, curiosity, tenderness, jealousy, impatience. Everything that so fascinates and attracts us in life. A real Dionysianism, not an invented one. Bright, reckless – and dangerous. It is no coincidence that Máté Kamarás in the Viennese production literally swings on the platform from which he descends at the beginning in a fit of rage, and this looks risky. Because his Death is a fair game. Risk is risk. Love is love. Life is life.

These are the conditions he sets and which he does not change throughout the story. He offers them to Elisabeth (and she is not afraid of death, but precisely these open and honest conditions – as the aria after visiting the mental hospital confirms), he offers them to Rudolph (who is simply unable to accept them – a sick child of a dying world). It seems to me that sometimes Kamarás' Death sincerely does not understand why they refuse to accept them, and what is wrong with them.

Both versions are interesting, and I don't think that any of them can be considered ‘correct’ or ‘original’. They are simply two solutions for the same plot. In the context of each of them, the character and the actor create their own dynamics. Death by Uwe Kröger, Olegg Vynnyk, Jesper Tydén ‘draws’ into himself, captivates, enchants, charms with its majestic beauty and deliberate mystery. He ‘takes’. Death by Máté Kamarás splashes life. He gives, spreads joy, inspiration, sincerity, and warmth. Anyone who is ready to whirl in a dance with him will never want to return to a decadent musty chest. In this sense, the scene Am Deck der sinkenden Welt is a brilliant commentary – a bright light breaks through to old Franz Joseph, but he keeps muttering that he loves Elisabeth and gave himself to her. ‘Poor gift!’ Death laughs. ‘Give her peace and safety!’

Apparently, it is also about growing up. Each story has its own audience and its own meaning that this audience requires. For a young person, for a teenager, adulthood is very important, but not real, but this kind, ‘playful’, deliberate, decadent. Adulthood ‘I know everything about everyone’, in which you can pretend to play in death.

But real adulthood, the adulthood of a mature person, contains death as an integral part of life and the understanding that there are real, living, very important things. That these things are short-lived, complex, and fragile. That you can play exactly until the moment when a gun is in your hand, and then you can blame Death, who holds your hand, but you pull the trigger – or not.

Two sides of one story, one idea, one fairy tale, which reminds us: love, life, and death are always real.

Always.

[haljathefangirlcat]

Help. I think I'm actually hooked on the 2024 Fallen series. Yeah, Fallen like the paranormal romance YA Lauren Kate novel that I never read because every plot summary made it sound like simply another Twilight rip-off thing with a brooding male lead who just had to treat the Too Stupid To Live female lead like shit from the get-go "for her own good" or whatever. Also Fallen like the movie adaptation I'm like 98% sure I did watch at least once when it aired on tv and I said "eh, let's give it a try" but I remember absolutely nothing of except it being bland and boring and maaaybe also the opening scene.

I said "eh, let's give it a try" again with the series because my mom was like "oh, I heard this is good." And... it actually is good?? Not "masterpiece" or "pretty much flawless" good, or even "I'll probably still be obsessing over this in a few years" good, maybe, but "this feels pretty well-paced and I'm having fun and feeling emotions (and even feels), I'm actually curious about the solution to the mystery (even if I already know what I assume will be the main part of it) and care about the main cast of characters and want to find out more about the more minor ones, and... well, I just want to keep watching this to the end" good. "Do I have the wrong Fallen entirely in mind or was I just being a dick way back when" good.

I'm also glad to report that, four episodes in, the male lead is not a brooding asshole, the heroine does some very, very risky stuff but actually plans it through with her friends and allies instead of going off alone for no good reason except artificially amp up the drama, and I quite like them both. I don't particularly ship them (yet?), but their romance isn't some kind of grating insta-melodrama that just keeps building up and up to obscure anything interesting in the show, either. They're kind of cute, actually. I could do without the hints of a love triangle already sprinkled here and there, but the same "well, at least it's not being focused on ad nauseam" applies. And it's compensated by the fact I mostly like the other guy (in a kind of light "wanna put him in a petri dish and study him" way, at that) and also the male lead gets to have platonic female friends he cares about without the female lead needing to have a conniption over it. Plus, the way the characters go about expressing attraction feels a lot more understated than I would have expected. Which may be a weird thing to like in a romance series, but it just fits?? Between the horrors and all the deaths and gaslighting and "fuck it, we need a way to break out/find the truth"??

I have no idea how much was really changed from the book, or how. I do know that at certain points I happened to think "oh, god, here's Quirky Best Friend/Quirky Anxious Loser Best Friend/Unreasonably Petty Bitch 1/Unreasonably Petty Bitch 2 to really bring in that 2k YA Spirit. Can't avoid the high school dynamics even in a mental-institution/rehab-centre-as-a-front-for-some-kind-of-creepy-sect setting, I guess"... and now I really need all those girls to make it out okay, please.

Hell, I'm even interested in the creepy sect people. And not just in a "the heroes suck so bad that I'll get what I can from the villains" sense. I genuinely like that they disagree on how to run and protect their little cult and they seem to have their own motivations and inner struggles, and that the implication that they may be doing it all for A Higher Purpose doesn't make any of it seem any less fucked up and terrible and hurtful.

I'm not sure I'd wholeheartedly rec this show without a "yeah, the setting is literally a mental-institution/rehab-centre-as-a-front-for-some-kind-of-creepy-sect, and it goes into some really dark places in that context" caveat, as well as another one about how I'm not qualified to talk about how realistic or tactful its portrayals of mental illness, self-harm, anger management issues, emotional and mental abuse, etc. may be. I can say there's a sexually abusive relationship in it that I found depressingly believable in its build-up, with the actual sexual abuse itself kept mercifully off-screen. Aside from all this, there's a non-white character who tends to act as a bit of a handyman/Guy Who Finds Useful Stuff for the white leads' plans? But I feel he has potential to be more than that and I hope he gets some more depth or development.

All in all? I've seen Tumblr go crazy over things I found way worse in quality. And I might have a couple of femslash ships for it already. So, I'm hoping for both a second season and at least a bit of a fandom, lol.

[anim8oryash]

Solutions to create crowd for Animation

It is very interesting to see the techniques in which lots of animation and film-makers manipulate crowds in their work. The approach that film-makers take generally depends on factors such as time & budget, and resources available.

Big budget projects or feature films made by studios such as Disney and Pixar, tend to have very detailed ambience characters (Which they might have a storage of....maybe characters which they can reuse as crowd in a lot of different projects, but regardless they are all well detailed, a lot of them have motion too!)

Disney's crowd / audience in "Wish" (2023) and "Hercules" (1997)

Its clearly the ideal way to simulate crowds and make the world look much more believable and engaging as like the real world, there is a unique face with unique features and also vaguely unique body languages. However this kind of approach seems to have a real big crew working alongside you or people who can dedicatedly take care of the crowd part as the sequence doesn't so much to the story when compared to the effort it takes to create it.

On the other hand there is an extremely cost efficient as well as time efficient way that people tend to use (which i personally am not very fond of), but the result is as unrealistic and boring as it can get. In this way of doing things, people tend to replicate one anonymous character into x number of times to create their crowd in the shot. A lot of the times, they also follow the same fed set of motion at the same time which makes it really artificial.

Something like this could be an example. It makes everyone look like a clone and for me that is an instant distraction and it catches my eye because it looks lazy and less passionate. it does have its applications though, when it comes to game design, for instance a sports game. We don't need to care about the audience and its usually a long shot where u cant see the details anyway.

However for me, if I'm working alone on a personal project I found that the best option would be an in-between but with an added layer of creativity. I find myself liking the approach of how Anime and Independent Shortfilms approach this.

Crowds in Anime

The solution used, is to show them in the light of the main character which also adds to the story (as the story tend to usually in one or more ways revolve around the main character). By either reducing the details, of the crowd or making them less vibrant or sometimes even both, depending on the context.

Examples of using roughs for crowd in Anime in a funny sequence

The more light hearted the shot, the more you can get away with make it rather rough because we aren't trying to hide the fact that it would be too much to do, infact on the contrary, accepting it as well as presenting it with grace. And since the context is funny, people accept it without any critics and might even have a laugh about it.

My short-film plot is about fear as the main emotion and so i feel showing the crowd through the eyes of my lead (Making them less saturated and less detailed) will also leave an impact and also establish the fact that for her, everyone else is just another face in her life (Unless its someone close to her) and will also help support her introvertish nature further.

[fluxedbuds]

apparently y'all Are desperate enough for my Lomadia Oc so uh. hope you're in the mood for [checks notes] ~13 paragraphs, half of which is just description!

allow me to introduce Villom!

She doesn't have an actual name or in-universe nickname, I just call her Villom. Because she was originally a Villain Version of Lomadia from a sci-fi world for some comic idea I totally scrapped bc it sucked. Except for Villom!

So basically what if we put Lomadia in space and gave her every problem and no normal coping mechanisms

The base universe is Completely Impossible sci-fi space stuff, involving solar systems being relatively close together and having tons of habitable planets, with star trek 'convergent evolution' making everybody a Weird Human Basically. Part of these choices is that I. Don't actually like sci-fi lol. I don't think its bad I just can't Get Into It, so I did the lazy version. HOWEVER I do also use the fact that its extremely artificial and story-focused as part of the plot so its FINE There IS also magic, but it’s generally less used, as tech is more accessible and less complicated from a user standpoint. That doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful, if you know what to look for. Thats foreshadowing!

Compared to base Lomadia, Villom is.. very immature. She has trouble identifying and controlling emotions, she's quick to anger and holds grudges. She's also more impulsive and tends towards insults and crude jokes. She's actually pretty fun to hang out with as a result, but responsibility is a role she's crushed into, and it never truly fits. She's trying her best ok

Villom starts out her story as a young adult, training to be a pilot. She does some hero shit, but breaks so many rules in the process and gets kicked out. She’s enraged by this betrayal of what was supposed to be her life, and steals a ship to go rogue and try to pursue her dreams anyways. She doesn’t exactly know what she’s doing, though, and eventually a chase causes her to crash on an unfamiliar planet, where she meets Rythian. He’s steampunk now, don’t question it

Anyways, they end up teaming up, and form the first of her crew. Later additions are Martyn, who is a mouse guy who has So Fucking Many People Who Want Him Dead, and Zoeya! Who ended up separated from Fionn following partially the plot of Mushbury, and works as the ship’s engineer. Their ship (that lasts long enough to get a name…) is called the Ask, and Villom occasionally (and jokingly) calls her crew the Answers. (Its called the Ask because originally I gave the characters nicknames based on Norse mythology for Pretentious Reasons, those might come back later)

So everything’s all fine and poggers for a while, with the Ask’s crew causing mischief and undercutting evil empires across the worlds- and then Villom’s home planet is destroyed. And she sees it happen.

See, one of the tropes of sci-fi that bugs me, is how understated the death of an entire planet tends to go. This is the first step of Villom realizing how truly fucked up the world they live in is- and the first step of her wondering why it has to be this way, and how to stop it.

It only gets worse from here.

No matter how many evil empires they topple, no matter how many massive threats they thwart, there’s always another one. And no matter how fast they are, they can’t stop every world-ending crisis. Villom starts learning magic, wondering if theres some kind of solution there. When she doesn’t find one, she just looks harder. Brushing so close with forces she’s alone in experiencing wears on her, compounding with their futile mission.

The breaking point is when Rythian dies. Raiding an enemy ship goes wrong, they’re outnumbered, they’re trying to retreat. Surrenders are not accepted, there.

It’s another thing she sees happen, another thing she was inches away from but unable to stop. And she can’t take it. She can’t take losing another part of her, another of the few things she could call home in this cold void.

She takes some of the things she learned looking where she shouldn’t- and kills the nearest member of the enemy team, trading a life for a life. And part of her soul as tax, of course. Just a small bit, this time. She never tells him. Pretends it was instead an incredibly close call. He probably knows she’s lying, on some level, but he never says it.

Villom is desperate, now. There’s more and more things she’s hiding from her crew, more and more boundaries of safety she’s pushing. She trades one of her eyes for the ability to see the functions of the world itself- maybe it’s a mistake, there’s some gear stuck, and if she fixes it this infinite loop of wars will stop.

There is no mistake. This is how the universe is intended to function.

She can’t give up. Because if she stops, she’s never going to get up again.

Maybe there’s other worlds where it’s better, where it’s safe. Maybe there’s a way to make this world like them.

Maybe there’s a way to leave.

She’s barely human anymore, even though she looks perfectly fine. Her hair is white, her eye replaced, but that’s all. She’s replaced the things she’s traded away. She’s barely even a part of the world, anymore. Unstuck from the threads of it, floating as a constant point, unchanging and undying, snapping back into place when moved.

A lot of universes are visited by a strange woman with white hair, who never stays. Sometimes she’s a savior, or a tyrant, or merely another passerby.

One of them, somewhere, has to have an answer. The way to break the cycle. And Villom will find it- even if she has to take every one of them apart.

[radellama]

Resi Reviews pt3

Well, it’s been a little bit, huh? The first thing I wanna say is… I kinda fucked this up. Just a little bit.

See, I played both the Revelations games in 2022, but I put off writing about them because only writing two entries- both of which I felt luke-warm towards at best -seemed underwhelming. I was playing one of the Wii shooters with my sibling, but we never ended up finishing it, and new year’s came around. Then, suddenly, RE4R released, and I caved and bought it to play, taking notes all the while. And well, I figured I’d just write about all three and bundle them into this year’s Resi post- and here’s where I fucked up.

I only started using my new notes system this year (2023). So I’m running on memory for games I played 2 years ago now… And then one game I have ridiculously in depth notes for.

Don’t get me wrong, my memory is pretty decent, so I had no doubt I’d get the gist across for a review when I started writing – BUT……….. Since I leveled up my note-taking and go even more in depth with my new system, the Rev reviews may feel a bit more glossed over compared to RE4R. I have quickly studied the games and their plot again to jog my memory, and booted up the games to replay the first few chapters- everything short of a full replay. But yeah. I fucked up by putting it off for a whole year longer than I intended. Lol. Normal warning for surface level to mid range spoilers, and I’ll make a note of when I go deeper than that.

Anyway, here they are. Enjoy.

~~

Resident Evil Revelations, PS4

Well. This uh. This certainly is a Resi Game.

I played this on PS4, but found out pretty quick into playing that it was originally made for the 3DS. This is noticeable not only by the strange gimmicks along with simple and somewhat sparse level design, but also by the fact that the story is presented episodically. Viewing it in the context of it being a game designed for handhelds, ok, fine, I guess a more pick up and play style would have some benefits from a chapter recap as you play. However, the levels aren’t very long, and it was almost immediately tiresome to see a reel of what I’d just played at the start of new chapters. And boy, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I wanted to like this game so bad, and it almost had me, but ultimately, I can’t really say I favour it.

One thing I will give some credit to right away, is the setting of this game. Most of it takes place on a cruise ship, the Queen Zenobia, and it has a stronger focus on the slower paced survival horror style of gameplay- especially compared to games in the main numbered series at the time that were becoming increasingly action focused. The idea of being trapped on a ship with a bunch of bioweapons for enemies is a confronting and scary setting, and this game certainly had its moments. While you’re on the ship, the waves are simulated by a slow and constant dutch angle rocking back and forth. While this is a cool choice stylistically, I found myself motion sick fairly quickly when playing on the tv (which got me wondering if I’d feel as sick playing on handheld as intended, but I’m sensitive to these sorts of things regardless). Generally, the gameplay itself was fine, but the plot… oh, the plot…

It is So. Fucking. Messy.

It has the dumbest ‘twists,’ and a frankly awful and confusing presentation of cast and plot. The chapters aren’t chronologically presented, which isn’t necessarily a detriment- if done well. But, with how convoluted things get, I think this was a shit choice. Not only were there certain characters I couldn’t recognise were the same person across different time periods, I just plain ol’ couldn’t keep up with certain character motivations and was left with a confused expression for a majority of my playthrough.

