#mortal shell new game mode

[luiscagreen]

Become More Virtuous Than Your Enemies

[roundtable-knight-dyke]

Finally got around to playing mortal shell. Fun and weird if a little clunky

Full thoughts below cut

The mechanics were great the hardening ability was fun to time with attacks so that when a noss hit you you would take no damage and then counter them. The parry was really clunky tho and it having 3 different modes was weird considering the first mode you get was a heal which is hard to come by in that game. Another mechanic i loved was familiarity it was really cool sening how different items change the more you use them such as the poison mushrooms giving you poison resist if you max out familiarity with them. The different weapons are fun but i missed a few upgrades and key items for them during my playthrough so i may have to either look again or do another which isn't bad because the gane is surprisingly short although thats also abad thing as i wish there was more but only having 4 main bosses with other small bosses through the world and dungeons is not much i do wish there was more and more weapons too because there are only 4 weapons but they are all fun so whatever i guess. The shells are really interesting too each being a corpse of someone you are inhabiting and being able to renter your shell upon death is really good considering the lack of healing in the game but you can only do it once per rest. However i never found myself swapping shells once i had them all unlocked and all the names unlocked i just sticked with the tankiest one as the others simply did not have enough for me to play as them instead. The dlc does add a rouge like mode and a new weapon and new shell but i haven't bought it yet so yeah. Any that's all it's a very fun and interesting souls like and i recomend it

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (December 27/2020) - End of Week

Today on the Dream SMP: 

War Crimes, a tense confrontation, cat maids, Festival decorations, Mr. Beast joining the server, analogies about peaches and contracts to transfer the ownership of one’s bones to Tubbo.

Overall...just a normal day on the server, really!

As usual, a summary of the week’s total events is at the end of the post.

---

DISC UPDATE: Dream supposedly has the real “Cat” after being given it by Skeppy. ---

- HBomb gives Tubbo his Christmas gift: some mending books

- H and Tubbo play Hide and Seek With Murderous Tendencies

- Techno logs on and gets Tommy a turtle shell helmet and a disc as a gift. He took the materials from Ranboo’s gift too.

- Tommy logs on at his house. Tommy and Techno get back to Techno’s house and Tommy play’s Techno’s “Wait” disc. They sing it together. Tommy also shows Techno his “Pigstep” DMCA weapon. The ultimate power.

- They plan to sneak into New L’manburg to get to their wolves. They get spotted by Ranboo while coming through the portal.

- Tommy and Techno return to Tommy’s house and Tommy gets spotted by Connor while hiding in de walls. They engage in a homeownership dispute. They threaten Connor’s eyes with a fork and trap him in a box.

- They decide to kidnap Connor and hold him for ransom. They escort him back to Little Penis Land and get spotted by Ranboo again.

- Tommy continues to use advanced interrogation techniques on Connor (torture) while Techno goes off to speak with Ranboo. Techno tells Ranboo to go speak to Tubbo about getting his items back, or Connor will die. Ranboo points out that Connor isn’t a citizen, but after some more talk Ranboo agrees to go get Tubbo.

- They try to waterboard Connor while they wait, but it doesn’t work since Connor starts to self-actualize and come to terms with his mortality.

- They argue over who is better at torturing. Connor says that all of this is taking a psychological toll on him and that both of them are equally horrible people.

- Tommy threatens to drop an anvil on Connor’s head. Ranboo arrives and says that Tubbo is ready to meet them. Tommy doesn’t feel like he’s ready. They bring Connor along, having broken his spirit. Eret is also there.

- Tubbo is shocked that Tommy would side with Techno. Tommy is shocked that Tubbo would try and execute Techno. 

- They do the trade and let Connor be free. He immediately dies to a spider.

- Techno tries to convince Tommy that Tubbo isn’t actually Tommy’s best friend. That Tubbo is actually a bad guy, that he’s not looking out for Tommy’s best interests.

- They return to the Nether portal and Dream is standing right there, looking at them.

- Dream tells Tommy that Skeppy gave him “Cat.” Techno says that Dream won’t be getting Tommy today, as he steps between them. Dream mentions the favor that he has yet to call in, but says he won’t be redeeming it today.

- Tommy tells Dream to go fuck himself and they return through the portal. Tommy even jumps into lava to show how it doesn’t affect him anymore.

- Tommy refuses Techno’s rocket launcher, as that’s the crossbow that killed Tubbo. He goes off on his own to listen to “Wait” as he watches the sun set over the Arctic.

- Fundy has come up with an idea for an epic firework show, the most explosive and amazing firework show ever. He wants to complete his mob grinder for gunpowder, so that he can create those explosives for the Festival in preparation for killing Dream.

- Fundy goes to the Mooshroom Biome and tries to convince Phil that he’s brilliant and that his plan for a grinder will work. Phil explains why Fundy is wrong by showing him a better example in his Hardcore World.

- Wheelza Minecraft.

- Dream and Mr. Beast mysteriously log on, Mr. Beast in Spectator Mode. 

- Fundy whispers to Dream that he wants to talk but Dream doesn’t respond.

- Ranboo works on games in New L’manburg for the Festival.

- HBomb becomes Fundy’s maid again for an hour due to Ranboo redeeming his prize from L’Cast. 

Ranboo: “It’s not torture, it’s content...forced content.”

- Tubbo gives his incredibly cursed speech about peaches to Fundy and gains contractual ownership over Fundy’s skeleton. The removal will take place Thursday morning.

Fuzzy and smooth, but never to be confused with hairy, of course. The surface of a peach.

Ranboo: “And remember! You can’t spell ‘fraud’ without ‘fun!’”

- HBomb helps Fundy move his fox. Mr. Beast and Dream log off.

- The fox falls off a cliff in the Nether and dies. Fundy is heartbroken.

- The two of them attempt to move Fundy’s cats to his home in Dry Waters. Fundy begs Phil for help in chat but Phil can do nothing to save him.

- Mr. Beast logs on again.

- They make it to Dry Waters with all the cats intact.

- H questions Fundy about why he has a picture of George’s lips. Fundy explains that he wants to kiss them but H says he thinks the true reason is something else. Fundy leads him to the Mooshroom Biome and tries to get him to help with the mob grinder.

- Tubbo and Ranboo call Fundy again to show him a song. 

- In order to keep Tubbo and Ranboo in the call to save him from HBomb, Fundy starts telling them a wild and very canon story about the SMP about dinosaurs, Dream being muscular, and many other things.

- As the time runs out on HBomb’s timer, Fundy and H look at what they’ve accomplished and Fundy stabs H in the back with his sword, killing him and ending it.

---

Upcoming Events:

- The reveal of Pandora’s Vault at some point

- The L’manburg Festival will be held on Tuesday the 29th

- Mr. Beast’s event

END OF WEEK RECAP:

12/21: Bad and Ant check on their Crimson experiments

12/22: Phil’s escape, attack mob in the Holy Land

12/23: Tubbo’s birthday, Tommy makes a path, experiments on the Crimson continue

12/24: Wilbur’s Christmas karaoke

12/25: Tommy and Tubbo chill non-canon stream

12/26: Lani’s visit, Tales From the SMP Pilot: “The Town That Never Was”

12/27: Connor’s kidnapping, Tommy and Dream’s confrontation, HBomb becomes Fundy’s cat maid again

[limeblood-exe]

A Singular, Bloody Mattress (part 2)

So much fluff, you guys, it’s tooth-rutting. And a lil bit of Raph angst, too because why not. Ok, but it’s also mainly fluff. Enjoy!

He can’t sleep. It’s three in the morning, and Raph lies completely awake, staring at the cracks in his bedroom ceiling.

Out of all of his brothers, Raph has no problem sleeping. Mikey might have the occasional bad dream or he might stay awake playing video games or doing art, but for the most part Mikey has taken to heart Raph’s lectures about needing to get a good amount of sleep each night. “It’s important for a growing, young turtle,” he had explained. However, he wishes that his other younger brothers would have taken that advice. 

Donnie and Leo are Raph’s headaches when it comes to making sure all of his brothers are taking care of themselves. Donnie has an even worse habit of staying up too late, but it’s mostly because he gets so absorbed with a new project that time passes without his knowing. It’s common for Raph to find Donnie either passed out on his worktable in his lab, or stumbling into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. But while his younger brother does stay up late occasionally, he enjoys sleep probably the most out of any of them, so it’s easy for Raph to convince his brother to sleep (convincing, as in Raph mentions the time to Donnie, who replies with “Wow, would you look at that,” and then promptly sleeps for the next twelve hours).

And Leo just doesn’t sleep sometimes. Honestly, just even knowing the fact that Leo has insomnia was actually discovered from pure luck. Raph didn’t even know his brother was having problems with sleep until he accidentally came across him on his way to the bathroom just hanging out in the family room, binging some Jupiter Jim films. 

He tried to talk to Leo about it, but every instance he brought it up his brother had an annoying ability of dodging the topic. Finally, with Raph having to resort to the “I’m gonna tell Splinter” card, he had admitted that sometimes he has issues falling asleep, but that it wasn’t anything to worry about, and he would let them know if it got worse. So Raph had agreed to let it go with that promise in mind. That didn’t stop him from staying up a couple of nights spying on his brother just to make sure the problem didn’t, in fact, get worse. He never saw Leo leave his room those nights, so he either must have gotten through his sleep drought or knew Raph was watching him and used his portals to secretly escape his big brother’s view.

He doesn’t know which one it was, to be honest.

And he feels he should have done more, Raph comes to realize, because this whole “not being able to sleep” thing is just awful. The stinging sensation in his eyes, the restlessness of both mind and body. He can’t understand how Leo would try to hide this instead of just asking them for help. He has no idea how long Leo might have been suffering from insomnia, but one night and already Raph feels like splitting his bed in half, despairing that sleep has slipped from his clutches.

But he's no fool, he knows the cause of why he is not currently sleeping. 

It's because of the fact that his aforementioned brother is currently holed up in their infirmary.

No matter what he tries, Raph can’t stop thinking about what had happened just a couple days prior. They had come so close, too close, to losing their brother. Not just when they were cornered by their enemies; as soon as they got back home, it was a fight to keep their brother alive, restoring his lost blood with blood donations from Mikey, who argued that he wanted to do it, he wanted to feel helpful, and stitching together torn skin and shell.

He was fine, though. Damned lucky, their father had said, but he managed to pull through.

And yeah, they cried when he opened his eyes for the first time since they got back home, but that doesn’t matter. What mattered was that their team had not been reduced to three.

Leo is gonna be fine, things are heading back to normal; so how come Raph can't stop thinking about how useless he felt during the entire ordeal?

Sitting up abruptly, Raph decides that staring at the ceiling isn't gonna help him get any sleep. 

He leaves his room quietly so as to not disturb any of his brothers, who desperately need the rest just as much as he does, and departs for the kitchen. He's thirsty, so it seems like a reasonable first destination. 

He walks mindlessly, his mind swallowed by too many thoughts.

Water sounds nice, maybe that’s what I need. A glass of cool water, and I’ll head back to bed, Raph thought to himself. 

Entering the room, he turns on the light, looking for the fridge hoping to find-

This is not the kitchen. An easy discovery, what with the lack of kitchen essentials and instead he sees humming machines, a curtain, an occupied bed-

Ah, he’s in the infirmary. Without thinking, his feet had unconsciously brought him here.

He immediately slaps the light switch off, worried he woke his brother from his needed rest. He hadn’t meant to come in here; he didn't want to be in here. Not right now. He’s supposed to be trying to keep his mind off things.

He can just go back, he didn’t hear his brother wake up; didn’t hear a groan or even a peep, so there would be no harm in him just walking away.

But he might as well check that Leo is asleep as he’s already here and all; he does have a track record of hiding any of his sleep issues.

Raph pads to the side of the bed, spotting his brother cocooned in a hill of blankets. The only parts of him he clearly can see are his head and his arm that sticks out, dangling over the edge of the bed. Raph lays his hand on Leo’s chest, feeling the rise and fall of his steady and constant breathing. Raph can't see them right now, but he's painfully aware of the large swath of bandages that cover his middle.

Content that his brother is indeed asleep, he grasps Leo's dangling arm (noting he has one of Donnie’s techy bracelets strapped to his wrist, most likely monitoring his vitals) in his gentle hold, and positions it back in his warm bundle. Tucking his brother in, he smiles softly before he makes his way to the kitchen to grab something to drink.

"Raph?" a soft voice mumbles before he even takes a single step, and he definitely did not give a little yell of surprise, no matter what Leo says.

"Leo! Sorry," Raph u-turns instantly and puts a hand on his brother's head, patting it gently like a parent would to a kid. "I didn’t wake you, did I?"

"You did," Leo gives a jaw-cracking yawn before he continues, talking into his pillow, Raph straining his ears to hear him, "but it’s fine. I feel like I’ve been asleep for too long anyway."

"That’s pretty normal, and you’re gonna have to get used to it. It’s going to be awhile before you’re back to normal, buddy," And the events of that night once again rush to the forefront of Raph's mind. He looks to the ground, unable to look his brother in the eye, afraid that Leo will see through his eyes and read his thoughts.

"Huh? What is it?" Leo looks more alert due to the seriousness his face had suddenly morphed to, struggling weakly in his blankets to lean up against his pillow.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Leo squints up at him with a disapproving look. Like he’s gonna believe that for a second.

“Now, why don’t I believe that? Are you lying to me, bro?”

"No-it’s just-I’m not lying to you,” Deflating under Leo’s sharp glare, Raph nervously rubs his hand together, gathering the courage to speak. 

“…Back then, I couldn't do anything. I'm supposed to be the leader, Leo, and I did nothing." His face scrunches, and his hands clenching together in a show of anger. "And I'm… I'm sorry, Leo. I’m sorry that I couldn't protect you."

Raph would expect his brother to do many things after his revelation; make a joke to lighten the mood, ignore the apology altogether, saying something along the lines of “please don’t embarrass yourself by talking any longer”, etc. He did not expect for his brother to grab his wrist suddenly and pull him close to the edge of the bed, and with one large motion, wraps his arms around Raph’s neck. If he wasn’t too shocked, he would have admonished Leo for moving around so much, since he just got mortally wounded, but the hug feels so good at the moment that all he can do, all he wants to do, is hug his brother back.

“I don’t blame you Raph, you don’t have to ever apologize for something like this,” Leo comforts. His voice is gentle and kind and so unlike Leo’s usual carefree tone that Raph lays one of his hands on the back of Leo’s head checking for a fever.

Not finding one, he buries his face in his younger brother’s shoulder, and Raph has to choke down the sudden lump in his throat to softly mutter, “But I should’ve done, you know, more. I’m the eldest, it’s my job to protect you guys. And at that moment, I failed. And it’s not just that, I couldn’t come up with a plan. My mind felt so gooey and slow and I just-because of that I put you at serious risk, Leo. If you couldn’t-if you didn’t-”

“But I did. And stop putting all the blame on yourself,” Leo adds. “If you wanna play the blame-game, then I think I gotchu beat.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. We wouldn’t have even been in that situation in the first place had I never gotten hurt. I let my guard down, Raph, and I paid the price for it. And so did all of you.”

“That’s not fair, Leo. You couldn’t have known that those paper guys would have been any more dangerous than the ones we’ve already fought before,” Raph pulls apart their hug, going into his lecturing mode. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that happened.”

“But that’s what I’m saying. It was a sucky situation, so you can’t blame yourself as our leader when things go bad, because it’s not just on you. We’re a team, and we’ll fail together as a team.”

While bleak sounding, it sparks an understanding in Raph.

We’ll fail together as a team.

He understands where Leo is coming from. He always thought that the pressure of failing would be on his shoulders alone; he’s the leader, and a good leader takes responsibility. A good leader would know better than to lead their team to their deaths. 

But a good leader would also know that you can’t win every fight. Raph doesn’t want to accept that as a possibility, he might never be able to, but he can know where he stands when it does.

He’s lost this argument, so Raph just slowly nods. He still feels like he could’ve done better, and he knows it might take awhile before he accepts what Leo had to say, but he feels relieved, the burden of feeling so alone lifted from his shoulders.

Raph, thickly says, "Thank you, Leo."

"Anytime, brother." Leo replies. As Raph rubs at his eyes, clearing away beading tears, Leo adds, "Now, pay up."

"What? What do you mean?" Raph asks, confused. Leo sticks out his quivering lips, his eyes pouting upwards. Leo raises his arms towards Raph, his hands making a grabby motion in the air.

"Carry me."

"What? No! Why would I do that?"

“Because I’m bored! I’ve been lying here for, what has it been, three days?”

“Just two, actually.”

“My point being! I need a change of scenery.”

“Uhh, but you’ve been sleeping for the past couple of days? How can the scenery bother you when you're not awake to see it. Besides, you’re still recovering.”

"Oh, come on! That's not fair, and you know it. I'm healing just fine," Leo doesn't give up and increases his efforts to be held, mimicking a petulant child demanding attention. "Please, Raphie, I don't like the infirmary."

"No."

"Pleaaaase-"

"Alright, fine!"

Leo laughs victoriously as Raph leans down to pick up his brother. Leo wraps his arms around Raph's broad neck, and his big brother puts his arms behind Leo's back and beneath his knees, making sure to do so around his blanket as well. He doesn’t want his brother getting cold, after all.

Straightening his back, Raph glares disapprovingly at Leo, who just smiles happily in return, snuggling his cheek against the dip between Raph's plastron and his neck.

"Where am I going exactly?"

"Anywhere is fine."

"Uh-huh."

Raph is convinced that Leo made a big fuss just to be held, but who is he to deny his brothers want they want. After all, it wasn’t just Raph that went through a tough ordeal. If Leo wants to be held, it's the least Raph can do.

With the choice being left to Raph, he decides that the family room is the perfect spot and makes his way there.

Leo begins to doze in his hold, snuggling close to the heat of his brother.

Why would he need a change of scenery if he was just gonna fall asleep anyway.

Raph doesn't have it in him to wake him back up, so he sits cross-legged on the floor as soon as he arrives and holds his breathing brother close.

This was not how Raph thought his night was gonna go, with Leo asleep in his lap and the night continuing to tick by. Content regardless, Raph rests his chin on top Leo's head, appreciating the living movements of his brother: his breaths, his sleepy snorts, his leg twitches, they're all proof that he's alive.

Being up so late and having the comfort of his younger sibling close, Raph feels himself starting to doze off as well, imagining the swell of sleep that would finally overcome him. Ready for the bliss of sleep to take him, the thundering of distant footsteps startles him to full alert mode. With the frantic, but familiar, steps coming closer Raph looks to see none other than Donnie rounding the doorway, whipping his head around in search of something. Spotting the two of them on the floor, Donnie rushes forward.

"Is Leo ok?!" Donnie asks.

Taken aback by the urgency in Donnie’s voice, he says, "Uhh, yeah. He’s fine.” Looking down at his dozing brother as if to confirm his own statement, he looks back to Donnie as Leo sleepily mutters into his chest. “He's sleeping right now, so if you could be quiet, Donald." Raph slightly scolds Donnie for his loud shout. 

"Wha-excuse me!" Donnie, offended by his brother's admonishment, stares incredulously at his only older brother. "I just thought, you know, that something must've happened, Raphael, with my tech informing me that one of Leo's stats changed. I had gone to check on him when, to my surprise, he is nowhere to be found."

Oh. That would explain Donnie’s panic. The tech bracelet on Leo’s wrist was meant to monitor his well-being, so of course Donnie would have had any sort of change being directly messaged to his own wrist-band, alerting him if anything were to happen. That must have included his sleep cycle, and with Leo awake long enough to have a conversation with Raph, he was awake long enough for Donnie to be alerted.

"Oh, my bad... Sorry, Donnie, I didn't know."

Donnie breathes a deep sigh, the act calming himself and he regains a more collected composure.

"It's fine, I was just worried that he did something stupid again, like trying to use the bathroom on his own when he can't even stand properly." He takes in the sight of his two brothers cuddling on the floor together, fully registering what's before him. "Um, but might I ask what you two are doing?"

"I couldn't sleep, and I think Leo was getting bored of the infirmary." He slightly shrugs his shoulders. "So, here we are."

"Bored of the infirmary? Does he not understand the whole concept of 'I nearly died and I should take it easy?'" Donnie crosses his arms, "I swear, sometimes I wonder where his head can be. He be just as bad as Mikey sometimes-"

Donnie pauses, leering suspiciously at Raph.

"Wait, what did you mean you couldn't sleep?"

"It means that I couldn't sleep, Donnie." That was before his talk with Leo, and as much as he loves his heart-to-hearts with his brothers, he doesn't feel it in him to do one more for tonight. "And besides, that was way earlier. I'm better now."

His brother just mm-hm's to himself. Donnie then joins Raph on the floor, sitting next to his side with his legs sprawled out in front of him. A moment passes as Raph waits patiently for Donnie to speak first. 

"Do you still want to talk about it? I'm up now, you might as well take advantage of having me all to yourself. Not many get the privilege of that, dear Raphael."

Raph gives a good natured eye-roll, but before he can give his own snarky response, someone beats him to the chase.

"Wow, conceited much?"

"Shut up. Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" Donnie asks at the same time Raph mumbles to himself, "Are you ever asleep?"

Leo slowly morphs his face into a smirk, then replies simply with a cheery "Nope."

He continues to say, "And how can I? You guys keep waking me up. For once I have the chance to get a full night's rest, and you guys are ruining it."

His brothers have no argument to counter him with, so Leo counts that as a small victory.

“Well, speaking of sleep, I’m gonna go back to bed now that I know Leo's not gonna crack his head open on the toilet or something,” Donnie stands, stretching his arms above his head. “What are you gonna do?”

“Me and Leo are good here,” Raph says.

“You’re gonna stay like that? On the floor? Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound very comfortable, Raph.”

“Yeah, I know. But we’re already here, sooo.”

Donnie gives a thoughtful hmm, hand to his chin in a contemplating manner. After sometime, he raises a pointed finger to the ceiling, eyes bright with newfound determination.

“You know what, I actually have a brilliant idea. Hang tight, I’ll be right back.”

Curious as to what Donnie has planned, Raph complies with Donnie's order. He watches the descending back of his brother and wonders just what he has gotten himself into tonight. He grows impatient when minutes tick by, and even Leo starts to huff in annoyance, the waiting anticipation keeping him up.

Ten minutes later, Donnie reappears with a sleepy Mikey in tow, both loaded with pillows and blankets, which are so stacked it's nearly blocking their view.