See, in the greater Resi timeline, this game is a little after Chris and Jill have founded the BSAA – their solution to counter bioterrorism, post RE3. There’s some fucked up bioterrorism going on at an… artificially floating island, named Terragrigia- that is self sustained by it’s advanced solar energy network. Then, when it’s infested with bioweapons, some guy makes the decision to vaporise the island and destroy it. Some characters speculate on whether this was an inside job or something- but honestly, these flashbacks/history settings are so terrible that I honestly cannot follow. I have played the game myself, watched other playthroughs/lore recaps as refreshers (both while playing originally and now for this write up lol) and just generally read up on the wikis, IT STILL MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE TO ME. Pair this with the fact that Jill is paired with a bland, knock off Barry Burton, and Chris is paired with a one-note, oversexed, homebrand version of Jill… UGH!!! It feels like they can’t focus on or commit to anything! The plot bounces all over the fucking place, setting up things that are seemingly there just to waste your time and fuck with you. I don’t find this kind of thing fun or enjoyable, and it’s a great example of what I mean when I say something feels like it’s punishing you for paying attention.

So, the Terragrigia thing is just the backdrop (that’s honestly not enough to justify how much they harp on about it imo) to set up the fact that Chris has gone missing. His signature was lost in the middle of the ocean, and some middle-aged man tasks Jill and Parker (homebrand Barry) with going out to find him. The first chapter is the two of you arriving on the boat, and investigating to try and find Chris. There’s signs of bioterrorism, and there are even a few recent victims that were killed moments before Jill or Parker could do anything to help. This was a pretty good introduction, and I liked it! It set the scene, showed off the unique and claustrophobic setting of being on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and it genuinely felt like a return to survival horror despite keeping the ots action shooter setup when fighting. It was a much slower pace, creeping around the derelict halls of a once grand cruise ship, with the occasional jump from this game’s ‘zombie.’ I remember the first time playing through this section, I was thinking that it was an interesting choice, and generally looking forward to what was going to happen… But that engagement didn’t last long, as it’s immediately destroyed by it’s shit pacing and storytelling.

The next section of the same chapter is a flashback to just before Jill and Parker get sent out to find Chris, and you’re just on some gross beach with a bunch of beached bioweapon corpses. This section exists SOLELY as a tutorial on how to use the scanning thingy, which could’ve been integrated into the hand-holdy intro sections on the boat more seamlessly. If you’ve already got little cues that tell you to hold L2 to aim and R2 to shoot, what’s so bad about having a prompt during a close encounter with a bioweapon saying hold L1 to aim and R1 to scan? You can even have Parker just say some shit like, “Scan this thing, I’ll keep it distracted!” Cue button prompts, scan completed, kill the thing, maybe make a comment on how their boss will be glad for the info and to keep an eye out for more shit to scan. WHY does there need to be an entire sequence that grinds all momentum to a halt because you’re jumping back and forth in time within the SINGLE CHAPTER. It just gets worse, and I’m going to TRY and keep it brief, cause I seriously get pissed off thinking about this game for too long lmao.

Turns out, Chris wasn’t on this ship, and now Jill and Parker haven’t been able to be contacted since they went looking for him. Chris is suddenly able to be contacted, and he along with Jessica (homebrand sex appeal) were actually in some snowy mountains, and are now going to try track down Jill and Parker. You bounce between these two plot lines, AND a third where some ragtag duo go out to the same places other characters have been to, (but not at the same time as them, it’s before or after) and just do general recon or something. That’s three character povs to keep track of, not to mention the secondary characters that are supposedly important AND all the bouncing around between times. STOP IT! JUST PICK A FUCKING THING AND COMMIT TO IT. SO MUCH OF THIS GAME COULD’VE BEEN GENUINELY GREAT TO PLAY AS A RETURN TO FORM, BUT YOU FUCKED IT UP WITH THIS INCONSISTENT SHIT! IT IS PURE SLOP!! IT IS NOT FUN TO PLAY OR FOLLOW ALONG WITH AND WHOEVER WAS DIRECTING OR FORCIBLY ADDING THIS SHIT IN NEEDED A SLAP ON THE WRIST AND A FEW HOURS IN A TIME OUT CORNER TO ACTUALLY THINK ABOUT WHAT THE HELL THEY WERE DOING. If I can’t really communicate the gist of this game in ONE paragraph, let alone multiple, something has gone terribly wrong. I admit I get more heated over this kind of thing, as I am someone who cares very much about the narrative and presentation of stories- and spend a lot of time crafting my own stories to make sure that they are interesting and understandable. I KNOW how hard it can be to create a game, or a film, or a written text- ANYTHING. I have been working in teams and on my own to create stuff for YEARS at an indie level, and have an understanding of the industry level too. I’m not just saying this to bitch and moan, I’m saying it because I care and would expect the same criticism if the things I made were getting this out of hand!

Anyway!

There are more plot points that set up some shit about the cult (?) that started the bioterrorist attack on Terragrigia, as they’re the ones that have lured the BSAA to the boat in the middle of the ocean- and how there’s double crossers amongst them. Whatever. I don’t care. Nothing makes a lick of sense, and it’s hard to find any justification to play like this. Jill is the best and I like Chris fine enough, so it should’ve been reeeeaaal easy to set up at least one of them to have the best plot thread or gameplay in the game. But no. I actually found myself getting the most enjoyment out of two side characters named Quint and Keith.

Quint. And Keith.

Two guys who the designers apparently put so much effort into, making visual choices like ‘epic tattoos to show that he’s cool’ and ‘has a slightly larger head than usual to show that he is smart.’ They have a cool soundtrack during their sections, and they’re dorky as hell, but idk man. Amongst all this slop and just... Bland or irritating personalities for Chris and Jill to bounce off of- these two had so much more of a tangible personality and chemistry to them, so their parts are some of the more memorable that I played. And I still didn’t care that much, cause it felt like I was playing a different game during their sections. I think, looking back on it, their sections are fine; but it seemed better because it was sandwiched between two other things that were a lot more tedious. Chris and Jill had their moments too, but I’m honestly struggling to recount anything that isn’t fighting the same pale looking gloop bioweapons on a boat. Even the incessant ‘last time on resident evil’ recaps didn’t help, as there was just too much going on and nothing was actually clear!! Even in a recap!!! And, the whole cult thing is just… eugh. They quote Dante’s Inferno a lot, but none of the quotes used felt particularly fitting to what was going on- rather, that it was being referenced for the auto fellatio that it truly was. This game thinks it’s a lot clever-er than it is, and I often found the reveals or ways the story was explaining things was presented in a smarmy and almost condescending way. IF the story was presented well enough, these things wouldn’t have come across in such a negative way; especially because there is nothing smart going on here. If there was more care and effort put into making the story interesting, yet still mysterious- scaling back all the unnecessary wank and just focusing on one or two core plot points, that branch out into a few subplots or side info, and really hone in on what is motivating these characters instead of leaning into cliches… There could’ve been a REALLY great game here. Instead, all this convoluted crap has blended together into a forgettable mess, which is a massive shame.

Anyway, to finish retelling the plot... It’s just shit. Turns out Jill and whoever weren’t even on the right boat to begin with because there was a twin ship and whatever. It takes ages for Chris and Jill to reunite, and it is genuinely nice when they get to team up near the end- but the whole mess with the cult who kidnapped them is annoying and frankly boring, and the grand reveals at the end didn’t actually reveal much. It was an inside job to try get more funding for the BSAA or some shit, and it went a bit sideways. Some bland middle aged man is the true evil behind it all, and that’s just so interesting and thought provoking because who would’ve guessed that the random late 40s white guy with no personality would be the big bad pulling the strings, especially when it’s easy to forget who he is.

HOW BORING.

It’s all just an honest let down, especially when they forced us to play through so many sequences IN THE TERRAGRIGIA PANIC… WHO FUCKING CARES!!! ITS JUST SHOOTY SHOOT BANG BANG AND I DON’T CARE!!! I’VE COME HERE TO PLAY RESI, NOT COD!!! Also, if it wasn’t annoying enough to have been duped into playing the same fucking maps twice, but with Chris and Jill, and scratching your head wondering why these seemingly parallel events aren’t interacting with each other, only to have it slammed on you that nothing in this story matters or makes any sense- I found two characters particularly miserable.

Our two.. uh.. protagonsists? Antagonists? Double crosser- no, wait. TRIPLE CROSSERS. Jessica and Raymond. Tbh, Raymond is simply a victim of shitty writing and characterisation, as he was trapped in some stupid fucking contrivances and misleading moments. I found him frustrating due to how many times he’s set up to be a blatant double crosser, but with just enough leeway to maaaaybe not be. He’s a bit standoffish and hostile, which doesn’t help his case, but it’s disappointing because just as he was finally getting interesting towards the end, its fucked up with a double-cross-turned-triple-cross for one final moment of ‘huh???’ that kind of undoes anything for him. His character motivations are so sloppy and didn’t make sense to me. Is he for or against the cult? What does he gain from this? Why is he part of this whole mess? Nothing is clear, not even the way he acts as you interact with him on the ship. It’s a shame too, as during one of the flashback sequences to the Terragrigia incident, he was wounded pretty badly and Parker had to help him to safety. He seemed pretty disillusioned by it all, and was already questioning if it was an inside job or not- which is a pretty good setup for if he WAS going to be a double agent for either side, depending on which one appealed to him the most. Instead, he just feels like a let down, and is constantly hanging around in the peripheral of everything as a permanent red-haired herring.

Jessica is one that grated me more, however, and I feel like its a triple whammy of the shit writing, oversexed and wildly different outfits she has, and the fact that she’s with you through half the game when you play as Chris, so you can’t escape her. She’s supposed to be a coy, flirtatious and danger seeking babe- but it came across to me as a desperate, attention seeking wreck who prioritised trying to get a reaction out of Chris over their mission. Like, hello? She complains near the end about Chris not getting the hint, as she’s been annoyingly suggestive with him- and the first thought I had was, ‘girl, why didn’t YOU get the hint?’ Chris has never really had any romantic inclinations explored or depicted in the games, and while he’s on missions, he’s very much focused on the mission. Why he’d make an exception for you, Jessica, I don’t know. I also didn’t like how she changed looks so drastically between time periods, in the past she has a bob cut, and in the present mission she has very long wavy hair. I know people in real life can have very different haircuts over the years, (I know I certainly have), but for a game… Being able to know who someone is, is actually really important. Instead of worrying about how to make her oh so cute (in a way I can’t help but feel seems distinctly from the gaze of a group of horny middle-aged men…) I think they should’ve focused on a specific character motif, and kept it similar to how we see her in the present so that it reduces confusion. There are three main costumes she wears across the story, and each time I thought it was a new woman. And don’t get me started on the goddamn fucking wetsuit. A WHOLE leg, AND ass cheek, out for the world to see… You literally work against bioterrorism. Yknow, the thing where if you make contact with the wrong stuff, you’ll become a monster???? Let’s just… leave a whole leg and half my ass out for the bioweapons to have a cheeky nibble on. That’s going to be really cool for this mission. I have the same thoughts about Jill practically having her tits bulging out of her wetsuit, and think her wetsuit is wayyy more sexed up compared to her male co-workers, but at least she doesnt have an ass cheek hanging out. I wanna say the same for Chris, who’s always got his sleeves rolled up, even in the winter tundra, or wherever the fuck they were, especially because he uses his big, strong arms to block and defend… But you get the picture- plus he’s got the illogical costume choices for cool dude points, not cause the designers were horny. I’m not even saying this cause I hate sexy things, I usually enjoy seeing the alt costumes you unlock and playing with them for fun, and most of them are cute or sexy and almost always impractical- it’s just incredibly annoying to me when the sexy comes from this objectifying and frankly stupid thought process, instead of the inherent sex appeal coming from something that makes sense for the character. Jessica is completely a sex object here, and the fact that everything down to her personality revolves around that annoys me. She’s not a good femme fatal type, but she could've been. If she was even a TINY BIT more subtle about things- her flirting, her sketchy behaviour, all of it -THIS COULD’VE BEEN INTERESTING. Again, like Raymond, WHY is she double crossing, what’s in it for her? If she wasn’t so overtly flirtatious to the point where Chris seems to be playing up how oblivious he is, and instead went for something more friendly and seemingly genuine to get info on Chris and his character, it’d make sense that she’s trying to play into her sexuality and sex appeal to break down his walls and get sensitive info that’d benefit her. If she wasn’t always acting like a reckless fool with a death wish, there might have been a way to make it look to her partners that she’s always just at the wrong place at the wrong time and use that to cover for the real reason why she’s there. Like, cmonnnnnn I don’t want to hate her if I don’t need to, but there’s nothing there that I like!

Sighhhhh. Bit of a tangent there, but seriously. It annoys me. I hate lazy designs and writing like this, do better.

Anyway, the controls were fine. Standard ots shooter style that you’d expect from a game like this, and it generally handles pretty well. While some of the locations and set design can feel bland and sparse at times- as I mentioned at the beginning, it was made for 3DS originally -but given that, the HD overhaul here is pretty nice and the character models don’t look too bad. It’s nothing stand out, but nothing looked or felt particularly wrong to me either. The only real gripe I have with this game, other than the ridiculousness I’ve just spent a few rather long-winded paragraphs getting into, is this scanning reticle. I did mention this briefly, but I need you to understand just how odd of a gameplay choice this is. When you scan enemies, you get to increase the percentage amount at the top, which will give your a healing item when you reach 100%. That’s nice, but there are plenty of healing items scattered about, AND if you just scan around the rooms, you’ll unlock more items to pick up. There’s barely any enemy variation either, so it’s not like you’re compelled to scan various new kinds of bioweapon you haven’t see before, because all of them look the same. It’s hard to ever feel pressed for resources due to the abundance of them you get from using the scanner. There are also little handprint things you can find that are only visible through the scanner, and whatever. They’re an optional collectable, that’s nothing bad. It was just a shame to me that there was only ONE instance where it genuinely felt cool and worth it to be using the scanner.

Right near the end, there was a lazer puzzle you had to navigate through, and you could only see the lazer beams through the scanning reticle. THAT’S AWESOME. If this was more integrated into the gameplay, beyond getting a few extra items here and there, that would’ve been so much more fun! Particularly for puzzles, as there were quite a few puzzle sections here that were nice to see as a return to classic resi vibes. The soundtrack was pretty decent, too. There are some tracks I genuinely enjoyed, but a few got annoying real fast. I don’t really have much to say on it beyond that.

So, in closing. This game sucked, and I wish it didn’t. It had a lot of promise as a return to classic resi for fans that felt alienated by the action focus modern resi was taking. It’s a strange game with some genuinely good ideas buried beneath the shit, and I think it needed a bit more time to be refined, or a director with a sterner and clearer vision for this as a project. And less sex for objectifcation’s sake, please. The main resi cast are already beyond hot and dripping with sex appeal, you don’t need to try so hard. Put that energy into a strong and enjoyable gaming experience next time.

Quint and Keith

Rest & Intensify

A Drop of Rain

~~

Resident Evil: Revelations 2, PS4

This game is so much better than it’s predecessor. Not perfect, but a massive improvement. I actually had fun with this, too, and got sucked in pretty quickly while replaying chapter 1 as a refresher for this write up.

Like it’s previous counterpart, this spin off game is an attempt to bring back the horror aspects to the franchise while the main numbered games veered off into action shooters- and for the most part, I’d say it achieved that goal. It is certainly scarier than I found RE5 or RE6 to be, and often reminded me of RE0 and Code Veronica at certain points. If I were to describe Revelations 1’s scariness as: an unsettling but building fear that’s always in the background, paired with high strung tension from encounters with friends and foes - Revelations 2 felt more to me like a mix of two types of horror scares: immediate danger, and the unease of never feeling safe enough to recover from that danger. Sure, Rev 2 is as cheesy as a B grade horror movie at times- but with a plot that’s easier to follow and gameplay that was generally fun and memorable, I had a great time. I can’t deny that some of my feelings towards both these Revelations games comes from originally playing them back to back- but as a sort of call and response to each other as spin offs, I think it’s fair enough to draw comparisons in this way.