"You didn't have to wake him up, Donnie."

Mikey just shakes his head, setting down his load by Raph’s feet.

"It's fine, Raph, no biggie. Dee told me we were gonna have a sleepover in the family room," Mikey smiles through an obnoxious yawn, laying out the blankets (some, Raph notices, are from his own room) to form a giant pile on the floor. "And I thought, ‘Oh, man! We haven’t had one in so long!’ It sounded nice, especially after everything that’s happened."

Now that Mikey mentioned it, they haven’t done this for a long time. They’ve been so busy dealing with the whole mutant outbreak that sleepovers kind of took a back-burner to their list of priorities.

Raph, with Leo in his arms, mumbling something he can't quite make out, moves to stand a distance away, making space for Donnie and Mikey as they prepare the rest of the room. 

Donnie and Mikey make quick work, busying themselves with preparing a blanket fort by using nearby objects to hold up the blankets, ranging from Splinter's recliner to using the projector as a tether for the fort's ceiling. And since this just so happens to be the genius and artist of the family, the fort they create is a mix of both their technical and artistic skills. 

The fort, while not only being huge, would put most other blanket forts to shame in just style alone.

Mikey suspends numerous low-lit strings of light on the ceiling, giving the fort a warm glow while Donnie works to construct the cushions and blankets on the floor to maximize their comfort. Throwing in a couple of stuffed animals along with some glow sticks they found in Raph's room, their blanket fort is complete.

Donnie grabs one end of a blanket, acting as a curtain for the entryway, while Mikey grabs the other and simultaneously they pull them back to reveal the inside of their new masterpiece with a bow. Raph “aah’s” at their display, entranced with the sight.  

Raph lays Leo in the middle of the fort, who sinks delightfully into the cottony bliss, exhaustion overtaking his body which has reached its limits for staying awake for so long. Mikey leaps into the fort and lands next to Leo, giving a mirthful shout as he immediately grabs one of the blankets covering his sleeping brother and bundles himself next to Leo, snuggling into his shoulder and wrapping his arms around one of his big brother’s.

“Be careful, Mikey,” Raph warns. Mikey would never intentionally hurt one of them, but Raph thinks it safe to at least warn his brother that Leo is still recovering from an injury.

“I know!"

Leo gives a little huff, turning his face towards Mikey and blowing a quick gust of air into his face. Mikey makes a face, grunting, "Ew, your breath stinks," while Leo replies with, "Some of us are trying to sleep, Miguel."

Mikey giggles into Leo's shoulder as he says, "Sorry," but he doesn't sound all that reproachful.

Raph is next to settle down, laying on Leo's other side, grabbing Donnie's wrist, who was distracted admiring his and Mikey’s handiwork, and pulling him down with him. Having lost his own snuggle buddy to Mikey, Donnie has become his next victim, squashed between Raph's massive arms. But he only gives minor complaints, so Raph doesn't feel all that bad.

The combination of soothing lights from the ceiling and the glow sticks and the cushions beneath them lull the turtles into a comfortable daze. Next to him, Raph can hear the sleeping forms of his youngest brothers, cuddled together with their limbs entangled. 

"You know, next time you have problems with sleeping, you can always come to one of us. You always help us when we can't sleep; of course, we'd want to do the same for you," Donnie gently mentions. Patting Raph on the arm, he adds for good measure, "You're our big brother, but we can still help you."

We're a team.

Surrounded by the warmth of his family, knowing that everything has finally gone back to normal, Raph smiles.

"Yeah, I know, Donnie."

Donnie hums, accepting his answer, and in a couple of minutes his own breathes become slow and even, deep in sleep.

His brothers, all of them, are right here, safe and sound. Raph still might have self-doubts as a leader and as a brother, but for now, he'll let go of his troubles and join his brothers in the blissful land of slumber.

In no time at all, Raph feels the dregs of sleep consume his mind, falling asleep with a peaceful smiling gracing his lips.

[rosewood-multifandom-writer]

6 Things Wrong with MK11 As a Whole (and 2 Good Things about it):

This list is in no particular order, but the number 1 spot of the many things wrong with this game is the biggest cherry on top of this half baked cake.

The very obvious attempts to “get woke” - Because NRS wants some brownie points by covering up all the female characters, but it backfires terribly on their faces when the one dimensional brutal dictator Shao Kahn starts quoting Trump and preferring Sheeva’s skimpy attire, Sindel is made evil because one glance by new writers, and all they see is an evil queen in skimpy attire. *Sarcastically* Yep, their design philosophy makes sense! Also, Jade, a WOC is retconned into a relationship with Kotal Kahn, which felt forced and had no depth. Kitana also got screwed over. Hard in Aftermath. Her past self lived suffering while her future self is killed by her mother alongside Jade. Kitana and Jade’s relationship was barely even mentioned in the story. Both of these ladies got screwed over big time. From them being out in unnecessarily skimpy outfits that don’t fit their personalities, to their Revenent selves being generic undead minions and their relationship barely being mentioned unless you look into their intro dialogue, I really wish the creators focused on their characters instead of what they look like. Like I said many times, I could care less if the characters I’m following are female or a POC, just as long as their character isn’t centered around that. And I am sick and tired of the male MK characters in this game have intro dialogue that reveals that they are misogynistic like Johnny Cage’s exchange with Kitana or Noob Saibot’s dialogue with Frost. Can you guys not?! I don’t mind any storylines or learning about a charcater’s experiences with sexism, but these lines not only feel forced, but the line Johnny Cage says towards Kitana Kahn says, “Outworld is going to be nice and soft because a woman is in charge and in a interracial relationship with Earthrealm’s champion.” And I thought one of MKX Erron’s exchange with Kenshi was really bad and out of character for him.

The choice of voice actors - Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind Ronda Rousey voicing Sonya, but I think any of Sonya’s previous voice actors could’ve done a better job. Acting isn’t Ronda’s forte, but at least she doesn’t sound as bad as Whitewashed Sub-Zero (whatever that’s random guy’s name was) the awful voice acting is still ingrained in my brain. An honorable mention in this spot is The Terminator himself. You guys got Arnold Schwarzenegger to be the face model for the character, but he doesn’t voice him. T-800’s voice actor was trying his best though, but Arnold should’ve voiced the character. Just look at Shang Tsung.

None of the stuff that happened in story mode mattered - A lot of people died, the present and past versions of the heroes have teamed up, Kitana became Kahn to bring equality to Outworld (despite the hypocrisy), and Hanzo built a new Shirai Ryu, only for all of that to be all for nothing. The timeline restarts, with Liu Kang being the new keeper of time and Fire God. Hopefully, whoever takes Mortal Kombat out of NRS’s hands will fix everything. *hint, hint*

The bastardization of Sindel and Kabal - After seeing these characters get destroyed by the god awful retcons on top of being one dimensional villains, I worry for any MK DLC fighter not named Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, Fujin or Sheeva. I‘ll make this part brief, because other people have expressed their feelings towards these former shells that were once their favorite characters. Sindel, a benevolent queen who survived being abused by the man she was forced to marry who went on a journey to save her beloved daughter was retconned into being a one dimensional, cartoony female Shao Kahn. Kabal, a former Black Dragon member who tries to redeem himself by being in the SWAT team and put his life on the line to save people after being severely burnt has been written into just another Black Dragon goon to Kano. This is the part where I would say that this was such a waste, but I can’t say that these characters were wasted. They were ruined. Which is unfortunate because I loved these characters since I first saw them in MK9 then look back at their previous appearances and thought, “The Midway era handled these two a lot better than NRS.”

The Aftermath DLC - This DLC isn’t 100% bad. It’s 90% bad. It’s somehow worse than the base story! I watched the Aftermath DLC and I can only find a few good things about Aftermath. Shang Tsung stole the show and made a better villain than Kronika, Fujin and Nightwolf were surprisingly in character in this awful story, Fujin’s dialogue with Present Jax was nicely done, and... Aftermath had a good and bad ending. Other than that, this DLC story that was hyped up was definitely not worth the hype. Thankfully this story isn’t canon.

The constant grinding - The grinding of this game was ridiculous! Seventy-five fatalities on a specific character in a tower ladder just to get gears an skins for them. Even the game decided that it was too much and a glitch which I’m assuming was patched out in the Krypt has you hold “A” on an XBox controller or “X” on a PlayStation Controller while walking around. That’s pretty much how I got a Maskless Erron in the game. Then there’s the character towers in Towers of Time as a whole.

The two only good things about this game is the fact that the timeline is getting reset and we could get better writers if another company takes Mortal Kombat out of NRS’s hands. NRS was never good as a company with the sexism and transphobia which is ironic since they will show off that Kung Lao is accepting of Kung Jin in MK11, but he isn’t even in the game. I just hope EA isn’t the one to own Mortal Kombat, because the last thing I want is a bunch of DLC that will make the future MK12 game in order to make it feel complete.

I’m hoping that the future will be kinder to the Mortal Kombat franchise.

[cltreherne]

The Armillary Project Story

The Armillary Project is a third-person, single player, open-world, quest based, action RPG where other-worldly demigods protect humanity from a ravenous evil. The game is Sci-Fi steampunk with ‘Elven Futurism’ as a visual style. The architecture is Glass and Gold with trees and life running through every wall and machine. These Demigods are called Armien; a magic-using scientifically advanced race of people from the planet Eden.

Armien inhabit large underground environments known as Citadels which are created by hollowing out the mantles of Eden’s moons and building vast cities under the heat and light of the molten core. The Armien moved underground when their sun began to dwindle and the surface became uninhabitable. Both the Armien and the Citadels of Eden were created by a powerful AI known as The Armillary Project, the same AI that invented interstellar travel with the use of mind-boggling machines called Armillary Engines; Bigger-on-the-inside space capsules containing a large structure of spinning rings that fold space to launch the capsule across the cosmos.

All Armien worshipped the Project as their deity, but the equilibrium was disturbed by the arrival of Eris Gwynn; an actual god known as a Seraphim who’s plane of existence outside our reality had been destroyed. Eris sought asylum with the Armien and some began to worship her instead of the Project. Inevitably, this led to a religious war between The Armillary Project’s and Eris Gwynn’s followers. Gwynn followers were granted magical power by Eris whilst Project followers were granted wondrous technologies. In the final days of the war, The Project was losing and desired to turn the tide of the war with the use of time travel. To properly understand and develop time travel, however, it needed Eris’ Seraphim Book which contains all knowledge of the Universe but can’t be easily understood by a mortal mind. The book was stolen and cast in to The Project’s Thinking Flame, and in a single second the entirety of the book’s contents were consumed, inexplicably causing the followers of The Project to vanish quite completely. The AI was extinguished, leaving only the supercomputer’s shell.

With The Project gone and Eris having lost her powers, The Armien now had no gods to worship other than the image of a fox as it was the form Eris took in her hayday. The Armien made use of The Armillary Project’s technology and left Eden centuries ago to colonise the galaxy, but space-capable humans from Earth discovered and repopulated the old and now overgrown Citadels. The main story begins when war returns to Eden between two gods and their disciples. The Project has returned bitter, broken and mad. The book it now holds has destroyed the Project’s once brilliant mind and with the Armien seemingly gone, The Project aims to start life again. It tries to craft new Armien but only makes abominations called Chimera which run rampant and eat human flesh. Eris, with her twin children and their Armien father, has returned to put a stop to The Project once and for all, and to restore Eris’ status as a god.

You play a fully customisable Armien colonist called Tool. A young character with a delinquent life who has been hunted down through the Citadels by a group called ‘Fall of The Seraphim’ . Lilith Gwynn assists you in this altercation and seeks to work out why you were specifically targeted. Lilith employs you as her travel companion and eventually accepts you as her friend. Lilith will begin to teach you the first of three classes the game has to offer. She will teach you to be a Maverick (sharpshooter, ranged), Her brother Canaan will teach you to be a Hadron (caster, AoE) and their father Levan will teach you to be a Vanguard (tank, melee). You as the player can develop and freely switch between each class at the hub, as well as earning the ability later in the game which allows you to use combinations of all classes once you’ve mastered them.

Your job as well as the goal of Lilith, Canaan Levan and Eris is to stop The Armillary Project and its twisted influence before it destroys the human population of the Citadels. The Citadels are open worlds, deeply explorable and are populated by interesting and often critical NPCs who offer different quests, loot and companionship. The Citadels are also populated by other players with their own customisable characters going about their own missions. With the skill based parkour system in the game reminiscent of ‘Mirror’s Edge’ , the intricate winding Citadels reveal many pathways where the player can discover secrets like lore and equipment.

Players can form squads to fight through dungeons with different game modes. For example, the squad can fight their way to a portal to Eden’s surface where they can fight a unique proceedurely generated boss on a similarly generated tile. With the boss defeated, its power no longer holds the portal open and so the players must escape back to the Citadel before the portal collapses and explodes, demolishing the dungeon and rewarding the squad with loot. The Armillary Project aims to be your adventure that moves at your pace. It has stunning environments and a deep world to explore and immerse yourself in.

[sieben9]

“beauty” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

Well… That sure happened

Now that I am nothing more than the hollowed-out, broken shell of a person, let me share my feelings with you! But under the cut. (Fair warning: there is a lot of sadness in here. Proceed with caution and maybe a mug of hot chocolate. Also, don’t open this on mobile. I went a bit screencap-happy.)

I loved this episode? So much? I know, I was really subtle about it, and it’s possible to miss amidst all the crying but hoooly crap, this is easily among my Top 3, I think.

Alright, quick rundown of the “side plots”, because while That Thing™ is definitely at the forefront of my mind after watching, the other stuff going on was actually pretty good and important plot developments. Which, really is another point in the episode’s favour. Yes, the Halloween-plot worked well to space out the other stuff, and it provided some much-needed relief of tension, but it was clearly important in its own right, so…

Guh. Henry. You know I love you, but I will also find a way to smack you in the head with a rolled-up newspaper, because you are an idiot. …yes, I get that he feels like he just lost his family all over again, and that’s not something that inclines people to adventurous behaviour, but still. You were so close!

Instead, we get this:

Which, uh… I’m not saying Ivy shouldn’t have good things in life, because lord knows, that was a sad, sad story right there, but this also did not sound like you two will be good for each other. Neither of you really want a safe, “uncomplicated” romantic relationship, you want a family. Ivy, specifically, needs someone to who doesn’t just love her conditionally, and Henry… well, Henry mostly just needs to wake up from the curse, because what he wants will be all over the place until he does.

Still, Ivy’s moment of bravery when saying that she’ll deal with Belfrey and the others should enjoy their Halloween was pretty heart-warming. Did I mention that this lady worries me? I’m worried for her, and I am still worried about her.

In other news: I’m pretty sure I know where Hook’s daughter is, now.

the rook is a metaphor

I mean, I could still be wrong, but that seems like one hell of a red herring to put out. And it opens up so many questions! Did they meet again before the curse, or is this a horrible game of emotional keepaway? Does Rumple know who these two are to each other? What, exactly, is his relationship with Tilly/Alice? I mean, he was so ready to fight Tremaine over her, before and after he woke up, and he went into 107% Concerned Dad Mode when he thought she was hurting, so he clearly feels very protective of her, but when did that happen? How did that happen? Is she actually this “guardian” or is that Henry? Or is this just one big prophecy-screw, after all? Seriously, you’d think after that first disastrous experience, Rumple would have learned to never trust a prophecy. Ever. Why am I the only one here who remembers that??

Ahem. Anyways. Lots of potential there. I can’t wait to see how that one unfolds.

Other highlights included Weaver butting heads with Belfrey. It was glorious. I almost wish Rumple had woken up just a little bit later, because watching these two go up against each other was a pure delight.

Also, this:

presented without comment

…look, I’m only human.

I was also deeply amused by the conversation between Weaver and Rogers. Okay, maybe “amused” isn’t quite the word, because it’s clear that Roger’s cold case is how the curse incorporated his search for his daughter into his memories, so it could keep torturing him with the loss. Which, you know, doesn’t really qualify as amusing. But Weaver is the walking, talking personification of that meme “’I don’t care,’ I say, caringly, as I care way too much.”

Yes, it is immediately obvious that you do not care about anyone. At all. Not even a little.

pictured: a lying liar who lies

Really, the relationship between Weaver and Tilly might just have made it on the top of my list for this season, on the strength of this episode alone. The way this kind of terrible person cared so deeply for young woman, showed concern for her well-being, and directly jeopardised his own advantage and safety to help her just pushed aaaall of my buttons.

And Tilly’s mounting desperation to remind Weaver of who he really is, before she loses herself again was heart-breaking to watch. She knew she wasn’t getting out of this with her mind in once piece, but right until the end she didn’t stop fighting to help her friend.

…look, “help” looks different for different people, alright?

And with that…

Thanks, show! It’s not like I really needed my heart in the first place. Fantastic light, though.

So, I pretty much knew what was coming (in general terms at least), because… well, I had some warning and it didn’t take that much guessing in the first place. And I saw the “how” the moment that montage started because I, too, have seen Up.

I still cried like a hungry baby. My cat was very concerned.

please. your face. I cannot deal with this.

This was such a well-told story. They really gave it their all to show that yes, these two were happy, at the end. The montage, for one, which even for people who haven’t seen Up works as a good visual shorthand. The nostalgic clutter in the house. The fact that these two dorks still dance around the house when they feel like it. All the little gestures between them—the fond looks, the little tuck of a blanket, Rumple matching Belle’s steps perfectly as they walk out into the garden. I just… they were so happy together.

And I’m glad they told the story like this. Nothing bad happened to Belle. Her life wasn’t some inspiring tragedy or anything like that. She spent her life with her True Love. She raised her son and saw him grow up well. She got to fulfil her dream of travelling the world, and did so together with the people she loved most. And she died after a long and happy life, not in some grand, dramatic fashion, but simply because that is what mortals do. We die.

hi, is anyone else absolutely convinced that he carved that with his own two hands rather than use magic? because I am and I want to share my feelings! there’s quite a lot of them…

And just… you know, when that conversation with Gideon happens, and Rumple says ruefully that time might have stood still for this realm, but it didn’t for Belle… you just know he forgot about it. They were together, and they were happy, and he was so determined to spend the rest of his life with her that he didn’t realise what was happening right until she fell off that ladder. It’s clear they’d never talked about him using his magic to rejuvenate her before—that was the first time the topic ever came up, I think. And the last, of course.

(By the way, there’s totally a conversation about fridging to be had here, but I’d prefer that to be another post. I’m really deep in my feelings right now and I’d rather leave putting on the analytical hat for later in the day.)

Obviously, that entire death scene fucked me up. His face. Her face. The way they told each other their own story like it was a fairy tale (because it was!) Rumple’s half-sobbing “I am afraid”, because he sees the rest of his life without Belle looming before him and he doesn’t know how to do it. He never planned to, in the first place. And then she was gone, and he was crying, and I was crying, and the camera cut away, and you could still hear him sobbing in the background god why...

yes, I will be interspersing this with pictures of my OTP being happy and in love, why do you ask?

And while I’m a bit sad that I’ll never find out what Weaver really wanted, this very clearly sets the stage for Rumple’s motivations and goals this season. Because this episode, beautiful as it was (no pun intended), can’t be the last entry of the Rumbelle story. This was the end of act 2, and I insist on a third act. The stage is all set: Rumple needs to get rid of the dagger so he can be reunited with Belle, which, granted, a bit dark. Considering it means he’s going to die (and won’t that be a fun day…) At the same time… he said it himself: he’s seen the generations pass by and he doesn’t even want to be immortal anymore. He was planning to spend the rest of his life with Belle. Just because he wasn’t physically able to doesn’t invalidate the decision he made. He’ll just have to get there the long way around.

And can I just mention how damn impressed with Rumple’s character development I was? He threw away the dagger! Not in a moment of “do or die” crisis, not as part of an “either, or” ultimatum, no, he was just… done with all that. He didn’t want the Dark One anymore, and nobody had to push him into that realisation. So much for “my power means more to me than you”, huh, past!Rumple? (Also, is it just me or did it feel a little like he waited for Belle to be roughly his physical age to do that? Because it did to me, and I have a lot of emotions about that.)

though I might giggle for a while about how Belle went grey the way an Urban Fantasy protagonist would

Other highlights included, but are not limited to:

The neverending stream of loving looks, from soft fondness to full-on bedroom eyes...

Local Dork Caught Staring Lovingly At His Wife

Also, is there a version of that first scene where Gideon doesn’t show up? Asking for a friend.

The Skin Deep parallels!

did I open up Skin Deep to get that first screencap? of course I did.

Just… guh, my heart! And the poor cup got shattered.

Again.

Everything about that last confrontation between Alice (because at that point she could barely remember ever being Tilly) and Weaver messed me up, by the way. Her mounting desperation, because she didn’t have much time left. His frantic pleading, first because he was worried she’d hurt herself and then that she’d do something she wouldn’t be able to come back from.

And, of course, that last scene between Rumple (welcome back, buddy!) and Tremaine. I’d almost feel sorry for the woman, because she probably wasn’t counting on this happening. Though I would disagree with Rumple’s “there’s nothing you can do to hurt me”--you, my friend, just lied your ass off to help Tilly get out of trouble for shooting you. After waking up. Clearly there’s some people you still care about, and I can’t wait to see how that plays out, honestly.

And there’s so much more. I could just post stills of the entire montage here, really, because it was wonderful and I loved it, even as it cracked open my ribcage and held my still-beating heart up to my eyes so I could see the life go out of it.

…ahem. All right. Deep breath.

Like I said at the top, this episode actually had some important developments that seem like they will be catalysts to kicking the plot into gear. …and as soon as my emotional batteries have recharged, I’m sure I will be very excited about that. In the meantime… please send fluff?

Oh, on that note: I want to thank everyone who tagged me in stuff. You are amazing, and I am incredibly grateful! It’ll take a while to go through it all, but I do look at all the little @s in my notifications, and they fill me with joy. (In other news: prepare for some dashboard spam over the next... ::checks drafts:: three months or so.)

[leoswritingcorner]

an oracle in olympus - pt. 1

a wow another sp long-fic while i have like ten others going. as is tradition. but i love modern mythology/retellings so WHY NOT. plus the thought of the sp babs as mythical figures delights me.

part 1 of ?

Milk was a great place for a Friday night. Especially on 80’s night. That was one of Lucy’s favorites. They always played the best songs of that decade. The lights flashed neon colors across the dance floor, swirling in the haze of a fog machine.