This game starts with Claire at a work function, meeting Moira Burton, Barry’s eldest daughter, as she’s a new recruit for the same organisation she works at. We have a little exposition to find out that Moira and Barry have a strained relationship, and are currently in some form of estrangement from each other. The two ladies are working for Terrasave, a humanitarian company that aims to help those affected by bioterrorism- with one of the worst slogans I’ve ever heard: because ‘terr’ doesn’t have to end with ‘orrist.’ I thought it was a fairly well known thing within advertising that you DON’T want to put anything in your marketing that will remind customers of competitors or negative connotations - but this bad slogan is a form of self fulfilling prophecy, as some terrorists crash the party, shooting up the place and kidnapping Claire and Moira. When Claire wakes up, alone in a grotty jail cell, she notices a strange bracelet that’s been welded around her wrist. Before she can really take in anything, her cell door opens, and she’s able to wander around the derelict halls where she hears Moira calling for help. She’s also got a strange bracelet, and the two of them are directed further into the facility they’re being held in. There are telltale signs of bioweapon experiments, and before long they come across one of Claire’s coworkers, covered in blood and desperately trying to get help before she passes away at their feet. The further into the facility they travel, the more they find strange experiments and have to fight off zombies, (yes, zombies are in a resident evil game again!) and they come to realise that there is a woman closely watching them, who eventually makes herself known via the bracelets. Both girls clearly want out, and head for a radio tower to put out a distress call, and it’s here that they realise they are on a small and isolated island by themselves. That’s already an enticing plot: they’re stranded, there’s a dangerous variety of traps and bioweapons to contend with, and they have some crazed woman watching over them as she curates danger around them. To really add the cherry on top, at the end of every Claire and Moira section, each chapter is closed with a Barry section, set 6 months after the events we’ve just played through with the girls. Barry’s side of the story starts with him traveling by boat to the island, listening to the recorded radio transmission of Moira in the hopes of recovering his little girl. It’s unclear to him whether she is alive or not, but he is determined to find out what happened and bring her home, no matter what it takes. As soon as he docks, a little girl named Natalia finds him, and insists on coming along with him to find Moira. As they journey, they start to grow a bond like father and daughter, and together they set out to get to the bottom of things.

That’s a lot of gameplay per chapter, and it’s a welcome amount compared to the previous game’s chapter length. Instead of playing what feels like 10-30 min worth of the game before you’re hit with a chapter break and ‘last time on resident evil revelations;’ here it feels closer to 30-60 min PER SECTION, making it at least a good hour or more that you’d play both parts of the chapter before you’re hit with a recap. This is a much better pace to experience the story, as it not only gives time to get familiar with the game and it’s controls, but also lets the environment and story have time to breathe and sink in. While there are still recaps, they don’t feel as eye-rollingly painful, and are actually decent recaps of what was just played. The chapters feel like a decent play session; and in it’s original release, each chapter came out episodically week by week. The game wasn’t developing the chapters each week, as the entire game was completed and they just spaced the releases as a way of spreading out the content and potentially making more money- copying the hype of other games around that same time that were seeing success with this episodic model of play. I won’t speak much about that particular aspect, as when I played, it was years after release and I had the entire story ready to play at my leisure. But I will say I get an odd- and cautiously critical -feeling when larger AAA studios mimic the methods that smaller/indie studios use (often out of necessity) to squeeze a few extra bucks out of their customers, just because it was successful for a few select titles. I’d like to give a more thoughtful and nuanced opinion on this, but due to it being out of scope for this written retrospective, I’m not going to research further and I’ll just leave you with that comment, and you can draw your own conclusions based on it.

Other improvements to the formula of this spin-off series is that, instead of a clunky reticle to scan shit in the environment, the two supporting characters can make use of passive moves that act in similar ways to the scanning reticle, but in ways that are better integrated. See, in each scenario you play, there will be one character who is more geared to offence and active attacks, and the other to passive and supporting attacks. Claire has gone through this shit before, and Barry is an ex-STARS member who currently works in the BSAA - both of them have had extensive weapons and combat training, along with the experience needed to make their way through bioweapon littered landscapes. They are both the active halves of their duos, with most of their moves tied to their guns. The other halves, Moira and Natalia, do not wield guns, and make use of their own melee weapons for attack and defence. Natalia doesn’t use any firearms because, well, she’s like nine years old; and Moira has a very strong aversion to using guns after an accident in her childhood. When she was little, she was playing around with one of her fathers guns and accidentally shot her little sister, and Barry was upset and blamed her, even though the sister survived. This guilt on both sides, and lack of communication or understanding towards each other is what’s led to the strain on their relationship, and is why Moira and Barry haven’t been able to see eye to eye for a long time. So, instead, Moira makes use of a torch and a crowbar to blind and stun enemies accordingly; while Natalia can pick up and throw bricks, and make use of an uncanny sixth sense that allows her to see the auras of enemies nearby and point them out to Barry. During gameplay, it only takes a second to switch between characters as you’re playing, so you can easily look around for clues or blind enemies with Moira using the torch, or scope out the area for enemies with Natalia before switching over to Claire or Barry to start attacking. I quite enjoyed this for the most part, as both characters in each section feel distinct in their own ways without feeling that one is too much of a burden over the other. The ai for the characters isn’t too bad either, and feels like a nice refinement on the gameplay ideas from RE0. Having the characters be a duo also meant that expositional dialogue didn’t feel as awkward as it would be if they were on their own, and I really enjoyed seeing how the characters got to know each other and evolve in their own ways during the story. Sometimes the responses during conversations did feel a bit stilted, with unnatural delays between responses as you’re walking around, but in general, this dynamic was fun!

There’s all the standard guns, melee attacks and sub weapon usage here you’d expect of a modern resi game, along with a dedicated button to use healing items, evading enemy attacks and to sprint. The healing button is great, and so much better that you have to press and hold to confirm it’s usage, instead of accidentally wasting a valuable heal when you accidentally press the button. The inclusion of the run and evade buttons elevated the combat, and allowed a bit more freedom for how you want to approach them- but it did make the game feel a lot more action heavy, which is at odds with some of the horror elements by reducing the tension somewhat. Nitpicky, yes, but as this spin-off series has been presented as an alternative to the fans that miss the earlier survival horror aspects, having such an action-biased combat scheme feels a bit strange in that regard. However, I do think that it works while you’re playing, in the sense that it didn’t feel like I was struggling against the controls during encounters with enemies. At least, not much…

There were a lot of moments that felt very stop-starty, where there were overly directed sequences that took the camera controls away from me so that it can force me to look where it wants. This happens a lot during slower gameplay moments where I found that I’d already seen and put together what it wanted me to look at, or I just plain don’t want to look at it, yet the controls are yanked away from me in this manner. I get it, you want to make sure the player knows where to look during certain moment, but I really don’t like this style of camera direction. The whole point of having the camera in my control with the dual stick is that, well, I CONTROL IT. I don’t want to have to struggle against it during a section that is still technically in gameplay, aka, my domain of control. If you REALLY want to direct my attention to something specific, either make it visually interesting enough that I naturally want to direct my eye towards it, orrrrr just have a fucking cutscene. I found this struggle against the camera particularly egregious when using the sprint button- the camera zooms in a bit and just snakes very narrowly behind you, making it difficult to see where you’re going or even move! I don’t know if they did this to discourage sprinting across levels, but at that point, why include it at all if you want to discourage it? I ended up having to do a shitty claw grip of my controller where I had my thumb pressing the button to sprint, and my pointer wrapped around to control the camera because I would just be running into walls and corners if I couldn’t fight against the camera myself. There is also something… strange… about the way Claire moves. It’s hard to really say, but there were lots of little things, that, added up made me feel very strange about her. She walked in a strange kind of hunch, one that looks like she’s unpracticed in wearing heels, and at certain times she dawdles strangely instead of the normal walking pace. When she walked faster or started sprinting, I noticed a very strange weight that made her a bit hard to direct at the start and stop of things, which I didn’t notice to the same degree with her partner Moira. And this was strange, because during the Barry sections, he felt weighted and moved in ways that felt more natural; which leads me to thinking that Barry and Claire might share the same move sets, or at least the same base, which is odd. That’s purely speculation, but on a quick replay of the first chapter, and some rounds in raid mode, Claire just felt off to me to play as, and that’s my only hypothesis as to why.

Getting more into the mechanics of the game, there were some choices made here. Firstly, the weapons upgrade system from Rev1 is back. During the game, you may come across certain weapons parts, and when you can access a gun table that’s placed somewhere within the levels, you can combine those parts with your guns to upgrade and custom mod them depending on your play-style. This is fine, I used it to upgrade my stuff but I don’t particularly care for it- I’m just not that much of a gun guy. I appreciate what it brings, but I think I prefer to just have weapons be what they are like in RE1make or RE2make, or like RE4 where there's just a certain amount of upgrades in certain categories that you purchase. It just gives me a similar frustration as starting up Mario Kart 8, where you have to build a kart combo with stats that aren’t the most clearly spelled out (and some stats that are important are just.. not mentioned at all?) before you can race. I don’t want to spend ages figuring out a kart build, I want to race. I don’t really care to collect certain weapons parts and create a custom gun, I want to find the evil residents. You get me? I feel like that particular frustration is just exacerbated by the fact that there’s a skill tree. Now, this isn’t a completely fresh concept to resi, but, I didn’t like how they did it in RE5 or RE6 either lol. Here, when you complete chapters or do certain cool things for cool points, you’ll get a currency that you can use to purchase skills within the skill tree. These are things like: giving Moira a melee attack or finishing move with her crowbar, increasing the power of subweapons and certain attacks, increase the range between partners to use healing items on each other- that sort of thing. I don’t love it, but it’s perfectly fine as far as skill trees go. They add some much needed moves to the characters, especially for Moira and Natalia, that makes it easier for them to not only survive, but contribute to any fights you get into. While I find myself frustrated at times by the fact that there is a skill tree, it works fine, and once you have unlocked most of the good things, it makes itself worth it. Overall, it feels more refined compared to the way systems like these were implemented in Rev1, so I can’t complain too much. I didn’t even use the weapons upgrade shit in Rev1 much to be honest, so I think overall, I just don’t care for these things that tie into the game being more action focused than I would have liked.

In general, the locations you play through look and feel nice to explore, as much a grotty horror settings can. They’re definitely campy, but that is kind of expected of a resi game, if I’m honest. What sucks though, and I know I just praised it, is the fact that when you play a Claire section followed by a Barry section, you go through the same areas. Yes, there are changes, and there are some areas that are unique to each duo, but it does get pretty tiring when the differences are so slight that it dampens the more unique aspects of each. And although I really loved that there were more puzzles here, and some that genuinely had me thinking, I did find that a good majority of puzzles felt more like fetch quests to gather items in a certain order to unlock places and things, and not disguised enough to stay interesting for me. Within each level as well, it felt like there were separate sequences to go through as separate layers while you play. I don’t know exactly how I feel about it, as I enjoyed some of the spookier sequences, and did enjoy some of the more action focused areas; but there is a slight feeling of oil against water for me. I’m more than willing to chalk it up to the necessities of game design, and again I think it’s the fact that these spin-offs are talked about as being the scarier alternative of it’s time that makes it stand out so much to me. This in itself is frustrating, as on the whole, I think I really enjoyed playing this game despite my gripes with it…

A gripe I don’t really have is with the visuals and sound design. I enjoyed the look of the various buildings and landscapes, and although sometimes it was silly, it worked for me. And the music and sound design was just great, there’s a moody feel that the soundtrack brings to the visuals that just makes it all a really nice experience. The sounds of the weapons especially felt nice and had a good weight to them, which is always nice when they can pull it off. The UI is a slightly different manner, as it’s all a uniform orange type of thing. I appreciate the consistency, however, at times I found it difficult to actually tell what I had in my pockets or figure out what upgrades I was giving my gun because things are too similar. I think it’s still better than Rev1’s, and you get used to it, but readability in UI is something I’m becoming increasingly nitpicky and passionate about, I think. It does it’s job, though, so I can get over it. It’s not the tic-tac-tetris style UI of RE6, so I can live with it.

I’m going to take this chance to talk about the story more in depth so next few paragraphs will be the spoilery ones. To start, I really liked the way Barry was written. He had an interesting dynamic with Natalia, and it was nice to see that despite their differences, he is clearly willing to go to any length for Moira, and having that paternal affection and protectiveness extend to Natalia. Moira herself is ok, she swears like a sailor in ways that felt silly at times, and felt more like out-of-touch adults writing a teen instead of authentic teenagery mannerisms to me. Natalia is fine, she’s a young girl who’s gone through a lot, and tbh I think she’s more memorable when she’s with Barry compared to any sections where she’s with Claire and Moira. And Claire… UGH! Claire is probably my favourite protag in the franchise, and I feel like she was done dirty while it was also a really nice game for her. On one hand, it is soooo nice to see how she’s matured into such a capable and level headed woman who is clever and quick-witted. WE LOVE TO SEE IT. On the other… She’s seemingly forgotten certain things that were character staples for her in RE2 and CV. There’s a scene where Claire and Moira bump into Natalia, and she’s frightened cause she’s a little girl and these are two strange women she’s never met before, and Claire comes off too cold and demanding in a way that frightens Natalia even more, causing Moira to step in and be the comforting presence. Like?? HELLO?? Did the writers forget about Sherry? How Claire was not only a comforting presence to her while she was UNTRAINED AND INEXPERIENCED, but continued to be a nurturing figure in Sherry’s life as she grew up? Does that mean nothing? It especially annoys me because Claire is literally being the guiding and nurturing figure TO MOIRA. RIGHT HERE IN THIS GAME. Moira is a total rookie, I think she’s literally just joined Terra-Save the evening she was kidnapped and probably wasn’t meant to go on missions any time soon; and Claire is the one that is not only keeping them together and taking charge in trying to get them out of there, but she’s able to quickly adapt to the fact that Moira is gun averse and takes on that role for the both of them.

Due to the fact that Moira’s ptsd regarding guns and the incident where she accidentally shot her sister is such a prevalent talking point for her character, I would think it makes more sense for Moira to be more out of touch with what a little girl needs as a comforting presence- as she was traumatised when she was young, and we can easily add that she became avoidant of not only her dad, but her sister and family in general too - and that seeing Natalia is bringing up a lot of buried feelings that’s she’s unsure how to deal with, because she’s a frightened teen in a traumatic situation! If Moira had self imposed an exile on herself and didn’t get along with any of her immediate family, that can mean that seeing Natalia periodically and then losing her a few times give her a chance to talk with Claire about how she feels guilty and sad about that fact that the issue with the gun robbed her of her childhood innocence AND a childhood with her sister. This would just strengthen the themes presented with Barry, where he is going to drastic lengths for Moira because she is STILL HIS DAUGHTER, and that protecting Natalia is allowing him to kind of process how poorly he had handled the incident with Moira, and do better for Natalia right now at the very least. This super small change would also give Claire the chance to reflect on her own sibling relationship, and give her a chance to talk about what Chris and Barry mean to her, as they were both family figures for her. There’s a really fucking fantastic framework here that suits the dramatic heights the game is going for, but it squanders it with stupid things like Claire suddenly not being calm and kind enough to comfort a scared girl. She isn’t too badass to do things like that, she’s badass because she can do things like that. Things like this made me feel like Barry was more prioritised as a protag, despite Claire being clearly presented as the main character. It just sucks and I feel sad about it, because there’s not much I feel needs changing about Barry’s side of the story. He feels like Barry, acts and talks like Barry, and it’s so nice to get a game that takes a closer look at him as a character. It’s a great entry for him, but I feel conflicted about Claire’s depiction here.

I think the other major thing that felt strange about Claire is actually the way the main antagonist is presented as well. See, she’s apparently a Wesker, and she’s continuing her brother’s research of the Ouroubourous Virus to help her create the T-Phobos virus- a virus that only triggers mutation when the subject is afraid. She wants to become immortal and live a life free of fear, convinced that if she can find a subject that is immune to fear, she can transfer her consciousness to them and live on. There’s a lot to unpack here, because they were setting up a lot and it didn’t quite live up to what they’d hoped. In general, yes, Alex Wesker here is a more tangible antagonist- and she has a fantastic presence in scenes due to the work of her voice actor. The narrative-theme-based-on-a-classic is back, where they took to the writings of Franz Kafka as some rather on-the-nose themes for the game- Metamorphosis, And All That. I’m glad they actually feel thematically relevant, but I just think it’s a shame that Wesker felt… weak. With all the themes of family and siblings here, I think it would’ve been nice to see that Alex is becoming desperate because of Albert’s death- as it is, we don’t really see any mention of how their relationship or his death affected her, just a mention that she’s used his research to assist in her pursuits of perfection. It also sucks because I can’t help but feel that they were trying to set up a rivalry, or at least make a call back to it, because the antagonist is a Wesker and the protagonist is a Redfield. Chis and Albert had such an insane rivalry because Chris trusted Wesker, working underneath him for presumably years, and then it went wild when they cross paths in CV and RE5. Claire only just met Alex once she’s been kidnapped, and figures out that Alex is directing the horrible events on the island- there’s no history, or push and pull tension here; other than the fact that Claire wants to get out of here and stop this mess. I don’t think they could’ve drawn a comparable dynamic between Alex and Claire as there was with Albert and Chris – but there is room for some narrative tension and parallel!

Firstly, I don’t really understand WHY Alex is pursuing perfection, as it’s not really discussed in depth. Albert isn’t a biological brother to Alex, but he is the only other subject from the Wesker project who survived this long- and clearly it affected her when she learnt of his death. The first time she heard of his death, he had faked it as well, so who’s to say there won’t be some strange reaction to her hearing about his death after RE5? When playing the first time, I honestly thought that she was trying to perfect this consciousness transferring thing in order to ‘resurrect’ Albert in some capacity. That might not be the best path narratively, but I think some more story reasons that touch on their relationship would’ve benefited her. Claire also shares a kind of pseudo-familial tie with the Burton's, as though it isn’t shown much, in previous games there were notes that implied that Barry welcomed the Redfield siblings to be a part of his family and looked out for them where he could. This game is a very personally interconnected one, and to have the protagonists see the antagonist struggling with something that is so viscerally relatable to them would’ve been cool. It would’ve been especially nice if some of the thematic aspects of Natalia being chosen as the vessel for Wesker to transfer her consciousness were given more weight, and that affects everyone in some manner. Secondly, the final evolution of Alex is just… bland. She’s infected herself with the T-Phobos virus in order to transfer her consciousness into Natalia, and to complete that transfer, she kills herself in front of Claire and Moira near the climax. But, despite trying her best to be fearless, she experienced a microsecond of fear right as she shot herself, triggering the virus and turning her kinda-corpse into a mutated mess. She’s ashamed of it, and covers herself with cloth to hide her face and such- but during the six months between campaigns, as she waits for her consciousness to wake up inside of Natalia, she starts to develop a complex out of a fear or concern over potentially having two Weskers. She starts to hunt Natalia and try to kill her, deeming herself the only one who can be allowed, but… well. Do you see what I mean about this feeling weak? I honestly think the fact that it’s six months contributes to this, as how the hell did a little girl manage to survive on a small, isolated island that was devastated even before Wesker started her bioweapon research on the locals?

It also feels strange that, in the climax, when Wesker’s tower is self destructing, Moira pushes Claire away and sacrifices herself, and Claire is somehow found and rescued, but Barry takes six months to get to the island, and Moira was surviving on the island for six months, and also didn’t seem to bump into Natalia during those six months. It’s just unfocused and stretched out, I could believe one month, but why not have Barry just drop everything and rush over to try get Moira if they know where they recovered Claire from? I think it might’ve been interesting to have Natalia be more of a threat, as parts of Wesker come to the surface. And I think that it might’ve been more narratively interesting for Wesker if her struggle with the transferal was due to Natalia rejecting her. This rejection could be a literal one on a biological sense- despite being the perfect candidate, her body won’t take Wesker, or she is mentally strong enough to push her down and cause complications. OR, just emotionally reject Wesker, as she is afraid of her. How ironically haunting would it be for Wesker if she rushed into this project when she got news of Albert dying, and the perfect candidate that is supposedly free of fear turns out to be afraid of you? I’m really just spit-balling and getting rambly and philosophical here, but there are ways that this could be better constructed into something that is more tragic and thought provoking. The point Wesker wanted was to not be afraid, and I wish that was explored more, as there’s so many different types of fear. Her being a pretty weak antagonist just compounded the feeling of Claire getting fucked over for me, as it could’ve been so much more, and Claire could’ve been written to be a much better suited narrative foil, or even just someone who pokes holes at the very ideology Wesker is working under- fighting her by planting doubt into her work. I dunno. This could’ve been a real interesting battle of wit between two women, with interesting narratives tied into the other girls of the protagonist cast- yet I can’t help but feel they weren’t written as strongly and had wasted potential, because Barry ended up the main focus in the writing room, as men are just easier to write, probably.

In closing, I really liked this game, but I’m cautious to say I loved it. I very much enjoyed my time with it, despite it being more action heavy than I would’ve liked, and some sloppy writing and game design here and there. I loved the mood and atmosphere for this game, I love how campy it gets at times, and I loved the moments where this game really shined. This retrospective has been so complicated to write (and not just because I accidentally left it so long before writing), but I can say that I got sucked in almost immediately when I went to replay the first chapter as a refresher, and that’s always a good sign. It’s a game I’ll definitely replay in future, just maybe not as often as other resi titles I like more.

Theme of Barry

Lost (Enchained Version)

Heat On Beat 2015

~~

Resident Evil 4 Remake, PS4

Wow. I was not expecting this, and overall, I think I’m pleasantly surprised by it.

I was a big fan of the og RE4- it was campy, a bit of a hot mess, and a really good time. This remake seems to generally respect and enhance that original feeling, while taking the game in it’s own direction. There’s plenty I don’t like about this remake, but plenty I do, so lets get into it.

The general trend for the remake series is definitely one that tones down the exaggerated and kinda goofy nature of the originals, and replaces it with a more Hollywood-esque style of gritty and ‘grounded’ realism. Speaking broadly, I can get behind that- however, with each remake added to the series, I get more and more concerned that ‘updating to modern standards’ is slowly morphing into a streamlined homogenisation that strips away most of the charm the original games had. Before I start the nitty-gritty of my dissection, I just want to get the inevitable out of the way: REMAKE FATIGUE. OH MY GOD. Sure, this remake has some brilliant parts that I’ll get into, and it looks great and whatever, but Jesus. It makes me feel extra cynical that every other thing that comes out is a remake these days! Are bigger studios incapable of taking risks and trying something new? Is it really so bad that higher ups are afraid of taking a chance on a new IP, that the creatives trying to work on these things are forced to rehash old things that did well that one time?? Do the fat cats up top even trust the creatives they’re using and abusing??? The original RE4 has a cult-like following, any attempt at remaking it is a HUGE responsibility, as the fans (myself included) are vocal and incredibly whiny. It doesn’t really need a remake, other than continuing the newly reworked canon CapCom is going for in the remake line, so… Huh???? Even outside of gaming, remake and franchise fatigue is hitting hard, and I’m tired. It’s not exactly inspiring or exciting to see remakes get announced anymore, especially when the trend of REmakes in particular are getting to games that are only like, a generation or two behind.

I needed to get that out of the way, as I was not really interested in RE4R the way everyone else was when it was announced, instead feeling more disdainful; reading press releases and fan talk with a cynical and apprehensive view. As should be obvious, I ended up caving and getting the game, and had a good time with it despite it all. But man... You feel me?

Anyway.

The plot of this game has been heavily renovated. Things are darker and more ‘realistic,’ favouring story beats that have an overall more cohesive narrative. The basics of the story are still largely the same, but with expansion and refinement in certain areas. The follow through of plot and motivation between chapters makes a lot more sense compared to the original, and certain beats were changed (and even omitted) to give greater and different impacts for each scene. For the most part, I really liked what they did- it gave a chance to better understand the characters we’re playing with, and it’s pretty hard to feel lost with how refined everything is... but it is at the expense of losing some of the more ‘iconic’ moments from the original, as they are ‘too goofy’ to be translated into this tonal shift. Leon S. Kennedy has gone through a lot of training to become the government agent we see him as today, and is tasked with rescuing the President’s daughter, Ashley Graham, after she was kidnapped from her college campus. After tracking her down to a remote village in rural Spain, Leon is tasked with bringing her back home, safe and sound. It’s a really simple plot, same as the original, but where it gets more depth is through finding out about the bioweapons and locations you battle against as you try to escape with Ashley. There are three main areas that the story takes place across; the village, the castle, and the island. And, just like with the narrative beats, the locations themselves have been renovated to be more streamlined and expanded in certain areas to make this game an enjoyable, modern rendition of it’s original counterpart. There are a lot of call-backs to the original too, the main example being the shooting gallery- which is not only a fun mini game to play, but has an expanded remix of the iconic drive song. I’m not great at shooting mini games- especially not on PS4 -but damn, the shooting gallery was so much fun. Having the remix of drive and ramping it up made it an absolute blast! (Pun intended). There’s a lot to love about the way so much has been enhanced by getting more attention, and I can say that I did genuinely enjoy a majority of the narrative changes.

Into the gameplay, which again, was generally pretty good! The item management is still here; you will find treasures and collectables alongside weapons, ammo, healing and currency as you explore and fight enemies, and can arrange them physically in your inventory screen. The modern Resi convention of quick-equipping weapons and sub-weapons to the d-pad is back, but expanded to have two options per direction, allowing you 8 possible slots to customise with weapons in whatever order you’d like. I appreciate this, and enjoy the seamless nature of the quick equip- though I do miss seeing Leon to the side modelling the item or equipment I have selected… When collecting treasures, sometimes you get pieces with empty recesses in them, and sometimes you’ll get gems of a certain shape that you can place in those recesses- of which combining items to be fully decked out with whatever colour combinations you choose will result in a much higher price when selling those bedazzled items to the merchant. The merchant himself has been fleshed out a little more too, his shop feels nice to browse through as you decide what you want to sell and upgrade, and he has more missions to give you around certain areas! In the original, the extent of these missions were pretty much just ‘shoot the medallions in this area,’ and you get a reward for doing so. Now, he has more that add a bit of variety- things like killing pests, bringing certain items to him, and circling back to specific areas when you’re nearly done with an area in order to fight a mini boss. It’s a nice optional thing to flesh out the time spent with each area, and expanding upon them in ways that are more involved than a simple scavenger hunt- though don’t worry, the medallions are still around and the merchant still wants you to shoot them! There was actually enough things to do that I didn’t quite get all of them in my first play though, which in turn meant that there were still things to do and places to poke around in upon replay. (Though, the merchant talks A LOT during the various screens while shopping… Idk if I’m just misremembering, but the og merchant never felt this annoying with the incessant chatter… hm...)

Moving around as Leon was… pretty good. It took me a while to get the hang of it, as he felt very weighty and had a much stronger follow-through in his momentum than what I was expecting. His sprint also felt faster than I remembered the og feeling, and perhaps that’s simply the difference between the tank controls of the original and the dual stick controls of this remake. This quick pace suits the action side of this action-survival-horror, and honestly, once you play for a few minutes, the speed felt normal anyway. I just think it surprised me a lot to feel how weighty AND fast Leon felt in my first impressions, which is why I wanted to mention it. Leon also feels skilled; he felt fluid moving between various guns, using the knife, and fighting with throwable items and melee attacks. More attention has been placed on the fact that he's spent 6 years in special military training, and it’s certainly paid off. However, I can’t help but feel the various melee attacks feels a lot more limited here… Now, I’m more than willing to admit a rose-tinted bias here, but I remember getting almost giddy when I had the option to kick and supplex enemies with ease. There was an almost explosive feeling to it in the original, you could literally kick people’s heads off – and yeah, yeah, I get it. This remake is trying to be more grounded and less arcadey in this aspect, but despite the melee attacks having a good weight and follow through to them, it just didn’t feel as impressive to me. That’s totally a personal feeling and not really anything the game has done objectively wrong, but that is unfortunately one of the many little nitpicks of things the game has to contend with when trying to remake a game that has been placed on such a high pedestal by many.

While I’m nitpicking differences in the gameplay and mechanics, I want to talk about the QTEs. Quick Time Events were prompts in the original game that played during certain scenes (mainly cutscenes, but in some boss fights as well), and would prompt the player to do things such as hit a button combination in a short time limit, or mash buttons and wiggle the stick in rapid succession. They are divisive, to say the least, but if you read my retrospective on the og RE4, you’ll remember that I said I kinda liked them! I’ve heard that some people don’t like them due to the panic of being quickly prompted and only having a second or two to respond, and hitting the wrong thing results in an insta-death half the time- and yeah, that’s definitely annoying. But, I don’t know… In the same way that the tank controls of RE1 made me feel more connected with my characters by getting flustered and struggling to move in a way that I could link to the feelings of fight or flight responses for the characters I’m playing as, I quite enjoyed the ways QTEs were used in RE4. Leon’s feeling just as flustered when there’s suddenly a boulder, or giant mechanised statue of the antagonist, chasing him down some narrow corridor as I am suddenly having to mash a button to get him out of there. I particularly enjoyed the cutscene QTEs for the Krauser knife fight in the og, requiring you to get the right combo of buttons within a split second to successfully parry and continue the fight. They’re fun! It’s not like I love all QTE by default, as I did not enjoy their usage in RE5 & RE6 half as much- but when implemented smartly like the og… I just appreciated it. The QTEs for this remake have been dramatically reduced, and for a lot of people, that’s a plus. I really loved the accessibility options for the QTEs here, giving the option between mashing buttons or a press and hold. Some of our hands/reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and sometimes the option for something less physically demanding is nice. However… It does feel a bit lesser without the QTEs, if I’m honest. It’s not even that every single QTE in the original was good, but there was a frantic-ness about it that I miss. I felt this the most with the Krauser knife fight I mentioned earlier, which has been turned into a more traditional mini boss instead of a QTE cutscene.

Which brings me to the biggest issue I have with the renovation of mechanics here.

The Knife.

In the original, the knife was a permanent sub-weapon you could rely on in the game. Run our of ammo? Get up close and personal to slash with your knife. Need to open boxes? Knife attack! And fighting Krauser? Well. Let’s just say, you’ll wanna use your knife. It felt special, and to me was a defining characteristic of how I played and thought about gun and weapon usage. In this remake? There is a knife degradation system. I understand from a game mechanic view that having degradation might encourage players to get creative with other weapons instead of relying on the knife, or treat the knife as something more special because it comes with a limit- but I felt the opposite. I HATE WEAPON DEGRADATION SYSTEMS. SOOOOOO MUCH. I didn’t feel like the knife was special, because you’d find knives everywhere to make up for the fact that they can only be used so much. Once you use them all up, they break and you can’t use them again, except for Leon’s special knife, which can be repaired for a cost at the merchant’s. This is supposed to be the trusty knife! It doesn’t feel trusty or even special anymore! Resi on the whole is KNOWN for it’s knife only runs, as knives are ALWAYS present in some capacity. I didn’t like the way knives broke in RE2R either, but it didn’t feel as offensive to me, as they were only sub-weapons, and mostly used for defence. IN THAT CONTEXT, I can begrudgingly agree with the philosophy of knife degradation, because that game was much more focused on surviving the horror with limited inventory. Here… it’s an action game. Depriving Leon of his knife just feels cruel. I want to be free to attack boxes and barrels while I’m looking for items, to kill snakes and rats indiscriminately alongside hoards of ganados when I’ve run out of ammo, or when I simply want to use my knife. In this remake, I can still do all of that, but there’s a greater cost to contend with due to the degradation. I can’t even enjoy some simple knife fishing, as I’ve gotta keep it in the back of my mind that every slash could be my last. I pretty much never wanna see weapon degradation in games, and will only begrudgingly take it under very specific circumstances. It feels like it detracts from the game far more than any ‘innovative thinking’ or game balancing it may provide, and it’s simply a frustration I hate having to put up with. Have the guns run out of ammo! Have limited inventory space that makes me hum and haw over which items are important to me and which I’ll need to use up and get rid of! But do NOT make my knife so brittle that it’s useless after a few hits!!