She tilts her head back and blows a stream of smoke from her lips lazily. Around her the group of her newly made friends cheer at the sound of a new song- Depeche Mode’s New Life. They lift their glasses or mugs, spilling liquor over the rims. Lucy smiles.

This was totally her scene.

“But how did she know?!” A voice cries out over the music. Lucy can’t help but take a look over her shoulder to the teary eyed girl. She has a banner laid across her body in glimmering letters that spells out ‘Bridesmaid #2’. The girls rubs her eyes as new tears begin to fall. “She was so on the money- Meghan doesn’t love Brad like I do!”

Her friend ‘Bridesmaid #6’ (...really? Six bridesmaids?) hushes her. She looks towards the bathroom. “She’s just said you suffer from unrequited love. Brad is the groom.”

Lucy snorts, puffing her cheeks. The usual drama that tend to follow bridal parties.

‘Bridesmaid #2’ shakes her head. “But how did she know about you being dumped last week?” She asks loudly. “Only you told me that! She said you need to stop going after arrogant dudes with great asses, and you really do!”

At that, Lucy pauses. ‘Bridesmaid #6’ goes red in the face, so apparent even in the flashing colors of light. She glares over her shoulder to the bathroom again, and Lucy follows her gaze.

She chokes on the drag she just took. It couldn’t be. She had to be seeing things. But the more she looked…Lucy pushes the girl’s legs that laid over her own, and shoves the joint toward the guy next to her. “I-I need to go.” She mumbles. Ignoring their protests, she makes her way over to the bathrooms.

Another girl who was teary eyed is close to bawling. The brunette with short curly hair, pats her shoulders. “Aaw n-no honeybun, don’t cry. That’s a good thing! You don’t need him! ‘Sides, you’re gonna get a new job and see sooooo-hic- oooo many sights. You’ll totally forget him.”

Lucy reaches up, tapping her shoulder lightly. Maybe she was wrong, and was just seeing things.

The young woman turns to Lucy. Green eyes flash for a second before they widen. Lucy sucks in a quick breath. Oh no. It is her. There was no doubt about it.

“Well, hi!” The girl greets. Her gaze wanders over Lucy. “Uuuh.”

“Lucy.” Lucy greets. She wonders if the girl can tell she’s nervous and shaking. But at the way she was swaying, the girl was probably seeing two Lucys.

“Lucy! I am Lucky. Yes. That is my real name.” She points to herself, stumbling closer to Lucy.

Oh. CRAP.

Lucy stares at her. “Interesting name.” She steadies Lucky. Maybe she needed one more test. Just to be sure. After all coincidences happen all the time. Usually. Sometimes.

“So celebrating something?” Lucy asks.

Lucky shrugs. “I can’t remember. I think I got a promotion at work?” She tries to remember, tapping a finger to her chin. Lucy eyes the arcade on the other side of the dance floor and slowly leads Lucky over. “Or did I lose it?” Lucky continues. “Oh jeez. My friends dragged me here. I think they left me?”

“Oh wow, they suck.” Lucy comments offhandedly. They stop in front of a skeeball machine. Lucy grins. “How about this? Since you’re either celebrating or trying to forget, I’ll buy your next round. Anything you want from the bar.” Lucy explains. Gawd, this was stupid. She had to be sure, though. “But you gotta get a perfect score.”

“What about fried Oreos instead?” Lucky counters. Lucy helps her to count out a few quarters and starts the game.

“Yeah, okay. Fried Oreos.”

Even in her drunken daze, Lucky rolls a perfect game. Well over 100 points. As a long line of tickets roll out, she clumsily turns towards Lucy and throws her hands up in a rock symbol. “Uuuhnf!” She grunts in victory. Lucy nods. Oh, it was her alright.

“Rounds on me. Like I promised.” Lucy says, gently leading the shorter woman away.

Lucky drops onto the couch, hiccuping. “I hate getting drunk. I..I don’t-hic-don’t do this norm.” She trails off, trying to think of a word “Normal. Lee. Normally. Hey, didn’t we agree on fried Oreos?”

Lucy nods and reaches into her purse, fishing around until she feels the warm vial she was looking for.

“I did.” Lucy offers, pouring the glowing amber liquid into an empty shot glass. “Throw this back.”

Lucky wrinkles her nose. “It smells funny.” She says, pushing it away. “Is it the worm tequila?”

Lucy laughs. “No. It tastes better than it looks, trust me.” She promises. Again, she holds the shot glass to Lucky. With a tired sigh, Lucky snatches the shot glass and downs it.

Then...

*

Lucy stumbles, guiding Lucky towards her car. The brunette was gone. Completely obliterated. Well, ambrosia usually had that effect on mortals. But then again, she was a light way 2,000 years ago, why wouldn’t she be now?

It takes a minute for Lucy to remember she arrived in a Camaro tonight, and not her usual Volkswagen. Huffing, she lifts Lucky up in her arms, waddling to the waiting car.

Once she’s got Lucky into the passenger seat and buckled in safely. Lucy rubs her head, huffing. For a wino-goddess, she could barely handle people who were drunk. She glances around casually, then slips into the car and drives off.

She was really doing this. She was actually doing this. Lucy swallows and wonders for a second if this was a good idea. What if he found out? She pushes the thought away, and slips her phone out of her purse, pressing on the home button.

“Iris, Contact Jamie.” Lucy commands. 

‘Bing!’ A swirl of rainbow color flashes back and forth on the phone screen before it darkens. ‘I’m sorry!’ came the automated voice. ‘I do not recognize Jaay-mee. ’

“Stupid freaking Iris!” Lucy hisses. Her foot comes down on the gas pedal harder, and the car picks up speed. The lights and buildings of the city begin to blur into one, and in a matter of minutes they’re miles away from Denver. Lucky stirs slightly in the passenger seat, blinking. “How fast are we goin’? She slurs. Lucy doesn’t get the chance to answer before she passes out again.

With an irritated sigh Lucy presses the button again. Iris only recognizes their other names. The names that were commonly used and thrown around. “Iris! Contact Aphrodite!” Lucy shouts into the phone.

‘Bing! Calling...Aah-fro-deedee.”

Lucy rolls her eyes.

There’s only two quick rings before a melodic voice fills the car. “Hi, Lucy!” Jamie practically sing-songs. “Aren’t you, like, hanging with the mortals tonight?”

Lucy tilts her head side to side. “Mmm, I was. Then, uhh, I made a startling discovery.”

“Oh, what kind?” Jamie asks, eager for details. Lucy could almost see the love-goddess lounging across her queen sized sea-shell shaped bed, filing her nails. Lucy puffs her cheeks, and speeds down the road. A long range of dark mountains came into view.

“The kind where we messed up about 2,000 years or so ago. Give or take?” Lucy answers. She wonders if Jamie would understand. There’s a long and drawn out pause before Jamie screeches. Yep, she understood.

Jamie’s voice is loud this time. “What?! Lucy! You, like, found her? How?” She asks quickly. Now she could see Jamie pacing around the room. Lucy looks over to Lucky.

“Pure coincidence.”

“Clyde is, like, gonna flip.” Jamie says.

“Among others.” Lucy adds. Up ahead, she sees a wooden sign greeting them to the next town. A town clear off the maps by mortal standards. By now, the car is moving at the speed of sound. She keeps her hands firmly on the steering wheel. “She goes by Lucky now.”

Jamie gasps. “Oh. It really is her.” She breathes. After that, they stay quiet. As soon as the car passes the town limit sign, there’s a ripple of light and color. A big highway sign that read ‘WELCOME TO OLYMPUS’ in big white letters greets them, and Lucy eases into traffic.

“You found Tyche.” Jamie finally says. “What do we do now? This could, like, set off a few things.”

“Honestly, Jam?” Lucy says. “I have no effing idea.” She shrugs a shoulder and grins. “But like that’s ever stopped us. Can you me at my place in ten?”

“Sure, I will. Be, like, careful, Luce.” Jamie warns. She blows a few kisses before hanging up. Lucy drops her phone on the dashboard and looks back to Lucky’s sleeping form.

“Well Tyche- Lucky. For an oracle, you sure know how to throw things off balance.”  She says. Taking an exit, Lucy drives onwards further towards Olympus.

[kritikathewhiteknights]

Kritika: The White Knights Free Karats Updates Fri, 17 Sep 2021 02:37:03 GMT

LET'S GO TO KRITIKA: THE WHITE KNIGHTS GENERATOR SITE! [NEW] KRITIKA: THE WHITE KNIGHTS FREE KARATS You can add up to 9,999 Karats each day for Free Trust me! This method works 100% guaranteed Please Share this guys HOW TO USE: 1. Go to GENERATOR SITE 2. Enter your Username/ID or Email (you don’t need to enter your password) then click CONNECT 3. Insert required Karats then click GENERATE, Popup Agreement click CONTINUE 4. Click VERIFY, finish verification process and check your account! * Experience a game framework like no other! - It's better time in the event that you cooperate! Appreciate the new Guild framework! - Pets that keep your side and make you more grounded! - Grow more grounded through 103 unique stages in Stage Mode! - Encounter the Monster Wave! Assault an interminable rush of beasts! - Climb and overcome the 50 stories of the Tower of Tribulation! - Test your abilities in Arena, Versus, and Melee! Become a definitive boss! - Work together to overcome incredible managers in "World Boss"! - Use the Auto-Battle highlight to clear stages all the more advantageously! #kritikathewhiteknights #kritikathewhiteknight #kritika #kritikaonline #kritikagame #kritikagames #kritikaapp #kritikaapps #kritikaandroid #kritikaios #kritikakarats #kritikatwk #thewhiteknights #3drpg #rpgworld #actionrpg #chaosunleashed #kritikachaosunleashed #hackslash #hackandslash #hacknslash #mmorpg #karats #onlinerpg Mortal Shell Game Warrior 4K HD Games Wallpapers | HD ...

[taimoorzaheer]

Mortal Shell’s new roguelike expansion is free-to-keep for a limited time

Mortal Shell’s new roguelike expansion is free-to-keep for a limited time

After a year of Epic Games Store exclusivity, Mortal Shell hits Steam on August 18. That’s a day before the release of The Virtuous Cycle, a big new expansion for Mortal Shell which adds a roguelike mode, a new playable shell (the game’s take on classes) and a new transforming weapon reminiscent of Bloodborne’s trick weapons.  The expansion sounds promising, and if you own the game there’s no…

[newsupdated]

Mortal Shell: Rotten Autumn Update Has New Music and Photo Mode | COGconnected

Mortal Shell: Rotten Autumn Update Has New Music and Photo Mode | COGconnected

Lots of Death, Lots of Metal, Lots of Death Metal

It’s been a couple of months since Mortal Shell came out, but a free content update is here. The Rotten Autumn update is not huge, but it does add some cool stuff. In celebration of this update, Mortal Shell developer Cold Symmetry is temporarily offering a 20% discount on the game through the Epic Games Store. A trailer for the update was…

[jacksonhenry297]

Mortal Shell Players and the Petting of the Cat

Virtual Dog petting has been a highlighted trend in the gaming world since last year. Role-playing games and open-world games from all over added the element of petting dogs during the games. Even bigwigs like Fortnite jumped on the bandwagon. Now, the latest development in another open-world beta game has started the conversation around virtual cat-petting. Records show that people love petting animals in games.