‘But the realism-’ I hear you say. Yeah, sure. A kitchen knife, heck even some survival knives, are probably not going to stand more than a few hits when used in combat - but when there’s an option to parry a chainsaw with the knife… I think some liberties can be taken. Although the game postures itself as something more mature and realistic compared to its original goofy and contrived nature- it’s still filled with silly shit! It’s a video game! It’s ok to lean into it; the original did with the arcadey feeling that ran through it all. Why is this new direction so hesitant to allow certain things, while being equally goofy in other areas? I know that the knife thing gets better when you get a grasp of the parry system and learn the most effective ways to make use of it, AND that there’s much better options for it when playing in NG+ and you have all the upgrades- but why do I have to wait for a replay to have it feel tolerable? That’s still a full first run through where it feels miserable! And just due to the fact that it is the way it is, I actually felt discouraged from engaging with the knife at all during battle, and felt more comfortable using it only for things outside of battle. L. Skill issue. Whatever. But I fucking HATE weapon degradation in general, so I’m sure you understand that even though I’m aware of the nuances and probable intentions the dev’s had when implementing this: I don’t care, I don’t like it, and I don’t think it achieved what they set out to do with it.

Onto graphics, the game looks fine. Maybe a little flat in the colour grading at times, but that’s something I’d expected due to the original having a muted sepia look. I don’t really know how to articulate this the exact way that I want to, but I’m just not the kind of guy who’s overly impressed with 'realistic graphics' in games. I’m fine if things look a little janky- and in all honesty, I think that jank or intentional style choices add charm and a unique look to certain games. RE4R is using the same engine that a lot of previous games in the series have been using- it seems to be a great one for what they want to do with the look of it all, but I can’t help but feel that it looks a little too familiar at times. I think this is partially due to assets being reused, having played a lot of games in this engine and starting to see how it works and where the seams are, and remake fatigue. I could complain about it looking like RE2R and RE8, but I feel so half-hearted about that complaint. It’s the same engine, and a remake of a game I remember decently- of course it’ll look familiar. I’m fine to chalk that up to primarily my own tastes and fatigue that I’ve outlined, but overall, the game looks fine. Great if you’re into this mostly realistic style, I just don’t think I care enough to care. What I do care about, however, are the presentation for certain things that really pissed me off.

Firstly- STOP WITH 'CUTSCENE' MOMENTS THAT TAKE A HOLD OF THE CAMERA AND SWING ME IN RANDOM PLACES!!! FUCK OFF!! IF YOU WANT CONTROL OF IT HAVE A CUTSCENE, GAMEPLAY IS FOR ME!!?!!? And repeat all the shit you read previously for the Rev2 stuff I had the same complaint for.

Secondly- YELLOW MARKERS. This has been memed to death by now, and Resi isn’t the only game/series to go overboard with the yellow markers. But, whoever is walking around with open cans of bright yellow paint, reigning terror across this remote Spanish village - stop it! Who knows where they’ll go next! Joking aside, I want to go on a tangent and dissect this and give thoughts real quick. SOMETIMES, yes, the paint markers are helpful in showing me where I need to go, or what I need to do when I’m feeling lost. Yellow is such a naturally bright colour that it’s easy to draw the eye to, making it a psychologically/colour theory-ily understandable choice to make sure players see the hints you leave for them. A lot of the time, I believe the devs make these markers so obvious because they were common tricky points for their focus groups- which are often comprised of people with varying gamer skills, and I’d say that devs will try to pay attention to the less experienced gamer’s feedback to iron out any wrinkles and make the game more approachable. It all makes sense and I understand it, especially after having the opportunity to study this kind of thing a little bit and venturing into indie game dev myself. There’s so much to think about and consider that often will go unnoticed by the players, which can feel frustrating when you’re berated for choices you made intentionally with their favour in mind. HOWEVER, this yellow paint shit is getting out of hand. It often feels jarring and non-diagetic, bringing more attention to it than intended and breaking the immersion for the player. It can also feel very patronising to have the methods and solutions to puzzles pointed out so obviously to you, for both experienced and less experienced gamers. Things don’t need to be THAT obvious, and I’m not sure that slapping yellow paint over everything is the fix-all solution it’s being treated as. It might take more work, but maybe if so many players are struggling with certain sections, you need to discuss with your team whether this is an intentionally hard area that you want players to struggle through, or if there are better ways to create the problem you want players to solve. There’s not going to be ONE solution that pleases all players, but I feel as though many gamers with mid to high level experience in games are going to become too frustrated when they see the yellow paint and no longer want to be a part of the core audience anymore. It’s a tricky balance to make games inviting enough to appeal to new-comers or ‘the broader audience,’ without alienating ‘the target audience,’ - but too often with modern games, I can’t help but feel they’re spreading themselves too thin to catch every audience instead of focusing on their target. Look at ways that are less obvious than yellow paint, see what kind of diagetic methods to give hints would work, and really spend the time setting up ways to teach the players how you want them to play and approach the problems you throw at them.

What’s uniquely frustrating about the yellow paint in Resi is that, in RE8, they ALMOST had something really interesting in context with the yellow paint, but didn’t do anything with it. They knew the yellow paint in that game was garishly out of place, and called attention to it, but just didn’t deliver in the way I was expecting based on the way they set it up. To then go to a game where there’s no reason for the yellow paint to be everywhere, YET IT STILL IS, is frustrating. The one counter to this, which I alluded to earlier, is that these yellow paint signals ARE helpful to those that need them. Great, but that is only good as a stepping stone, and if people ever move up to a higher skill level in gaming where they don’t need it anymore, what then? I understand that from an accessibility standpoint, making sure that players who aren’t very good or don’t feel confident in playing but still want to play have an option. I support that, but to mix that into the DNA of the visual presentation of the game just sucks for every other player who wants an option to not have it. It’d take more work, but why can’t yellow paint-ifiying the landscape be exclusive to easy mode? That’s the area to have it, and by not not having it in normal and hard difficulties, it’s effectively training wheels for those that want it in easy. With this, there’s also some comment I want to make on the way older games did this. I’m more inclined to say that older games did a better job of communicating things visually, and in many ways the hardware limitations present helped devs to think carefully about the way they wanted to present things. Heck, even in RE2R, there wasn’t yellow paint slapped haphazardly around the place- I distinctly remember the use of lighting and contrast in certain areas to point out which way to go. This tangent is not just a critique exclusive to RE4R, but to all yellow paint games out there. I don’t like the overly researched and pathologised method of communicating things to players, it just says very clearly to me that you don’t trust me to play and enjoy the game the way you wanted me to, and would rather drag me by the hand through everything instead of giving me time to enjoy the spaces within the game you’ve created. Maybe there’s also an aspect of insecurity to this, which I don’t doubt could be from having unrealistic pressures and crunches forced upon dev teams in the increasingly dystopian work environments- but please. At least add a bit of diversity to the way you want to overly direct my play experience, it’s become so cliché even the meme of yellow paint is worn out.

And lastly, something I feel is the most relevant to bitch about regarding graphics, is the lack of boss transformation animations. To set the scene, in the original RE4, pretty much all the multi-phase bosses had grotesque animations showing the pure body horror of being a bioweapon. It’s memorable, and helps keep you immersed in the moment as you see the familiar human looking parts morph further into the inhuman. It’s kind of a staple thing to expect in the Resi franchise- bioweapons are a form of body horror, and bioweapons are behind every game - it’s what we’re here for. Now, in RE4R, there was a noticeable lack of transformation animations. I’m sure you can imagine the disappointment when I’m fighting the village leader in some sort of barn or shed that’s on fire, and instead of having some transformation to gawk at, he disappears behind a wall of flames, and re-emerges a few seconds later in his next form. Every boss felt like this, and even if some bosses felt like clever call-backs to their originals, or added something to make the experience unique to this game, I felt incredibly disconnected from the fight as a whole. For a AAA remake title that has the legacy it does, whadda hell!? I can’t imagine the time and resources it must take to model and animate such things, as I’m a 2D artist myself, but it is incredibly disappointing to see this remake take shortcuts like so. To pair with this, what I mentioned earlier about QTEs being stripped away hold for battle the most, in my opinion. I don’t think I was ever able to enjoy or get good at using the parry/evade mechanics introduced for this game, as their prompts weren’t as clear or understandable to me compared to something like a well placed QTE. And yet another thing to tack on at the end of this, is that I felt a surprising lack of unique death animations for Leon too… Again, maybe this is nostalgic misremembering, but I would have so much fun getting Leon killed and seeing a new unique animation depending on how he died. It was almost a little consolation; yeah you suck and you died, but look, isn’t it funny seeing Leon get his face dissolved to the bone, or decapitated, or dramatically falling-to-his-knees-at-the-realisation-that-Ashely-died to death?

I guess I could summarise this with something along the lines of: all the little details in the original, that might not seem like much on their own, all worked together to give the original the polish and charm that it had, and that there feels like a distinct lack of that here. Which is a shame, because there is genuinely a lot of details that ARE here that DO ADD to the experience- it just doesn’t feel like enough for me, unfortunately. Like, I really do appreciate that it kept some of the puzzle aspects across various parts of the game and even added more, and that there’s a semi-stealth thing going on that allows different options if you can approach enemies without alerting them. Considering the og was such a cultural influence on how modern OTS shooters were made from that point on, I found it really interesting to have stealth come back to remind us of it’s survival style origins. It just… also feels like it’s missing a lot, or only has call-backs to the original as a form of obligation.

In regards to music, I honestly didn’t feel like much stood out to me. I have a note written to myself to pay attention to the music, and after 3 playthroughs, the only song I knew I wanted to include at the end is drive. I didn’t really feel connected to or excited by any of the tracks, which is a shame because I really love a majority of the various OSTs this series has. Even the more ambient and atmospheric tracks can be quite memorable to me, but here… I just didn’t feel it. I really don’t know what it is, but to guess, maybe the soundtrack just felt a bit too generic for me? I wasn’t as keen on other remixes of tracks from the original, drive really was the stand out. Idk. It’s a shame, nothing felt really out of place as far as I can recall, but I can’t recall really enjoying much about it either. It just kinda lived in the background for me, which isn’t the worst, I suppose. The sound design was pretty good though, the weapons and various soundscapes sounded generally pretty good, and I like that they’ve used a different stock sound effect for breaking vases that sounds a lot less cartoonish.

And, well… That’s about all I can say in a vaguely non-spoiler-ish way without going into detail. I have a lot to say about particular details so. Here’s your fair warning.

I feel so complicated talking about the game from this point forward, though, I’m sure if you’re reading this far, you can kinda see why I feel a bit like a pendulum. The original never felt all that scary to me, but it had an atmosphere I liked and I was perfectly happy with that. Here, it’s also not really that scary, but in both it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you get a bunch of enemies to fight all at once. However, I noticed certain scripted set pieces with forced and cheap scares that just induced an eye roll for this remake. In particular, there’s a section with a giant at the castle and it just draaaaggggggeeeedddddd on and I didn’t care. Which is sad, because I really like the castle in both games, and otherwise I really loved the revamp of the castle here. In general, there was a strong sense of dread lingering in the atmosphere, which I think is enhanced by the devs trying to balance the action-biased nature of the game with a re-introduction of survival horror elements. And while I may not agree with every individual choice made when remaking and renovating the plot and layout, I think it’s generally a net positive - even making some areas that weren’t all that fun in the og feel tolerable, if not fun now!

The main thing I want to gush/rant about, is the plot and the way the characters were handled overall. I want to start with Ashley, as I liked her fine enough but thought she got dreadful amounts of unwarranted hate in the first game. There was literally only one section in the first game where I was legitimately frustrated with her, and that was partially a user error on my part making it worse. However, the devs absolutely know that this is a sore spot in the pop-culture knowledge of the game, and have taken steps to avoid the same kinds of criticism. Firstly, I wanna point out that the actress who played Ashley, Genevieve Buechner, was very nice to hear. I think she did a great job of keeping the balance between Ashley being a naive and scared young woman out of her depth, and a capable young woman who is trying to use her skills and smarts where applicable. One thing that I know a lot of people bitched about was the og Ashley having a grating voice. I personally only found the repetitive screaming grating when it went on for too long, but I definitely understand where it’s coming from, so it was a nice surprise to see deliberate direction for Ashley to combat this. While she’s a young, college-aged woman, her voice was a little deeper than I’d expected (most likely to combat the shrill allegations), and throughout the story she develops into being a little more confident and proactive. I think I can give the perfect example of what I want to praise with a certain change in a cutscene. In the original, when they’re in the castle, Ashley suddenly runs away from Leon, seemingly scared or disgusted at the fact that she coughed up blood, and is then promptly caught in some cartoonish trap, waiting for Leon to break her free. Now? Not only is there a greater emphasis on the plaga parasite that is infecting them both, but this emphasis gives Ashley a chance to actually feel something about it. In a cutscene that serves the same purpose as the one I just outlined, Ashley is suddenly taken over by the antagonist through the plaga (mind control style), and attacks Leon. When her mind is released, she’s on the other side of a locked gate, and she runs away, afraid and embarrassed that she lost control and hurt Leon, and doesn’t want that to happen again. Hooray! Character agency displayed!! We get a much clearer situation to display this, first of all, but also a much better way of letting the events breathe and show how the characters feel through their actions. This also means that when Leon and Ashley reunite, the conversation that they share feels more special. I’m so glad that there wasn’t as much of a stop and start with Ashley being with us one moment, and whisked away the next. Everything felt logical and understandable for why she was or wasn’t with us in each particular moment, and the reduced goofiness made it that much clearer what our goals were in any given chapter.

I also like how Ashley was able to help out with a certain mini boss in the castle, and that her playable sequence was expanded upon. It hasn’t been long since she was kidnapped and infected, and she must be scared out of her mind, but I could really see the development from being stuck in a fight or flight panic, to now being someone who was trying her best to work through any problems she was stuck in. Leon has clearly rubbed off on her, and I think it’s nice to see that although jaded, he was able to impart some of his collectedness under pressure onto her - seeing how quickly she’s able to step up and take an active part in getting out of there was really fun for me.

Leon was interesting here as well, we’re given a much clearer info-dump at the beginning that tells us what he’s been up to, and shows us a little bit about Krauser before meeting him in game. It’s clear that Leon has been through a lot, and doesn’t have that bright-eyed rookie style anymore- though, it hasn’t completely disappeared. However, he’s focused on his mission, and it’s nice to see the developments he goes through when interacting with other characters. I don’t really feel I have as much to say for him, in part because it’s Leon, and everyone loves Leon- but also because there were a lot of things that I felt were cut from him and not replaced or repurposed in other areas. Most of his character is good and consistent here, it’s interesting seeing him with Ashely, meeting Ada and Luis, and going up against the antagonists. And although the Antagonists generally feel more fleshed out, there’s almost no banter anymore! SADGE!!! I get that it doesn’t really translate into the new tone they’re going for, but everything with Salazar in the castle felt weak sauce. There wasn’t really any back and forth going on, and it is sorely missed! Without that banter, and instead playing things a bit more straight with flecks of sass peppered in, I don’t feel that there was that much for Leon narratively. And although I miss it, I think overall, I’m ok with Leon not having the most narrative growth for this game. To be clear, I hate that the banter is gone, but I’m ok that otherwise he’s got a much smaller, almost static feeling character to me (at least comparatively).

Luis was definitely expanded upon, and I feel as though he had the most attention amongst the main cast. He’s a fan favourite, and with that charisma, how could you disagree? Despite the fact that I think my preference will always be for the swagger the original Luis had, I really grew to love Luis here in this remake. We get to know more about how he generally presents himself, and more about what’s going on. It’s clear that he feels plagued with guilt over his contributions to everything that’s unraveled into a shit show here, and he makes a point of helping Ashley and Leon rid themselves of the plaga and escape, despite it clearly being out of the way for him. Due to the increased amount of time Leon shares with Luis, there’s infinitely more homo-erotic tensions between the two as well – I even got to take him on a date to the shooting gallery to show off my epic skills! Adding more scenes with Luis here means that he didn’t die in the place he originally did, meaning that even for players who know the original inside and out, we still had new things to look forward to and were kept on the edge of our seats as we waited for the inevitable. I really enjoyed it, and think that the effort put into expanding Luis was great to see, as it kept me engaged the entire time and eager to read more in the lore files scattered around the place.