Almost all Mortal Shell players want to pet the cat

Mortal Shell is scheduled to launch later this year commercially. They just finished their open beta version and compiled player data records. The total number of players of the game was 350,000 with over 5 million stream views. Out of those players, one hundred fifty thousand players decided to pet the cat for a reasonable amount of time during the beta version play. Forty-three percent of people were noted as willing to die if petting the cat means a fatal conclusion in the game. This shows how much we humans care about the lovely animals around us. Only if we did it in real life, the world would be a better place. But baby steps, at least this shows gaming isn’t all violent. Sometimes video gamers like to do regular human things but virtually.

Dog-petting will be taken over by cat-petting

With this new trend picking up pace, video game-makers are going to be hyped up to add this element into their games. Inculcating new harmless trends into gameplay has been a successful add-on for these developers. The players too, find these little nuances as part of the immersive experience that video gaming now provides. With more and more immersive technology being invented, the idea that we could be living in a completely virtual world someday doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore. Along with that, virtual reality has proven a boon to human existence in these unprecedented times. During the pandemic, people turned to virtual modes of communication and interaction to find a semblance of normality. Imagine living away from your pets or not being able to meet them for an elongated time. Video games and VR made us feel like we are not alone. Even if our geographies bound us, we have an online community that still interacts with us. These small gestures give us the same satisfaction that killing an enemy in self-defense does. Maybe not an equal amount of pleasure, but just the same.

Jackson Henry. I’m a writer living in USA. I am a fan of technology, arts, and reading. I’m also interested in writing and education. You can read my blog with a click on the button above.

Source-Mortal Shell Players

[andyclum880-blog]

How To Get Free V Bucks On Fortnite

The host of Period 9 champions and Creator's Cup main celebration, Raleigh Main, announced that Rainbow Six Siege is all established to secure a royal battle go. This is similar to what PUBG and Fortnite do to gain profits, but Ubisoft's revelation gained quite a few unfavorable opinions. The blended critiques ended up the result of 6 Siege by now becoming an expensive game, which prices for once-a-year seasonal passes. The expose in the Raleigh Key 2019 gained considerably adverse reactions as observed on the Stay stream on Twitch.

™

1. The initial Fight Pass

The primary battle pass in Stage 1 will be absolutely free as it is a check. It will probably be unveiled inside the impending third season named Operation Ember Rise. It'll be in the form of Mini struggle move that should balance things together with optimizing the monetization.

2. Phase 2

Period 4 can get a full-fledged royal fight pass which will comprise both equally top quality and totally free tracks. There'll be much more Tale aspects injected in the Tale as the game would not enable a solo player campaign, and will never get any either. Alexander Karpazis, the Presentation Director, described it as a fresh Monetization Product or service. Ubisoft would like the no-shelling out customers to receive benefits also.

Rainbow 6 Siege might be obtaining another solution for monetization. It will be esports pores and skin provided by the pro groups. It will be a part of the Stage two Pilot application which can be for being introduced on September 19. The objective Formerly was to introduce weapon skins exceptional to the pro teams. This final decision is taken to offer revenues to the pro groups so that they can develop a free v bucks for fortnite vocation in esports. The income sharing will be 70-thirty Together with the groups having 30%.

Two high quality having to pay transactions coupled with recycled skins, aren't set pretty effectively Using the gamers as obvious with the Original reactions.

As of now, Ubisoft is charging separately for different variations of Rainbow Six Siege sport. Also:

· Top quality weapon and character skins

· New operators

· Charms

· Elite skins

· Loot containers offered in the course of activities.

The latest example of loot containers can be the Showdown method with Old West topic.

It truly is still not known as to whether or not the royal go will probably be included in the seasonal pass or not. It may be a great system while in the regards of faithful players, but it can backfire With all the players who don't have enough time to complete weekly problems. The addition might entertain the lengthy-operating gamers, but not a great deal of for those who just Enjoy once in a while for entertaining. However, the feeling of missing out might Participate in some aspect in favor of Ubisoft. It might go In any event while in the extensive-operate for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.

Norton setup - Get rolling with Norton by downloading the set up and putting in it around the device. Enter the unique 25-character alphanumeric products essential for activation. Get amplified device functionality and pace by downloading Norton NU16 set up. Install Norton Utilities sixteen setup file and enter the item crucial for activation. Have the set up

Not long ago, Android gaming is expanding with a powerful processor and superior GPU device. I indicate, usually there are some terrific games available for Android inside the Play Store, and wonderful enjoyment in solitary participant marketing campaign manner, that is a very wonderful multiplayer recreation. Contrast with your buddies or the entire world, multiplayer games give you a improved encounter with athletics and thru them. But with a lot of possibilities, what can both you and your good friends Perform? Effectively, never fret due to the fact we're listed here that can help. We now have the correct decision of multiplayer games that you can Perform with any one. Allow me to share thirty ideal multiplayer video games for Android:

PUBG Mobile is definitely probably the greatest on-line multiplayer Android online games. If you reside underneath a rock, This is PUBG Cell: It is a royal struggle activity during which a hundred players can land on an island to collect weapons and be the final gentleman (or administration). Combating game titles include things like solo manner, Duo mode, and Squad manner so as to fight for your rooster meal along with good friends. Lately, PUBG Cellular has included an arcade method, some new maps and night mode (among the list of maps in PUBG) to Argyland. There are plenty of types of weapons you can use with hand grenades, smoking grenades, wellbeing kits and even more.

If you're new to PUBG Cellular, you could read our short article on PUBG Cell Suggestions and Tips for your personal Chicken Dinner.

Fortnite is another activity that doesn't will need an introduction. Actively playing on-line towards other gamers is usually a royal combating game, which is really entertaining. Fortune is rather distinctive from the public, but cartoonist graphics and several enjoyment components are used to simplify the sport. In addition to that, You can find an entire creating system that doesn't present any other on the net multiplayer game titles. With weekly patches, the game also receives contemporary content. Even if you slide all the way down to Perform the sport, there is one thing new. It truly is seriously a nice activity, but because of this hard weapon mechanic and construction process, it may be very hard to Participate in, and that is central to the game.

Clash Royale is an additional multiplayer sport that you need to evaluate with your Android cellphone. The large admirer of this sport is as follows, and This is a spin-off with the favored tactic match Clash with the Clans. Clash Royale is often a card video game where you contend towards other gamers to prove themselves as the ideal gamers for PVP. If You are looking for an entertaining on the web multiplayer recreation, Clash Royale definitely really should look a person.

Very last Day on the planet: Survival is often a totally free zombie shooter and survival tactic match. Established in 2027, an unidentified insect virus eradicates most of the planet's inhabitants. All survivors adhere to just one intention: following the revelation, you can endure During this sport for as long as achievable and destroy live zombies. Whenever you take mud to supply and provide new weapons and vehicles, your aim is to outlive zombies.

Miniclip's 8 Ball pool is usually and valued as quite possibly the most played on-line multiplayer activity on Android. This concept is simple: Game buyers have a immediate simulator for eight ball pool activities on mobile units. Additionally, this match has now been included to the 9 ball mode for common requirements, which supplies buyers the top barriers to video game modes. When you are during the pool game, the mini ballroom's eight ball pool is really a sport for you personally.

Although Tekken is thought to be the most important Kombat athletics franchise, The full Section of the recognition in the Mortal Kombat is. The war among the people Arthurlm, Organic and Outworld, combined with superpowers and X-Ray moves, some players have put in lots of time around the console. This sport is ultimately accessible for Android equipment with specifically tailored controls for touchscreen products.

A few of Gameloft's very best video games and contemporary mobile System Beat 5. The top displays for this are definitely the best to start with human being shooter sport with excellent graphics, substantial electricity weapons, and deep on-line multiplayer motion. There is only one campaign mode for your personal sole warrior. General, modern-day battle five is a video game for FPS enthusiasts in one video game.

Minecraft is considered the most renowned video clip recreation on the planet. The title was 1st introduced within the Personal computer and was Similarly placed on the console and mobile gadget. Set a pixel on the planet. Your intention is to condition and shield the globe all around you in the best way you really feel fit. Discover friends, discover and stay alone with friends or most loved game titles on your own.

Badland 2 is actually a sequel to one of the better facet-scroller game titles ever. It's a video game that needs to be preserved with its good friends perfectly. This video game features interesting, atmospheric graphics and physics-based mostly gameplay together with the audio. You may Perform multiplayer with your folks on the same device to obstacle aliens as well as other dark creatures in the mysterious globe of the game.

Nicely, who isn't going to similar to the old air hockey video game, ideal? All right, Glow Hockey two is a wonderful local multiplayer match for you. Smartphone shows are large and large. The concept is straightforward - you Management the striker and hit the opponent's gap. Should you be fancy air hockey, you'll want to try this match. I am positive you are going to find it irresistible

Chain Response is a technique sport for eight players on the identical machine. It is really a simple but addictive activity to play with your buddies. Gamers transform to maintain their jewelry in one room. Soon a cell reaches a essential mass, the ball is getting transported to the neighboring cells, adds an extra ball, and promises the mobile to the participant. Its function would be to overlap and remove enemy cells. Seems simple? Then make certain there is a vortex.

There are no video games to pack with your smartphone display screen, right? Okay, occur straight below. The sport of its kind is a mixture of Twister and Belle. You use your phone as a information to dance or Make contact with a person. All You must do is choose your cellphone, place a thumb, and simultaneously dance with each other.

Of course, you read through it, Ludo! The vintage board video games on Android are ultimately offered, along with the boy appears very good. This idea is analogous into the Loudo Board, which moves its coloured token that has a dice roll. Due to Ludo King, you and your pals can easily operate this game on exactly the same product. So whom have you been expecting? Let's cover you!

[supercoolgamesstuff-blog]

Google Stadia Reviewed – Against The Stream

New Post has been published on https://www.coolgamingzone.com/google-stadia-reviewed-against-the-stream/

Google Stadia Reviewed – Against The Stream

Introduction

By the mid-2000s, Blu-ray felt like the future of media. Blu-ray video looked incredible and offered cleaner picture and sound quality than previous media formats. “Surely,” we thought, “the technology that comes after Blu-ray will look even more impressive!” But then something strange happened; as streaming services like Netflix took off, more and more of us ditched physical media in favor of the cloud. Streaming didn’t offer the same level of fidelity as Blu-ray – or sometimes even DVD – but it was good enough. More importantly, it was convenient. The desire to watch anything anywhere outpaced our desire for image quality.

Now it’s 2019, streaming services have come a long way, and tech goliath Google thinks it has figured out how to Netflix the gaming industry. The tech is surprisingly functional, but its ability to upturn the industry will depend largely on its ability to implement its grand blueprint. Sadly, Stadia’s current design is missing several important pillars.

Gaming on Stadia

Gaming on Stadia

Stadia’s concept still sounds a bit like science fiction: Earlier this year, Google sold a vision of players using wi-fi-enable controllers to communicate with a hive of supercomputers in the cloud, which would allow users to stream the most advanced gaming software to decade-old laptops and mobile phones. Google’s system worked well at trade shows, but those were highly controlled environments. How does the service work now that we’ve been able to test it in the wild? Surprisingly well … if you have a stable internet connection.