With all the emphasis on the plaga, I’m glad that the narrative was cleaned up and tightened in the way it was, and actually made the fact that Ashley and Leon being infected was a more tangible threat with a time limit. In the original, they barely scratched the surface of being infected, and it was so easy to forget until you are reminded in a cutscene and go ‘oh yeah…’ - the stakes here felt bigger and more cinematic, which nails the new direction right on the head. However, the actual details of the lore actually felt a bit… messy. I appreciate more focus on the plaga and Lord Saddler as the primary antagonist, but there were some lore files that were particularly dense and hard to make sense of. Perhaps that’s just a me thing, but there were some choices that baffled me and some choices that just felt a bit like pandering. I felt this the most during the castle, and I was eventually able to wrap my head around the history of the place; but there were some details and lore drops that felt more confusing than they needed to be, and not in a fun solve-the-puzzle kind of way. There were also some choices that simply frustrated me about the new direction overall, wanting it to be grounded and realistic, but still required to lean into some gamey things by fault of it still being RE4. To give an example, early on in the castle there’s a note about a particular enemy, the Garrador, detailing what a weird and fucked up kinda guy he was to increase the lore and world building. Leon and Ashley bring direct attention to it via dialogue during that section too, they REALLY want to make sure you know how cool and creepy this mini boss will be. But then, later on, there’s a room where there’s two of them. No lore notes for why there’s two more of these fucked up guys here, they just are- and this room toes the line between miniboss and just a room full of tricky guys to kill cause you’ve leveled up by now and know how to kill a Garrador. It feels stupid to emphasise a single instance of an enemy that you’re going to come across multiple times, and then do nothing with every other instance. I think I’d prefer to just be left a trail of crumbs so vague that we just have to assume the enemy is some weird fucked up experiment that the audience has to figure out. It’s so ehhh when there’s one guy with a backstory, and his twins are NPCs with nothing. That was a pattern that I noticed, where some areas were expanded upon greatly, but not in a consistent manner, which made it feel really odd to me at times. It’s a real tricky thing, and to be honest, I’m not sure if there would be a way I can suggest that’d make me happy, let alone a broader audience… It’s just that, in trying to expand and humanise certain characters and places, but not being consistent and thorough, I think it just prompts eagle-eyed players to notice holes quicker. I don’t know, it’s just weird! Some stuff has been changed in order to modernise things that didn’t age well, but still gloss over crucial things that needed more clarity anyway!

I feel this weird hyper detail with no substance was particularly prominent with Krauser. We got a name drop in the intro, good. We have some confrontations with him in the game, nice. There’s a tent, with lots of info, clearly Krauser has been brushing up on his Leon lore and even has a little Leon polaroid from when he was taken in after Raccoon City… huh? Obsessed much? In the original, Krauser was pretty much just dumped there, with dialogue and cutscenes that implied he and Leon had a history, but none of the players playing on GameCube and the multiple other ports at the time had any clue who he was… until they played the Darkside Chronicles on the Wii, years later. It was weird, but he is important to some plot developments in the story. The impression I got was that Krauser wasn’t expecting Leon to be there at all, and that seeing him has put Krauser on edge a little bit, which causes some of the more intense confrontations he has with Leon. Part of why he’s important is that he’d been hired by Wesker, but Wesker no longer trusts him, so he’s sent Ada to make sure all loose ends are tied up. Krauser and Ada never really cross paths here like they did in the original, there’s no indication that they’re in cahoots at all. We get an overly dramatic final cutscene with Leon and Krauser where he wants Leon to kill him, cause he’s the only guy who can, but not much in the way of contextualising HOW he mattered to the plot, other than a few stray lore files right before you fight him. I wasn’t really happy, and I don’t even like Krauser! At least give him something, but he felt so glossed over and flanderised into some typical trigger happy gun boy boot licker American with a dumb gravelly voice to show that he’s hardened from battle, and overused the term ‘rookie’ as a form of endearment towards Leon. Krauser, and the antagonists in general, didn’t have much in the way of tangible plot and lore in the original, but it had the charisma. In this remake, yeah they’ve expanded upon things, but forgot about the charm and whatever other immaterial vibe that was supposed to be infused with it, there’s too much dumping and not enough raw charisma. There’s no bantering back and forth with Leon, and they all feel flanderised to me. They picked a point for each of the antagonists and just zoomed in on that; the head honcho in the village is big and stomps around, the little brat running the castle is just a little brat (and not even funny cause there’s not banter), Krauser is just a typical American soldier type, and Saddler is just an evil cult leader. Adding extra lore details doesn’t really do much for me when the concept of these characters aren’t all that engaging to begin with. It’s a shame that there wasn’t a better balance here, at least for my tastes, as the original head honcho and castle brat were fun and memorable for me, and I’d forget about Saddler until the end, and they didn’t have that much lore to them. They do here, but it feels like a big fat nothing burger at times, cause I’m not sure what they really wanted to do with these antagonists at all! It may be a case of having too many, and not being able to put the same care and attention into all of them, but they’ve even cut a boss fight with a bioweapon from the main campaign! And of all the things I feel they cut and butchered, Ada irks me the most. Get ready, and grab the whole salt shaker, as I have a LOT to say here...

Ada’s physical involvement in the plot felt severely lacking, as there were a lot of things that were cut and not repurposed in other areas. She is supposed to have an interesting dynamic between Krauser as another hire from Wesker, between Luis as her contact to get a sample of the plaga, and Leon when she finds out he’s on the mission and could use him to make her job easier. The stuff between her and Krauser was cut, and the stuff between her and Luis in the originals were mainly detailed in her optional campaigns, Seperate Ways and Assignment Ada. Here, there are some moments where we see her interact with Luis, as there was more emphasis placed on making his story and arc feel more complete, but there’s still not a lot. And with Leon… they cut SO MUCH! I had this sinking feeling of ‘they’re gonna come out with her campaign as DLC and charge for it, aren’t they,’ and I was right. There’s even a name drop in the dialogue near the end that she and Leon are gonna go their ‘seperate ways.’ By cutting some things, it takes away a lot of opportunities for her and Leon to convene and discuss things, regarding their situation and regarding them. There was one scene in the original where Leon is overcome with the plaga, and when Ada tries to help him, he starts to choke her out, causing her to stab him in order to break free. This scene was such a memorable and important one for me, as it’s one of the only instances we got to see of Leon being affected by the plaga in the original. It’s also just a really good scene that just shows the way they act around each other; it was almost casual, they both clearly trust each other enough to let their guards down, and Ada lets hers down enough to show genuine concern when Leon starts to convulse, not expecting him to start choking her. She plays it off all suave when Leon apologises, but reiterates that he needs to get rid of that parasite cause she wants him to escape, but Leon is still laser focused on saving Ashley that he’ll lower himself in his priorities- there’s depth to that scene, goddamnit! And there is NO EQUIVALENT present in the remake. I have a feeling that they didn’t write this scene in out of fear around how politically correct it’d be to have a man choke out a woman, or something to that nature. Which is a shame, as I’m obviously not condoning that kind of assault- but it’s not a sexist hate crime here, it’s the antagonistic threat being demonstrated narratively. I understand the ballistics comment from Luis in the og getting cut, and that his flirtatious nature was toned down a tad to make it more palatable and less sleazy- that’s a fine adjustment to make since times have changed. But Leon choking out Ada… even with the quick context I’ve just given, you can see that it’s not a bad scene to have in the game, right? SO MANY of Ada’s scenes have been trimmed and cut entirely, and while some of these changes are due to the streamlining of the plot, but it’s such a shame that there’s not as much of her here! Especially when there was very clear attention put into Luis and Ashley, Ada feels severely lacking.

And speaking of lacking, I want to talk about Ada’s actress, Lily Gao. This is clearly a very sensitive topic, and I’ll explain the various aspects in a sec, but firstly the main thing lacking is a general respect from ‘fans’ towards Gao. I haven’t kept up with it, but the last I heard, she deactivated most of her social media due to the onslaught of hate she was receiving towards this role. I find that disgusting, frankly, and although I have criticisms towards her performance in this role, NO ONE should be harassed off the internet for simply doing their job. There are ways to voice your upset, but c'mon. Are we all becoming so juvenile and brain rotted that we think it’s ok to air grievances at someone who hasn’t asked for it, and continue to direct it at them even when they’ve expressed their disappointment and asked you to stop?

To give some personal context, I don’t normally keep up with reading announcements and leaks preceding a game about to come out, but I got a little sucked into reading about RE4R. I couldn’t help nervously looking through news about the game as it came out, as I was worried it’d be like RE3R and ruin the experience- but when I found out it was being developed by the team who made RE2R and RE8, I was happy to leave it at that, and decide whether I’ll buy it or not once it came out. However, one of the last bits of news I saw before I stopped being a hypocrite, was the news that Jolene Anderson would not be reprising her role as Ada Wong. Anderson played Ada in RE2R, also providing the motion capture for Ada in the second animated movie, Damnation, but did not voice her. She’s a talented actress; bringing a certain chemistry with Leon, and a sexy confidence that just brought Ada to life in the best possible way. She worked really well with the grounded style the remakes are going for, and it was sad to see her go. Now, a voice actor being let go is nothing new, and the amount of voice actors each character in the Resi series go through is nothing to sneeze at- that alone is not what felt off about this. Anderson found out at the same time as fans that she wouldn’t be reprising her role, mentioning online that she wasn’t given a chance to reprise her role, or a dismissal noting that they weren’t going forward with her. I understand that the industry doesn’t really have the time or established etiquette to keep up with relations like that, but damn. That feels a little harsh, especially considering that I think most people, myself included, assumed that with Nick Apostolides reprising his role as Leon, that Anderson would be back as Ada too. But, she was replaced by Gao, who had recently played Ada in the after credits scene of the most recent live action movie, Welcome to Raccoon City. I had no preconceptions to really bring, as one cameo in an after credits isn’t much to base off of, and I was ready to see what she brought to the table. I don’t want to just bash her and dismiss her talents, but she had big shoes to fill coming off Anderson’s performance (along with every other actor that’s contributed to voicing Ada), and the whole remake of RE4 thing. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to fill those shoes, to my tastes. Scenes with her felt stiff, and the chemistry and depth to her performance just wasn’t all there. I don’t think it’s purely her performance, as I think the script and direction she was given didn’t really help her much either. Gao doesn’t seem to be as experienced an actor compared to Anderson, and didn’t bring that sense of Ada having control of the situation that feels important to her character. The lack of scenes like the one I described earlier certainly don’t help, as there’s not really enough chances for her to shine and show off what she can bring to the character.

I hope you have the salt shaker ready, cause here’s where I want to be very careful and nuanced about this… Ada, the character, is American Chinese. Anderson is a full American gal, and I’m pretty sure every voice actor that’s portrayed Ada previously was too- or at least, none of them are Chinese. Gao is Chinese Canadian, and I am absolutely in favour of casting POC in POC roles, especially here where Ada hasn’t even had the chance to be portrayed by a Chinese voice actress. (Theres even the famous trivia of the actress who played Ada in the Jovovitch movies being dubbed over because her voice wasn’t ‘enough’ for the filmmakers…) I really want to support this, but I feel conflicted, and bad about that conflicted feeling. I just think that if this was something that genuinely concerned CapCom, they would’ve cast a Chinese actress for RE2R, and not swap her out while they’re presumably going over scenario changes in the game and only just realising there are some aspects of the original that don’t fly in today’s landscape. It feels tokenistic in a sense, something for them to point at and say, ‘Hey, Look! We replaced the white lady with a Chinese Lady who looks like the Ada!’ Despite Ada being Chinese, there’s nothing overtly Chinese about the way she talks or behaves, she’s very American. The Red Dress she’s wearing in the original RE4 was clearly a romanticised, or perhaps fetishised, take on a style evocative of Chinese culture- and was very clearly impractical and foolish for the mission she was on. That’s about the only explicitly ‘Chinese’ thing that comes to mind for Ada, and that is more a product of designing her for sex appeal than any cultural representation. Her new outfit of a red sweater and otherwise black tactical, but stylish, gear is still a really nice outfit- and I prefer that change as it makes sense for her to be wearing it… Clearly there are changes made to be less insensitive, but the act of recasting and the resulting hate that Gao has received because of it also feels insensitive to me. Both actresses clearly have an idea of who Ada is to them, but for me- where Anderson brought a subtlety and nuance to the more subdued character direction, Gao came across as flat and uninterested. Again, I want to reiterate that despite not enjoying her performance, I think this is the result of a bunch of decisions up the chain, and not exclusively a failing on Gao herself. The scenarios she’s given, the direction she had to act under, even the casting directors are also responsible for this performance, but I haven’t seen them chased offline. I feel for Gao, as she’s been put in a role for a game on such a high expectation, that for some rose higher when they found out she’s replaced Anderson. But I want to ask, is dismissing an actress who was well received worth the risk of bringing in a newer, ethnically appropriate actor - one who isn’t quite up to the level of performance expected of her? I don’t have an answer for this, and as a white Aussie guy, I don’t think I should. Especially because, since playing the game, the Separate Ways DLC has been released, and I haven’t bought it yet- so I haven’t had a chance to view the full performance and see the other scenarios given to her. Overall, I just think she lacked the depth that made Ada Ada, and I am upset at the response others have had towards feeling the same thing.

And for a last bit of bitching (that needed that Ada context), I wanna talk about Wesker. I love him as a villain because I think he’s goofy. He’s a fun antagonist with an interesting backstory, but he’s also supposed to be quite serious and smart. Part of the appeal of having the Wesker cameo and seeing that he’s the one who hired Ada is that they are both clever and cunning - but in the same way that I don’t think Ada was written well, Wesker appearing at the end was ATROCIOUS. In general, I didn’t feel that Ada was her usual cunning, mysterious and suave self - and the after credits scene was the final nail in the coffin for me. In the after credits, Ada is has retrieved a specimen of the plaga used in the game, and is supposed to hand it over to Wesker. While she’s in her helicopter, she’s talking to Wesker on the headset, and she asks what he plans on using the plaga for. Wesker start spilling his guts, giving away exactly what he plans on doing with the specimen, and Ada just… Takes off her headset (which wasn’t given an explicit hanging-up, so I’m pretty sure Wesker is just on the other side and still able to hear everything lol) and she orders the helicopter pilot to change course. Like… DUDE!?? THAT’S SO DUMBBB WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGG!!!?? BOTH OF YOU!??!?!?!??! For contrast, in the original, Ada had seen first hand how dangerous the plaga could be, and pinched both a dominant and passive plaga specimen. When she contacted Wesker, neither of them gave anything away, but Ada decided to switch and give Wesker the passive specimen last minute. This still allows her plausible deniability, as she fulfilled her side of the contract, but made a choice of her own while still being able to keep working as a mercenary undercover. Heck, you even see in her campaign that she was explicitly told to kill Leon, and would take every opportunity not to.That’s a deliberate part of her character growth over the series - she is very conscious of what’s going on around her, and although she does what she’s hired to do, she also grows increasingly more comfortable with acting upon her own code of ethics. To just… dumb her and Wesker down to whatever the fuck that after credits scene was is so fucking stupid and I can’t stand it! Way to assassinate both characters in one fell swoop! It would've been better to just not include the after credits scene if it was going to be this shit- it’s the exact kind of pandering that I hate. OoooOOhh look it’s Wesker, he’s sitting there and on his monitor you can see Excella and TriCell as a reFERence to a possible RE5R!!!!11!!!1! SHUT UP!!!!!! I don’t want this shitty fan service and pandering forced in, it feels the exact same as when RE8 tried to retroactively make Miranda a HUGE deal to umbrella, despite her not being interesting or solid enough to warrant having her be that impactful to the company. The whole thing with the original RE4 was that they killed off umbrella off-screen. They died cause their stocks plummeted. The devs wanted to move away from Umbrella as the antagonist, that’s why the game is like that (even though I think killing off Umbrella and being unable to stick with that and dragging it’s corpse around in some form or other, is what made the games go off the rails towards the end…)

And actually, I lied, there’s one more thing I wanna bitch about since we’re at the credits scene. HUNNIGAN WAS DONE DIRTY TOO. She doesn’t get much time to shine in general, it’s just the way the story is- but as Leon and Ashley are riding their jetski off into the sunset, you get to hear Hunnigan whining annoyingly at the end. It’s presented as like, her side of the one sided call as she’s trying to get back in contact with Leon, but, hello!? She’s a trained government handler, I doubt she’d be carrying on like a pork chop and risking anyone hearing that!? What if Leon picked up and heard that? The hell?? Was that really necessary??? Ending the game like that left a REALLY sour taste in my mouth...