On the whole, Stadia performs better than I expected. The high-speed internet at the Game Informer offices regularly gets download/upload speeds of 280 Mbps, so I rarely noticed even a hiccup while playing games at work. Mortal Kombat 11 on a stable Stadia connection booted up in seconds and feels about as responsive as its console counterparts. I had no problem dialing in combos and Fatalities even though my inputs had to travel through miles of infrastructure to bounce off Google servers.

Unfortunately, the experience quickly degrades as your internet speeds dial down. At a nearby coffee shop, where I recorded download speeds of 38 Mbps, I noticed a few frame skips every couple minutes. At home, where my speeds regularly drop to 20 Mbps, I experienced some visual artifacting and a regular picture stutter. With these slower internet speeds, I didn’t feel competitive in Destiny 2’s PvP modes, but I was able to complete a strike without a problem. Everyone’s tolerance for this kind of experience will vary, but my frustration over the occasional hiccup was mitigated by the revelation that I could play Destiny 2 in public on my phone (see the controller sidebar for more).

Stadia’s service only dropped out completely on me once due to a poor signal, but an instance of my game was saved and I had five minutes to hop back online and pick up where I’d left off. I wish Google would extend that grace period and allow users to create their own save states (a feature called State Share, which is still in the works), but I never lost any progress in a game, and my experience was stable enough across the board that I didn’t live in fear of being unable to access my games.

Google’s service isn’t a one-size-fits-all streaming solution, and you should carefully measure your internet speeds before committing to the platform. Many will find Stadia’s occasional stutters unbearable, while others will feel that it’s good enough. Personally, I can’t imagine trading any of my game consoles for a Stadia stream anytime soon.

  What about that controller?

An online-only streaming service seems like a bold new direction for the gaming industry, but Google isn’t interested in reinventing the controller. The Stadia controller smartly hews close to modern controller design. The pad itself has a nice weight and feels a lot like the PS4 controller thanks to its ergonomic shell and symmetrical analog sticks. The buttons produce a satisfying click and feel sturdy, and I got about seven hours of use from a single charge. Of course, Google has its equivalent of the start, options, and home buttons. However, Google added a screen capture and virtual assistant button to the mix, and this creates a jumble of buttons near the center of the controller. I constantly hit the screen-capture button when I meant to pause a game, which was frustrating.

At launch, the controller also doesn’t work wirelessly with any device other than the Chromecast. This means that in order to play on a laptop or phone you have to connect your device to a controller using a USB C cord, which I found cumbersome. In fact, I was actually a little embarrassed to pull out my tangle of gadgets to play games at Starbucks.

I also wasn’t able to connect the Stadia controller to wi-fi that featured a web browser login, meaning you probably won’t be able to use Google’s controllers wirelessly in locations like hotels that -require a secondary login screen. The Stadia controller might be a nice piece of physical hardware, but these tech issues need to get ironed out as soon as possible.

Under Construction

Under Construction  

Google’s streaming tech might be ready for prime time, but its service certainly isn’t. Many of the more exciting features either aren’t available for launch or won’t roll out until 2020. For starters, Google’s Pixel smartphones are the only phones that Stadia users will be able to use for streaming at launch. Achievements also won’t be viewable at this time, but Google says that Stadia is recording your progress, so once the feature is enabled, users will receive credit for everything they’ve done since then.

The Google Assistant is another exciting feature that is being kicked down the road. During the Stadia reveal event, Google said that with the tap of a button users could speak into their Stadia controller and pull up YouTube walkthroughs or other helpful advice for any game they played. This feature is absent at launch. Google says that the Google Assistant will be available soon, but even then, the Assistant will only be available from the Stadia home screen and only allow users to launch games or turn on their TV.

Stadia’s incomplete feature list is so long it’s a little embarrassing. What about Stream Connect, which is Google’s way of supporting multiplayer by allowing Stadia users to create local couch co-op experiences via split-screen? Coming later this year. What about Family Sharing, which lets you share games with other users in your family? Sometime soon. What about Crowd Play, which lets streamers play games with their viewers? Hopefully, sometime next year. What about streaming over cellular networks? I’ll let you take a guess. If Stadia had all these features, it might feel like the next big leap in gaming, but as it is, the platform is just a basic streaming platform that offers less than a home console. 

In the end, Stadia’s biggest problem is likely its lack of software. Stadia doesn’t have many dedicated experiences that will drive longtime gamers to the platform. The system’s launch lineup features some great games, such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Red Dead Redemption 2, but those are all more than a year old and there isn’t a single triple-A exclusive on the horizon. This is a big problem for Google. If the company hopes to attract more people to the service, it needs to provide a reason to be on Stadia. In other words: It needs more games.

A look at Google’s data center that allows Stadia to run

Launch Lineup

Google Stadia Launch Lineup:

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey  

Attack on Titan: Final Battle 2

Destiny 2: The Collection (available in Stadia Pro)

Farming Simulator 2019

Final Fantasy XV

Football Manager 2020

Grid 2019

Gylt

Just Dance 2020

Kine

Metro Exodus  

Mortal Kombat 11

NBA 2K20

Rage 2

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Red Dead Redemption 2

Samurai Shodown (available in Stadia Pro)

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Thumper

Tomb Raider 2013

Trials Rising

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Reportedly Releasing Before The End Of 2019:

Borderlands 3

Darksiders Genesis

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint

The Bottom Line

The Bottom Line: 6 out of 10

Stadia seems tailored for a different crowd – the kind of game-curious individual who only pays attention to the occasional blockbuster release and isn’t willing to throw down a few hundred dollars on a dedicated piece of gaming hardware. Next year, when Google launches the free version of the Stadia service, the platform might find that audience. On the other hand, Stadia’s service isn’t currently valuable enough to justify the $129.99 early adopters price tag. Anyone devoted enough to follow industry trends probably cares enough about this hobby to spend the extra money on a console that provides a lag-free experience.

Still, I want something like Stadia to succeed. Purchasing a game and immediately booting it up without concern for downloads or updates is liberating, and when you have a stable internet connection, streaming games off the cloud feels like magic. Oddly enough, Stadia filled me with excitement for a game-streaming future, but it left me with less confidence that Stadia would be the platform to usher us forward.

Editorial Note: This review was conducted in a pre-release environment. We may revisit this review as we play more games after launch and as Google releases console updates.

Understanding Pricing

On day one, consumers can purchase the Stadia Premiere Edition for $129, which includes three free months of Stadia Pro, a Google Chromecast Ultra, and a Stadia Controller. Stadia Pro is Google’s subscription service, which costs $9.99 a month and gives players access to the highest quality streams (4K/60 fps/HDR/5.1 sound) as well as exclusive discounts on game purchases (TBA). Early next year, everyone will be able to stream games through Stadia at no cost, however, the streaming quality will be throttled to 1080p/60fps with stereo sound. No matter how you approach the service, games still need to be purchased à la carte.

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[skittelsen]

My Secret Origin as a Super-Fan

*This post is my personal story. It does not represent the opinions or views of NetherRealm Studios, WB Games, or DC Entertainment. 

What a week!

My first game as Narrative Lead, INJUSTICE 2, launched worldwide, and the response from fans and critics has been overwhelmingly positive—as in I feel overwhelmed by all the positivity. This week also marked the tenth anniversary of my NYU graduation. Finally, there’s the MOST important milestone of all, my son’s third birthday. For me, all these events are connected.

Of all the reactions to Injustice 2 out there, I love most when someone remarks that the people who made this game must really love DC Comics lore. Trust me, they do. Everyone on the I2 team has a favorite DC character, from the iconic to the obscure. My favorite is Superman.

It might come as a surprise that the Narrative Lead on a game in which Superman is portrayed as a lethal tyrant would profess to be a Superman fan, but I am. 

Here’s why. When I was about 4 years old, my parents told me that I was and would always be their son, but that I didn’t come out of Mommy’s tummy like my sister. I was adopted. My birth parents, whoever they were, couldn’t raise me, so they sent me away to find a family who could provide a better life for me.

This kind of news can really mess with a kid’s head. I was an indoorsy, deep-thinky emo boy, and I would dramatically stare into the bathroom mirror and wonder whose eyes were looking back at me. Fortunately, my Mom and Dad were a real life Ma and Pa Kent, equipped with big hearts to manage my drama. They loved my sister and I as much as any kids could be loved, and they never treated me any differently on account of my secret heritage. 

Superman: The Movie was on TV a lot in the 1980s. I don’t remember when, but at some point not long after my parents told me I was adopted, I made the connection that Superman was adopted. Superman was just like me! 

From then on, my personal identity as an adopted kid was still fraught with complications and insecurities, but it wasn’t always a source of trauma. In my mind, I had a secret origin, a source of strength. And how cool would it be if I found a spaceship buried in the basement? 

My parents reinforced this imaginative coping mechanism by indulging my every superhero fantasy. They took me to every comics and collectibles shop in upstate New York looking for special issues and rare action figures. Mom sewed more than one Superman cape (and a few Batman capes, too), and she and I binge-watched George Reeves in Adventures of Superman. For my 18th birthday, my Dad bought me the S-shield tattoo that’s still on my shoulder. A year later, he got the same S-shield tattoo on the same shoulder as me. He sat in the inker’s chair wincing from the needle, quoting Marlon Brando as Jor-El, “The son becomes the father, and the father becomes the son!” 

Without my parents’ support, I may never have gone to Metropolis for college at NYU. They were so proud at my graduation, but I wasn’t proud yet. I wanted to be a writer, but instead, I found myself working as the Corporate Files Administrator at the HBO Legal Department and taking an LSAT prep course by night. I was lost. 

Then, two things happened that set me back on course. First, I was hired by an indie producer to write a screenplay, enabling me to quit my job at HBO. Second, at my wife’s urging, I sent a fan letter to one of my favorite writers, author and educator Douglas Rushkoff, asking if he needed any help.

They say don’t meet your heroes, but in Rushkoff, I found a mentor and a lifelong friend. Working as his editorial assistant was a dream come true. I learned more in one year working Rushkoff than I had in four years studying at NYU. 

Then my screenplay deal fell apart, the global economy tanked, and like a lot of recent college graduates, I faced the real possibility of going broke and moving back in with my parents. Rushkoff couldn’t pay me a full time salary, but he offered to help me get an inside track at DC. 

Applying for a job at DC Comics without a personal recommendation is like throwing rocks at the moon. For years, from sophomore year of college on, I had applied for every DC internship and entry-level position available. Never got a response. Rushkoff recommended me and I got a call from WB HR within a few hours. It certainly helped that I now had a few more bullets on the CV. It also may have helped that the person Rushkoff recommended me to was Paul Levitz, then President and Publisher of DC Comics.

An extensive interview process later, I was hired as Assistant Editor - Interactive at DC Comics. My family was with me when I got the phone call. We all went out for dinner and celebrated, and I got so drunk, I ate a bowl of unpeeled shrimp with the shells intact. That hurt in the morning, but it’s still one of my favorite memories.

Little did we know how much that job would change things. Less than a year after I started at DC, Paul Levitz stepped down and Diane Nelson arrived as President. DC Comics became DC Entertainment, and the office was split between New York and California. 

It was a great deal of change in a relatively short period of time for a company invested with decades of tradition. That made for a controversial and upsetting time for many of the employees who had been at DC for years. I had the benefit of being the newbie, and my wife grew up in California, so were were excited to relocate to Los Angeles, even though it meant leaving our beloved city and so many wonderful friends behind. I accepted my offer to join the new team in Burbank, and off we went.