ANYWAY…

I clearly feel complicated about this game, as there’s a lot I genuinely liked, and a lot that irked me. I love the way the overall story was tightened up and expanded, but I don’t like the way some of the details were handled. The gameplay was good, not perfectly for me, but I learnt more about the mechanics and had a good time playing overall. There’s nuance to be had, and I already waffled on about it… so, yeah. Hope your salt shaker is empty. The one no-nuance take I can close on, is why the hell are Leon’s alternate outfits so sexless? They’re not really cool, there’s not enough cunt in them, they just look kinda ugly and boring. Do better, this is the pretty boy of the series we’re dressing up here!

Drive

Baile de la muerte

A Familiar Place

~~

To close - Wow. That's it, that's all the mainline games so far. The only remaining games I have left on my shelf are the two wii shooters, which I will attempt one day... I'd like to dig around and try some of the more weird and niche spin-offs in the coming years, and properly try out the original PS1 trilogy. I'm also interested in talking more about peripheral media for resident evil, like the live action and animated movies, and the novel series as well. Who knows what I'll get up to, but you'll certainly hear from me again. I love this series, despite any frustrations I have with it, and always look forward to writing about them like this.

[blueikeproductions]

Hello! Very interesting points, allow you to look at the situation from a slightly different angle! But I'm just going to try to clarify a couple of points from my original question.

Maybe the caste system on Cybertron was not invented in comics, it's hard for me to understand which media influenced which at that time, I joined the fandom very recently. But in the cartoons, in fact, the background of the struggle against the caste system had almost no effect on the main plot and ending.

But this does not negate my claims towards comics that focus on this story. I do not understand why, under such a terrible regime of functionalists, all the "useless" ones were not destroyed or forcibly reformed into more useful mechanisms.

And how can such a regime, where presumably all the mechanisms are some kind of transformer, be rebuilt into a fair society? Build a replacement for everyone? That's why no media about transformers delves into everyday post-war life, because the authors either do not want to think about the functionality of society, or do not know how to build it, or do not know how to work with plots that are not cheap personal dramas. I can't understand how a plot that can be destroyed with a single sneeze can be considered in the fandom as a brilliant world-building and even a good one, it's very bad.

If we talk globally about this plot within the media about transformers and other franchises, then this plot is very popular and it is shown literally everywhere. And I understand that all this was filmed for people, especially for children, but I want an alternative. For people, such stories are understandable and fair, because with few exceptions, you can take a person and raise for any profession or retrain if necessary.

For fantastic races that, like ants, have individuals that are initially very different and exist for different functions, having the same aspirations and psychology as humans looks strange, and looking at it is already boring. I can understand that this cartoon is still made for children, well, but I doubt that the comics were created with the same age rating and for the same age audience.

That is, I want to say that it would be interesting to look at least once in the modern media at an alien or fantastic race for which such a way of life, different from ours, would be a normal and good solution compared to the rest. For some reason, it was possible to find this in the old science fiction, but not now.

I can still recall some such hint as a very casually mentioned moment in Galaxy Force, where, as a difference between Cybertronians and humans, it was shown that Cybertronians are unable to create comfortable and ergonomic rooms without mini-cons. Yes, it's not much, but it was interesting.

In fact, for the reasons you've described, I love the early view of Cybertronians as an artificially created "pseudo-race" who don't have a naturally developed culture, and all they have is borrowing from the creators or other aliens. (Yes, I'm that weird person who likes the idea that transformers were created by quintessons).

This would explain the different attitudes towards the Earth culture from Autobots and Decepticons. Autobots are created as smart household appliances, it is logical for them to adjust and adapt to the lifestyle of quintessons or buyers from other alien races. Decepticons, like military equipment, lack such a function and adaptability, which determines the relationship of the two factions to other cultures. Maybe it sounds stupid and crazy, but why not, I love crazy ideas.

In this scenario, the presence of cultures of Earth and other races on Cybertron looks logical and could even be some kind of side story about the crisis of a borrowed and at some points useless culture, about an attempt to create their own culture and the crisis of its artificiality. Well, or to show how Cybertronians have changed some customs and habits in a funny way for themselves, and not just as shown in the media, that it exists and that's it.

P.S. I'm sorry if something sounds rude, it's not a claim against you, but against the situation as a whole. Well, sometimes it is difficult to get a translator to translate politely and at the same time understandably.

Hi!

Yeah as far as most of the cartoons are concerned, the underlying backstory was the Decepticons wanted power and conquest with the Autobots and their friends there to stop them, with it being Earth’s resources, Mini-Cons, Energon, whatever was trendy that day for toys.

The G1 cartoon was really the only one that kinda explained the history of the Transformers’ origins and their primary functions, with them being Consumer Goods & Military Hardware. Presumably the Aligned Continuity and IDW used this concept as the basis of the caste system/Functionalism, but still couldn’t really flesh it out any better for what they wanted. This concept that the Autobots and Decepticons are less factions but genetically distinct has factored somewhat into Transformers Animated and ReGeneration One, where the later sees Scorponok discover this genetic quirk and sought to use a device to brainwash all Autobots into becoming Decepticons. This was also referenced in Netflix War For Cybertron, where Shockwave wanted to use the Allspark in conjunction with a computer virus that would forcibly reprogram the Autobots into Decepticons.

But as for a peaceful society without functionism, heck if we know what that’s like. No material, as you said, not even IDW, really bothers explaining what that involves. IDW just ends with Transformers and related aliens all crammed alongside humanity on Earth.

IDW2 does the inverse with Cybertron being a cultural potluck of other races before the Great War, but this isn’t really explored as well as it could’ve been.

Truthfully I think the only reason a lot of IDW’s ideas were praised are surface level “it’s deep and mature and adult”, but a lot of the ideas stop working when you think about it for two seconds. Functionism and the Caste System are bad only because they are.. That’s it. And for all the talk of being deep and real, the Functionist Council are hyper cartoonishly evil, right down to being basically the bitter high school nerds shunned by society who became the people in charge out of revenge. They kill other Transformers on a whim when they think they’re obsolete, which seems to be a reference to a Twilight Zone episode, but it lacks the finesse Rod Sterling’s team had to pull it off. The Functionists are stated to Transform into The Key to Vector Sigma, but they never once display the ability to do so, and due to writing contrivances, they can access Vector Sigma anyway without needing to Transform. (It’s all treated as a bit of dark humor btw). And then the Functionists turn their Cybertron into Primus and he is just Unicron for MTMTELL’s finale to Subvert Expectations TM. Meanwhile Unicron is being Unicron in IDW’s grand finale anyway…

The Quintesson origin story I think has become a little more attractive in recent years, both for its meta gag in the TFs being products in-universe, but also the overuse of the Primus origin that reached its peak in the Unicron Trilogy, with most series trying to avoid the Primus origin as best they could. I personally prefer the Quint origin story more and more lately, and with Hasbro doubling down more on Quints and heavier G1 ‘toon ideas, we could see a return to it full scale.

[randomnameless]

I am gonna be honest I really don't get how people don't understand Crest have nothing to do with being nobles, it's literaly the whole reason behind Mercedes's and Emile's tragic story, that their father who didn't had a crest wanted to marry Mercedes because she had one like her Mother so his children can inherit the Crest of Lamine.

On a side note, I do think that even if Rhea didn't created the Crest system it would have happened with or without her, Crest are superpowers that are rare and humans either worship like a god or treat as a witch people who have special power, I wouldn't believe for a second that left out as is in nature people who have Crest wouldn't try to rule over the other anyway or wouldn't be treated like aberrations.

Hm...

Mercie's mom had a crest and was a nobody, which could be married off to a bastard : aka, despite her crest, Mercie's mom wasn't a noble who was able to say big F to potential "suitors" who were supposed to be beneath her in status since they had no crest themselves.

Constance (and what's left of her fam?) were demoted to nothing and sent to the sewers in Garreg Mach, even if Constance comes from a prestigious family that got a crest from a Saint.

As you said, regardless of nobility wanting to pretend to have "better blood" than the pleb, Crests are superpowers, which would always be sought afer.

The games does it best to avoid talking about the tangible and objective benefits of having a crest - when we see Dimitri crush a man as easily as a snowball in a cutscene - but imo, it's part of Fodlan's DNA, try to spin a very objective and no-solution conflicts (you have a world with two races, and one has superpowers compared to the other, how does it work?) to artificial lip-service and copious amounts of smokescreens.

For something that was only alluded to but completely ignored because otherwise both Nopes and Houses fall apart - Seteth tells Yuri in their Nopes support how it is rumoured that an Elite was cured from an "incurable" disease after getting a crest...

Admitting this is remotely true to what happened in Zanado, does it justifiy the subsequent massacre and genocide? Dominic might die in 2 days if he doesn't kill a Nabatean, was he "right" or justified in killing the Nabatean who became Crusher and drinking their blood?

If humans are envious for good or bad reasons of the Nabateans' powers, what is going to happen when a Nabatean would refuse to share said power ? Are the humans justified in trying to steal it? Are Nabateans asses when they refuse to "lend it" to humans?

This game tries its hardest to avoid blaming the usual trifecta of human greed/assholishness/lust (for power!) as the reason why the world doesn't go round, and blame everything on... blue eyes, that can somehow shoot lasers too.

Of course someone with in-built lasers would be better seen/more valued than someone who hasn't the same lasers, but bar the milquetoast "we should try to accept everyone!", what is the specific answer to the Gautier border issue - crest means the border is defended, no crest and no plot hax means it isn't - should the defender of the border be the crested kid or the non crested-kid?

Nopes!Sylvains finds a loophole and replies with "we won't need to defend the border if we're not at war with Sreng anymore", and it's a nice solution, honestly. I like it. It makes for a bright perspective, of a future where, if everyone play their part, Crests won't be "needed" anymore.

But when it comes to using the power of a crest to heal, will you go to Manu, who cannot heal someone who has a cancer, or to Flayn, who can, if you suddenly learn you have one?

"Just develop chemiotherapy!"

Yes but I'm dying - who should I go to?

Imo, Crust System is used both in fandom and in-game to avoid mentionning the existence of super humans (or non humans if we want to stay close to Supreme Leader's words) and the inevitable jealousy/envy their existence creates/causes in humans, who cannot help but seek after the power they have.

[crystalelemental]

Now for the other half: story stuff. Now that I've gotten all the venom of today's failure to find Tyrants out of my system, I can talk about the good stuff.

Nexomon Extinction has a legitimately good story. This was really strong. I left off last time after the Drake Isles, but we're now through the full story. I kinda backed out of talking spoilers the first time, but this time it's completely unavoidable.

Omnicron's Tomb is probably the best segment in the game. That whole segment is so funny, it's incredible. The introduction of your character actually using your elemental powers is also a nice bit, especially with the surprised "No one told me you could do that." It's gold. But there's also a lot of setup as far as what's going on there, too.

The real fun is right after. The entire plot has been about how the Nexomon are at war to find a new king, and that several Tyrants are vying for power. A while back, humans created dragons to fight Tyrants and protect humanity, and created an artificial Tyrant to serve as the king of monsters that the dragons would obey. That was Euros. Fifteen years ago, everything went berserk, and the catalyst to this was, it turns out, your birth. Your player character is the last descendant of Omnicron, and child of Nara. Turns out, Deena's been putting a whole plan in motion to set you up as the new Sovereign of Monsters, getting her siblings to help develop your powers so you're ready to ascend the throne as the Tyrant of Light. The whole setup of machinations is really good, but what we particularly love is that this means all of the other children of Omnicron are your aunts and uncles. And there is just something about the concept of wine aunt Nadine that tickles me. We were joking about the babysitting priority order, and we're pretty confident Luxa's at the bottom.

One complaint I did develop, and still hold, for this game, is that the Tyrant War is kinda just background noise. Like...we don't know anything about the Tyrants in play. We know their masters, but Mulcimer doesn't speak until you revive him, and says very little. Even the one that does give the most hints of personality, Tikala, has to have Deena fill in that no, he did care about becoming king, he just hid to try and wait out the war part. Comparatively, they lack for depth, and having reached the postgame where I can acquire all these legendary creatures, I find myself wondering...why would I run anyone but the children of Omnicron? Like no, really. I don't particularly like Luxa, but I at least know about him as a character. If they all were non-entities, I could run with what looks cool or functions well. But in what world am I going to swap out Ventra for Euros? There isn't one. It would never happen. Partially because I can't fucking find him, postgame Tyrant hunting sucks ass, but mostly because Ventra is super cool and has a lot of relevance and Euros is just kinda there.

Vados is the exception. Vados does start speaking, and is a fairly noble and pragmatic creature. When aiming to destroy the desert Tyrant, the Laterians refuse to not fight, and when Amelie talks about how they chose their course, Vados is the one to admonish "I won't hurt humans, Amelie." Vados and Amelie are both pretty interesting, believing that their course is correct. I do think the ultimate aim is a bit...well, extreme. As pointed out by your mentor, Vados cannot be the king of monsters, because it's not a Nexomon, therefore more Tyrants will be born and more will attempt to ascend. It will fight until the literal end of the world, caused by its own hand. Vados, and by extension, Amelie, seem to work on the same moral framework as Xanders: Nexomon are intrinsically evil, and if they're going to keep rising up, then yes, the solution is genocide. We will take them all out for humanity's sake.

The story is still overall very comedic, but I still feel like at times I wish they'd cut the fourth-wall-breaking jokes. This may be more personal preference than anything they're strictly doing wrong, but I do think I don't love it. It does have some absolutely immaculate jokes, though. I think on the whole this game is funnier than the first. While small, one of my favorite bits is Nadine, having use the last of her powers to throw Xanders off a cliff, saying she used all her powers and won't get to see your rise to glory...only to stop, then call to Atlas saying she can't hurt him and to come close, implying reconciliation. Then smacks his ass to the ground and starts to call him a little shit, fading before she can curse at him. That's great. I love Nadine. Though the absolute funniest is still the Yellow Ranger guy trying to jump you from on high, landing wrong and just screaming "MY BONES!" then vanishing. Absolutely hilarious.

As a whole experience, I liked this game a lot more than the first. Which is saying something considering the general vibe I have on being salty about postgame legend hunting. The story is just a lot stronger, reminiscent more of the underworld segment but sustained throughout. The new cast is generally excellent, though I do wish the Tyrants got a little more development. It's just a really good game. With a really unfortunate approach to the postgame legends. No, I will not shut up about this, I'm so mad.

[semper-legens]

162. Tender Is The Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica

Owned: No, library Page count: 219 My summary: All the animals are dead. A freak virus made them dangerous to humans - and, importantly, inedible. So the world governments came up with a solution. Cloned humans, harvested for their meat and skin, anything that a person can use. Marcos works in an abattoir, processing these clones for consumption. But when a purebred female is gifted to him, Marcos realises a new opportunity. What if he can replace the son he lost? My rating: 2/5 My commentary:

Well, this book wasn't good. It's such a shame - I love strange books with weird or grotesque premises, if an author wants to explore something taboo there's a chance that they'll have the kind of creativity that I really enjoy in a story. And this had so much promise! In a world where we can no longer eat the flesh of animals, we instead clone humans and slaughter them for meat. That's an interesting idea (if, granted, somewhat played out in the kind of dystopia/sci-fi I like) and with some development, could make for an interesting story. Unfortunately, this book was not that. I found very little to like about it beside the premise, and if I was going to be uncharitable, I might even note that the premise itself seems to be chosen to carry the weight of a mediocre story. Certainly, I probably wouldn't have bothered to give this one the time of day without it. I'll go more into why I reached this conclusion under the cut, but the short answer is - it's just not that great.