Working at DC was a dream job. I considered my colleagues like family members, and I got to work with more talented creators than I can list here. One of my favorite collaborators, though, was NetherRealm Studios. 

Working with NRS on Injustice: Gods Among Us felt like a big deal. Mortal Kombat was a formative games franchise for me growing up, and the team was just coming off an amazing 2011 reboot of the MK franchise with an incredibly ambitious cinematic Story Mode. 

Plus, this would be the AAA game in which my favorite hero, Superman, could finally take center stage. He would be the villain of the story, but a villain motivated by good intentions in response to a horrific tragedy. 

The results were nothing short of awesome. From that first game through five years of comics and a blockbuster mobile adaptation, the Injustice universe took off like a bullet train. 

I left DC before Injustice launched. It was a dream job, to be sure, but I still had that other dream of being a writer, and for HR reasons, that wasn’t possible while I was a DC employee. So when a Burbank creative agency offered me a leadership role, a better salary, and the freedom to write for anyone I wanted, I knew it was time to go.

Leaving DC felt like a big risk. It doesn’t get bigger than Superman. What would I find in the great beyond? But after getting comfortable in my position at DC, disrupting my routine and transitioning to games marketing was a challenge I needed. My partners and I built a crack team of creatives and account managers. That team pitched and executed campaigns for clients all over the world, and went on to win award after award after award. 

My risky marketing venture was now a successful career. It was possible to envision a future where I never wrote again, living comfortably off all those marketing dollars. I had co-written a screenplay since leaving DC, but apart from that, I no longer made the time to write. My wife was pregnant, we’d just a bought a house, and I was traveling on a weekly basis. There were only so many hours in the day, and I needed to make those hours profitable.

But all the money in the world couldn’t fulfill my goal to be a writer. It was at this time that some close friends challenged me to write. Well, not just to write, but to finish something. One comics editor friend put it to me, “If you can’t write a 12-page backup, what can you write?” That put the fire in me. So I wrote a short story that editor, then a short story for another. Then I sold an original comic series (still upcoming!). And then I got a call from an old colleague.

At DC, I worked with an incredible woman named Victoria Setian, or as we call her, Tory. She had been part of Team Interactive with me, and since I’d left DC, she’d also moved, across the street to WB Games, where she was a budding producer on Mortal Kombat X, which of course was being made by some of our favorite developers, NetherRealm Studios.

Tory asked if I wanted to throw in a pitch for an MKX comic series. I knew the lore, I knew the team, what did I have to lose? So, in between agency work and preparing for a new baby, I wrote my pitch.

Then my son was born. A big deal for anyone, an extra big deal for an adopted person who’s never laid eyes on a blood relative before. My son opened his eyes, and for the first time, I saw myself in another human being. The experience was psychedelic. Becoming a father profoundly changed me in ways I’m still figuring out.

Everyone who knew me knew that I wanted to name a son “Clark” someday. Didn’t want to force that on my wife, though, so we came up with an alternative name, and she picked from both names once she saw the baby and got a sense of his personality. He was quiet for a newborn, a little gentleman, she said. She named him Clark Eric, taking his middle name from my father, which was an added surprise. Suffice it to say there wasn’t a dry eye among the Kittelsen men that morning.

The call from my editor at DC came that week while I was still home with the family. I got the gig. How soon could I turn around a new outline?

Thus began the most difficult summer of my life. New house, new baby, new writing gig, and I still had to pitch, travel, and manage the creative team for the agency. There was pressure coming at me from every direction. I became depressed. Something had to give.

Alan Moore gave an interview once where he talked about taking the leap to freelance. He came home to tell his wife he was quitting his industrial job, but when he got there, she told him she was pregnant, so he went back to work. But in time it occurred to him that no matter how poor his writing career might make the family, the baby would survive. They’d find a way. The only question was, would the baby grow up with new shoes and a miserable father who resents his lot in life, or with secondhand shoes and a father who can honestly tell that child she can be anything she wants to be.

This was the choice I faced. Fortunately, I didn’t have to make it alone. I had my wife, my partner, to work it out with me. She drafted a household budget, figured out how lean we could live, how long we might survive, and together we put together Humble Wordsmith, LLC, my freelance business.

I quit the agency job, reduced my monthly expenses to bare minimums, and started working from home. Beyond the comics, I had freelance gigs as a copywriter, a marketing consultant, whatever I could get paid to do. I busted my hump, but no matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to build momentum. That first year, our household income went down by over 75%. 

Things picked up a bit when I got hired by WB Games to write story and in-game content for the DC Legends mobile game. With that under my belt, I looked for more games writing gigs, but they were hard to come by. I focused more of my time on Feral Audio, a start-up podcast network was growing steadily. 

That’s when I got another call from another old colleague, Senior Producer Adam Urbano. NetherRealm Studios was looking for a writer to join their team and work on the story for Injustice 2. Would I be interested and available? After years of working with NRS on various projects in various capacities, this was the ultimate compliment.

The rest, as they say, is history. Writing for the game is the best dream job I’ve ever had the privilege of working. There was so much work to be done, I handed off my Feral Audio duties to my partners at the network. For the first time since I graduated from college, I could focus on one job title: Writer.

Becoming a father was wonderful but disruptive. Writers are selfish people, we like having lots of time to ourselves to “think” and “be creative” and sometimes even to write. But I can’t be selfish anymore. So with each year since I started freelancing, I’ve worked harder at balancing my family life with my work. The more quality time I spend as a Dad, the more fulfilled I become. I’ve been around for all Clark’s achievements, from walking to talking to his first tantrum. At the agency, I feared I would miss all those priceless memories. Now I have a treasure trove.

As if all this weren’t enough, there was one more surprise waiting for me in the lead-up to launching Injustice 2. 

**MINOR I2 SPOILER WARNING** In the game, Superman meets his cousin, Supergirl, for the first time. It’s the first time he’s ever laid eyes on a blood relative. The first time he sees himself in someone else. Just like the first time I saw Clark.

Writing that scene was obviously somewhat personal and emotional for me. Now, a couple years later, I get to live that scene out for myself.

See, ever since my wife became pregnant, I’ve been taking DNA tests, trying to decode my secret origin. They never yielded any close results, but the ethnographic results they provided me were interesting, and I never knew what they could yield, so I kept taking them. Then, just this March, I got a match to a distant cousin. On a lark, I sent her my adoption info, and within hours, she sent me the name of my maternal grandfather. Then we found my grandmother.

We did not find my birth mother. In a soap opera twist, my birth mother was given up for adoption, just like me, so her identity is still a mystery. But I can’t complain. I’ve found new uncles, aunts, and cousins, they’ve welcomed me to the family with open arms, and they want to help find my birth mother. 

By finding the birth family my mother never knew, I’ve found another missing piece of myself. Now I can look in the mirror and see the pieces I gave to Clark, as well as the pieces my grandparents gave to me. Sometime soon I’m going to meet my cousins in person for the first time, four Supergirls who share my blood. The game becomes the writer, and the writer becomes the game.

So there it is. My life story as a Superman fan, a writer, and a father. This week I got to celebrate as all three. Remember when I said I graduated from college and my parents were proud of me, but I wasn’t proud of me? I’m proud of me now. I just checked off my bucket list by the dozen.

How am I possibly going to top this experience? I’ll have to figure that out. For now, I’m going to savor this moment with gratitude and satisfaction. After 10 years of professional ups and downs and always searching for the next opportunity, I’m happy where I am, and on the whole, I think it’s just swell. ;)

[ourdelicatestudentpost-blog]

Injustice 2 Hack End up being The Leading Player With Ease

Injustice 2 is a sci-fi superhero 2.5D fighting game developed by NetherRealm and printed by WB for the PlayStation four and Xbox One on May sixteen, 2017. Power up and construct the final word version of your favorite DC legends in INJUSTICE 2. •EVERY BATTLE DEFINES YOU: With every match you will earn gear to equip, customise and evolve your roster. Ed Boon, the director of Injustice 2 and one of the creators of Mortal Kombat, not too long ago said to GameSpot that the sport might easily run on the system, though compromises can be current. Injustice 2 takes place solely within the Injustice universe, meaning the characters from the main universe do not appear within the story proper. Parents need to know that Injustice 2 is a fighting recreation based mostly on the heroes and villains of DC Comics. Developed by NetherRealm Studios of Mortal Kombat fame, Injustice 2 launched in 2017 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC, with an Android and iOS edition additionally making its debut. Half-shelled heroes Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michaelangelo are spinning into the DC Comics combating game Injustice 2 courtesy of a Feb thirteen add-on. But whichever character you want finest—I'm largely playing as Catwoman, come at me—Injustice 2 hits the sweet spot every fighting recreation ought to purpose for. Injustice 2, the comply with-up to 2013's Injustice: God's Amongst Us, is a combating recreation that takes place within the DC superhero universe. Injustice had a pretty cool story and Injustice 2 promise to make it even higher with the xtra characters added to its roster of fighters. Injustice and Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon sat down with IGN's Ryan McCaffrey for an in-depth interview about his career and the games he is worked on, together with Injustice 2. PS4 and Xbox One players aren't the one ones who can experience Injustice 2. A free-to-play cell version of the sport is scheduled to arrive on iOS and Android on Might eleven. Among the many new characters on Injustice 2's roster is Swamp Factor, one in every of DC's strangest creations. Common new playable Injustice 2 characters include Firestorm, Black Canary, Swamp Thing, Brainiac, Headshot, Poison Ivy, Supergirl and lots sneak a peek at this web-site of more! Between the gear-primarily based development system, the diverse solid, and strong give attention to telling a fleshed-out story within a brand new DC universe, Injustice 2 has us excited for its Could sixteen release. 5gamz.com to NetherRealm's success within the combating style can be the depth of their single-participant, and Injustice 2 seems to be embrace the identical various set of modes as the first. Injustice 2 aims to match the development players undergo as they study the ins-and-outs of a combating sport with the visible and stat-pushed progression of an RPG. Injustice 2 is a giant, bold, expansive love letter to followers of DC comics and combating video games in general, and its sequel improves on the unique in most every approach. A complete of 38 playable characters are set to be featured in Injustice 2, in keeping with the official website for the game. Game Informer: 9/10 - "With DC's cinematic universe pumping out one dangerous film after another, Injustice 2 is the easiest way to see simply how highly effective and diverse its heroes are." Whereas the original sport pitted Batman towards Superman as the central conflict, the state of affairs in Injustice 2 is sophisticated by the arrival of Brainiac. Yes, if you're a fan of DC Comics or combating games, Injustice 2 is an impressive title that belongs in your library. For many who prefer to play fighting video games solo, Injustice 2 stands alone. Verdict: Injustice 2 continues NetherRealm's tradition of greatest-in-class story modes with solid, complicated preventing to again it up. Learning the ropes may simply be just a little extra convenient. But thanks to developer NetherRealm's ongoing commitment to making probably the most accessible combating video games this facet of Divekick, Injustice 2 is barely sometimes overwhelming. Like its predecessor, a free-to-play cellular app based on Injustice 2 was launched for iOS and Android units on Could eleven, 2017. NetherRealm Studios collaborated with DC Comics all through Injustice 2's entire improvement course of, including conceptualizing characters and determining the course of the story.

Anybody with a love of DC characters or fighting games goes to like Injustice 2.