The idea of cannibalism is one of our great taboos, and a particular fascination of mine. The problem is that in this novel it seemed to be used more for shock value than being an integral part of the worldbuilding, because the idea of cannibalising human clones as presented here really falls apart when you examine it for more than a minute. The change has happened over our protagonist's lifetime, yet everyone in the world is suddenly inured to the idea of eating people? You'd think it'd take a generation or two for the idea to become that ingrained. Similarly, the infrastructure for creating and slaughtering these clones has come up very quickly - alright, it's a plot point that they've repurposed things like old slaughterhouses, but given that this world doesn't seem to be that far in the future, how did we get perfect cloning technology that easily? As well as the ability to artificially age said clones, presumably, given that they seem to be producing enough meat to feed everyone despite all of the clones mentioned having adult appearances. (Unlike in the real meat industry where juvenile animals might be used, or where the animals slaughtered reach maturity much faster than humans.) If we can make clones that perfectly, why do we engineer them to be basically people instead of just unthinking, non-sentient slabs of meat? Surely that would be psychologically easier for everyone involved.

There's also the mention that the elderly and infirm are being used to produce meat, but that never really gets developed or goes anywhere. Likewise is the protagonist's idea that the virus which made animals inedible was either manufactured by the government for population control reasons (if people eat people, the birth rate goes down…despite the mass-produced 'meat' being explicitly clones I guess?) which is mentioned by the protagonist and then basically treated as fact despite that not mattering to the story and us not seeing any real substantive evidence of that. Like real conspiracy theories, there's not much there that stands up under scrutiny.

But beside all the worldbuilding holes, this book is just boring. Strip it of its surface-level gimmick, and what you have is a book about a man who has lost his kid, his wife's leaving him, he gets into a very questionable quasi-relationship with someone he's definitely exploiting, and that's about it. The protagonist is unlikeable, even without his abuse of the clone-woman 'Jasmine', cynical and bitter and hating of literally everyone without many redeeming qualities. His quest to replace the son he lost with one who is his blood via 'Jasmine' just reeks of toxic masculinity and the importance placed on virility, but this isn't really explored or examined at any length; I think it's actually meant to humanise him. Which it doesn't, because he is an odious little man. I hated him, and without him, there's very little left in the book to enjoy. Bleh.

Next, a world where wishes are bought and sold.

[lewdladylily]

I see where you're coming from, but what if Tracer is just genuinely that broken by the world? Like it's gotten to this point, she could just be too depressed to react in the way Amélie wants her to. -Anna

If she was just that broken then it would be an entirely different story But assuming the same setup but with Tracer that broken down.

So if I just started saying things I think it would come off as "out of character" because so many people have a very set idea of what widowmaker is like in canon. So I am going to explain some stuff first.

I think the fandom kinda gets widowmaker wrong. You can hardly blame them with how little meaningful material we got, but imagining her as a high ranking member of talon doesn't really follow from her backstory. She was brainwashed to kill her husband then brainwashed to kill for Talon and experimented on by Moira. I think it's safe to say that she's not calling the shots here. The conditions she was living under at this time were probably pretty terrible. And all of this is what her character is about. Widowmaker is the tragedy of Amélie Lacroix.

The point is Widowmaker is an artificial construct that suppresses or at least heavily modifies Amélie's true personality. The future of overwatch where Amélie breaks away from Talon, it would only make sense that the widowmaker construct starts breaking down and Amélie's true personality starts showing through.

Considering the idea of a Tracer vs Widowmaker rivalry through this lens, there is no practical reason widowmaker should be allowed this kind of emotional attachment. In fact, we know that Moira did her best to suppress emotions like this. Their rivalry is likely where the widowmaker construct first starts cracking. This makes Tracer an incredibly important person to Amélie, being the first person she made a genuine connection with after so many years, however warped that connection was by the rest of her circumstances.

Now this story takes place some years later. She's no longer so toxically dependent on that connection to Lena. But Lena still holds an important place to Amélie. Lena is important to her, she has genuine admiration for her. But she is a massive tsundere about it because she is not great about handling her emotions.

So given this, given Amélie's place in her recovery, I think she would respond in three main ways, emotionally speaking.

The first is the sum total of all her selfish and dark emotions about the situation, expressed as frustration and possessiveness. Tracer is supposed to be like she was before, she is supposed to be Widowmaker's match. "My rival is better than this."

The next is sympathy, and that's her truest nature shining through. She wants to help because as stated above, she genuinely cares about tracer. But wanting to help doesn't mean she has the skills to help, and she feels a large degree of helplessness because of it.

These two would largely inform how she moves forward with Lena. She would certainly try to help her, but she'd have trouble admitting to herself and others that she wants to help Lena simply because she cares. Assuming we are still talking porn with plot, she'd probably end up being all controlling about it. Filter what she's doing through a fetish lens (because that's easier than engaging with reality directly) and build up Lena a her pet, with Emily acting as middle bitch.

The third major emotional reaction, her go to solution hammered into her by Talon for years, would be murderous rage. Just as she killed Moira for what she did, she would be highly motivated to identify who hurt Lena so badly and ensure they die. Revenge has worked out well for her so far, no reason to stop now.

There are going to be elements of all this in the story I am writing, but I wanted Lena to give more push back than a broken tracer story would have allowed for.

[jack85200]

AM PravaH: 3D Printing Software By Paanduv Applications

About the case study

This document will help you run your first AM PravaH LPBF simulation for macroscale and microstructure modeling. The case study is done for a standard alloy of titanium i.e. Ti6Al4V widely used for aerospace and biomedical applications. The simulation is carried out for a multilayer, multi-track scan pattern. The process parameters for the laser are e.g. 300 W power and e.g. 1 m/s scan speed. D4 sigma or spot dia is 0.1 mm. 

Exclusive features of AM PravaH include consideration of 4 phases, with no explicit formulation for recoil pressure because evaporation and recoil pressure effects are included in the vapor phase. AM PravaH takes the thermophysical properties of the 4 phases as inputs along with the process parameters such as laser power, laser scan speed, shielding gas flow angle and velocity, layer thickness, spot diameter, preheating temperature, chamber initial pressure, and substrate initial height, scan pattern, particle size distribution and number of layers. Macroscale modeling will generate the following outputs melt pool dimensions, porosity %, thermal gradients, cooling rates, and thermal cycling plots. The Microstructure module generates outputs such as grain size distribution, angular chord length distribution, misorientation angles, and Euler angles. AM PravaH leverages the amalgamation of computational modeling solvers performing multiphase macroscale modeling, microstructure modeling, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at a unified platform.  

Keywords: Additive Manufacturing, 3D printing, Meltpool dynamics, porosity, thermal gradients, cooling rate, microstructure analysis, grain size, angular chord length, 3D printing software 

AM PravaH: 3D printing simulation software 

Introduction

AM PravaH is a 3D printing simulation software that facilitates end-to-end solutions for Additive Manufacturing physics-based simulations. Additive Manufacturing is commonly known as 3D printing. This 3D printing software is the “World’s first all-inclusive 3D computational software for Additive Manufacturing”. This 3D printing software will be useful for new alloy development, process parameter optimization, and reducing defects. Not to confuse with other 3D printing software that only performs thermomechanical analysis and deformation, AM PravaH software offers much more.

The software capabilities in brief are as follows:

There are three modules in AM PravaH

(i) Macroscale modeling

(ii) Microstructure analysis

(iii) Integrated Deep Learning (AI) module 

Relevance of the 3D printing software; AM PravaH

This 3D printing software is relevant for researchers, academicians, and industry professionals from large and small-sized companies working in the Additive Manufacturing field. Where the primary focus is to understand the in-depth physics, microstructures, and effect of process parameters on the melt pool dynamics and distribution and the root cause of the defects. If we have a much closer look at the fundamental processes of 3D printing; this is a transient, very quick, and very dynamic process, which can't be captured with the naked eye. Therefore, AM PravaH simulations can be extremely useful in understanding this part. 

Based on that, one makes important decisions such as 

Which alloy is better?

How do we get solidification, melting, and cooling rates information?

what are the best operating process conditions to get a defect-free and dense part

What do the microstructures look like?

What are the grain distribution and mean grain size? 

What are the melt pool sizes?

How much will be the porosity %?

[reiding-writing]

C O L D ! R E A D E R M A S T E R L I S T !

CAPSULE SERIES. /kæpsjuːl ˈs̠ɛrieːs̠/

A series of stories or documents that can be read in conjunction with each other or as stand alone articles.

[ pair. ] spencer reid x fem!cold!reader

[ fics. ] fifty nine

[ key. ] 🌨️/angst ❄️/fluff 🧊/hurt*comfort

main masterlist. | plot-forward fics are in blue.

0.9k | greetings & salutations. ( ❄️ : you meet spencer reid for the first time.)

2.1k | (under)qualified. (❄️🧊 : Sometimes, having older people work alongside the team is beneficial, other times they’re ageist and discredit anyone younger than them. The only real solution for that is to stand up for yourself.)

1.1k | checkmate. (❄️ : morgan and spencer just cannot agree on whether or not chess is actually a fun game to play, dragging you and emily into their debate in hopes of gaining a majority vote.)

1.0k | majority vote. (❄️ : morgan is convinced that you're incapable of expressing human emotion, so you bring spencer in as backup to consolidate you.)

1.0k | just another day. (❄️? : you and the team get caught in texas over christmas.)

1.4k | roommates. 1.4k | part two. (❄️ : when you and spencer share a room together on a case, you find yourself a little out of character at the revelation you'll have to share a bed with him)

1.5k | little things. (❄️ : You'd like to say that you were entirely successful in emotionally removing yourself from your coworkers, but Spencer had managed to work himself into a crack in your emotional wall and the rest of the team is starting to notice.)

2.9k | cup of coffee. (❄️ : a local officer on a case you're working on really wants to impress you, spencer reid does it without even trying.)

2.3k | oh no. (❄️ : Spencer makes a (rather terrifying) revelation in relation to his ice-hearted coworker, who might not aetually be all that ice-hearted.)

1.2k | talking fists. (❄️? : alcohol and a short temper don’t mix, who would’ve thought?)

1.6k | trypanophobia. (🧊: you get an injury that needs medical stitching to stop it from scarring properly, but you’re not a fan of needles.)

2.3k | sick day. (🧊❄️ : Stubbornness is both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness, but there's always going to be one person with enough leeway to force you into what's best.)

3.1k | backup. (❄️🧊 : some men are assholes who only care about their own gratification, some men are spencer reid.)

2.8k | close call. (🧊🌨️ : spencer runs head first into a situation that almost gets him killed, and you show your concern in a very roundabout way.)

1.6k | takedown. (❄️ : Who knew watching somebody take down an unsub would cause Spencer to feel so many emotions at once?) | 2.4k | part two. (❄️ : Spencer might be a know-it-all, but at least he actually knows the things that he talks about.)

1.5k | secret santa. (❄️ : spencer’s a little stumped on what to get you for secret santa.)

5.1k | spin the wheel. ( ?? : you and spencer have to go undercover as a couple for a case. chaos ensues.)

3.0k | hometown. (🧊❄️ : spencer runs into an unfortunately familiar face during a case in las vegas, and you help him escape it whilst inadvertently proving you pay more attention to him than he thought you did.)

1.0k | visitation. (❄️ : the team come to visit you post surgery, you're feeling a little more accepting than usual.)

2.9k | love languages. ( ❄️ : you show your love for your team members in specifically unique ways.)

2.3k | breaking the ice. | 2.4k | part two. (🌨️🧊 : Sometimes people just cry, there doesn't really have to be a reason. But when you have a reputation for being cold and uncaring, being emotionally vulnerable with other people isn't very easy. Spencer doesn't care though, he'll get through to you either way.)

1.4k | midnight visitor. | 1.3k | part two. (🧊 : after a particularly eventful case, spencer has a night terror, and the only person he wants to see, is you.)

1.5k | artificial sweetener. ( ❄️ : spencer's affinity for sweet drinks often bites him in the back when it comes to coffee shops, but with you as his conpany, it doesn't last very long.)

2.4k | cracked ice. ( 🌨️ : a foot chase goes awry when a shot takes you down. spencer makes sure you're alive enough to make it to the hospital.)

2.2k | à bientot. (❄️ : spencer takes an opportunity to get closer to you based on nothing more than a passing comment.)

3.3k | as it seems. ( 🌨️❄️ : a local detective seems to hang on spencer’s every word. the unprofessionalism of it all really frustrates you.)

2.4k | the smile that slipped. ( ❄️ : you don’t feel things like this. you don’t. ever. except maybe you actually do.)

1.3k | slip ‘n slide. ( ❄️ : for someone often likened to all things icy, you don’t deal with actual ice all that well.)

8.4k | stanford’s finest. ( 🌨️ : a case involving female students being murdered in their dormitories brings the team to stanford university. You have more of a connection to it than you originally realise.)

1.2k | stagnant. ( ❄️? : why would someone ask spencer a question if they didn’t want to hear the answer?)

3.2k | how pitiful. ( 🧊 : a case hits you harder than it should, and spencer shows his concern in a very spencer way.)

1.8k | no, thanks. ( ?? : you get offered the opportunity of a lifetime, but you don’t want it. you’re comfortable where you are.)

1.1k | adrenaline. (🧊🌨️ : you and spencer get caught in an explosion, and you’ll be damned if you don’t both get out of it.) | 2.0k | part two. ( ❄️🧊 : you wake up in the hospital after the explosion, and spencer hasn’t left your side.)

1.4k | soft-serve. ( ❄️ : spencer reid hates germs. so why should he have to deal with them.)

3.4k | reckless impulsions. ( 🧊❄️ : spencer thinks you’re too reckless sometimes. too impulsive. you don’t exactly prove him wrong.)

2.4k | the conversation. ( ?? : after the hotel incident, you and spencer avoid the inevitable conversation until you can't anymore.)

3.9k | not a date. ( ❄️ : your first date with spencer devolves pretty quickly when it doesn’t start all that well.)

2.5k | training wheels. ( ❄️? : spencer finds himself with a little more confidence than usual knowing that you reciprocated his affections.)

1.2k | a study in care. ( 🧊 : spencer doesn’t know how to take care of himself, so you do it for him.)

10.0k | thirty-six hours. ( ❄️🌨️ : A family annihilator who's killed three families in two months makes a fatal mistake. He leaves behind a witness, a child, and she's the only one that can help solve the case.)

1.3k | water weight. ( 🌨️ : spencer’s not allowed to die. not yet. you’re not ready.)

1.0k | cold hard logic. ( ❄️🧊 : the sherrif’s officers assisting your case come with an unhealthy side of misogyny. spencer is not a fan.)

1.7k | make it official. ( ❄️🌨️ : the limits of your patience are pushed further than usual seeing spencer’s oblivious kindness whilst being flirted with.)

1.2k | face to face. (🌨️ : you threaten to crack under the stress of spencer’s abduction.)

4.1k | boundary line. ( 🧊🌨️ : you go back to spencer’s apartment after a night out together, and what starts as a moment of mutual tension, definitely does not end as such.)

1.6k | steady warmth. ( ❄️ : spencer radiates warmth like something you’ve never seen. almost enough to melt ice.)

7.8k | daniel’s missing. ( 🌨️ : your parents always come crawling back to you when they can’t clean up their own messes. or daniel’s.)

3.1k | silent treatment. ( 🌨️❄️ : spencer’s not sure if you made the right decision by choosing him. you know that you did.)

4.2k | the reid technique. (🌨️ : you volunteer to interview a middle-aged woman suspected of kidnapping a little girl.)

2.6k | undeniably yours. ( ❄️ : you pick up the wrong phone.)

3.1k | one bad day. ( 🌨️ : all it takes is one bad day for you to regress back to the beginning.)

3.7k | under duress. ( 🧊 : spencer convinces you to go to therapy.)

2.0k | what a night. ( 🧊 : bringing up your past issues doesn’t just affect your waking hours. your dreams are just as bad.)

1.8k | mirror image. ( 🧊 : you consult the one team member who can actually understand how you feel, about your developed fear of intimacy.)